Work Text:
1.
Cameron only had half a moment to look up from his books at the sound of thudding feet running in the hallway before Charlie shoved open the door, disheveled and panting with his hand raised in a point straight at Cameron.
“ You.”
Well, shit.
When Cameron was paired up with Charlie in Mr. Keating’s anonymous pen pal assignment, he hadn’t expected to get so attached so quickly— his own fault, really. He had been in love with Charlie since a month after meeting him, and prolonged exposure would obviously only enhance his feelings. That didn’t mean he had to be happy about it, and it didn’t mean that he hadn’t been bone shakingly nervous when he finally wrote to Charlie, confessing who he was.
Apparently his anxiety had been proven right, over his trust. Charlie looked pissed.
Cameron closed his book and set it on his desk, standing slowly. “Me.”
The two of them stood frozen for a beat in their shared room before Charlie deflated and closed the door behind him, moving to sit on Cameron’s bed. What else was new? Charlie spent more time lounging around in his half of the room than his own.
“I’m not upset,” Charlie said, but his leg was bouncing furiously and his eyes looked suspiciously misty. Cameron stayed standing, turned awkwardly to look at him. Was he supposed to rush forward and hug him? Keep his distance? Leave now and request a room transfer?
“Everything I said was true,” he said, instead. “I meant all of it.”
Charlie looked up and met his eye again, then quickly away. He shuffled sideways and patted the duvet beside him, and Cameron rushed to sit there next to him.
“I meant everything, too,” Charlie said, voice soft but sure.
His mind flashed back to the letters: declarations of affection, then trust, then secrets and inside jokes. Cameron sighed to himself, relieved. He wasn’t sure what he would’ve done, if he had to pretend none of that had ever existed.
Still, his fear lingered. “Are you mad, that I didn’t say who I was— am, sooner?”
Charlie didn’t turn to look at him, but his head tilted up, no longer bowed towards his lap. He reached out a hand and set it on Cameron’s knee. “I know I promised I wouldn’t be, but I am, a little bit.” Of course he was. Of course, Cameron had still managed to mess this up. “I still… I mean, I still feel the same way about you.”
Cameron stared at the hand on his leg, unmoving. “You still hate me,” he confirmed.
“No!” Charlie replied instantly, voice rough like the words were torn out of his chest, involuntary. “No,” he repeated again, softening. “I meant, what I wrote. I… care about you.”
“Oh,” Cameron responded quietly, still staring. Slowly, slowly, his head tilted to lean on Charlie’s shoulder.
“Oh,” Charlie repeated, and the two of them sat together, hand on leg and head on shoulder, unspeaking, for a very long time.
2.
“ You.”
Well, shit.
Cameron had finally gotten up the nerve to tell Charlie who he really was, and now he was looming in the doorway to their shared dorm, letter in hand, face furious.
Cameron slowly closed his book and stood from the desk. “Me.”
Charlie watched him, eyes flickering with some unnameable emotion, before marching forward, grabbing Cameron by the collar, and yanking him down into a kiss.
3.
“You.”
Well, shit.
Charlie burst through the door and immediately began pacing, from his bed to Cameron’s, crossing the invisible line between their sides of the room.
“It was you the whole time?” Charlie said, waving the letter— Cameron’s letter — in the air. “Was the whole thing a joke? Were you just having me on, making fun of me?”
Cameron jolted, flinging his book down and bolting out of his chair, grabbing Charlie by the shoulders before he realized what he was doing.
“Of course not!” he cried. “Charlie, I would never! I couldn’t!”
“How would I know what you’re capable of?” Charlie asked, eyes darting around frantically but not stepping back from Cameron’s quickly loosening grip.
“Because I— we—“ Cameron stalled. They just stood, both of them staring at each other with desperate looks on their faces.
Charlie lifted his hands to hold Cameron’s shoulders, too, then raised them higher to cup his face. “It was you,” he said again, wonderingly.
“It was me,” Cameron said, and leaned his face into Charlie’s palm. “It’s me.”
4.
“How would I know what you’re capable of?” Charlie spat out, stepping back. Cameron’s arms fell uselessly to his sides. “I don’t know anything about you!”
“I thought…”
Another step back. “I don’t know what you thought. You thought wrong. Cameron, how— how could you?” Charlie’s voice broke, and suddenly his eyes looked wet in the lamplight.
Cameron gaped, moving towards Charlie again on instinct.
“Get the fuck away from me,” Charlie said, before bolting back out the door.
Cameron stood in the middle of the floor, waiting for the door to open again. It didn’t, and eventually he went to bed, wishing for sleep that he knew wouldn’t come.
5.
“Get the fuck away from me,” Charlie said, before bolting back out the door.
“Wait!” Cameron called, running after him into the hallway. Already, Charlie was crying, wiping at his cheeks with both hands as he walked away, shoulders hunched. “Wait!” He called again, catching up.
“Please,” Charlie said at the touch of Cameron’s hand to his shoulder. “Don’t do this to me.”
“It wasn’t a joke,” Cameron insisted, voice hushed but frantic, trying not to alert anyone in the rooms they were passing of their presence. “It wasn’t— it was real. You have to know it was real.”
They slowed to a stop at the top of the staircase to the quad. Out the stained glass window, the sun set in violent shades of pinks and reds.
Charlie sniffled, leaning into Cameron’s hand. “If you’re lying I’ll kick your ass, Cameron,” he said.
“I know.”
“Seriously, I will.”
“Charlie, I know.”
They both paused— Charlie looking out the windows, Cameron looking at Charlie.
“Just making sure,” Charlie said eventually, lifting a hand to place it on Cameron’s, bent awkwardly to reach his own shoulder.
They stayed like that until the sun was gone entirely.
+1 (How it really happened)
Cameron heard the creak of the door open and set his book down on his desk, turning to look. At the doorway stood Charlie Dalton, grinning ear to ear, looking right back at him. He got distracted for a moment, taking in his smile— then his gaze drifted down, noticing first his heaving chest, like he had ran here, and then the paper clenched in his fist.
Cameron’s letter. The one where he told Charlie, in no uncertain terms, that the person he’d been exchanging love letters with was his roommate and self-proclaimed enemy.
He looked back up. Charlie was still grinning.
“ You,” Charlie said softly, like a revelation.
Cameron stood. “Me,” he answered back, equally gentle. Already he felt a smile start to split his face, raw and unfamiliar.
They met each other halfway, and between the screech of a chair pushed back and a door closing and feet shuffling on too-old floorboards, Cameron heard a whisper.
“I knew it.”