A Collection of Heartstopper Oneshots

Easing Into Life Again, Erasing Hard Wired Memories - jtlfloof

Summary:

Charlie just couldn't handle it. He regretted it almost a nanosecond after he did it, but- he couldn't help it at all.

Just hours earlier, he had stumbled into an argument with his boyfriend, Nick, about dinner. It's early January, and he had been home for a little over a month. Whilst he isn't used to being home yet, he is most definitely grateful he isn't at the recovery clinic anymore. Don't get him wrong, he loved the staff there and it really did help him with his journey with anorexia and his obsessive-compulsive disorder. But.. he would be lying if he said it was the best time of his life. It was awful, to be frank. He woke up every single fucking day at six o'clock in the morning, had to have supervised showers and had to scarf down three meals per day plus three snacks. He knows it helped him- it really, really did, but it was really tough. When he came home, he just hoped he would leave all of his issues in the past.

Charlie was wrong.

or; a fic about that night in january and the morning after
Notes:

hiya! sorry to spring a sad fic upon you, but i swear it has a happy ending! this is my version of what happened the night after Charlie relapsed in January, and how he isn't always tied to the bad thoughts, because Charlie Spring is strong as fuck!!

cw: anorexia, food issues, self-harm, sadness.

hope you enjoy it <3
(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:
Charlie just couldn't handle it. He regretted it almost a nanosecond after he did it, but- he couldn't help it at all.

Just hours earlier, he had stumbled into an argument with his boyfriend, Nick, about dinner. It's early January, and he had been home for a little over a month. Whilst he isn't used to being home yet, he is most definitely grateful he isn't at the recovery clinic anymore. Don't get him wrong, he loved the staff there and it really did help him with his journey with anorexia and his obsessive-compulsive disorder. But.. he would be lying if he said it was the best time of his life. It was awful, to be frank. He woke up every single fucking day at six o'clock in the morning, had to have supervised showers and had to scarf down three meals per day plus three snacks. He knows it helped him- it really, really did, but it was really tough. When he came home, he just hoped he would leave all of his issues in the past.

Charlie was wrong.

Realistically, he knew he wouldn't be able to just 'let them go'. That's not how the human brain works. He can't spend weeks at an inpatient facility and magically be cured, he knows that. He just wished it would have.

The first few weeks at home went okay. He and his mum didn't get into too many fights, apart from Christmas day, which was to be expected. Tori and his dad had been really helpful when it came to eating. They didn't talk to him about the food he was eating. Instead, they talked about their days and Victoria had been talking a lot about this new boy- Michael Holden. Charlie had heard of Michael from Truham and from Nick, but he hadn't heard that many positives. To hear a plethora of positives from Tori, though, was pleasant.

His relationship with Nick was as great as it had ever been- it was probably stronger, to be honest. But, for some reason, Charlie still snapped at him. He told him to fuck off. To go home. To leave him alone. All because of stupid fucking food. Nick had snapped at him for the first time, ever. His loving, trusting, amazing boyfriend had snapped at him. Told him he wasn't trying hard enough.

That was bullshit. That statement or accusation or whatever it was, was bullshit. Nick would never understand how hard Charlie had been trying. He was trying every day. Every day, he'd hear a voice inside of his head- his own, but it wasn't. Not really, because all it did was spit out vile and incessant comments that he despised. Geoff told him that, with his OCD, that was normal. Intrusive thinking was normal for those blessed (or cursed) with OCD. But when you team it up with an eating disorder? It was a nightmare. Geoff told him it was normal to hear those thoughts, but it didn't make it any easier. In fact, it made it harder. Yet, he still tried. Every. Fucking. Day.