❤️ for Winona or 🏡 for Wren (I cannot decide) pleeeeeeaseeee and thank you 🥰
I’m so self indulgent and annoying that I’m doing both at once:
Wren lives in an apartment above the coffee shop he helps his family run, meaning that the place is (more often than not) absolutely reeking of coffee, but there’s the odd twinge of sandalwood and turpentine. There’s plants all over the place and he should really move the ones that drape his bed because he keeps getting hit in the face every morning, but he hasn’t quite got around to it. Most of the time the place is in a state of controlled chaos - It’s cluttered, but he’s familiar with the mess, can navigate his way through it and he knows where everything is. Save for whatever Punk B-side or old 70s film soundtrack is playing, the only thing you can really hear in the flat is Wren humming along to whatever’s playing and the sound of Bubbles trotting through the flat while grumbling. Wren will not shut the fuck up about Criterion Collection films, David Lynch or Suspiria (but will conveniently forget his stint on Degrassi as an extra when he was 13 in which he got ran over by a bus and was permeated through flashbacks for a good five episodes.) His inclinations towards pretentiousness means that there’s shelves lined with all these really brooding and thought provoking films but he’s got a box dedicated for the self indulgent ridiculousness he’s not supposed to like which he will frequently pore through (who doesn’t love Bridget Jones?) Most of the time he’ll either be painting, pawing at his record collection or out for the count on the couch while cuddling up with Bubbles after a shift.
I’d be lying if I said things with Winona and Henrik start relatively easy or in the Villa itself. They instead start all the way in a Caravan Park in North Wales where a four year old Winona lives with her grandparents. By mere coincidence do Henrik’s family go to this park every summer as the cost of renting a caravan for the summer there is dirt cheap. Since she was raised by her Grandparents and wasn’t really around many kids, socialisation and making friends with people her age proved to be a struggle - the reach of her grandparents' influence extended to her not wanting to play games with the other kids in fear that her knees would give out and how she’d horrified Henrik the first time they’d ever met by saying that she’d soon be turning five “if the lord will let me live to see it.” When he asked her how old she was.
Winona was a gifted kid and had a lot of pressure to be this intelligent go-getter, she was expected to seek out independence as quickly as possible and although at first she really liked it and thought it made her more mature there wasn’t much room for her to be a kid and that made the time they’d spend together all the more important. It was the first time in her life she could actually be a kid and have fun and because of how easygoing he is, he draws out a silliness in her and she draws a more serious side out of him. Winona had a habit of abusing the fuck out of her provisional drivers license to drive all the way to the Isle of Wight to visit him and as Henrik would point out, there’s never been a birthday since they’ve met which they haven’t spent together. He’s a stalwart at every Visit to Winona’s family in Greece and if the mere possibility of him not being able to come arises, the absolute kick off from them is ridiculous like you’d honestly think someone died. Same applies for the Bergströms - Henrik’s Nana has been mastering her Princess Cake recipe and Winona will be damned if she isn’t getting a massive slice when she’s there.
The two of them have weathered a lot of stuff over the past few years - serious relationships, break ups, major stressors and career changes, pivotal moments and now they’re at that awkward stage where he’s a Climbing and Wilderness Survival instructor who drinks Seamoss for the flavour and she’s a beleaguered Primary school teacher whose side hustle is a podcast in which she talks about her extensive vibrator collection and how much she’d want to shag a pixie while her roommate looks on in horror. There’s a lot of yearning, pining and crushing which ultimately goes nowhere until Lily signs Winona up for love island and Winona sends Henrik this elaborate five paragraph text before she leaves (which is absolutely memed and copypasta’d post-show) which kicks off the plot of Primary. because now Henrik is wondering what the fuck his best friend is playing at going on something like Love Island when she’s already the countdown champion of 2016, just what he feels for her and how he’s going to tell her all this.
When the two of them actually get together it’s mostly awkward (the five paragraphs is a lot to take in - Did she really have to throw in a Gemma Collins quote?) and now they’re running around like headless chickens all “what the fuck do we do now? How the hell do we go from friendship to being romantic like obviously we want it but holy shit how do we go about it?” And they’re just panicking completely struggling to kiss and act romantic like normal people meanwhile everyone else is like “dear fucking god the intensity, the passion, the deep love they have for each other 😔🤚.” But because they’re so well acquainted with each other and their best (and worst) habits, the dynamic between them romantically is usually silly and they can poke fun at each other while knowing each other's boundaries and never going out of their way to push them. The love and care they have is immense and it’s especially so when they get together romantically - there was always signs of it when they were friends as the hugs would always linger and they’d get all smiley, but now they’re very affectionate and more often than not Henrik will drop off Winona’s lunch for her and they’ll always gush about each other to anyone who’ll listen. They’re very supportive of whatever they pursue and there’s no pressure to be anything or fulfill an idea of what they’re meant to be, it’s easygoing and there’s a familiarity to it that makes it so much easier and more intrinsic to them.
If that doesn’t seal it, the fact that Henrik is the only person in the world allowed to touch the Countdown teapot on the mantle probably does.
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