#but i did take a deep breath and buy myself the stupid rice cooker

[inkskinned]

you're in the habit of denying yourself things.

if someone asked you directly, you would say that you love a little treat. you like iced coffee and getting the cookie. you drink juice out of a fancy cup sometimes, and often do use your candles until they gutter out helplessly.

but you hesitate about buying the 20 dollar hand mixer because, like. you could just use your arms. you weren't raised rich. you don't get to just spend the 20 dollars (remember when that could cover lunch?), at least - you don't spend that without agonizing over it first, trying to figure out the cost-benefits like you are defending yourself in front of a jury. yes, this rice cooker could seriously help you. but you do know how to make stovetop rice and it really isn't that hard. how many pies or brownies would you actually make, in order to make that hand mixer worthwhile?

what's wild is that if the money was for a friend, it would already be spent. you'd fork over 40 without blinking an eye, just to make them happy. the difference is that it's for you, so you need to justify it.

and it sneaks in. you ration yourself without meaning to - you don't finish the pint of ice cream, even though you want to. the next time you go to the store, you say ah, i really shouldn't, and then you walk away. you save little bits of your precious things - just in case. sometimes you even go so far as putting that one thing in your shopping cart. and then just leaving it there, because maybe-one-day, but not right now, there's other stuff going on.

you do self-care, of course. but you don't do it more than like, 3 days in a row. after that it just feels a little bit over-the-edge. like. you can't live in decadence, the economy is so bad right now, kid.

so you don't buy the rice cooker. you can-and-will spend the time over the stove. you can withstand the little sorrows. denial and discipline are practically synonyms. and you're not spoiled.

it's just - it's not always a rice cooker. sometimes it is a person or a job or a hug. sometimes it is asking for help. sometimes it is the summer and your college degree. sometimes it is looking down at scabbed knees and feeling a strange kind of falling, like you can't even recognize the girl you used to be. sometimes it is your handprint looking unsteady.

sometimes it is tuesday, and you didn't get fired, and you want to celebrate. but what is it you like, even? you search around your little heart and come up empty. you're so used to denying that all your desires draw a blank.

oh fuck. see, this is the perfect opportunity. if you had a mixer, you'd make a cake.

[newtsshelbys]

A New Home | Neighbour AU | Chapter 3

Prompt: “Hey, I locked myself out, can I stay at your place until my roommate comes home?”

Pairing: Harrison Osterfield x Fem!Reader, Tom Holland x Fem!Reader

Summary: Y/N’s life couldn’t have been more ordinary. She lived together in an apartment with her sister, while being a student at the nearby college. The small flat next to hers stood empty for a while now, until one day two young men moved in. What at the beginning seemed like a simple new encounter, tured out to turn her world upside down.

Warnings: swearing, drinking

Word count: 3.3k

Prolouge | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3

Your doorbell rang. You were currently not doing anything special. You were lying on your bed, scrolling through your phone. You got up and made your way to the front-door. You didn’t expect anyone or anything, so you wondered who could be at your door. The door doesn’t have a spy, which meant you had no idea who was standing on the other side of it.

As you opened the door, you were greeted by the smiley face of a blond boy with blue eyes. He was holding a paper-bag excitedly right in your face. A little panic started to spread in you. Since you were home alone and had no plans for the night, you were only dressed in a pair of black shorts, watermelon socks and a loose t-shirt with no Bra under it. Your panic was mixed with confusion. What was he doing here and why was he so excited?

Since the text he send to your sister two days ago, you haven’t heard from him. You really weren’t expecting anything anymore at this point. You also tried to do your best not to think about about him or this stupid kiss. You had to admit, it was hard and you needed a lot of distractions, but it worked somehow. Or actually it didn’t. You just liked to tell yourself that it worked.

So, now he was standing in front of your apartment on a Monday evening.

“I’ll be back in a second.” you told him and ran off, smashing the door back into its lock.

Harrison’s smile faded and was replaced with a confused look as the door was smashed shut right into his face.

You sprinted to your room and looked around for something to wear. You got out a bra. Also, you found a black shirt somewhere in the mess you called your room. You grabbed a pair of light blue skinny jeans from the floor and put them on. You decided the socks were fine. You got your hair free from the messy bun on your head, brushed it and pulled it together in a proper ponytail. After a second look into the mirror, you decided that you still looked awful, but not as awful as you did one minute ago. You rushed back to the door and opened it again.

Harrison was still here, looking around. His attention was back on you within seconds and he was still smiling brightly. The whole evening, he didn’t make one comment on what just happened.

“Hi, Harrison.”

“Hi, Y/N.”

You realised that you were still standing in the doorway, so you moved out of your way that Harrison step in.

As he put his bag on the kitchen counter, you asked:

“What are you doing here?” you didn’t know what to expect by this sudden visit.

“I hope you haven’t eaten yet.” he raised his eyebrows at you excitingly. You shook your head and signalised him to continue.

He took a deep breath and started explaining, while unpacking his bag:

“Even though your sister told me, you loved take out; I decided on something else, but still similar. Because I fucked up pretty badly last Friday, I wanted to make up for it. And I wanted to apologize. But I thought coming here and saying ‘I’m sorry’ is kinda lame. Even though, I really am. And since I have a secret source that told me you liked sushi, I thought I’d make sushi for you. Or we can do it together. However you’d prefer it.”

You were taken aback by his offer and his apology as well. In your head you always just told yourself that Harrison probably didn’t waste another thought about you, after he left your apartment on friday. And now here he was, apologizing and ready to make your ‘favourite food’ for you.

“I’ve never made sushi before.” you stated, since it was the only thing that came to your mind on what to say.

“Me either. See, that’s the point where I think this gets interesting. You can either watch me fail completely and use me to your amusement. In that case, I’ll probably end up buying take out for us anyway or you could help me and we could try to actually make some enjoyable sushi. So, what do you say?”

You were really impressed by his enthusiasm. It rubbed off on you a little. And suddenly, you found yourself, wanting to make sushi with Harrison Osterfield on a Monday evening.

You realised, Harrison was really sorry for what happened. From your point of view, he didn’t even have to be. He should be apologizing to his girlfriend out of everybody. Sure, the situation unsettled you, but in the end, it was you who overreacted. You were the one planning on apologizing to Harrison for handling the situation like this. But if it would have went your way, you probably just would have avoided him to the point where you were faced with the unavoidable. Maybe in the end, you and Harrison could become friends.

“Sure, I’ll help you.” you told him and with that made his lips curl up into a silly smile.

“Great!” he happily stated, “We need to cook some rice then.”

You and Harrison were hopelessly lost. None of you were really good at cooking, even though Harrison likes to believed that about himself. You were fast in telling him that microwaving eggs was not cooking. You could tell he was slightly offended.

“I can make pancakes too.” he tried to defend himself.

And you just weren’t the cooker. You rather spend your time on something else. In your case, something else meant lying around all day and night doing basically nothing. You were just lazy. And with that, your take out-habit developed.

The good thing was, Harrison thought ahead and basically bought twice as much from everything than you actually needed. The first pack of rice went to shit. It wasn’t until Harrison was about to open your second and last pack as you came up with the idea to watch a tutorial on YouTube on how to actually cook sushi-rice. And with that you actually managed to do it and you also figured out what the rice-vinegar and the rice-wine were for.

“I’ve just read it in a recipe and thought it sounded sushi-ish; I had no idea what it was for.”

“It sounded sushi-ish? Makes sense when it’s in a sushi recipe, don’t you think?”

Just as they thought the hard part with the cooking was over, they came to the part where they actually had to roll the sushi. This time, they decided to watch the tutorial right from the start. While you were chopping the veggies, Harrison was very focused on what the woman in the video said about how to roll the sushi. You found it quite adorable how serious he was taking all of this. He probably didn’t even realise he started to mimic the movements the woman made in the videos. You had to smile to yourself, what a dork.

“You got it?” you hinted at his phone.

“I think so?” he neither sounded and nor look a 100% convinced.

They finished cutting the veggies together. In the sushi-kit Harrison bought, was a bamboo-matt to roll. Getting the rice on the nori-sheets was already challenging enough for Y/N. She and Harrison ended up with rice all over their hands. The rolling itself actually went really well. You were impressed by how good of a job Harrison was doing. After the second roll you wanted to try it yourself, so Harrison showed you.

“You have to push it back.” he instructed you.

“Like this?”

“Maybe a little more.”

Your roll turned out okay. Harrison’s looked better though, so you let him continue. After you were finished rolling and the rice pan was empty, the only thing left was cutting the sushi. Harrison read somewhere that you should cut it with a wet knife, so it would make a good cut. After messing up the first few, you eventually got the hang out of it and it didn’t even look that bad. You got out a fancy plate you forgot you had and you placed the sushi on it. As you looked at your final result, you couldn’t feel anything but proud.

“We actually did a really good job.” Harrison stated, “I’m gonna be honest, I thought we would fuck this up completely.”

“Same here. I’m proud of ourselves.” you retorted with a smile on your face. You and Harrison high fived.

The kitchen was a real mess, though. Harrison offered to take over the cleaning, since it was his apology and it was his idea to destroy your kitchen. Harrison was carrying the plate with sushi into the living room where you told him to put it. Eating in the living room on the couch was also a thing you adopted after some time.

“What do you want to drink?” you shouted from the kitchen.

“Oh, I actually brought something, only if you don’t mind, though.” Harrison came running back into the kitchen and pulled out a whole pack of Capri-Sun.

“In case one’s not enough.” he grinned at you, and you couldn’t help but grin back, “I thought we better skip the alcohol this time, since that wasn’t a success last time.”

“That’s actually quite perfect.” you told him, and he was satisfied with himself. Even though you had to swallow a little harder at his last comment. Why does all of this bother you so much? The better question, why do you keep thinking about the way it felt when your lips touched?

You walked back into the living room and took place on the couch.

You even found some old metal chopsticks in one of your many kitchen drawers.

“I gotta be honest with you” you started and Harrison’s attention was on you, “I’ve never had sushi before.”

“Wait, what? No, your sister told me it’s your favourite.”

“My sister likes to mess with me and apparently with you too.” you admitted with a small smirk on your face.

“But what if you don’t like it? Then all of this was for nothing.”

“What do you mean? I had a great time making it. And I definitely imagined my Monday evening to be rather boring, so thank you.”

“Yeah, you had a good time?” he wanted to assure himself. You only nodded which was good enough for him. A proud smile formed on his face. You could tell he was satisfied with himself.

You ended up loving sushi. The mango ones were your favourite, so Harrison let you eat almost all of them. You decided against watching anything while eating and so you talked. Harrison told you on what projects he was currently working on and you told him about your major in college and what your plans for the future looked like.

You were both kind of in the same situation. As you told him about your future, you had no idea where to start, because you had no clue on what to do after college. And he was talking about what he was doing right now, but he had no idea what to come after. You figured that you were both the kind of people to just finish what they were doing at the moment and didn’t thought about what was about to come after.

“Do you like your major?”

“I actually do. At first, I started with a different one, though. I change after the first half of my first semester.”

Harrison turned out to be how you thought he would be. You probably could talk about everything and everyone with him and at the same time, he liked to place a joke here and there. Not once you felt uncomfortable or awkward while talking to him. He doesn’t take himself or anything else too seriously. You also liked the way his dimples showed when he was smiling wholeheartedly. His laugh was mesmerizing too. But you had to stop your thoughts right then and there. There was no way you were about to develop feelings for a guy who was already in a relationship. If so, there would be only one person ending up heartbroken.

Harrison kept his promise and went to clean the kitchen after you two finished talking. But of course, you weren’t the one to let him clean up the mess you fabricated alone. He refused to let you help at first but eventually gave in.

“When are you planning on getting Frankie back?” he asked as his hands were busy washing your dishes and more dirty stuff from the kitchen.

You didn’t expect that he remembered her.

“I’ve got finals this and next week and after that, we’ll probably get her back.” you couldn’t help the smile that crept on your face while thinking about your dog. You just now realised how much you actually missed her.

“Sounds great. Let’s say I bring my dog along as well and we go in the park with them together or something?”

He actually wanted to spend more time with you, and you were really happy about that. You liked Harrison and you were excited to get to know him better, maybe one day, you’ll even meet his girlfriend.

“That actually sounds fantastic.”

He was also glad, you wanted to spend more time with him. He couldn’t quite explain why he felt so comfortable around you, he just knew that he did. And it was reason enough for him to want you in his life as a friend. 

As Harrison handed you a plate to dry, soap dripped from his hand directly on your t-shirt.

“Oh, shit. Sorry.”, he tried to wipe it away not thinking about his still wet hands. He only made it worse, and you started to laugh, since he didn’t seem to realize what he was doing.

He was suddenly so close to you. Harrison looked up at you as if he wouldn’t understand what’s so funny, until he saw the mess he fabricated on your shirt. His cheeks slowly reddened out of embarrassment. He looked at you with an adorable and apologetic look. Harrison didn’t seem to realize how close the two of you were.

The both of you grew quiet, neither you nor Harrison broke the gaze between you. His eyes were the clearest blue you’ve ever seen. Your chest started to grow tight. What was happening? Before you could even register Harrison starting to lean in, your phone started to ring. The both of you exhaled deeply.

“I should probably get that.” Your voice was quiet and flustered.

“Yeah, you probably should.”

Harrison turned away from you as you went to pick up your phone. He went back to clean the last few items in the kitchen, while you saw a picture of your sister lightening your screen and making it ring and vibrate.

“Hi, Lu. What’s up?” your voice seemed kind of shaky as you started talking to your sister.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. What’s up?” you send an apologetic wave Harrison’s way as if to say sorry for the interruption.

“Wait, what happened?”

Harrison sensed that you sounded worried now. He wondered what was going on and if he could do anything to help. At the same time, he was still thinking about what almost happened two minutes ago. He tried to assure himself that it was nothing, he was fine. But he could not answer the question, what would have happened if you weren’t interrupted. He didn’t want to know. Or did he?

“No, no. I already ate … with Harrison, why? … let’s not talk about this now, okay?”

Harrison put the last spoon back into its place.

“Are you sure you’re alright?”

Harrison felt guilty for overhearing your call, but he couldn’t ignore the fact that you sounded really worried.

“Okay, yeah. See you in a few. I love you.”

You hung up.

Harrison looked at you with a curious and worried expression.

“You should go.”

“Did anything bad happen? Maybe, I can help.” he suggested, meaning every word of it.

“I’m sorry, but my sister is supposed to be home any minute and she told me she had a fight with her boyfriend. She said she was fine, but I know when she’s lying. But thank you so much for tonight. And just so you know, I was actually planning on apologizing to you because I acted childish that day. I’m sorry-” you started to ramble as Harrison cut you off.

“It’s fine, alright? I’m the one in a relationship, and I could see I made you uncomfortable.”

You hated how he said that. Like, he knew anything about you or when you were uncomfortable, like he had any power over the way you felt or didn’t feel. But you tried not to think about this now. You just knew, when your sister came home, you had to be there for her, no distractions allowed.

“Listen, Harrison, I’m really sorry to kick you out like this. But I have to look after my sister as soon as she gets home.” you tried to explain.

“No, of course, everything’s fine. I’ll just grab my stuff real quick.” Harrison went to grab his jacket and shoes. “If I can help with anything, you know where I live.” he offered, already halfway out the door.

“Harrison?” you called after him.

“Yeah?” he turned around.

“Thanks, again.”

He just smiled at that and closed the door right behind him.

After your sister hadn’t shown up for another two hours, you started to get worried sick. You tried to call her at least twenty times and sent her over fifty text messages. You even thought about going over to the boy’s apartment to ask them if they would help you search for your sister. By the time your front door opened, you were lying passed out on your sofa, your cell phone right in front of you.

Your sister slid of her boots as quietly as possible, even though it was hard for her to stand straight. Due to the amount of alcohol in her blood system, she eventually woke you up anyway.

“Lu?” you called, rubbing your eyes.

“Hey, baby girl. Don’t… mind m- me. I’ll- jus go t-to bed.”

“Are you fucking kidding me, right now.” your eyes weren’t adjusted to the light yet, “I was up all night waiting for you to come home. I was so fucking worried after your call. Where the fuck were you.”

You sat up, your face in your hands, as you started to hear quiet sobs. As you lifted your head, you saw a girl. The girl seemed lost and messy. There was barely any colour in her face. Her black hair was dishevelled, and wisps of it hang loosely in her face. The girl seemed broken, a tear rolling down her cheek. You didn’t recognize your sister in this girls’ eyes.

“Matt’s leaving me.” she whimpered, the usual dynamic her voice carried was gone.

You scooped on the sofa and Lu slowly walked towards you and eventually sat down right beside you. You could see how hard she was trying to keep it together in front of her little sister. How hard she tried to stay strong in front of her.

“It’s okay.” You whispered.

It was that moment she broke down in front of you. The tears were now streaming down her cheeks, and her make up was all over her face. Her sobs grew heavier, as she dropped herself into your lap.

You knew it wasn’t the time to ask questions. You still wanted to know what was going on. But you figured that Lu wasn’t in the constitution to talk right now. At the moment she just needed you, her little sister, holding her and spending her comfort.

What could she have meant by saying that Matt is going to leave her?

–

Tags:

obsidianspidey, ixchel-9275