Procrastinators on Stage (Chris Kendall/crabstickz fanfic) *unedited*

Part 3- I Don't Like Nicknames

“Chris?” I yelled through the flat from my position at the front door. I waited for him to respond only to be honoured by silence. I was on the verge of calling his name again before he replied with:

“What do you want?”

I sighed in frustration and rolled my eyes to the ceiling. “Your flat is so damn small! I can walk from the front door to the bathroom door in nine paces!” Chris poked his head around the doorway to the kitchen, his fringe pushed back from his face in a quiff style. He frowned at me and smiled mockingly.

“Look. One, two, three…” I started to count as I walked down the hallway, taking lunges with each number. I walked past Chris, who was watching me with a smirk stretching the lower half of his face as his eyes followed me. I stopped at the door to the bathroom and turned on my heel to look at him. “Nine.”

“I’m sorry that my home is too small for your ego, your highness,” Chris snorted as he went back into the kitchen.

I let my shoulders sag as I trailed him into the kitchen. “I do not have a big ego. I’m just pointing out that you’re being charged an awful lot for such a small flat.”

Chris laughed as he bent down to check on the pizza that was cooking on the top shelf of the oven. “Did you or did you not see the view from the large windows in the lounge? Or the fact that there are two bedrooms? You honestly don’t know much about city life, do you?”

I lifted myself up onto the counter, resting my elbow on my knee and then setting my chin down on my palm as I watched Chris move around the kitchen and open the fridge. “I have you know that I grew up here.”

“In some posh and privileged estate, no doubt.”

“Well, because I’m not slurring my words like you, it kind of proves that I’m from around here. I can tell that you’re from the North.”

“And you say that like it’s a bad thing. At least I’m not a pompous arse like yourself. You’re such a princess. Maybe I should call you that from now on? Princess?” He dumped pots of salad onto the side and opened some of the drawers and cupboards to bring out cutlery and plates.

“I’m not pompous! And Princess? Don’t call me that.”

“Your voice and comments about my flat beg to differ, Princess,” Chris sang in time with the hum of the oven’s heating fan as he opened the oven again. He used a tea towel to pull out the pizza and put it on one of the plates. “And you made me cook dinner.”

“Oh, and putting pizza in an oven and opening tubs of coleslaw is such a chore,” I replied sarcastically.

“You know I’m expecting fancy canapés and delicately arranged courses from you now, don’t you?”

“Keep dreaming.”

Chris and I split the pizza and piled the rest of our plates with salad, which included spicy noodles, tomato pasta, coleslaw, various beans in a mint sauce and tomatoes. Chris asked me if I’d like to eat at the table, to fit with my posh upbringing. I jabbed him with my elbow for his comment as we sat down at the table together.

The whole situation was undoubtedly awkward. So we simply ate in silence. After I’d eaten my salad and was then rewarding myself with the pizza, Chris spoke up.

“This is ridiculous,” he told me as he set his pizza bone down on his plate and wiped his mouth with his fingers. “I was ready to accept that I wouldn’t know my new flatmate, but how we’re just sat here is stupid.”

“We could have chatted online or something?” I suggested as I chewed my meal.

Chris shrugged off my suggestion. “I guess, but that’s in the past now. You already know who my friends are and that I have a YouTube channel, and I know that you are a spoilt brat who loves John Green.” I scowled at him as he spoke, to which Chris retaliated with a big grin. “Is there more depth to you after all, Princess? Or are you just the London brat?”