Harrison Osterfield x Reader
Request by the wonderful @fanficparker
My requests are always open❤️
“Come on, it’s not that simple!” You shake your head, taking another handful of popcorn from the bowl between you and Harrison.
The two of you were in the middle of a video game night and were taking a break from your second round of Mario Kart. And the prospect of you moving away had just become the topic of conversation.
“Why would things have to change? We’re best friends!” He exclaims like a child, typical to fashion.
“I’m going to be in another country, you’ll be busy with work - I’m just saying things are likely to change,” You defend, trying to brush off the conversation topic quickly.
Harrison’s face falls as he pulls away the popcorn bowl before you can take some more, “You seriously think things aren’t going to be the same?”
When you look at his face, it pains you to be leaving him. The two of you had been best friends since your parents first taught you what a friend was. You’d been inseparable - closer than your parents and families ever expected from the two of you. You just fit together. And it grew and grew, from going to the same school, living on the same street, sneaking out to the same parties, and now living in the same London flat.
“Haz, we spend every day together here,” You explain, “I’m just saying it will be different because we won’t be living together, spending every waking moment with each other.”
“I have other friends,” He points out with a boyish pout.
“I’m just saying I won’t be living with you and it won’t be exactly the same, I’m not saying we’re just going to stop speaking to each other.”
He eyes you suspiciously and sets down the bowl once again, “If I win the next race, you have to stay!”
“Harrison, have you seen my big suitcase?” You push yourself up from the ground as you’d been busy rummaging through your wardrobe to find it.
Today was the day you’d decided to first start packing as, three days from today, you were on your way to Spain for a year of teaching out there. It was something you’d wanted to do from when you were young. When the opportunity arose, not one part of you wanted to say no.
“I thought I’d left it in the bottom of my wardrobe but I-“ You start to explain to your roommate as you walk into the lounge.
There, in the middle of the floor, is the trusty suitcase that you’d been searching for. Though it’s misshapen and open with Harrison’s attempt to climb inside and zip himself in.
“Are you kidding?” You laugh, trying to shift the zip to expose him.
“I told you I could come with you!” He yells back from inside, his voice muffled by his contorted shape.
You’d dread to think how much effort he’d put into this, “And I told you that you could come if you bought your own damn seat on the plane. Get out of here, you div!”
“Okay, okay, okay,” He replies, “Get me out, it’s really hot in here!”
“Haz stop moving! The zip’s stuck!” You can’t help the exclamatory laugh that escapes your lips, “What the fuck have you done?!”
“Oh my god (Y/n) get me out!” The fear is seeping into his tone as he starts to wiggle around in the cramped space.
It takes a lot of yelling and too much stress but, eventually, he’s freed.
“You see what I’d do to keep you?” He comments, pulling his knees to his chest as he still stays seated in the case.
“Come on man, you’ll make me feel bad,” You sigh, “I’m only a few hours away.”
“But here, you’re a few steps away,” He comments, glancing between your retrospective rooms, “I don’t know, it’s going to be weird here without you.”
“It’s only a year, and you can still come and visit, I’ll come back for Christmas,” You remind him, the comments you’d already made a hundred times.
“I know, I know,” He assures you, reaching out his arm, “I’ve just never been without you.”
You blush a little and lean into his embrace, letting his arms wrap around you.
“Ew, God! Harrison you’re sweating!” You exclaim, pulling away from him.
“I told you - I was burning alive in there!”
“Get out of my suitcase then!”
“How are you going to live without her, man?” Harry shakes his head, “I give it five weeks before this flat has gone to shit.”
“Five weeks? You’re being generous!” His older brother, Tom, scoffs as he hands a beer to his brother.
You and Harrison had organised a going away party at the flat for the night that was two days before you left. Giving you your last day to be just for you and Harrison - to prepare him to live without you at least.
“Let’s just say FaceTime will definitely be useful,” You nudge at Harrison’s side.
He didn’t seem much like himself tonight but you didn’t want to mention anything with all of your company around.
“Are you excited to leave, (Y/n)?” Harry asks, smiling in your direction.
“Nervous, worried, terrified,” You nod, “But definitely excited!”
You notice Harrison looking at you from the corner of your eye, his gaze not faltering. It’s deep and focused, like he’s clinging onto every last word you said.
The conversation flows from there on out but Harrison still manages to keep his eyes set on you with certainty that they wouldn’t lose you - in more ways than one.
“Fancy sleeping in my bed tonight?” Harrison suggests as you’re both getting ready for bed, the apartment now semi-clean in the aftermath of the party.
“Sure, I’ll grab my duvet,” You smile and he heads out of the bathroom.
It wasn’t irregular for the two of you to share a bed, despite having your own rooms. You’d always grab both duvets and pool them into one bed for what Harrison called ‘optimum comfort’. Those were the nights where you’d sit and chat for hours and tell him a deep secret you were yet to expose. Or he’d confess to you that he’d got an audition coming up that he hadn’t mentioned. Or that he wasn’t ready for what life was throwing him.
“Thanks for tonight, it was lovely having everyone here,” You smile, “And you managed to invite everyone!”
Harrison smirks as he pulls back the covers of the bedspread, “I’m getting better.”
“Were you okay, though?” You bring it up eventually, “You just seemed a little quiet.”
He climbs into the bed and snuggles into his half, “Just feels strange that you’re leaving in like a day.”
You smile a little and climb in beside him, “We’ll be okay, Harrison? I’m not going to move to Spain and act like I’m living a new life.”
“I know, I know,” He shakes his head, “And I’m so happy for you, (Y/n), honestly.”
You smile a little at him and let the conversation fall silent. There was still something he wasn’t telling you.
The statement makes him bolt upright like a sudden danger had sprung upon you, “What do you mean?”
“I’m moving away from everything, what if I hate it? What if I’m a really shit teacher? Or I just don’t fit in with anyone there?” You ponder, “I’ve been waiting for this like it was all going to just be easy. But it’s probably the scariest thing I’ve ever done.”
“Hey,” He starts, “I think it’s impossible for you to be shit at anything - and you’re a people person with literally anyone, you’re practically fluent in Spanish more than English now, and it’s all just going to fall into place. It always does.”
You snuggle into him and wrap your arms around his torso, “It’s just a big move.”
“Of course it is, but don’t you remember telling me this plan when we were like ten years old?”
You chuckle, “We were sat in that fort we’d made in your garden.”
“And you told me that you’d already planned it, though you didn’t really know much more of what you wanted to do.”
“And you told me you wanted to be the next Leo DiCaprio,” You respond, glancing up at him with a smile.
“I’m getting there,” He wiggles his brows, “I promised you I’d thank you when I won an Oscar.”
You laugh, “Your Mum used to get so fed up when we ended up falling asleep out there. It used to get so cold!”
He smiles and holds you a little bit tighter, pulling up the duvets until they’re up to your chins. It feels like you could stay here forever.
“Well, we still have one full day,” He points out, running a hand through your hair.
“What do you fancy doing?” You ask quietly, fatigue taking over now you were wrapped in Harrison’s arms.
He pauses to think of any valid answer but his pause is just long enough to mean that you’re already falling into a slumber in his arms. When Harrison looks down at you, it’s like his whole world is wrapped up in this bed you’d struggled to put together when you first moved in. He lets your even breaths take hold of his thoughts as he circles through the motions of realisation that always occurred when he was this close to you. At what moment did he fall in love with his best friend? At what point did that ‘other half’ manage to grab a hold of his heart? And would he really let her leave without confessing that? It tugs at his heart to think of a day, a week, a month, a year, without her. But it makes things even worse that she’d been leaving with the lie he’d upheld since he first realised that his heart fluttered when she was near. And that didn’t happen with ‘just friends’. It’s not like Harrison when he feels a tear spill onto his cheek and trickle down the length of his face.
“God, you’ll be the death of me,” He mutters into the silent room, swiping at his face to stop any more tears.
Your last day at home goes all too quickly, you run through everything with Harrison to make sure he was all set up for running the flat on his own. You check your packing once, twice, three times, before settling on the fact that you’d buy anything you’d forgotten once you were out there. You get your passport and your other essentials ready for the early morning. And just like that, the only thing left is leaving.
You find yourself sat out on the small balcony that came with this apartment, overlooking the typical city streets of London. It feels overwhelming to leave a place like this behind. You’d never been apart from home. First, it was your family, then it was Harrison. Wherever you went, there was a piece of home with you. You’d never really had that experience of being separate from it. Maybe you’d meet somebody out there that would become another piece of that home. But the prospect of a love interest was still yet to become of interest to you. You had everything you needed. Plus, Harrison was always hard to explain to any prospective love interests.
“Am I interrupting?” Harrison asks cautiously as he steps through the window and out onto the balcony, “You looked a little lonely.”
“Just thinking,” You give him a warm smile as he comes to stand beside you on the terrace.
He hums in response and let’s the silence engulf all of you once more. His lungs are screaming for him to say a thousand words with the breath they hold, his heart is yearning to stop feeling so tight at the thought of you. His head feels weak at the thought of processing one day without you.
I love you. Not in the way we’ve been saying since we were little. Not the ‘love you’ or the ‘love ya’. It’s I love you. Simple. Is it? I don’t know where it started, what caused it, why I can’t change it. But it’s consuming, heavy, crazy. It’s in every action you do, every word, every gesture, every expression. Living a life without you would be hell. But living a life where you’re always just my friend? That feels like a punishment that no religion could conceive the thought of.
“Haz...” Your voice is what snaps him from his thoughts.
It’s only then that he feels the tears pricking his skin, slipping down his cheeks.
“Shit,” He mutters, “It must just be the cold.”
The beaming sun outside and the T-shirt adorning his skin tells you otherwise.
“You know if you start crying, I always cry,” You chuckle, outstretching your arms and pulling him to your chest.
Harrison doesn’t speak and it scares you that he’s not the one comforting you - was he really not going to be okay without you?
“I’m just thinking about all of the Spanish boys you’re going to fall in love with,” He jokes, “And you’ll forget all about that pale boy from home.”
“Come on, if they love me, they have to love my pale boy,” You chuckle, “You’re my best friend!”
The statement makes him wrap his arms around you a little tighter. Not for the reason you thought - for the fact that you weren’t going to leave him. But for the fact that that’s all he ever would be. The name ‘best friend’ that always held so much weight had now become completely hopeless. It pained him that he could no longer accept that.
You were on the phone to your parents when Harrison first started trying to write down everything his brain had been aching for him to say. It felt like it would give some sort of relief.
Dear To (Y/n), Squidge, My Love, Div, and all the other names that this twenty something years has given you.
We’ve been over this a thousand times, how you’re leaving me, how I’ll live alone, how Tom will get sick of me in the end. We’ve talked about it for hours because I started thinking that talking about things would make it easier. Make it easier to say goodbye to you.
It’s silly really - you’ll be back eventually. Whether that’s in a year, or two or three. You’ll be back. But I think it’s the fear of me realising that things are getting too late for anything to change. That somebody else could take my place could give you what I want to. you’ll leave and I’ll lose my chance of admitting anything real to you.
The truth is, for the past, well I don’t know how long, I’ve fallen in love with you. It wasn’t like I realised one thing one day and watched it develop. It’s like one morning I woke up and suddenly noticed it all. I noticed every single piece of you that ignites every single piece of me. I noticed who I am around you and how much I adore who you are around me. And, within that one day, it became blaringly obvious that things weren’t the same anymore.
I can tell you which exact day it was. It was not long after we’d moved in here. In June. We had a day at home where you decided to start decorating the lounge. You’d bought all of this new stuff that you’d been eyeing up for months. And it was all spread out on the floor. You were in this pair of grey joggers and a top you’d planned on wearing to the gym - although you never did get that membership. There was no particular thing that drew me to you. It was everything. It was the way you slipped in the kitchen in your socks as you tried to make a fancy lunch. The way you laughed and rolled your eyes when I failed to set up the coffee table. It was all of these parts of you that I’d never noticed enough.
He’s just starting to choke up when you say goodbye to your parents and he quickly folds up the page.
“Hey, we should probably start getting ready to go,” You lean against the doorframe and fold your arms.
Harrison glances up and nods, “Yeah, I’ll just sort myself out and we can go.”
You had it all planned. Sort out your final things, leave a little present on Harrison’s bed for when he got back from the airport, get to the airport with enough time to check in, and then you’d be gone.
“Okay, is my passport in there?” You ask Harrison as the two of you are now parked in the airport carpark.
He’s in the back of the car rummaging through your carry on bag to check you’ve got everything in the right place.
“Yep,” He responds, “You’ve got your phone, laptop, purse, earphones...”
Harrison trails off as he slips the letter between the fold of your laptop - part of him hoping you’d somehow see it before you got on the plane. The rest of him hoping you’d never open that.
“Alright, then, we’re ready.”
You’re just about to walk through to security when you and Harrison realise this will be goodbye. You want to take in every feature of his face. You wanted to memorise the way his eyes move when he smiles, the way his head tilts back when he laughs, the way his hair moves when he shakes his head. You wanted to memorise all of the features that made him your best friend, practically your other half.
“Alright, I think this is it,” You begin, looking at him a little hopelessly - knowing there was nothing you could say that would tell him how much you’d miss him, “I’m gonna miss you man.”
He smiles a little but it doesn’t meet his eyes, “Yeah, you could say that.”
“You’re all ready for the bills and stuff, and I’m sure Tom will be staying more often than not,” You assure him, “If there’s any complication with the rent or bills or anything, just let me know, okay?”
“(Y/n), we’ve been through the logistics!” He squeezes your hand, “I’ll be fine.”
You sigh and wrap your arms around him tightly, taking in his scent that always laced his clothes, “Thank you for everything Harrison.”
He pulls away gently and looks at you with complete focus, “Okay, there’s something I need to stay because, if I don’t, I’ll spend every day thinking that I should’ve done.”
You frown a little and take a step back.
He lets out a shaky breath, “God, I don’t know where to start. Okay, here goes nothing.”
“Harrison, you’re scaring me. What’s going on?”
“I love you (Y/n). I love you with every single fibre of my body, every single piece of my heart. And I know that I shouldn’t feel like that. I’m not supposed to. You’re supposed to be the one girl that I wouldn’t fall in love with - the one girl. And I couldn’t do it,” He shrugs as tears start building up to blur his vision, “I know this is the worst time and I know that it’s-“
“Haz, what are you doing?”
He stops dead, lips parting slightly.
“I need to catch my flight, I don’t know what you want me to say... I...” You stumble, heart beating way too fast in your chest, “I can’t do this.”
“(Y/n), please,” He croaks out, hand reaching for you.
“You want this to be how I leave?” You pull away from him, “Harrison this changes everything!”
“I know, I know,” He nods, “But it’s consuming (Y/n/n). It’s killing me everyday that I’m not telling you that I love you. It’s killing me every time I convince myself that we should just be friends.”
You’re trembling as he talks - the panic of not knowing how to respond starting to trickle through your veins.
“You’re the only woman I’ll ever feel that way about.”
“Don’t say that,” You shake your head, “What do you expect me to say? Is this how badly you want me to stay?”
“No! God no!” Harrison tries to grip onto your hand again, “I just needed you to know.”
“I can’t do this Harrison, this changes everything.”
“No, no, it doesn’t have to change anything. I just-“ He stops, “There’s no way you could feel the same?”
You look at how helpless he looks and it breaks your heart into unfixable pieces, “I don’t know if I can give you an answer to that H. I didnt expect any of this.”
That’s when there’s a call for your flight. Perfect timing.
“I don’t need an answer. But if, or when, you find out how you feel, I’ll be waiting here (Y/n). I’ll always be waiting.”
With one last look at the possibility he’d left you, you pick up your bag and walk away - tears streaming down your face for a reason you’d never expected. You don’t have to look back to know he’s still stood there. And you don’t want to look back. You just let him leave you with those words.
