A Collection of Heartstopper Oneshots

The One Who Got Away - agreatwave

Summary:

"How long do Ben's lies take to wear off when you're hearing them every day and no one is telling you any different? Charlie still says things sometimes that sound like someone else's words, someone else's thoughts coming out of his mouth."

Or

Nick can't sleep after a long and dramatic day in Paris. He spends some time processing his confrontation with Ben and comes to some important conclusions.
Work Text:
Nick can't sleep.

He's been wide awake for nearly two hours now with a head that feels like it's filled with buzzing bees. When he was little and his head was full of too many thoughts at night, his Mum taught him how to take a few minutes to let himself think about the things that were bothering him, because trying to push them away only made them come back louder. He learned to recognize the thoughts and feelings, name them, and set them aside to deal with the next day.

That's a thought, he would think, just like his Mum taught him. That's a feeling.

Naming the big scary things keeping him awake at night helped to make them smaller and easier to put away. Nick doesn't often have trouble sleeping anymore, but when he does, his Mum's strategy usually still works.

It's just . . . there are rather a lot of thoughts and feelings lately.

Nick has already dutifully spent time thinking through everything that happened today, sifting through his feelings one at a time and naming them. Guilt over Charlie having to deal with the rumours about the mark on his neck all by himself. Anger mixed with hurt and embarrassment over coffee with his Dad (if you could even call it having coffee when the other person didn't stay to drink it).

Fear. That was the hardest one to put aside tonight.

Charlie fainted in his arms today. Charlie fainted, and now Nick doesn't want to close his eyes because he doesn't want to stop looking at Charlie, sleeping peacefully next to him, but not next to him. He curses Tao and Isaac (not for the first time) for being so ridiculously oblivious. The two feet of distance between him and Charlie feels way too far tonight. He wants to wrap himself around Charlie, keep him safe and close. There's one perfect curl falling between Charlie's eyes, and Nick aches to touch.

The eating thing, the fainting, the way Charlie apologized for it all like anything that happened to him is his fault, all of that is too big for Nick to think through tonight. He thinks he might cry if he does. So when he visualizes setting those thoughts aside for another day, his mind helpfully supplies another thing to worry about: Ben.

His confrontation with Ben had left Nick feeling unsettled, like slightly too-loud background noise in his brain all day. He's almost as disturbed by his reaction to Ben's words than he is by the words themselves.

"He genuinely thinks he still has a chance of getting back with you."

"He doesn't."

Nick has no idea why he needed to hear that from Charlie's lips, why the tight knot that sat in his chest for hours relaxed at the words, at Charlie's easy, immediate assurance. He knows. He knows Charlie wouldn't go back to Ben, just like he knows that it's Nick Charlie likes. Charlie never gives him a moment's doubt about how he feels about him, so naturally caring and affectionate. So Nick can't quite pinpoint what had him tied up in knots earlier today, what's still scratching uncomfortably at his brain now.

Maybe he just feels a bit queasy at even the thought of Charlie being back with that monster. Or maybe it's that this whole "low key" thing is getting to him. Hiding is exhausting and frustrating and guilt-inducing, no matter how often Charlie insists he shouldn't feel sorry for it.

But it's not just those things that made him feel like he wanted reassurance he really shouldn't have needed, though they surely played a part in it.

No, it's something about Ben, the way he talks, the things he says. He gets inside Nick's head and rearranges things, makes him question things he knows to be true and makes things he knows are lies feel real. The effect doesn't last long - the moment he's with Charlie it mostly just melts away because he remembers the truth, what they have and who they are together. But when it's just him and Ben, it's oddly hard to remember.

Nick's stomach sinks and hot anger fills his body as it dawns on him that Ben was in Charlie's head like that for months, messing around in there and making him think all kinds of lies about himself, making him feel clingy and desperate and crazy. And who did Charlie have back then, to remind him who he was, to offer him comfort or reassurance, to tell him the truth? Charlie hadn't told anyone about Ben. Nick wouldn't even know if he hadn't walked in on them (ice trickles through Nick's veins, as always, at the well-worn thought of what might have happened if he hadn't been there). How long do Ben's lies take to wear off when you're hearing them every day and no one is telling you any different? Charlie still says things sometimes that sound like someone else's words, someone else's thoughts coming out of his mouth.

What if I said I want Charlie back?

And now Ben wants him back. The words echo through his head, and Nick seethes.

Not that this is breaking news. Does Ben honestly think Nick hasn't seen him staring at Charlie like a fucking creep whenever he turns around? Trying to sit next to him, talk to him like nothing happened, like everything's fine? Who's desperate now, Hope?

Still, Nick didn't think he'd actually admit it out loud. It rattled him.

He keeps turning the conversation they had, the words Ben said over in his mind, wanting to understand something, wanting anything about the way Ben thinks and the words he says to make sense, but all it does is make him more and more angry, until he's practically shaking with it, fists balled into the covers.

You stole him from me.

As if Charlie was some thing Nick could take from Ben. As if Charlie hadn't been astonishingly brave and walked away all on his own without anybody's help. As if Nick wanting to be with Charlie or Charlie wanting to be with Nick had anything to do with Ben fucking Hope.

It infuriated him, that Ben would have the nerve to compare what they have to whatever the hell Ben was doing with Charlie. Sure, Ben had kisses in dark corners at school when he could be sure no one was looking. But Nick? Nick has so much more than that.

Nick has Charlie's beautiful smiles, his laughter, his kisses, his hugs, his touches. Nick gets to hear all of Charlie's stories, his brilliant thoughts, his wicked jokes. Nick has the kindest words he's ever heard from the prettiest lips he's ever seen. He has unconditional support, endless patience, increasingly confident flirtation that leaves him breathless and tingling, intimacy, closeness, something that's starting to feel a lot like -

Charlie shifts in his sleep, huffing sweetly, and Nick's eyes automatically wander over his face, soft and open and untroubled. Nick's fingers gradually release their death grip on the sheets, his heart slowing to a more relaxed pace, matching the steady up and down of Charlie's outline in the dark. Nick lets the sight of him, his nearness, the sound of his breath bring him back to the reality he lives in, infinitely more beautiful than the ugly pictures Ben painted in his mind.

Charlie takes naps in his bed.

Charlie calls his Mum by her first name.

Charlie wears his jumpers, alone together in his bedroom or at a party in the woods with their entire school.

Charlie has his hickey on his neck, and Nick's honestly getting really tired of people thinking someone else put it there.

They're not all the way out yet, but they're going to be. Because it's what Charlie deserves, and it's what Nick wants. Nick is so proud to be the person who gets to stand by Charlie's side. Charlie Spring is a million amazing things, and he's also Nick's boyfriend.

All he'll ever be to Ben is the one who got away.

Nick sleeps soundly and when he wakes up, the first thing he sees is Charlie.