Slowed Response.
Harrison Osterfield x Reader
Request by anon: Can you do a Harrison fic please where he doesn’t realize that he likes her when she told him and it’s all angsty but with a happy ending??❤️
Gif is not my own
Requests are closed🤍
Finding old photos and videos on your phone was always a nostalgic moment. You did it all the time and scrolled back through your camera roll to look through all of yours forgotten memories. It didn’t really seem like much more than that today as you passed time in the flat on your own.
That was until you stumbled upon more and more photos and videos of the boy you’d been trying to forget.
Allow me to backtrack.
You and Harrison had been friends for years, having met him, Tom and Tuwaine when you were all at the Brit School. You’d quickly become close friends with all of them. It had been that way ever since. Though, something along the line had always been different with you and Harrison. You’d always just been a little closer with him than you were with the other two. He’d just always been that one person in your life. That one that knew literally everything there was to know about you. The one who picked you up when you were feeling low, who knew all of the right things to say when everyone else was saying everything wrong. He was Harrison. And, in him, you’d found everything good there was to find in a person. You weren’t quite sure when your heart had twisted that into anything more than a good friendship.
There are far too many videos that melt your heart into more unfixable pieces as you scroll back through. One of all four of you on holiday and were dancing by the pool. Harrison had come up behind you and wrapped his arms around your waist, lifting you up and starting off the boys’ attempt to throw you into the water. You’d somehow managed to pull him in with you and both of you ended up in stitches.
The next video was oddly enough one of your favourite ones of him. It was from when you’d first moved into your flat, when you’d managed to successfully achieve your goal of living in your own London property. He’d been so proud of you for your accomplishment. And he’d been there to get the keys with you. Later that day, he’d sent you a short video of him grinning in your new place along with a message about how excited he was for you to have your own place - he’d told you he was already planning your first mega movie night and had already found some great places for hide and seek.
Instead, you now lay on the couch in that flat completely on your own. It had been two weeks since you’d confessed how you felt to Harrison and you hadn’t even spoken to him since then. You’d thought you were good at handling rejection, especially as an actor. But clearly that rejection coming from your best friend was a completely different experience. He’d tried to make things better, defending his uncertain reactions to try to ease the pain in your eyes. You’d left before he could try to explain himself anymore. It wasn’t worth putting yourself through any more pain.
Since then, Tom, his brothers, Tuwaine, even Charlotte, had been ringing you relentlessly to try to get some sort of contact from you. You’d instead reply to their missed calls with a text to tell them you were fine and that you just needed some space. It wasn’t worth anything more than that. Nobody of them would be able to tell you what you wanted to hear. And that one conversation with Harrison had already given you enough of things you never wanted to hear again. He felt so guilty, so gut wrenchingly awful for having to reject you. That’s what made it even worse. It just felt like he didn’t have it in him to feel that way for you. It was nothing to do with you. It was just not something he felt.
You didn’t realise how many times you’d replayed that same video of him in your flat until you flinch at the sound of someone at your door. Maybe it was just a neighbour - probably requesting that you stop crying at 3am, or leaving Netflix on overnight because they can hear it from next door. Though, when you drag yourself from the sofa and go to open your apartment door, it’s Tom stood on the other side.
“Hey,” He sighs as he sees you, “Somebody let me in downstairs, I didn’t know if you’d let me in otherwise.”
“Why wouldn’t I? You’re not the friend I confessed my love to and then got rejected by!” Sarcasm seemed like a good way of dealing with things recently, or all of the time for that matter.
He wants to laugh but the words are too heavy to find any sort of jovial response, “I brought smoothies?”
You smile a little, “Then you may enter.”
Tom smiles and steps into your flat, still clean despite your low mental state.
“Sorry I’ve been a bit... absent,” You comment, fiddling with the waistband of your joggers, “I just needed some space.”
“Yeah, no, I know. It feels weird not having you at the house all the time,” Tom mentions as he sits down on the side of the couch that had been claimed as his from the start.
“Just because you need people there to make sure Tuwaine doesn’t burn the house down,” You roll your eyes, taking a drink from the smoothie he’d handed to you. Your favourite, thankfully.
Tom swallows the lump in his throat, “I’ve barely seen Harrison.”
You look up and frown, “Where’s he gone? I thought he was staying with you guys.”
“He is,” Tom scoffs, “That’s the problem. The boy’s practically confined himself to his room. He won’t really talk much, eats upstairs, sleeps in late. It’s like he’s punishing himself or something.”
“For what?”
“He knows he hurt you, (Y/n).”
“However I feel isn’t anything that he can control, he can’t feel guilty for not feeling the same way,” You shake your head, “He’s just confused, I’m sure.”
Tom sets down his drink and shifts in his seat, and you know this is about to be a moment where he shares some level of advice that is meant to be helpful.
“Me and Harrison have been best friends for years, I treat that boy like a brother. Same goes for you and Tuwaine. And I’d like to think that I know you all pretty well,” He begins, “I never expected things to happen the way they did.”
“You know I didn’t intend to fall in love with my best friend, Tom?” You raise your brows.
“No, no, I meant the way that he reacted,” He quickly assures you, “Every part of every way that he acts told me it was pretty much certain that he’d tell you he felt the same. I just think it took him by surprise, and he didn’t know how to respond.”
You swallow the lump in your throat, “Yeah, well, his response seemed pretty clear to me. If he doesn’t feel the same way, there’s nothing I can do to change that.
Tom sighs and pulls you into his side to wrap an arm around you, “I’m so sorry, (Y/n).”
You let out a shaky breath. Today wouldn’t be another day full of tears for that boy. It couldn’t be.
“Did you mean that?” Tom mumbles after some time, “Have you really fallen in love with him?”
You sit up and purse your lips before responding, “With every part of me. And it terrifies me to think I’m going to have to force myself out of that.”
Tom can see it in your eyes, the most clear way of proving your words. You did love Harrison. More than you’d ever be able to compress into the short confession you’d given him. It wasn’t just the love ya’s you’d give to Tom or Tuwaine or Harry or Sam. It was a deepset three words that held a weight you’d been carrying for far longer than you should’ve done.
“You know there’s always a place for you at ours, nothing’s changed there. And I don’t want this all to change anything between me and you, or you and any of us. You know that, right?” Tom squeezes your arm as he pulls you back into his side.
You let out a shaky breath as you rest your head on his shoulder, “I know.”
He hears the way your voice cracks at the words and watches as your bottom lip starts to tremble.
“I just need some time to figure out how to get over losing him.”
With that, a tear slips from your eyes and falls helplessly down the length of your bare cheek.
“Shit, you’re going to make me cry,” Tom says shakily as his eyes well up too.
He shifts and turns to wrap both of his arms tightly around you as you cry into his chest.
“You haven’t lost him.”
But you’re not even sure that he believes the words as they fall flat into the tear stained air around you.
- - - - - -
It’s already way past dark when Tom gets in that night. He’d been so reluctant to leave you but you’d insisted constantly until he finally had to give in. He tries his best to keep quiet as he slips off his shoes at the door and locks it behind him.
Cautiously, he creeps toward the staircase of the house - only pausing when he sees the low light still coming through from the lounge. What were the odds that Harry had fallen asleep on the couch again?
Instead, it’s Haz he finds in the room alone.
“Hey,” Harrison speaks quietly, drained of energy, “Theres some leftovers from dinner if you want anything.”
“Oh, no, I’m okay man, I’ve already eaten,” Tom nods, scanning over the boy who was slowly slipping away from being his typical self.
“Where’ve you been?” Harrison asks, trying to inject some sort of life into the words.
Tom scratches at the back of his neck, “I... um, I went to see (Y/n).”
At that, Harrison perks up as his head whips round at the sound of your name being spoken, “(y/n)? How’s she doing? Is she okay?”
“She’s... getting better,” Tom nods, walking properly into the lounge and taking up the seat on the couch beside his best friend, “Still sarcastic as always.”
Harrison finds it in him to smile at the thought, “Did you talk about...”
“A little, yeah. She got pretty emotional so I avoided talking about you too much after that,” Tom admits, he didn’t want to lie and get caught in the middle of a situation already difficult enough, “It’s hard for her, you know it is. She feels like she’s lost you and that’s making her distance from everybody.”
“She hasn’t lost me, man,” Harrison interjects, “Come on, (Y/n)’ll never lose me.”
“That’s not the way she sees it, Haz. Come on, you rejected her after she told you she’d fallen in love with you. That’s not going to be easy for her to just bounce back from,” Tom encourages, his protective side towards you shining through, “You seriously don’t feel the same?”
Harrison gulps, “If I’m honest, I don’t know if I do. I’ve never felt that way about anyone before and (Y/n) seemed so sure of herself when she said it.”
Tom lets it sit for a moment as he looks at his best friend beside him. There’d always been something more between you and Harrison, all of the boys knew it. There was something about how upset he got after you argued, how excitedly he spoke about you whenever you were off doing something incredible, how he remembered every detail you’d told him. Tom knew that was way beyond the friend status that you and him would always have. It was just... obvious. He’d always expected something to happen, he’d never even questioned it. And he was reluctant to do so now - he knew Harrison too well.
“Well, then, how do you feel about her?” Tom persists.
“She’s incredible, of course she is. And we have the same sense of humour, we could talk for hours, she balances me out which is always good...”
“Okay, so do you see her in the same way you’d see any of us?”
“What?! No, no of course not,” Harrison is quick to defend, “It’s different with (Y/n).”
“Harrison, what did you tell your Mum about her when she was off filming last year?” Tom cocks a brow.
Harrison can’t help but swallow the lump in his throat and blink a few times before responding, “I told her that (Y/n) was the best person I’d ever meet. That she was like the better half of me...”
With that, Tom clasps Harrison on the shoulder and stands up, “Get some sleep, mate. Looks like you’ve got somewhere to be in the morning.”
- - - - - -
That night after Tom came round was probably the best you’d slept in a long time. You wake up at a reasonable time and even find yourself having a productive morning. Today’s coping method was positive. You put on some music in the flat and let the songs trickle loudly into every room as you went about a cleaning day for the apartment. You were just washing the dishes when there was a knock at the door. Quickly, you pause your music and grab a fresh kitchen towel to dry your hands.
Again, you expect a neighbour or something when you open the door.
Not him.
“Hey (Y/n),” Harrison smiles lightly, bags under his eyes suggesting he’d been coping just as poorly as you had. You’d gone two weeks without speaking a word to this boy and, for you two, that felt like a lifetime already.
“Hey...” The word sounds weaker than you’d like it to, “How are you?”
“I’m good, you?”
“Yeah, I’m okay,” You nod, “Um, what are you doing here?”
“Well, I just wanted to come round and see if you were okay,” Harrison mumbles, looking down to his feet that he scuffs on the floor to find any way of distracting himself.
“Come on then, at least make yourself useful,” You pull the teatowel from your shoulder and hand it out to him, “You dry and I’ll wash.”
Both of you return to the kitchen sink and start back up with washing and drying the dishes. He still remembers where everything goes as he puts it away after drying. There aren’t any words spoken between you two but a million thoughts colliding all at once. All you can think of is the last words you’d spoken to him and you were terrified of where things would pick up from if this was the next time you were speaking.
As you hand over the last plate, Harrison dries it and hands you the kitchen towel to let you dry your hands. Accidentally, his hand brushes yours as the exchange occurs and you find yourself reluctant to flinch away from the touch as your mind was telling you to. You wanted to still feel some connection to him.
“Im sorry I took so long,” Harrison comments, unsure as to whether he’s talking about coming to your home or to his realisation.
“No, that’s okay. I’m glad we gave each other some space,” You nod, folding your arms over yourself.
He glances around your kitchen like he’s trying to find anything to strike up a bit of conversation. His eyes fall upon the script left on your table, “What’s this?”
You go to respond but he picks it up and flicks through before you can.
“You got the part?!” His eye brows raise at he looks at you in half-shock.
“Yeah, um,” You tuck your hair behind your ear, “I got the first script through last week so I could get a feel for the character. But the part’s mine if I want it.”
Six weeks ago, it had been Harrison sat across from you helping you to run lines for the audition. Now? You hadn’t even told him when you’d got the part you’d been waiting for.
“God! That’s great (Y/n), that’s really great. I’m so proud of you!” He beams with that pride he always did at any success you had, though it’s more temporary than it normally would be, his sincerity returns, “You should’ve told me.”
“I didn’t really think that the next time I spoke to you, I’d just be calling to tell you about a role. That hardly seemed like a good way to start.”
“That’s the best way to start,” Harrison laughs, “I’ll help you run lines whenever you need.”
“That’s okay, I spoke to Tom about it yesterday and he’s already offered so-“
“I always help you with lines,” Harrison frowns.
It shouldn’t be such a big deal. But in that two weeks, his incomplete thoughts had caused him to lose that part of you. And he was realising more and more that his response two weeks ago was the worst response he could’ve possibly given you. And it might be too late to change that.
“I just don’t think it’s a good idea for either of us to spend too much time alone together for a while Haz. We’re both in different places and I don’t wa-“ You stop and swallow the fear in your throat, “I don’t want to let myself get hurt by you.”
If your closed off posture and averted eyes didn’t kill him already, those last words were enough to deliver the final fatal blow.
“I was an idiot two weeks ago (Y/n). I shouldn’t have reacted how I did,” He starts with caution as he sets the script back down onto the table and turns to focus all of his attention on you, “There are a thousand things I should’ve said and I instead chose to say none of them.”
“You don’t have to explain yourself Harrison, it’s my fault.”
“For what? Saying everything I was too scared to admit to myself?”
“Don’t say that Harrison,” You snap, turning away from him like even the look in his eyes was enough to break you again.
“No, (Y/n), it’s the truth and you know it deep down too. I was just so scared of admitting it to myself. And for the past weeks I’ve been thinking of everything I did to lead up to this point, where you’d fallen for me. What I hadn’t realised was that I’d got to that point at the same time, my mind just took a little longer to catch up - as always,” He half laughs, “So I’ve spent every day trying to think through everything I could say to you to make things better after what I’ve done and that’s when I realised that I didn’t need to make things better for you. I needed to make myself realise what I’ve been slowly getting to since we were fifteen.”
Your eyes brew a fresh set of tears at his words, your heart close to tearing at the thought of him saying all of this just to lessen his guilt. But the rest of you is praying for it all to be true.
“How could I not fall for you, (Y/n)?” He steps close behind you until you can practically feel the words touch your hair, your skin.
His hands reach out and he brushes his fingertips gently up your arms, slowly like he’s taking in every inch of you.
“How could I not fall for the girl I’ve been adoring since the first time she hugged me and convinced me to stop worrying about everything so much? Since she first met my family and treated them like she’d been a part of them forever. Since she first held my hand and somehow sealed every wound and every crack in my heart that was never going to break for anybody but for her,” His voice cracks and it becomes impossible for you to not turn around and face him.
It feels like the two of you are closer than ever now, after what felt like so long of being apart.
“I was an idiot (Y/n), and it shouldn’t have taken all of this for me to realise how I felt about you. But, if you’ll let me, I’ll spend every day making up for every day that we’ve lost, every day where I couldn’t have kissed you and told you I loved you in a way that I’d never love anyone else,” He smiles gently as his tears well up with tears to mirror your own, “You’re everything to me, (Y/n).”
