Jaded • Harrison Osterfield • fwb!au

Chapter xii

Tom sprinted out of y/n's building, his head turning side to side looking for his best friend, finding him a significant amount of steps down the street which prompted the brunette jog to catch up with him. His friend's shoulders were slumped down, head bowed and hands stuffed in his joggers' pockets as he walked at a steady pace. "Mate..." Tom said quietly when he was right next to Harrison, but he didn't know what to say. He didn't know what he should say to him at that moment so he just remained silent and walked with him until they made it home, that took them way past an hour to reach due to it being nowhere near y/n's flat.

As soon as the pair crossed the threshold of Tom's house he dragged Harrison to the kitchen island with him, making him sit on a stool while he dug two beers out of the fridge, sitting one bottle in front of Harrison as the other remained clutched in his right hand. The blonde rested his elbows on the countertop and racked his ten fingers through his messy curls, a quiet sob left his throat when his head was bowed and Tom winced at the sound. "Why did he do it?" Harrison asked quietly.

Tom knew exactly what he meant and to be frank he had no idea what had got into Harry to do that. "Don't know, man—"

"He fucking ruined it. We were doing well—" Harrison started to rant but was cut short by his friend.

"You were far from doing well, Harrison." Tom pointed out, "You are trying to convince yourself that you were but you weren't." He continued, his tone a little stern causing Harrison to divert his gaze from Tom's.

"I was just trying to make it work." The blonde sighed, taking a swing of his beer.

"I told you when you started that, Harrison. It wasn't gonna work." Tom reminded his friend, both paused the conversation letting silence fill the room for a few minutes. The brunette could see Harrison struggling to keep it together, his hands seemed to tremble and his eyes and nose were rapidly turning redder and redder.

"I loved her before this whole thing started." The strained boy confessed as if Tom wasn't aware of that fact. His knuckles wiping the tears that he couldn't keep contained anymore.

"Yea, I know. But not having sex with her was keeping you from... This." He looked sadly at his friend, it wasn't rare to see Harrison shed a tear every now and again, the circumstances always minor, but not like that. Not with a broken heart. It pained Tom to see his best friend like that, and he was caught in the middle for being the mutual friend of both parties.

"God, I'm such an idiot." Harrison moaned, propping his elbows on the countertop once more, bowing his head and supporting his forehead on the heel of his hands. 

"Yeah. But so is she, so..." Tom shrugged one shoulder halfheartedly and Harrison groaned, a little hiccup escaping his parted lips. "C'mon, mate. Just let it out." Tom reached over the space that separated them to ruffle the blonde's curls lovingly. Between coughs and choked sobs, Tom's best friend cried his feelings away. He mumbled things Tom couldn't understand and he didn't make an effort to make Harrison repeat himself, because he surely wasn't talking to him, he was probably just saying things to not keep them in his chest, sending them out to the universe so they wouldn't belong to him anymore.

"I fucking love her." Was the clearest thing he heard the blonde say. He had stopped crying and seemed to be in the numb stage of grief. "I've lost her." Harrison sighed, sniffling a little right after.

"No. You haven't." Tom was quick to intervene, Harrison's red-rimmed and swollen eyes fixed on his friend's tired ones. "Just give her some time. You know her better than any of us, man." The blonde's hand came to cover his mouth as he held his chin with his thumb, thinking a little about what Tom had said. His head shook slowly in denial at the silent suggestion that she might just be in shock and her instincts of pushing away whoever tried something else other than just a simple hookup had kicked in. Tom knew that was going to happen and that was why he tried to convince Harrison to break it off before she realised his feelings for her.