Life's cocoa and pillow forts

Chapter 3 - Shopping

Sevanna had just crouched down with the cup of cat food in hand to feed Nella when Nolan wandered into the room with two empty mugs. "Hey, Nolan! Just a note, we should go grocery shopping today or tomorrow. Our food supply is running low."

"Agreed. I only have 12 packets of tea left."

"Alright, that settles it. When will we be going?"

"You're free right now, correct?"

"Well, I did inform my giveaway winner of the win but so far they haven't responded and I can't start work unless I have details so yeah I'm free."

"Great, we'll go right now," the insomniac concluded, setting the mugs down in the sink. Sevanna stood up and put the cat food cup back in it's place in the cabinet. "Have you eaten lunch yet?" she queried. Nolan's silence was telling. Sev pulled the sandwich platter from the fridge and set it down in front of the writer. "Eat. Then we'll go. I'll go change," she decided and walked off to her room.

Nolan started piecing together a sandwich with some bread, ham, cucumber and lettuce. They weren't in the mood to start cutting up tomatoes right now. They settled down by the dining table with a nice view out the window that stretched floor to ceiling and showed the small playground that was made in the middle of the several apartment buildings that were nearby.

Sevanna returned a couple minutes later and Nolan had finished their sandwich by that time also, so the two grabbed their coats and headed out.

The supermarket wasn't far away but since they were going to have to carry a bigger amount of food, they took the car anyway. Sev was the one with driving their tiny vehicle while Nolan just sat and waited for them to arrive.

The duo exited the car and briefly paused to grab a couple fabric bags before proceeding to enter the supermarket. Sev grabbed a cart and Nolan started off with the fruits. "I'll grab some bananas for snack?"

"Yeah, get some nuts as well! They're good when you're low on energy."

"Green tea is better," Nolan argued, but still deposited the packet of nuts in the cart. They continued down the next aisle. "Do we have tissue paper?"

"Get a packet for the kitchen, I used most of them up when I spilled my boba the other day."

"Right." Nolan grabbed a roll of tissue paper from the lower shelf. "Do we also need toiletries?"

"I wouldn't mind some more toothpaste," Sev figured, picking out a strawberry flavoured one. Nolan got themselves an extra razor blade packet.

Next the two freelancers gathered enough instant noodles to feed an army, snatching an entire box of 50 from the shelf, as well as some boba and ice tea for Sev and more tea packets suited for Nolan's taste. Neither of them drank that much coffee, so they weren't low on that front.

Some milk, eggs and butter later, they continued down the cereal aisle. Sev grabbed a couple colourful-looking boxes on a whim and Nolan didn't mind much either. The two did a quick check of the cart to see if there was everything else they needed before deciding to check out.

As usual, Sev paid the amount and Nolan calculated how much they would have to pay her back from the receipt and the two continued to load the items to their grocery bags and deposit them to the car to get back home.

When they parked the car in the parking lot, Nolan grabbed two bags from the back of the car and Sevanna picked up the remaining one. The two climbed up the stairs to the third floor, where their apartment was, and Sev unlocked the door. The next step was to unpack everything without dropping a cup of noodles on Nella.

Ten minutes later all the foodstuffs were packed away to different cabinets and the fridge, the paper towels were ready to be used and the kettle was already on to produce another cup of tea. Sevanna took the chance to grab a cup of green tea as well before both her and Nolan retreated to their rooms to continue their business.

★

Nolan got up from the desk when their door was knocked on. "Yeah?" they answered tiredly, cracking it open. Sevanna stood on the other side, mug of tea in hand. "Dan came over, wanna join us for a pillow fort? I know you have a couple pillows that are perfect for walls, if you don't mind-"

"Sure." Nolan grabbed a couple big square pillows from their bed before joining Sev and Dan in the living room. Dan had already cleaned the couch of pillows and Sevanna joined with a couple from her own bed as well as a big but thin blanket.

"Solid start," Dan noted. "I'll get started on the walls then, Sev you get the roof?" The artist nodded enthusiastically, already stretching the blanket to test how much it would cover. Nolan, having nothing better to do, started laying different blankets from several sources - they definitely didn't steal from Sevanna's room, no sir! - down on the floor to make it softer. The wooden floor wasn't exactly perfect to lie down on.

Dan did solid progress on setting up the walls, one of them supported by Sevanna's laptop stand and the rest being held up by the blanket keeping them in place from above that Sev was laying out as Dan set up walls.

Nolan was happy that they had such a cool friend, as well as the boyfriend of said friend. Well, they guessed Dan would also count as a friend after the time he came up to Nolan asking for advice with different iced tea flavours for his date with Sevanna. "What flavour does she prefer? Peach? Lemon? Are there others I should know of?"

Yeah, Nolan supposed they had been lucky in life. Not everyone had friends this caring and pleasant to live with. They were happy.