Life's cocoa and pillow forts

Chapter 1 - Introduction

Nolan and Sevanna were simple people, both sharing an apartment with the other. It wasn't a cheap apartment and it wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for Sevanna's family funds to get it off the ground. By now Sevanna's art was popular enough that she made proper profit from it as well! Nolan was the roommate she had managed to dig up, both of them spending most days in their seperate rooms working on whatever project they were doing at the time. Nolan was a writer, their hours spent at their laptop were put to use with the keyboard clicking off. Of course, that system wouldn't have worked without green and black tea and groaning every now and then.

How could they forget, their cat, Nella? Nella was a sweet cat. Unless she wanted something. If she wanted pets or food, she was an absolute bastard and used dirty manouvers to literally trip either Sevanna or Nolan to give her food. Again. The schedule that had been established for feeding Nella had been discarded a while ago. It clearly hadn't worked out since both the freelancers forgot about it at some point, granting Nella with double meals after all. It was a blissful week for her before they figured it out.

"Nolan, Dan's coming over again tonight!" Sevanna called from her office when she heard Nolan exit their office-bedroom-cave. Nolan gave a humm in response. Dan, Sevanna's boyfriend, spent most evenings at their place. Nolan didn't really mind, their mind was more active in the evenings anyway so they spent that in their room writing away then while Sev and Dan watched a movie or something. Nolan didn't care about what they did as long as they were proper. Which they indeed were, Sevanna had a love for pillow forts and Dan was more than happy to share that joy.

Nolan continued to the kitchen with her handful if empty mugs and teabags. With a practiced click, the teapot was turned on and the water in it started to heat up as Nolan deposited the various teabags, mostly black tea, to the bin and the mugs in the sink. With some more time to kill, they washed them out as well, leaving them to dry in the rack next to the sink as they poured another cup of hot water and found another teabag. On their way back to their room, Nolan called out a reminder to eat something to their roommate before retreating to their own cave with a cup of tea and a packet of instant ramen.

★

Sevanna was grateful for her roommate, she really was. She'd long be lost in her work if it wasn't for the reminders to eat and take a break every now and then from the writer passing the hallway yet again. Of course, some of the reminders were lost to Sev's headphones and the music she was playing at the time, but she still did appreciate everything Nolan did for her. The small things. Like washing the dishes when she was busy on a call with a client of hers, which didn't happen often but some people did prevent voice calls over texts. Or making her some cocoa when she vented about someone stealing her art. Again. Like, really? Was it so hard to just... Not take credit for other people's art? People were assholes sometimes.

With her work hours finally ticking over with the clock hitting 5PM, Sevanna got up from her desk, gathered her collection of empty ice tea bottles and headed to the kitchen to cook up something before Dan came by. She made it to the kitchen without much trouble and pulled out a pizza from the freezer. Perhaps she and Nolan should eat less fast food...? Na, who cares. Sevanna turned on the oven to heat and headed to Nolan's room. From the hallway, she could already hear typing. She knocked lightly on the door and creaked it open. "Nolan, dinner's gonna be pizza. Work hours are over for now, take a break?"

"Wait." Nolan didn't reply other than that small grunt, eyes still fixed on the laptop screen as they typed away by the desk. Sev gave a small sigh and closed the door again. Writers and their concentration... She returned to the living area and sat down on the couch, pulling up YouTube on the TV to see if there was anything interesting to watch.

The pizza was ready ten minutes later, sitting warm on a big plate and waiting to be eaten. Sev was hungry and it smelled really good, but she managed to hold on for the couple minutes it took for Dan to arrive. When the doorbell rang, Sev rushed over to greet her boyfriend with a big hug. "Come in! I made pizza!" she said to the blond. He snorted. "I can smell it, yeah. Thanks."

While the two were snacking on pizza, Nolan also came out of their room.

"Hey, Nolan!"

"Hi, Dan. Tea?"

"Not right now, thanks. Movie night?"

"Eh, sure. What movie are we watching?"

"Sevanna wanted to see the new Lion king."

"I heard it had really good CGI! I wanna see!" said artist defended herself from the couch. Nolan nodded in understanding and poured themselves another cup before anchoring to the small hammock chair that they'd set up a couple weeks ago. It had quickly become their favourite spot and Sev wasn't allowed near it when Nolan was in the room. "Do you guys want popcorn?" Dan suggested before Sevanna had the chance to run the movie. The girl gave a small cheer and Nolan nodded. Dan simply got up and went to grab a packet of microwave popcorn from the kitchen.