#there was one where harry styles comforted me during a panic attack | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sunflowervolvimp3 · 4 years

Text

42 Hours

Content: an enemies to lovers au in which Harry and Y/N are forced into a cross country road trip to make it to their best friends’ wedding on time

Warnings: language, mentions of nsfw content

Pairing: Harry Styles x reader

Word Count: 20k

A/N: I actually cannot believe that this is finally being posted over almost a month of working on it!! originally, I was going to make this one long stand alone fic, but once I hit 35k with no end in sight, I decided to split it into two parts so that it would be easier to read for you guys. I’m hoping to have part 2 posted within a week, so keep an eye out for it!! this fic was partially inspired by this post by @avhrodite (thank you miss bailey!!) and can I just say that I had so much fun writing it!! I love road trips!! it makes me so sad that I had to split this fic because there are so many fun music scenes in the next part but those will all come in due time!! I would also like to give a big thank you to miss andrea @adashofniallandasprinkleoflunacy and miss alex @darthstyles for putting up with me bouncing ideas off of them and for proof reading for me!! and miss andrea again for editing this stunning header pic!! also everyone I tagged is a wonderful writer and if you’re looking for more to read after reading this then I HIGHLY suggest taking a look through their masterlists. and as always, if you like this fic, please like and reblog it!! and shoot me a message!! feedback is always appreciated, not just by me, but by all content creators <3

{masterlist}

also!! if you want to set the mood for a road trip with Harry, here is a link to the playlist that is mentioned and referenced in this fic!!

When she was a little girl, Y/N’s grandmother had told her about Murphy’s Law. Grandma Sarah’s favourite activity was staring at her granddaughter over the kitchen counter, a knife in one hand and half an onion that she’d been cutting in the other, spouting various wisdoms at the young girl, who would often be sitting and peeling vegetables for her. The old lady had hoped that, after being lectured enough times on life’s difficulties, Y/N might be able to avoid making the same mistakes that she had made in her own time. She always had a list of advice that she’d cycle through, as if she were a record on a loop.

“Always look both ways before crossing the street. Your great uncle Albert didn’t, and he never regained full function of his left hand.”

“Beauty fades, but there’s no shelf life on your mind.”

“The grass is always greener on the other side, so stop staring at it, and focus on taking care of your own lawn.”

All of the advice was, by any accounts, useful for anyone to know, especially a young girl. Of course, sometimes the advice would get a little scrambled after Grandma Sarah had had a few glasses of wine, but even her tipsy thoughts were useful to Y/N in her later years. To this day, Y/N still sets a glass of water on her nightstand before going out to a bar, and her hungover self is always grateful the next morning. And Y/N had yet to find anything that smelled as sweet as a vanilla dabbed behind her ears and on her wrists when she runs out of perfume. However, perhaps the most important piece of advice Grandma Sarah ever gave her came one afternoon when Y/N was eleven years old, and her older cousin Grace was due to get married the next week.

Grandma Sarah had cracked egg after egg into her mixing bowl, always without getting any unwanted pieces of shell in the egg whites, and gave her granddaughter a long look across the kitchen counter.

“When you get married, Y/N,” She had said, voice firm. “Remember Murphy’s Law. Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, and at the worst possible moment. When Murphy’s Law comes into play, there’s nothing you can do except roll with the punches.”

Eleven year old Y/N had nodded her head seriously, as she always did when her grandmother told her seemingly important things. The advice, despite its usefulness, however, didn’t stick around in her head, and Murphy’s Law didn’t cross Y/N’s mind for fourteen years.

It takes fourteen years for Y/N, who is standing in front of a flight check-in at LAX, two large suitcases next to her, one of which contains two gold wedding bands, passport in hand, and a distressed look on her face, to remember the law her grandmother had once told her about.

“When you get married, Y/N…anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, and at the worst possible moment.”

Taking a deep breath to calm herself, Y/N pushes the echoing words of her grandmother out of her head. “I’m sorry, just—” She gives a pained smile to the lady working the check in. “Can you explain that to me again, please?”

The lady also takes a deep breath, the smile on her ruby tinted lips just as pained as Y/N’s. “There’s a storm system moving through Utah and Colorado. These systems have the potential to become tornadoes, and because of that, the conditions for flying are too dangerous right now, so all flights through that area are grounded until further notice.”

“So my flight is cancelled?” Y/N holds up the ticket in her hand that’s stamped with LAX – JFK. “This flight, this flight to New York, which is nowhere near Utah—that’s cancelled?”

The check-in lady, whose name tag reads Brynn, gives another tight smile. “Yes, ma’am. It’s cancelled.”

“Okay, no, I’m sorry, Brynn, but that doesn’t work for me.” Y/N shakes her head fiercely as the manic rush of emotions through her begins to set in. The denial, she finds, keeps the oncoming panic at bay, and so she decides to focus on that to ground herself. “My best friend is getting married in the Catskills in one week.” Y/N holds up one finger, as if her words are hard for Brynn to understand. “That’s one week from today. I’m the maid of honour. I have to be there to help organize, keep her calm, and make sure she actually makes it down the aisle, because—between you and me—she’s got some commitment issues—” The more Y/N speaks, the more her panic begins to spill out in her words, like a dam with a leak that’s about to burst. “And she forgot the goddamn wedding rings, so I have those too, and I just—I really need to get to New York, like, now. Right now.”

Y/N finally pauses to take a sharp breath, and Brynn, who had been waiting for her to finish, speaks again, her voice flatter than before.

“I’m very sorry to hear that, ma’am, but as I said, all flights are grounded right now.”

Pinching the bridge of her nose between her fingers, Y/N takes another deep breath. Roll with the punches, her grandmother had told her. What else is there to do? “Okay.” Y/N is careful to keep her voice in check when she speaks again. “Alright. Do you know when they’ll be ungrounded?”

“As I’ve said,” Brynn’s smile is more of a grimace now, and Y/N knows that she’s treading on thin ice. “All flights are grounded until further notice. We’re not sure when we’ll be able to open them again. It could be a day, or it could be five. If you’d like, I can put you down on a list to be called when flights are available again, but I’m afraid that’s the best I can do.”

“Let’s do that, then.” Y/N relents in a tired voice, already making plans to pick up a coffee on her way back to her apartment. In the back of her mind, she begins to wonder if she has any Baileys Irish cream liqueur left in her kitchen cabinet—and if 8:30 A.M. is too early to be drinking Baileys with her coffee.

…

It takes Y/N two cups of coffee with Baileys (it had been 10 A.M. by the time she arrived home, thanks to L.A. traffic, and she had decided that 10 A.M. was a fine time to drink when one’s flight gets cancelled indefinitely) to work up the courage to call Jo and tell her that she isn’t sure if she’ll be able to make it to the wedding.

Josephine Waters, or Jo to anyone who doesn’t want to get punched in the arm, has been Y/N’s best friend since the girls were five years old. They became fast friends on the first day of kindergarten, as Jo liked how Y/N could already colour inside the lines, and Y/N liked how Jo tackled a boy who tugged on Y/N’s pigtails. From the very beginning, the two were a perfect match for each other; where Y/N was reserved, Jo was wild. Where Jo was disorganized, Y/N was focused. Each girl balanced the other in the most natural way, and it’s this fact that Y/N and Jo credit for the two of them staying friends for twenty years. As they grew up together, they grew together, taking the very best traits from the other and using it to help themselves develop. Y/N had been the first person that Jo came out to, confessing to her best friend during an eighth grade sleepover in a quiet and nervous voice. To Jo’s pleasure, Y/N had been completely supportive, and returned the favour from the first day of kindergarten by punching a boy in the nose for calling Jo a homophobic slur. Jo helped Y/N through her parent’s divorce. Y/N helped Jo manage her ADHD. Jo talked Y/N through discovering her bisexuality in university. Y/N answered every 3 A.M. phone call to comfort Jo after a panic attack. In every sense of the word, the two girls had been there for each other.

And now Y/N is going to miss Jo’s wedding.

The harsh realization digs a pit in her stomach as she opens her phone and clicks on Jo’s name. It’s noon in L.A., which means it’s 3 P.M. in New York time, and Y/N knows Jo will answer. She always does.

Sure enough, after three short rings, Jo’s voice chirps through the phone. “Hey, Y/N! Has your flight landed already?”

“No, there’s—there’s been an issue.” Y/N downs another gulp of her coffee, wishing she had added more Baileys when she had the chance, and clears her throat before continuing. “There’s, um, a storm in Utah, and apparently it’s bad, and so all flights from L.A. to New York are grounded until further notice.”

Jo makes a scoffing noise, and Y/N can practically picture the indignant look on her face that she’s seen so many times before. “That’s ridiculous. Did you tell them that New York is nowhere near Utah?”

“Uh huh.”

“What about that my wedding is in one week?”

“I told them that, too. Brynn didn’t seem to care.”

“Bitch.” Jo mutters under her breath. “Okay, just wait a second, Laure just walked through the door, so I’m putting you on speakerphone—”

Y/N hears rustling on the speaker, as well as muttering in the background as Jo speaks to her fiancée, and then Jo’s voice is back, sounding slightly more distant.

“Okay, so I told Laure what happened—”

“That’s awful, Y/N.” Laure’s voice is laced with stress, and Y/N can only imagine how much anxiety this information is adding to her already full plate. “They won’t tell you when flights will be leaving again?”

“Nope.” Y/N pulls her knees to her chest and wraps her free arm around them, leaning her head against the back of her couch.

“Okay, well, planes aren’t the only way to get here.” Laure says, always the more rational out of the two. “Maybe a car—?”

“Y/N doesn’t have one.” Jo chimes in, a hint of teasing in her voice, despite the serious problem that’s in discussion. “She’s scared of driving—”

Y/N sits up, an indignant look on her face. “I’m not scared of driving!” She says hotly, setting her empty coffee mug on the table with a thud. “I just hate L.A. traffic, and honestly, there’s no point! I can walk to work, and Uber anywhere else I need to go! A car would be completely useless to me!”

“Except now, when you’re about to miss your best friend’s wedding.” Jo points out. “What about renting one?”

Y/N sighs, her moment of indignation already fizzled out. “I tried that already. There’s nothing available for a cross country trip.”

“And the drive is so long.” Laure murmurs, and Y/N knows it’s more for Jo’s benefit than hers. “It’s over forty hours. She can’t do that by herself; it’s not safe.”

“But—”

“Look, Jo, don’t worry about this, alright?” Y/N cuts across her best friend’s anxious voice, assuming her usual role of protector. “I’ll figure this out. I promise you; I will make it to your wedding on time, looking pretty in my dress, and with your wedding bands. I promise.”

“We’ll keep thinking about it and see what we can come up with.” Laure promises through the phone, her voice sounding further and further away. “This is just—it’s a bump in the road, but it’s fine. We can work around this. We’ll find a way.”

…

The way that Laure finds for Y/N pounds on her door at 7:30 A.M. the next morning.

Y/N, like any exhausted and stressed out adult who has already begun her ten days of vacation time that she booked off for the wedding, is fast asleep in her bed when she hears the knocking. The loud noise pulls her out from her dreams abruptly, and she cracks one eye open, squinting through the sunlight that’s lighting up her room. When the knock echoes through her apartment again, she pulls herself from her sheets with a groan, grabbing her robe from the back of her door and tying it around herself as she makes her way to the front hallway to yell at whoever has the audacity to wake her up.

When she opens the door, Harry Styles is peering down at her with an irritated look on his face.

“Took you long enough, Y/N.” He rolls his eyes as he speaks, finally stepping back from the door that he had been pounding on a moment ago. “Are you ready to go?”

Y/N rubs her eyes, suppressing a yawn as she does so. “Styles, I have no idea what you’re talking about. What are you doing here?” She demands. She doesn’t have the energy to deal with him right now, she thinks, let alone the mental capacity to listen to anything he has to say.

Harry crosses his arms across his chest, and it’s then that Y/N notices the duffel bag strewn over his shoulder. “It’s a forty-two hour drive from L.A. to the Catskills.” Harry’s eyes scan over Y/N’s appearance, the very corner of his strawberry pink lips twitching, and Y/N tightens her robe around herself with a glare.

“A drive?” Y/N asks, uncertainty growing in her voice as she crosses her arm over her chest. “What are you talking about?”

“Your flight was cancelled, right?” Harry’s voice grows more impatient as Y/N’s half asleep brain struggles to piece together what’s happening. “So was mine, so I decided to drive to the wedding, and then Laure called me last night, begging me to take you with me.” He shrugs a bit, fixing his sunglasses on top of his head as his jade eyes scan over her appearance one more time. “Not my first choice of road trip partner, but I don’t think the best man can say no to bringing the maid of honour. And splitting the cost of gas will be nice.”

“Okay, wait, I…” Y/N’s finally coming out of her fog of exhaustion, and the newfound clarity of her mind is causing a newfound pit to develop in her stomach. “Laure and Jo didn’t tell me any of this.”

“Well, I expect they’re a bit busy, given that they’re getting married in a week.” Harry adjusts the strap of his duffel bag on his shoulder with a sharp sigh. “Look, are you ready to go or not? It’s over a five day drive, so we need to leave as soon as possible.”

“I—yeah—” Y/N nods before taking a hesitant step back from the doorway, positioning herself to the side so that Harry can get by her. “I just have to get dressed and grab a couple last minute things, so…come in, I guess.”

Harry flashes an insincere smile to Y/N as he steps into her apartment, his eyes darting around at the furniture and home decor. Y/N watches as his gaze lingers on her library of books, her yellow bicycle leaning against the wall, and every other little touch of herself that she likes her home to have, and she can see the judgement that’s clearly apparent in his eyes.

“You can sit, if you want.” She mutters, turning on her heel to go back to her bedroom. “I’ll only be a few minutes.”

The first thing Y/N does when she shuts her bedroom door behind herself is assess the situation in the analytical way that usually calms her. Alright. So a road trip across the country isn’t exactly ideal, and a road trip across the country with Harry Styles is even less ideal. But, at the present moment, being stuck in a car with Harry seems to be the only sure way that she’ll be able to make it to Jo’s wedding on time. And for Jo, Y/N would put up with anything. Even Harry.

As she rummages through her drawers for some leggings and a tank top, Y/N wonders what she could have possibly done to bring this much bad karma into her life. While she gets dressed, her mind flickers back to Murphy’s Law, how everything that can go wrong will go wrong, in the worst possible way, and then she thinks about being in a confined space with Harry for five days, and—yeah. That seems to be the worst possible thing she can think of.

Y/N remembers the first moment she’d met Harry seven years ago, and the unfortunate circumstances under which that meeting had happened. Jo and Laure had just barely met back then, and Jo had begged Y/N to come out on a double date with her and “this really hot girl from my women studies class who I’m, like, 83% sure swings my way.”

Y/N had groaned at that comment, flopping back on her bed in the tiny dorm that she and Jo shared. “No! I have an essay due in three days that I haven’t even started!”

Jo rolled her eyes as she flopped down on Y/N’s bed as well, ignoring her own half-made bunk that was across the small room, favouring her best friend’s bed like she always did. “We both know you’re not starting that essay until the day before it’s due, and that it’s just an excuse because you don’t want to go!”

“I don’t want to go.” Y/N had agreed with a sharp and fervent nod. She shut her laptop and pushed it to the side of her bed, knowing from experience that she wasn’t going to be able to focus and argue at the same time. “Why would I want to hang out with a complete stranger while you make googly eyes at a girl from your class?”

“Okay, first, I don’t make googly eyes.” Jo made a face at that comment, nudging Y/N’s calf with her own foot. “And second, he’s her best friend from high school, and he’s coming to visit all the way from London!”

“So? He’s still a stranger!” Y/N pointed out, her eyes drifting to the sticky note covered novel beside her. She picks it up and begins to flip through the marked pages as she speaks. “Knowing where he’s from doesn’t change that!”

“It should, because he’s only going to be here for a week, and Laure almost cancelled the date because she doesn’t want to miss spending time with him—” Jo grabbed one of Y/N’s pillows and tossed it at her arm, knocking the book from her hands. “Focus! So I said that he could come, but she said that she didn’t want him to be left out, so I said that I happen to have an incredibly beautiful and witty best friend who would be able to entertain Harry while we all hang out together.”

Y/N inhaled deeply as she gave Jo a withering look. “Did you already tell her I’m going?”

Jo, in return, gave Y/N her most dazzling smile. “Yes. We’re meeting them for dinner at 7.”

Y/N shakes herself from her memories as she runs to her bathroom to toss her toiletries back into the bag she’d taken them out of the day before, working as quickly as she can. It does her no good to think of Harry in the past, she thinks, because the present Harry is currently sitting in her living room, probably snooping through her stuff, and the longer she takes to get ready to go, the more he’ll go through. Not that there’s anything incriminating in her apartment, really—or at least, nothing incriminating in her living room. When Y/N makes it back to her bedroom, however, to quickly zip up her suitcase, she does make sure she grabs her favourite vibrator from the box under her bed, tucking it between her half-folded underwear. If she’s going to be gone for a week, she’ll need something to help her relax.

Within a few more minutes, Y/N is repacked and ready to go. Her hunter green bridesmaid dress is carefully arranged on the very top of her clothes in her suitcase, all of her makeup and toiletries are packed inside, and Jo and Laure’s wedding rings are secured in little velvet boxes stashed between her socks. As far as physical preparedness goes, Y/N is ready to go on a coast to coast road trip. As far as mental preparedness goes, however…that’s the thing that Y/N’s not quite sure about.

…

“What are you doing?”

Y/N glances at Harry from the corner of her eye, her hand still half stretched out to the radio dials in his car. Although Harry’s green eyes are hidden behind his sunglasses, and his face is turned towards the long road in front of them, he still somehow manages to catch her motions, and it irritates her to no end.

“I’m changing the radio station?” Y/N answers after a moment, giving him a puzzled look. “I don’t know why you listen to this weird oldies station, but—”

“First of all—” Harry’s hands turn the steering wheel slightly to guide his car over the curve of the road, his jaw twitching as a smirk works its way onto his pink lips. “This isn’t a radio station, it’s my Spotify playlist. I put a Bluetooth connection in Stevie a year ago. Secondly—”

“Stevie?” Y/N repeats incredulously, twisting her whole body as best she can to look at Harry straight on. “You named your car? You’re one of those guys?”

Harry finally gives Y/N a flicker of a glance, the glare obvious in his eyes even behind his dark sunglasses. He turns his attention back to the road before replying. “Secondly—” He continues from before, ignoring her comment as his right hand readjusts the gear shift. “Driver picks the music.”

Y/N makes a face, the corners of her lips pulling down into a grimace as she settles back into the passenger seat with her arms crossed. “So we’re just going to listen to ‘Tiny Dancer’ for the entire drive, are we?”

“Not the entire drive, no.” Harry flicks on his turn signal with a ringed hand before shoulder checking to change lanes. Y/N glances at him, her eyes training on the strained muscles in his neck as Harry continues. “We’ll listen to ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,’ too.”

“Great.” Y/N exhales slowly and presses her head back into the seat’s headrest, closing her eyes as Elton John’s voice continues to float through the speakers. “Really looking forward to it.”

“You know, maybe you should try to sleep.” Harry says, his voice prickled with irritation as Elton John bleeds into The Zombies. “I think you’ll be in a better mood after you take a nap.”

Y/N readjusts her crossed arms as she mutters a short reply. “Don’t tell me what to do.” Still, she shuts her eyes again, twisting her body towards the window in an attempt to get comfortable enough to sleep. Being in the car with Harry is already giving her a throbbing migraine, and they’ve only been on the road for less than two hours. Sleeping through most of the trip will probably be the only way she’ll be able to survive it.

Despite that realization, however, her phone vibrates in her lap three minutes later, pulling her away from her thoughts. Y/N glances down at the now lit screen, catching her bottom lip between her teeth when she registers the name on the message. Opening her phone quickly, she reads over the reply as a guilty feeling begins to build in her stomach.

BRANT: Hey, what are you doing tonight? Want to grab some dinner?

“What’s wrong?”

“Hm?” Y/N’s head snaps back up, her eyes jerking in Harry’s direction. Like before, he’s watching her from the corner of his eye, catching every one of her movements, and the constant surveillance is annoying to no end.

Harry, it seems, is either oblivious to her annoyance, or is choosing to ignore it. “I asked what’s wrong. You have a weird look on your face.” Harry’s blunt words are accompanied by the sound of him tapping his ring covered fingers against the gear shift. “Everything alright? Is it Laure and Jo?”

“No, it’s just—” Y/N glances down at her phone again, fingers poised over her keyboard as she crafts a reply in her head. “It’s no one.”

Harry snorts once, a short and harsh sound that grates against Y/N’s nerves like nails on a chalkboard. “I don’t buy that for a second.”

“It’s no one to you.” Y/N updates her retort, turning her full attention back to her phone. “My personal life is none of your business.”

Y/N: I’m sorry, I can’t!! Caught a last minute ride to New York with somebody. Maybe once I’m back?

“Personal life, huh?” Harry clicks his tongue once, and the childish noise is even more irritating than his snort. “What, you can’t talk to me about whoever you’re shagging?”

The blunt remark hits Y/N like a shot to the chest, and she sputters for a moment as she struggles to form a response. “I—we’re not—” Taking a moment to gather herself and clear her throat quickly, Y/N avoids Harry’s gaze as her cheeks begin to burn. “We’re not like that. We’ve just…had a few dates, that’s all. There’s nothing…official.”

“You don’t need to be official to have a shag, now, do you?” Harry lifts his hand from the gear shift to fix his sunglasses, settling it back down on his jean covered thigh once he’s done. “If you don’t want to date the bloke—”

“I didn’t say that.” Y/N cuts over him, pulling herself from her embarrassment enough to give him a cold glare. “He’s very nice—”

“Boring, you mean—”

“And I—this is none of your business!” Feeling the flush of embarrassment rise back to her cheeks, Y/N once again turns her attention to her passenger seat window, avoiding Harry’s pressing gaze. “I’m done talking about this.”

Harry gives an indifferent shrug. “Whatever.” He says casually, tapping his finger against his thigh as his shoulders once again lift slightly beneath his fitted black t-shirt. “I just feel bad for the guy, that’s all.”

The comment is bait. And the thing is, Y/N knows it’s bait. She knows that the only reason Harry is saying it is to get under her skin and keep her talking about Brant, further embarrassing herself in the process. She’s been around Harry enough to know how he works, and she knows that the only reason he would say that is to bait her. She knows she shouldn’t take it. And yet—

“There’s no reason to feel bad for him.” Y/N scoffs as she fidgets with the position of her seatbelt, trying to stop the strap from cutting into her chest. “We’ve been talking for a month, and there’s nothing official happening. Just because you can’t go that long without trying to stick your dick in someone—”

“You have no idea what I can do, Y/N. Don’t pretend that you do.” Harry’s tone of voice is just as scoffing as hers, his eyes still set on the road in front of them intently as he gives his sharp response. Y/N watches as he shifts the gears of the car and speeds up, just enough to make the engine roar, but not enough to lose control of the car. Part of Y/N wistfully wishes that he would just slip up and crash the car, just so she wouldn’t have to continue this conversation.

“All I meant,” Harry continues, unaware of the dark daydreams running through Y/N’s head. “Is that I feel bad that you’re clearly not interested in him, which is proven by the fact that you haven’t wanted him in your bed.”

Irritation flares through Y/N’s body again, stronger than the embarrassment of discussing her sex life (or lack thereof) with Harry, and she half considers just grabbing the steering wheel and yanking it into a passing cliff so she can finish them off herself. “For Christ’s sake, Harry, sex isn’t the only way to—”

“I don’t mean actually having it, that’s not a given.” Harry rolls his eyes from behind his sunglasses as he slows down for a curve in the road, his practiced hands once again changing gears with ease. “You don’t have to fuck him. But you should want to, especially if you’ve had a month of dates, and you clearly don’t want to.”

Y/N doesn’t hide the incredulous stare of disbelief on her face as she turns to look at him. Harry’s face, though turned towards the road still, has a look of amusement mixed with contemplation on it, and it takes all of Y/N’s self control not to smack the expression off of him. Although there’s the ghost of a smirk on his strawberry coloured lips, his brow is furrowed behind his sunglasses, as if he’s thinking hard about the conversation between them. Normally, Y/N would be amazed that Harry is thinking hard about anything. However, given that their conversation is apparently turning into whether or not she wants to have sex with someone, Y/N’s not too thrilled about his sudden investment and serious contemplation of the topic.

Shaking her head decidedly, Y/N finally spits out a finishing phrase. “You don’t know what I want.” She says decidedly, reaching into the backseat to grab the sweater she stashed back there. She clumsily pulls it over her body without taking off her seatbelt. Harry keeps the AC cranked as high as he can, and she knows that he’ll kill her if she tries to change it. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know more than you think.” Harry counters, the tip of his tongue running along his bottom lip. “And I’m pretty good at reading body language. You don’t really want him. He—what’s his name?”

Despite her better judgement, Y/N answers in a flat voice. “Brant.”

The corners of Harry’s cherry lip twitches. “Brant. Yeah. It’s clear you don’t really want him, and you’re wasting your time. You’re wasting his time, too. Poor Brant.”

“Poor—you’re such an ass, you know that?” Y/N’s irritation bubbles over as she gives Harry a nasty look, her hand squeezing her thigh hard in an attempt to ground herself in their conversation. “You can try to pretend otherwise, but you don’t know anything about me, or him, so—”

“You think I’ve been friends with Laure and Jo this long and haven’t learned anything about you?” Harry cocks an eyebrow, risking a glance at her as he presses a heavier foot onto the gas. “I told you, I know more than you think, and that includes your type.”

An incredulous scoff leaves Y/N’s mouth, and she shakes her head in obvious disbelief before responding. “My type. Right. What is my type, then? What’s Brant like, exactly, since you seem to know everything?”

Harry goes quiet then, his brow furrowing again as he returns his full attention to the road. With his incessant chatter gone, the only sounds in the car being “Maps” playing quietly in the background and Harry’s ringed index and forefinger tap on the steering wheel. Y/N breathes out a long sigh of satisfaction as she relaxes back in her seat, her attention turned back to the blurred landscapes speeding by her window. Finally, she’s managed to get Harry to stop with his ridiculous assumptions—

“You like someone that’s stable and secure, so he probably works in some corporation, or an office job. Majored in business, I’d think, but has a minor in something like mathematics.” The side profile of Harry’s nose wrinkles in disgust at the thought. “He wants to work his way up in the company, but never wants to actually start anything on his own. He likes the stability of a blueprint. You’re obsessed with punctuality, so he’s probably always on time to pick you up for dates—and he has to pick you up, because you don’t drive—and your dates are never really dates. Dinners, or movies, or something like that, but they never really have that spark.” Harry’s shoulder lift slightly as he continues to make his conclusions. “Which, honestly, is probably a big reason in why you don’t want to fuck him, because as much as you like stability and safety, you also like the idea of a grand gesture, or something like that. And you probably split the bill a lot at dinner, right? Because it just seems fair, but really it’s because you know it’s not a real date. But it passes the time, and he’s nice, so it’s fine. But it’s only fine.” Harry licks his lips once more as he collects his next thoughts, his teeth catching his bottom lip just barely as his tongue retreats back into his mouth. “And he’s probably already talking about you coming to meet his family for some holiday. Not in a romantic way, but just because he likes to plan everything in advance to every minute detail. Just like you.”

Halfway through Harry’s speech, a flush had begun to creep up Y/N’s neck, continuing to warm her jaw and ears before settling on the apples of her cheeks. She keeps her eyes trained on her window and her mouth pressed into a tight line, refusing to look at Harry and give him any hint of just how shocked she is that he’s guessed so much.

Harry, however, doesn’t plan on letting her get away from his inquisition. “Well?” He impatiently prompts after a moment, and even though she’s not looking at him, she can feel him looking at her, his emerald irises burning into the back of her head. “Am I right?”

“I—” Y/N clears her throat quickly, but her voice is still strained and tight when she replies. “No.”

Harry hums low in his throat, and his voice is laced with curiosity with he replies. “Really?” The irritating tap of his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of the music continues. “What did I get wrong?”

“He—” Y/N hates the way her skin is burning from his interrogation, how her voice shrinks smaller and smaller the more she speaks. If Harry knows her so well, then he knows how much she loves being in control, and in this situation, with Harry managing to pull every one of her most secret inner thoughts and feelings out of her without trouble, she feels anything but in control. “He has a minor in accounting, not mathematics.”

The laugh that leaves Harry’s mouth is loud and bombastic, and his whole body curves over the steering wheel as the sound rolls out of him, his eyes just barely managing to stay on the road while his sunglasses slide down his nose. “Right.” Harry says between belly laughs, his voice stretched out in amusement. “But everything else was spot on?”

Y/N keeps her stiff body turned towards the window, refusing to engage in the conversation any further. That doesn’t stop Harry, however, who fixes his sunglasses as chuckles continue to roll out of him.

“I take it back. Maybe he’s the one wasting your time.” His hand runs through his hair lazily, fixing the curled strands that had fallen into his eyes as he laughed. “I don’t blame you for not wanting to sleep with your bore of a boyfriend—”

“He’s stable!” Y/N breaks her silence to protest Harry’s words, her voice heated. “And he’s not my boyfriend. We’ve been seeing each other, but we’re not—it’s not exclusive, or—nothing serious—”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me. It’s fine.” Harry waves off her arguments with a flick of his tattooed hand. “Besides, like you said, it’s none of my business, right?”

Y/N can practically picture what Harry looks like in this moment. His chestnut curls are probably a mess from fidgeting with them, and his cheeks are most likely rosy beneath his stubble from the peels of laughter that left his equally red lips a moment ago. Most infuriatingly of all, his dimples are probably present, making little indentations in his cheeks to show how entertaining he’s found embarrassing her. Bastard, she thinks, clenching her fists so hard that her nails dig into her palms, pressing them into her sides beneath her makeshift blanket.

She refuses to let herself confirm if her suspicions about Harry’s appearance are correct, and instead keeps her gaze on the blurred trees whipping by outside her window. “Right.” She mutters, leaning her head against the headrest as she closes her eyes. “It’s none of your business.”

…

As soon as the paint-peeled door to the motel room swings open, Y/N knows that she’s not going to be sleeping soundly tonight.

She’s not sure what her first hint should have been. Perhaps it was the half-flickering blue and red light of the Motel 6 sign that should have tipped her off, or the front-desk attendant who looked as though he was hiding a few secrets himself. When Y/N and Harry had first approached the front desk of the tiny, vaguely mildew-smelling lobby, their clothes rumpled from the drive and their attitudes just as bothered, the employee in the Motel 6 uniform had barely raised an eye at them, not bothering to look up from his computer until Y/N and Harry were directly in front of him.

“Hi.” Harry had said, his voice taking on a cautious but polite tone that, Y/N remembers thinking, she would have appreciated hearing throughout their eight hour drive that day. “We’d like two rooms, please—”

“Here.” The attendant’s gum snapped in his mouth as he reached behind himself and grabbed an old key with a flimsy blue plastic tag from a wall of empty pegs. “Queen sized bed, the first door on the left. It’ll do you two nicely.”

“Um, no.” Harry cleared his throat loudly as he gave a slight shake of his head. “We need two rooms.”

Finally, the attendant looked towards them, his eyes scanning Harry before Y/N. The latter had self consciously pulled her sweater around her, as there was something in the attendant’s eyes that had bothered her. “Don’t have two rooms. I got one room left. Everything else is booked.”

Harry had glanced at Y/N then, and she knew that his thoughts mirrored hers: there was no way that they’d share a queen bed together. No way in hell. They’d barely survived eight hours in the same cramped car without one of them driving them off a cliff. If Y/N had to share a bed with Harry, even for just one night, she’d probably end up smothering him in his sleep before the first snore left his obnoxious mouth.

“That’s really not an option.” Y/N had stepped forward then, crossing her arms around herself as the attendant’s eyes canvassed her again. “Isn’t there something—”

“Look, lady, I’m telling you what’s available.” The attendant’s eyes continued to flicker between her face and her chest, making Y/N’s skin crawl more and more with every word that fell from his gum-filled mouth. “The room might have a pull out chair—some do, but I couldn’t tell you which. Now do you want to share the room with him or not? If you don’t want to share, then I could try to find something else for just you—”

Before Y/N had the opportunity to respond to the lewd suggestion, Harry was already stepping forward, his body angling protectively in front of her own. She watched from behind as his broad shoulders squared beneath his black t-shirt, his shoulder blades flexing as he straightened up to his full height. When Harry answered, his voice was just as firm as it was dark, lacking its previous polite tone.

“We’ll take the room.” He had said coldly, reaching into his back pocket to pull out his wallet before tossing a few bills on the front desk. “Thanks for the help.”

Yes, Y/N thinks, all of that should have been a sign for the state of the motel room that they now find themselves standing inside.

The same mildew smell from the lobby surrounds them, permeating through every inch of air that Y/N breathes in. Dust seems to coat every surface as well, with thick layers of it covering the decades old TV and stand, the small coffee table, and the ledge of the window to her right. To her relief, there is a small arm chair in the corner, which must be the pull out that the attendant had mentioned. However, her relief is short lived when she sees the ratty beige comforter on the bed, and wonders if maybe sleeping in Harry’s car, which she had sworn to him that she didn’t want to do, might have been the better choice.

Harry shuts the door behind them with a firm thud, turning the deadbolt lock before attaching the chain from the door to the door frame. “Let’s keep that locked, yeah?” He mutters, walking to the window and making sure the beige curtains—everything in the room is a sea of beige, like some sort of khaki coloured nightmare—are pulled closed tightly. “I don’t trust that front-desk prick not to sneak in here.”

Y/N nods, fixing the strap of her duffel bag with her overnight clothes on her shoulder. She’s not quite sure where to set it down, as everything around them seems to have been sitting stagnant and uncleaned for a while. “Yeah. Thanks, by the way. For that.”

Harry acknowledges her thanks with a small grunt, barely lifting his head to look at her. “You don’t need to thank me.”

Despite her gratitude for his actions, Y/N can’t stop herself from rolling her eyes at his gruff response. “Jesus, can you not just say you’re welcome?”

Harry chooses to ignore her comment, and instead sets his bag down on the arm chair, unzipping it roughly. “You can take the bed.” He says simply, tossing his sunglasses into his bag before pulling out a small bag filled with what Y/N assumes are toiletries. “I’ll take the pullout.”

“Fine.” Y/N reluctantly sets her own bag down on the creaking bed, pulling back the covers to check for anything unsightly. To her relief, the interior of the bed looks cleaner than the exterior, and she returns the covers to their previous position before grabbing her phone charger from her duffel.

Harry glances at her as she gingerly sits on the bed and plugs her phone into the wall. “I’m going to shower.” He says slowly, as if gauging her reaction to the simple phrase. “Do you, um, need in there, or—?”

“Nope.” Y/N shakes her head, her cheeks flushing slightly as she checks her messages. “You’re good.” She keeps her eyes glued to her phone until she hears the click of the bathroom door behind Harry, signalling that she’s alone.

Taking advantage of what she knows will be a rare moment of solitude over the next week, Y/N changes from her tank top and leggings into her pajamas, wishing that her past self had realized how likely it would be that she’d be sharing a room with Harry. She’d brought exactly two pairs of pajamas with her on the trip, and neither pairs were something she wanted Harry to see her in. The first pair, a baby pink silk set she’d bought on a whim from her favourite lingerie shop, is eliminated before Y/N even considers them, leaving her with just her usual casual pajamas. Unfortunately, Y/N’s usual casual pajamas consist of an old sports bra that she’d had since moving to L.A., and a pair of men’s boxers that she stole from an ex in college. Still, despite her hesitancy, she knows that plaid boxers and a faded grey sports bra are better than pink silk and lace, and she changes into them quickly before sitting cross-legged on the bed and dialing Jo’s number.

Jo, like she usually does, answers on the third ring, her voice extra chipper to compensate for the verbal lecture that she knows is coming. “Hey, Y/N! How was driving today?”

“It would have been better if I’d known Harry was driving.” Y/N sighs, rubbing her palm over the cold skin of her exposed thigh. “Shouldn’t I have been informed of that decision?”

“It completely slipped my mind, actually.” Jo says casually, and Y/N can just picture her leaning her chin into her palm. “How was the first day? Are you calling to ask me to help bury his body in the desert? Because, like, you know I would in a heart beat, but I think it may put a damper on mine and Laure’s nuptials if my best friend murders her best friend.”

“No one’s been murdered. Yet.” Y/N glances at the bathroom door, the sound of the shower echoing through the vents and into the bedroom. “Although a ‘help me hide the body’ phone call may be coming soon.”

“Uh oh.” Y/N hears something crackling against the speaker, and pictures Jo shifting the phone from one ear to the other. “Is it that bad?”

Y/N pinches the bridge of her nose as she contemplates the easiest way to answer Jo’s question. “He’s such an irritating ass. He really is.” She lowers her voice, but only slightly. If Harry’s eavesdropping, she thinks, then let him hear. It would serve him right. “He wanted to pick a fight over every little thing, and he’s so particular about his car—did you know he named it? He named it, Jo. He talks about it like it’s a person!”

A loud sigh echoes through the speaker. “That’s really not that weird, you know.” Jo replies in her best peace keeping voice. “And, by the way, did you know that you’re really the only person who finds Harry irritating? Laure adores him, and I really like him, and everyone who meets him thinks he’s very thoughtful!”

“Then they haven’t been trapped in a car with him and his playlists for eight hours.” Y/N begins to tap her fingers against her knee in a quick staccato pattern. “He practically interrogated me about Brant today, as if he has any clue about the people I date.”

“Did he?” There’s a trace of curiosity in Jo’s voice now, and Y/N can imagine her leaning forward in interest. “What did he say?”

“He said he thinks he’s boring.” Twisting a lock of her hair behind her ear as she speaks, Y/N leaves her hand resting against her cheek. “He was rude about it, too. I didn’t ask for his opinion.”

“Well, honestly, Y/N…” Jo’s curiosity twists into hesitation. “Brant isn’t exactly the most thrilling person. You know that.”

Y/N tugs her bottom lip between her teeth, her cheeks flushing for what seems to be the millionth time that day. “I’m aware of that. But he didn’t need to be so smug about it!”

“Okay, well, what’s done is done.” Jo says as she takes on her mediator persona once again. “So there’s nothing else to do now except go to sleep, get back in the car tomorrow, and continue driving.”

The sound of the shower stream cuts off, leaving just the pitter patter of rain beginning to hit the roof of the motel as ambiant noise. “I guess.” Y/N mumbles, fidgeting with the waistband of her bra. “I’ll talk to you later. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

After the line clicks dead, Y/N flops back on the squeaking mattress and begins to scroll through her phone, opening her work email to check if everything is running okay back home while she’s gone. On top of all this, the last thing she needs is for her work to completely blow up in her absence. Within minutes, Y/N becomes so engrossed in her phone that she doesn’t even notice the bathroom door creaking open and Harry walking out with just a towel around his waist.

Until she looks up, and then her mind goes completely blank.

Immediately, Y/N feels overstimulated. There’s just…so much going on that she doesn’t even know where to look first, let alone have the ability to remind herself that she shouldn’t even be looking at Harry like this in the first place.

Harry’s curls are soaking wet, curling down around his flushed cheeks in a way that, if it were anyone else, she’d immediately describe as attractive. Droplets of water are clinging to every inch of his skin, his toned and tanned and tattooed skin, that seems to continue forever as her eyes travel down his bare chest, noticing every curve of his muscle. His jade cross, which is almost the exact shade of his eyes, sits between his pronounced pectoral muscles, moving ever so slightly with each step he takes. Y/N notices tattoos she’s never seen before, like the giant butterfly across his toned stomach, and—her mind goes blank for just a moment—two vines that are tattooed over his prominent pelvic muscles, which just barely dip beneath the white towel that’s wrapped loosely around his hips.

As Y/N’s eyes glue themselves to the way Harry’s towel is moving as he walks, arousal begins to pool in her stomach, travelling all the way down to her core and back again. For a split second, she thinks that maybe Harry is right. Maybe she doesn’t want to fuck Brant, because she knows for certain that she’s never thought about him the way she’s thinking about Harry in this moment.

But it’s Harry, she reminds herself, as she tries to force herself to snap her gaping mouth closed. Underneath all those muscles and tattoos—and there are a lot of muscles and tattoos—it’s Harry, who annoys her to no end, who is one of the most self-absorbed individuals she’s ever met, and who has had it out for her since the day they met.

“Sorry.” Harry’s low accent snaps Y/N from her thoughts and pulls her wandering eyes back to his face. “Forgot my clothes out here.”

“It’s—” Y/N’s voice cracks in the middle of the word, still hyper-focused on just how it’s possible for one person to be as attractive as they are irritating, and she clears her throat before trying to speak again. “It’s fine.”

If Harry notices the slip in Y/N’s voice, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he just walks to his open bag, locking one hand firmly over his towel as the other searches through his clothes. He pulls out a t-shirt and a pair of shorts, examining them for just a moment before nodding in satisfaction and heading back to the bathroom. Y/N almost swears that she sees him glance at her one last time before he shuts the door, but then she gets lost in the taut muscles of his back, and forgets what she’s thinking entirely.

She’s only just begun to contemplate that maybe she should pull herself together when the door opens again, and Harry exits the bathroom in a way that’s a little more presentable. His hair is still damp, but his body is dry, proven by the faded Rolling Stones t-shirt that’s now clinging to his arms and the boxers that are hanging low on his hips. His tattooed hips. His incredibly sexy tattooed hips that could probably—

“What are you wearing?” Harry asks, raising an eyebrow at her as he moves his bag from the chair to the ground. He begins to unfold the bed from the armchair cushions to reveal a creaking twin bed, carefully stretching it out as he waits for an answer.

“I—pajamas.” Y/N glances down at herself self consciously, fixing the strap of her sports bra as she does so. “I just—I didn’t think we’d be sharing a room, so…”

Harry nods tersely as he finishes setting up the bed, his expression unreadable while he walks to the closet and grabs a set of sheets and a blanket. “Cute boxers.” He says casually. “Are they Brant’s?”

Within a flash, the intense rush of attraction and desire Y/N had been feeling is gone, and is instead replaced by the familiar irritation as she watches a smirk grow in the very corner of Harry’s mouth. “No.” She says flatly, turning her attention back to her phone.

“Interesting.” Harry says slowly, laying the sheets and blanket on the bed in a haphazard manner. “Whose are they, then?”

Y/N gets up from the bed and grabs her toiletry bag from her duffel before answering. “An ex.” She says shortly, tucking the patterned bag under her arm. “And why does it matter to you?”

The sound of the rain against the roof and windows gets louder and louder as they speak, and Harry raises his voice to be heard over the precipitation. “It doesn’t.” He shrugs as he maneuvers his lanky body under the blanket without causing the bed to fold in on itself. “Just curious, that’s all.”

“Well, you don’t need to be curious.” Y/N opens the bathroom door, sparing one last withering glance at Harry over her shoulder. He’s sitting up on the bed with one leg hanging out from beneath the covers as one hand plays with his hair, the other fiddles with a ring on his finger, and the way he looks at her from the corner of his eye lights a fire in Y/N’s chest. Except she can’t tell if it’s a fire of anger or arousal.

When she slams the door behind her, it’s her own confusion over that distinction that frustrates her more than anything else.

…

“Took you long enough.” Harry scoffs while leaning against the side of his car, his white t-shirt a contrast to the dust covered body of the black Chevy Impala. His dark sunglasses are perched on top of his head, keeping his unruly curls out of his eyes, while his arms are crossed over his chest impatiently as he waits for an answer. “I dropped off the keys ten minutes ago.”

By way of explanation, Y/N holds up the cardboard drink tray in her hands, a brown bag balancing in between the two coffee cups. “I was getting us breakfast, Styles. Calm down.” She walks to the passenger side of the car, opening the door and climbing in one handed. “I figured you’d be even crabbier hungry.”

“You mean you’d be crabbier without caffeine.” Harry retorts, climbing into the driver’s side in one smooth motion. “Here—” He takes the tray from her so she can buckle her seatbelt, carefully removing the two coffees and setting them in the cup holders between them. “Just be careful not to spill anything.”

Y/N rolls her eyes as she picks up the coffee closest to her (she’d gotten them both black). “Why? Worried about me ruining Stevie?”

Harry reaches into his pocket, pulling out his keys as he gives her an irritated look. “Yes, actually. I’ve put a lot of work into her.” The car roars to life as Harry turns the key in the ignition, buckling his own seat as the motor warms up. “Adding on two thousand miles to her in five days is already worrisome enough, and that’s not even counting the other two thousand she’ll get on the way back.”

Y/N doesn’t respond to the comment, and instead lets the sound of Harry’s playlist fill the silence of the car as Harry peels out of the Motel 6 parking lot. She’ll be glad to leave that place behind, she thinks, and focus on finding something better—and more private—for tonight, wherever they end up.

Harry, however, doesn’t seem content with letting silence fall between them. “How did you sleep last night?” He asks after a few moments, one hand on the steering wheel as he takes a sip of his coffee.

Glancing at him from the corner of her eye suspiciously, Y/N reaches into the paper bag and grabs her Danish, taking a small bite before answering. “Not great.”

“Was the bed bad?” Harry asks curiously, his brow furrowing while his eyes stay glued to the road, moving only to glance at the occasion sign directing him back to the highway. “The pull out wasn’t great, but I’ve slept on worse. I would’ve thought the bed would be better than that.”

“No, it—I mean, the bed wasn’t amazing, but it—” Y/N clears her throat and swallows the bite of pastry in her mouth. “I, uh, I don’t sleep well when it’s raining.”

At this new information, Harry’s eyebrow quirks up, and he risks a look in her direction to attempt to read her face. Y/N’s own eyes are focused on the Danish in her hands, refusing to meet his gaze as she lifts the pastry to her mouth to take another bite.

“You don’t?” Harry asks after a moment, the confusion in his voice almost visible within the space between them. “But it’s like white noise, isn’t it? Supposed to be relaxing, and all that.”

Y/N gives a half shrug of her shoulders. “It’s—well, it’s not the rain, exactly, just—what it’s usually paired with.” Y/N hopes that her clear hesitancy to answer will be enough of a signal to Harry for him to drop the subject. Harry, however, doesn’t seem to pick up on the reluctance in Y/N’s voice; or, at least, he doesn’t care enough to acknowledge it.

“What do you mean, what it’s paired with?” Harry takes a small sip of his own coffee, careful of the temperature of the liquid. “Like…wind, or—?”

Y/N debates back and forth with herself internally, but she knows that Harry won’t drop the subject without getting a satisfying answer. “Thunder.” She answers finally, setting her coffee down in her cup holder before turning her gaze towards her window. “I don’t like thunderstorms, ever since I was a little kid, and when it’s raining, it always feels like thunder is around the corner. Puts me on edge, like I’m waiting for it. And I can’t sleep.”

“So you never sleep when it rains?” Harry asks slowly, and the tone of incredulous disbelief in Harry’s voice is enough for Y/N to be able to imagine the expression on his face. His forest green eyes wide, strawberry pink lips agape, brow furrowed in confusion, his jaw slack as he contemplates a response to a grown woman admitting that she’s afraid of thunder. The image in her head is enough to make the back of her neck flush.

There’s a tightness in the back of her throat, and Y/N attempts to clear it again before answering. “Never.”

“Huh.” Harry taps his fingers against the gear shift in succession three times. “You’d hate London, then.”

The casual comment catches Y/N by surprise, but she doesn’t allow herself to lower her guard. “That’s why I don’t live in London.” She mumbles the words as her fingers pick at the napkin wrapped around her Danish. “I picked L.A. for a reason. It has lots of heat, barely any rain, and I’m reasonably close to Disneyland whenever I feel like I need something magical.” The last part slips out without Y/N thinking, and the flush creeps further up her neck as a surprised laugh leaves Harry’s mouth.

“Something magical?” Harry repeats, new crinkles appearing next to his eyes as he laughs, as if the dimples that crease his cheeks aren’t proof of his amusement enough. “Do you frequently feel like you need something magical?”

It’s Y/N’s turn to give an incredulous look now, her body half twisting towards Harry to observe his confusing reactions. “How did I just admit that I’m afraid of thunder, and the thing you’re focusing on is that I like Disney?”

Harry shrugs at her words, flicking on his turn signal to exit towards the highway. “I don’t know.” He says as he peers over his shoulder to check for oncoming cars. “I mean, everyone has fears. Not liking thunder isn’t exactly uncommon, you know. However, hearing that Ms. Serious Type A Perfectionist likes magic—” His grin grows bigger by the second. “Now that’s surprising.”

“Oh, shut up.” Y/N mutters, finishing her Danish in a few more bites. She waits until she’s entirely finished chewing before continuing the conversation over the voice of Billy Joel coming through the speakers. “Since I’ve admitted something I’m afraid of…” She starts, glancing at Harry from the corner of her eye. “I think it’s only fair that you admit something, too.”

Harry snorts in response, his hand freezing its movement with his coffee cup still half lifted to his lips. “Is that so?”

“Mhmm.” Y/N hums as she slips off her shoes in order to pull her legs beneath her to fold into a cross-legged position on the car seat. “Not so much fun when it’s your turn, huh? C’mon, what’s the Brit scared of? Not enough biscuits for afternoon tea?”

A short and harsh breath of air leaves Harry’s nose, half a snort as he sets his coffee down in his cupholder. “No, actually, diminishing biscuit levels are a low level fear for me.”

“Then what’s a higher one?” Y/N prods, watching as Harry’s neck muscles tense as he shoulder checks to change lanes. There’s something about the movement that catches her eye, but she can’t quite figure out why—or rather, she can, but she’d rather pretend that she’s unaware.

“Uh…” Harry’s fingers nimbly switch on his turn signal before he transitions to the left lane, his right hand moving the gear shift to its desired place. “Crowds. I’m not a fan of big crowds, really. Like when everyone’s pressed together, so tight that you can’t breathe, and you can’t hear yourself think because it’s so loud…yeah. I don’t like that.”

The simple answer surprises Y/N as much as she imagines her answer surprised Harry. “Crowds?” She repeats back to him, a forgotten memory of long gone conversations coming to the forefront of her mind. “But what about, like, concerts and stuff? Laure always told me when she’d go to shows with you…”

“That’s different.” Harry shrugs as one of his ringed hands comes to his lips, rubbing over them slowly as he contemplates his next words. “I…When I’m at concerts, I always go with someone, and if we’re in the general seating area, where there’s a lot of people, I always stick with them. Like, sometimes, if it’s getting crowded, or people are pushing, Laure will hold my hand, so…” Redness begins to creep up Harry’s pale neck, staining the tops of his ears a deep berry colour as he trails off.

Not for the first time since their conversation began, Y/N is surprised at how candid they’re being with each other. As she watches Harry’s blush grow, she feels her own diminish, a physical representation of her trading her embarrassment for something more empathetic.

“I get it.” Y/N says after a moment, once it’s clear that Harry isn’t going to continue. “When there’s thunderstorms, um, I feel better when I’m with someone, or talking to someone. It makes me feel less…”

“Alone?” Harry finishes for her, his eyes flickering from the road to her profile. His green irises capture hers for longer than they should, his focus completely gone from the stretch of highway for at least five seconds before Harry’s attention turns back to driving. “Yeah.” He says slowly, pulling his sunglasses down from his hair to hide his eyes. “Yeah, less alone. It helps.”

Y/N nods slowly, unable to look away from Harry’s side profile. It’s apparent that he’s on edge after their conversation, and she knows her body language is the same. Tight in the shoulders, hands clenched, back rigidly straight. And yet, seeing her own body language reflected in front of her bothers her. Part of her wants to reach out and take Harry’s hand, soothe him like Laure does in the crowd of a concert, but she knows that’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous, and it’s Harry, and Harry, of all people, does not need her comfort. Not in the slightest.

She watches as Harry clenches his fist on top of his thigh.

…

“Is this really necessary?” Y/N asks, slamming her car door shut as Harry does the same on the other side of the vehicle. She leans over the roof of the car, crossing her arms on the cool metal as she tilts her head to the side in an inquisitive manner. The clouds in the sky are getting darker by the minute, signalling the beginning of the storm that canceled her flight, and the angry black colour above their heads is making Y/N anxious.

Harry, however, seems unbothered by the gathering storm, and nods tersely as he pushes his sunglasses up onto his head before opening the door to the backseat and grabbing his army green jacket. “Of course it’s necessary.” He says, slipping the jacket over his broad shoulders before slamming the door shut and locking the car. “I’ve never been to Utah before. I want a souvenir.”

“Okay, but—” Y/N follows Harry as he walks towards the dilapidated building in front of them. “Here? Really? Does this seem like the best place?”

Harry glances at her over his shoulder at her, pausing his long strides to look up at the building he spotted from the highway. If the chipped grey paint that was once pastel blue and dust-coated windows are any sign, the structure is probably older than Harry and Y/N combined, with a splintered front porch wrapping around its small perimeter. The building has one faded sign above the door that reads “SOUVENIRS/SNACKS” in hand-painted capital letters, and seems to be hanging onto the outside façade by three small bolts and sheer willpower. Y/N’s almost certain that she’s seen this exact building in a horror movie before someone gets murdered, and while getting back into the car with Harry isn’t at the top of her list of wants, it’s certainly preferable to getting stabbed to death by a serial killer.

“It’s fine, Y/N.” Harry waves off her concern without a second thought about the appearance of the shop. “If you’re really bothered, you can wait in the car.”

Y/N considers it for a moment, but decides against it. She needs to stretch her legs, and honestly, Harry seems too trusting. He probably wouldn’t be able to tell if someone was sketchy until their knife was in his back. And, seeing as how he has the keys to the only getaway car available, Y/N kind of needs him around without a stab wound carved into his flesh.

“Let’s just get this over with.” She sighs, pulling her own jacket around her tighter as she steps over the worn wooden steps to the door. “We’re on a schedule.”

When Harry pushes open the door, the smell of stale air hits Y/N before anything else. Despite one open window and a fan in the corner of the shop that’s being used in a weak attempt to circulate the air, it feels like nothing fresh has been in the shop for a while. Y/N shoots a glance at Harry, caution and warning written all over her face.

While Harry sees her glance, he waves off her concern, turning his attention to the few shelves and wire racks around the small shop that are lined with inventory. Within a few moments, he’s entertaining himself in the post card section, comparing different photos of the Utah landscape to each other with great care and concern. Y/N observes him for a few moments before wandering off on her own towards the snack section of the shop. Although there are a few items that she thinks about picking up, the thick layer of dust over the packaging puts her off from purchasing them. She grimaces as she continues walking, stopping in front of a tower of silver key chains in the back corner of the shop. Most of them, she finds, are crosses and bible verses, and all of them give her an ominous feeling in her stomach. Y/N runs her finger over a miniature silver version of the Ten Commandments, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth as she does so.

“I think we should go, Harry.” She calls to him without turning around, setting the key chain back down on the rack carefully. “Just pick your post card and—Harry?”

When Y/N turns around, Harry’s broad figure is nowhere to be seen. She walks back over to the post card section slowly, her brow furrowed with confusion as a knot tightens in her stomach. Where could he be? She wonders, running her hand along the dusty wire rack in front of her. It’s not like there’s anywhere for him to go in the small shop, and she would have heard if he left, or if he drove away.

“Harry?” She calls again, her steps slower now as worry fills her voice. “Where did you—fuck—!” Y/N screams as something grabs her from behind, its fingers digging into her sides harshly. She whips around to find Harry standing over her, loud outbursts of laughter spilling from his strawberry pink mouth at the look on her face.

An indignant flush rushes over Y/N’s face. “You’re such an ass!” She hisses, gripping his shoulders and shoving his laughing frame away from her. “I swear, you’re like a five year old—”

“Did I worry you?” Harry snickers between his words, a wicked look of mischief alight in his dark green eyes. “Were you afraid something happened to me?”

Y/N’s cheeks burn with anger as she turns away from him, crossing her arms defiantly. “No. I wish something had happened to you. Then I wouldn’t have to deal with your immature antics.”

Harry’s lips stay quirked up in a smirk as he follows her, his voice falling into a singsong tone. “You were worried.” He insists, chuckles still rolling out of him every few moments. “I could tell.”

“Oh, fuck off.” Y/N snaps at him in an irritated voice. “Just pay for your stupid post card and let’s go.”

“I already did. There’s a sign on the desk saying the clerk is out for lunch, so I left some money.” Harry nods to the small desk in the corner with a few dollars left tucked under the dusty service bell. “I think that’ll cover it, yeah?”

“Whatever.” Y/N can’t resist shoving Harry one last time before walking towards the shop door. “That’s enough. Let’s go. I want to make it to the motel before the storm hits.”

…

The nice thing about Grand Junction, Colorado, Y/N realizes, is that their motels have multiple single rooms available on short notice. While she didn’t realize the importance of this fact before this trip started, having an evening of solitude and her own stable space away from Harry for the first time in two days is nothing short of a blessing.

When she gets inside her private motel room, which, while still shabby, is leagues above their previous motel, Y/N locks the door before breathing a sigh of relief. Just the silence in the room is wonderful, and even though she knows Harry is right next door, having a wall between them is a luxury that she doesn’t take for granted. When she showers, she doesn’t have to worry about being quick, or toweling off as fast as she can so she can get dressed inside the bathroom without Harry seeing. There’s no need to worry about anyone hearing Y/N sing quietly to herself under the (albeit weak) stream of the shower, nor is there an uncomfortable stick of her sports bra to her back caused by water droplets that she couldn’t reach in her hurry to dry off. And after her shower, with some of the knots from her back finally worked out, Y/N is able to stretch out on the double bed in the center of the room, her phone in her hand as she reaches for the takeout menus stacked on the bedside table. She peruses the menus available before settling on Chinese takeout, and within five minutes, her order of a two entrée plate and fried rice is on its way.

Y/N sighs gently as she leans back on the pillows, wishing that she and Harry had stopped at a liquor store before coming to the motel. She knows she could probably walk to one, but now that she’s showered and comfortable, the last thing she wants to do is wander around Grand Junction until she finds a bottle of Moscato. Instead, Y/N flicks on the TV with a click of the ancient remote, and begins scrolling through the channels until she finds a rerun of Dirty Dancing that’s just starting.

An amused yet wry smile appears on Y/N’s lips. It’s this movie’s fault that she and Harry are on an impromptu road trip, really. Jo and Laure both loved it, and were insistent that they had to get married at a resort in the Catskills similar to one from the film. As her two friends cross her mind, Y/N settles into the sheets as Baby begins her narration, contemplating whether or not she should call Jo to check in. Just as the thought pops into her head, however, the phone rings.

Y/N answers within a moment, not bothering to check the caller ID. She and Jo had a strange habit of calling each other the moment the other thought of it, and when she raises her phone to her ear, she expects to hear her best friend’s familiar voice reply. “Hello?”

What voice she actually hears, however, surprises her. “Hey, Y/N. I’m glad I got through.” Brant says easily, his voice crackling slightly through the speaker. “How are you?”

“Brant!” Y/N jerks up in bed in surprise, the remote falling from its perch on her stomach onto the sheets. “I—I’m fine. How are you?”

“Oh, alright. Just busy with work, but that’s the usual.” Y/N can practically picture the neutral expression on his face, and how he’d shrug his shoulders as he speaks. “How’s the road trip? I can’t imagine driving for as long as you have to drive.”

“It’s…it’s alright, yeah.” Y/N speaks slowly as she puts her phone on speaker, balancing it on her knee while her hands begin to fidget with her rings. “Long, but not too bad.”

“Well, that’s good.” Brant clears his throat thickly, as if what he’s about to say makes him uncomfortable. “I miss you, though. And our weekly dinners.”

A feeling of guilt washes over Y/N. Truthfully, besides Harry’s inquisition on the first day of driving, Brant has barely crossed her mind. Granted, he isn’t usually at the forefront of her mind while she’s in L.A., either, but for the last few days, her thoughts have been constantly consumed by the stress of making it to the wedding and her annoyance and frustration with Harry.

“Y/N?” Brant’s voice crackles through her speaker again. “Are you there?

“I—yeah.” She says quickly, pulling herself from her thoughts. “Sorry, just—long day. I’m tired.”

“I can imagine.” Brant says sympathetically, but there’s something in his tone that almost sounds patronizing. “Who are you driving with? Have you been taking turns?”

Y/N pauses the fidgeting of her rings before snatching her phone from its balanced place on her knee. She quickly opens her messages and scrolls to her thread with Brant, searching through the text bubbles for a reminder of what she’d said to him. Had she not told him that she was traveling with Harry?

Within a moment, Y/N confirms that she hadn’t. All she had said was that she was getting a ride with someone. Why had she done that, she wonders? She’s sure she’s mentioned Harry in passing to Brant at least once. When she talked about the wedding, probably. As she thinks about it more, however…what had she told Brant about the wedding? About Jo? How much does he actually know about her personal life? Most of their dinner conversations revolve around work, or some book both of them have read. Had the topic ever come up in detail?

“I’m, um, I’m driving with one of Laure’s friends.” Y/N brings the phone closer to her mouth as her other hand works its way to her mouth. She begins to chew on a hangnail absentmindedly between her words, something she always does when her nerves begin to get to her. She can’t count the number of times Jo has grasped her wrist and pulled her hand from her mouth to chastise her about the habit. “We’re…we’re in Colorado now.”

“Oh, Colorado. That’s nice.” Brant says over the rustling of papers. “Listen, Y/N, I’ve got some work to get back to, but I’m glad we had this talk. I’ll call you again soon.”

“Uh, yeah. Sure. I’ll talk to you later.” Y/N nods, and then the line goes dead. Out of curiosity, Y/N checks the length of the call. The time 3:09 blinks back at her.

Tossing her phone back down on the covers, Y/N resumes her relaxed position in bed, despite being anything but relaxed after that phone call. She should feel guilty, she thinks, for not telling Brant about Harry. But then again, what’s there to tell? She said she was getting a ride with one of Laure’s friends, and that’s true. She hadn’t lied. And even if Brant did know that the friend is Harry, why would he care? It’s just Harry. There’s no reason for Brant to be alarmed, because there’s nothing going on. And she and Brant…Y/N glances down at the call time again. Things are different between them. There’s…they’re comfortable as they are, she thinks. They’re not dating, and they’re comfortable like that. So there’s no reason to tell him about Harry, because there’s nothing to tell. Nothing at all.

Y/N refocuses on the TV screen, where Patrick Swayze is dancing in a tight black tank top. Right. Nothing to tell.

…

When Y/N leaves her motel room the next morning with her bag over her shoulder, Harry is already waiting by his car, leaning against the dusty black body with two coffee cups in his hands. He’s dressed in another black t-shirt (Y/N wonders just how many identical copies of the same shirt Harry has) with usual jeans covering his long legs. His curls are tied out of his face with a dark green bandana, and Y/N knows that if his eyes weren’t covered with his black sunglasses, the bandana would make them even brighter than they usually are.

“Hey.” Harry calls to her, extending a ringed hand that holds a coffee cup towards her as she walks over. “I got the coffee this morning. You drink it black, right?”

Y/N nods as she takes the cup from him, careful not to brush over his fingers with her own. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“No problem.” Harry crosses around to the back of the car, opening the trunk with a turn of his key. “Here.” Harry holds out his free hand for Y/N’s bag, taking it from her and setting it down on top of the suitcases in the back. “I got it.”

Y/N regards Harry with a bemused look as she wraps both hands around her coffee cup. “Thanks?” She says again, more questioning this time as she looks at him strangely. “I can do that myself, you know.”

“I know. I’m just trying to be polite.” Harry’s voice takes on its usual bite like he’s flipping a switch. “Is that alright with you, princess?”

Within a second, the familiar irritation with Harry returns to Y/N, and it’s almost comforting to snap back at him in a testy voice. “Don’t call me that.”

Harry snickers under his breath, and although the sound makes Y/N’s annoyance grow, she detects a different tone in it than a few days before. Before she can place a finger on why it sounds different, however, Harry is climbing into the driver’s side of the car and starting the engine.

The two of them are silent as Harry finds his way back to the highway, and they stay in that silence for the first few hours of that day’s leg of the trip. As the third hour begins to pass, Y/N is content listening to the throaty and captivating voice of Stevie Nicks fill the cab of the car. By the second chorus of the song, Y/N is humming along quietly, her foot tapping to the same beat that Harry’s fingers are spelling out against the steering wheel. It’s comfortable, she thinks after a moment. The silence between them. It feels different than it did on their first day, when Y/N was questioning her choice to get into a car with Harry and commit to a 42 hour drive. The silence seems to be fueled more by comfort than tension. It’s…refreshing.

A memory from the first day ignites in the back of her mind, a spark so bright and obvious that she can’t believe it took her so long to see it. “Stevie.” Y/N says suddenly, turning to Harry as a smile spreads over her face. “You named your car Stevie, as in Stevie Nicks?”

Harry laughs, his shoulders moving up and down beneath his black t-shirt from the motion. One hand lifts from the steering wheel and points a finger gun at her. “Took you long enough. I was wondering how many days you’d have to listen to my music to get it.”

Y/N gives his hand a light shove. “I was too distracted by the fact that you named your car.” She rolls her eyes, bringing her bottle of water to her lips for a short sip. “I still think it’s weird.”

“It gives her character.” Harry defends himself as he rubs a hand over the steering wheel absentmindedly. Y/N can see the mirth swirling around in his light irises. “A bit of personality. Just because you don’t value personalities doesn’t mean anyone else doesn’t.”

“I don’t value personalities?” Turning in her seat to stare at Harry head on, Y/N raises an eyebrow in question. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just your taste in men, that’s all.” Harry says it casually, like it really can just be a “that’s all” type of sentence.

Within a heart beat, the comfortable atmosphere in the car turns to ice as Y/N straightens in her seat, her spine tense, tightening every nerve in her body along with it. “What the fuck does that mean?”

When Harry glances at her again, his eyes darken, his guard going up as he senses the shift in Y/N’s tone. “Nothing, just…motel rooms have thin walls.” Harry mumbles, having the decency to keep his eyes on the road as his ears redden slightly. “And from what I overheard, Brant doesn’t exactly seem…stimulating.”

Y/N sputters indignantly for a moment, unable to form a coherent response as anger rises in her chest. “You—” She sucks in a quick breath that hits the back of her throat harshly. “You eavesdropped on me?”

Harry licks his lips once, clearing his throat once before answering. The tapping of his fingers against the steering wheel has resumed, his nervousness apparent in his movements as well as his facial expressions. “Not on purpose. I told you, the walls were thin.”

“So put in head phones!” Y/N exclaims, gripping her water bottle so tight that her fingers begin to strain in protest against the metal exterior. She has half a mind to throw the bottle at Harry in her anger, barely able to talk herself down from the ledge of the idea.

Harry’s posture shifts in his seat as his shoulders square, and Y/N can practically see his defensive side emerge from within his chest. “It’s not like you two were having phone sex.” He rolls his eyes at the idea. “It was the most boring conversation in the world, and lasted, what, three minutes? Makes you wonder how long he lasts in other ways, doesn’t it?”

“Stop the car.” Y/N’s voice is low and void of emotion as she replies, her body turned back forward in her seat.

“Am I wrong? It’s not like you know for sure—”

Anger bubbles over in Y/N’s chest, cancelling out any rational thought she has inside her and leaving pure, unadulterated fury. “Stop the car, Harry! Now!”

Harry half jumps in his seat when Y/N yells, and he quickly jerks the car to the side of the highway without so much as a turn signal. Pulling her seatbelt off as he pulls over, Y/N is out the door before Harry can so much as put the car into neutral. While her more rational mind would tell her that she has nowhere to walk to along a highway in Colorado as the sky darkens to an angry black above them, the only thing she’s thinking of is getting away from Harry. Stupid, self-absorbed, ignorant, and rude Harry.

“Y/N—” The sound of Harry scrambling out of the car and slamming the door behind him pushes her to walk faster. “Y/N, come back—”

Y/N turns around on her heel fast and hard, heart pounding so fast that she thinks it might break through her ribs. “What is your problem?” She hisses, pointing an accusatory finger at him. “Why do you insist on being so—so nasty about him? You don’t even know him!”

Harry freezes where he is as the wind whips his hair around his face, his bandana barely keeping the messy curls in place. “I don’t—” His speech falters, and he sucks in a sharp breath before continuing. “I don’t think I’m being…nasty.”

“Well, you are!” Y/N takes a deep breath in, placing her hands over her stomach as it expands with air. It’s a trick that Jo taught her back in high school, as a way to ground herself to her body. Feeling the movement of air in and out of her lungs helps calm her, even if by just a fraction. “Brant is just—he’s someone I’m talking to. We’ve gone on dates, but we’re not dating, and even though we’re not dating, that doesn’t mean that you can insinuate things about him, or eavesdrop on our private conversations!”

Harry’s jaw tenses as he listens to Y/N speak, waiting until she’s finished her speech to respond in a harsh and clipped tone. “I already told you, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. And I’m teasing you. It’s supposed to be a joke. Isn’t that what friends do?”

“But we’re not friends, Harry.” Y/N’s voice is flat, the fury in her tone replaced with a hollow emptiness. “We’re not friends. I don’t need you teasing me about a boy like we’re buddies, or whatever, because we’re not.”

Although Harry opens his mouth to respond, no words cross over the edges of his pink lips. His jaw tightens even more as he closes his mouth again, and Y/N can see a million things flitting through his green irises, which are getting darker by the moment. Y/N’s not certain if the darkness is from her words, or the black sky rolling above them that’s sapping the light of day from the atmosphere, and she’s not sure if she can take the answer either way. Part of her knows that maybe—just maybe—she’s blown this whole thing out of proportion, and maybe she should examine why Harry making fun of Brant bothers her like it does. It’s not like she’s unaware of his shortcomings, she thinks, but then she wonders why she’s now seeing them as shortcomings, when a week ago, she saw them as positives. Y/N never has to worry about Brant being too much for her, or forgetful, or scatterbrained—he’s organized, and secure, and stable, and that’s what she likes. It’s always been what she likes.

Harry’s delayed response tears Y/N from her thoughts. “Not friends. Got it.” He mutters, rubbing his hand over his stubbled and taut cheeks. “Just get back in the car, then. Let’s go.”

…

“Hello! My name is Gracie, I’ll be your server today.” The waitress in the tiny diner smiles at Harry and Y/N, a notepad in one hand and a half filled coffee pot in the other. “Can I get you guys anything to start?”

“Coffee.” Harry and Y/N speak at the same time, each person’s eyes flickering to the other before looking away. Y/N keeps her eyes focused on her off-white ceramic coffee cup as Gracie fills it, refusing to make eye contact with Harry again.

The last hour has been almost unbearable. After they got back in the car, Harry had turned off his playlist, and for the first time since the road trip had begun, true silence had fallen between them. Y/N had thought she would like it, but truthfully, it had been the worst thing she’d ever heard. Every few minutes, she’d hear Harry shift, or sigh, or tap a tense finger against the gear shift, and she wished that she could say something, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. She’d been grateful when he wordlessly exited the highway and parked in front of a diner, as the conversations of stopped truck drivers and the clatter of a kitchen was a good distraction from their argument.

A movement in the corner of her eye catches her attention, and Y/N glances up just enough to watch Harry slip a pat of butter into his coffee, stirring the contents of the cup with his spoon until it’s melted together. She wrinkles her nose in disgust, and almost opens her mouth to make a comment (“Really, Harry? Just add milk like a regular person, instead of drinking a cup of grease.”), but bites it back before it can fall off her tongue. They’re not exactly in the position to make quips to each other, she thinks, especially after she told him that they weren’t friends.

Which they’re not. They’ve never been friends; that fact isn’t exactly news. Not getting along has been Harry and Y/N’s signature since the day they first met. So why is there a pit in Y/N’s stomach that gets deeper every time Harry looks away from her?

The click of heels alerts Y/N of Gracie’s returned presence before her voice does. “Have you two decided what you’d like to eat?”

“I’ll have a turkey club, please, on whole wheat bread.” Harry folds up his plastic menu carefully. “And a glass of water on the side.”

Gracie nods, taking the menu from him before turning her eyes to Y/N. “And for yourself?”

“Um—” Y/N had barely glanced at the menu, too lost in her thoughts to think about it. “I’ll just have a burger, please. And a water, as well.”

Gracie nods as she writes down the order, taking Y/N’s menu and giving the pair one last smile before disappearing to the kitchen. A fresh wave of silence falls between Harry and Y/N as each of them sips their coffee, both of them doing their best not to look at the person sitting across from them.

Y/N’s best, however, is not up to her usual standard, as she can’t stop herself from stealing a few quick glances while Harry looks out the window. He hasn’t shaved in a couple days, she notices, as the stubble on his cheeks and chin is even darker than it was the day before. There’s a permanent crease between his eyebrows, his face as tense as she’s ever seen it, and a darkness over his whole expression overall. It’s like there’s a new wall up between the two of them, and Y/N’s never felt more detached from him. Which, honestly, is saying something.

She’s looking back down at her own half empty coffee when Harry finally speaks a few minutes later, his voice just as tense as his expression.

“Shit.” He says in a low voice, and then the next sound Y/N hears is that of someone ruffling through pockets.

She looks up to see Harry doing just that, his hands digging through the outer pockets of his army green jacket. “What?” She asks, her curiosity outweighing her need to continue the silent treatment. “What is it?”

“I had the vows in my—my pocket, but they’re—” Harry jams his hands inside a pocket sewn into the lining of his jacket, and Y/N watches as his face visibly relaxes. “Oh, thank God. I thought they fell out.”

Harry removes his hand from his pocket, two folded up notes clutched within his hand. Each one is labeled carefully, one with Jo written in Laure’s neat penmanship, and the other with Laure scribbled in Jo’s quick writing.

Y/N recognizes the papers immediately. It’s easy, really, considering the amount of time she spent helping Jo rewrite draft after draft of the same sentiments. “You have Jo and Laure’s vows?” She questions, her eyebrows raising in surprise. “Why?”

“The same reason you have their wedding bands.” Harry shrugs as he turns the papers over in his careful fingers, making sure not to crease them. “They forgot them.”

A small smile plays on the edge of Y/N’s lips at the memory of her forgetful friends. “Right. Of course.”

Harry’s eyes flicker to Y/N’s mouth at the sign of movement, and he tugs his bottom lip between his teeth before responding. “Want to take a look?”

“At their vows?” Y/N looks around, as if someone could be watching and monitoring them. “I—that doesn’t seem right.”

“Fine. Then don’t look at them.” Harry says easily, setting the note labeled Laure on the table between them. His nimble fingers unfold the paper labeled with Jo’s name as his green irises begin to scan across the sheet. “I’ll read them.”

It only takes a few seconds of watching Harry read over the words for Y/N to crack. “Wait.” She brings her thumb to her mouth, chewing anxiously on her cuticle as Harry quirks an eyebrow at her. “Will you read them to me?”

When she asks, Harry spends so long staring at her that Y/N thinks he’ll refuse. His jade eyes meet hers with an intensity that almost makes her flinch, but Y/N holds his stare, refusing to be the first to back down. Finally, after what seems like an eternity, Harry gives a sharp nod, looking down at the note before he starts to read from the beginning.

“‘My darling Jo’,” He begins, his voice soft and low, his accent thick. “‘It seems so strange that this day is finally here. I feel like we’ve been building up to it ever since the day we first met, and yet it’s always seemed so far away. When I was a little girl, I always’…” Harry trails off as his eyes continue to move across the words, and he clears his throat before attempting to continue to read aloud. “‘I always thought that there was something wrong with me. I thought that the things that I felt, and the way that I loved, was dirty. I thought it was wrong. I thought that—that I was going against God, and against nature, and that I was going to be punished for it. And then I met you’.”

Harry pauses to take a sip of his coffee, and Y/N does the same. There’s a shine beginning to appear in his eyes, and Y/N recognizes it as the beginning of tears because she feels the same thing brimming in her own eyes. She feels a bit guilty for reading the vows, but reasons that it’s for the best. If she were to hear them for the first time at the wedding, she doesn’t think she’d be able to keep it together.

“‘The moment I met you, I knew that the way I loved could never be wrong, or be dirty, because I was loving you’.” Harry’s accent grows thicker the more he reads, and although Y/N hasn’t seem Harry in many different emotional states, she can tell that this is a sign of how the vows are affecting him. “‘Being with you could never be wrong, and God could never get mad at me for it, because only God could create someone as perfect as you. I promise to love you when you wake me up at 3 A.M. because you’ve stolen all the blankets, and I promise to love you at 6 P.M. when you almost burn down our apartment while trying to cook for me. I promise to support you through everything, listen to your stories, and watch in wonder as you make a difference in this world. I promise to never let my anger get the best of me, and to always give you the benefit of the doubt. I promise to love every version of yourself that you grow into, just as I’ve loved all the versions you once were. I promise to love you in every way humanly possible, and even in ways that aren’t humanly possible. I promise to love, period. I’—” Harry’s voice cracks, and he glances up at Y/N as he clears his throat to continue. “‘I love you’.”

Y/N doesn’t realize just how emotional listening to Harry read Laure’s vows has made her until the first tear wells over the corner of her eye. She turns her head towards the window to wipe it away as quickly and inconspicuously as possible, but from the way Harry is looking at her when she turns back around, she knows that he caught what she was doing.

“That, um—” Now it’s Y/N’s turn to attempt to clear the emotion from her throat. “Wow.”

Harry carefully folds Laure’s vows back up, taking extra care to re-crease the paper exactly how it had been folded. “I didn’t know she…felt like that.” Harry says after a moment, his voice quiet. “Like she was…wrong.”

Y/N, unsure of what to say, just nods while reaching for Jo’s vows in front of her. Like Harry, she takes great care when unfolding the paper, smoothing it gently between her hands. “I’ll read Jo’s, then?”

Harry nods as he takes a sip of his water. “Sure.”

Y/N licks her lips once, wetting them with what little saliva she has in her mouth before beginning. “‘Laure’,” She starts, emotion already rising up to form a lump in her throat. “‘I don’t even know where to begin. I’ve tried to write down all the ways I love you a million different times, but I can never seem to find the right words. The problem is, I don’t think that there is a big enough word to describe what I feel for you. ‘Love’ is only four letters, and four letters is just not enough to contain everything I feel. ‘Adoration’ is nine letters, but even that doesn’t come close. I think the best way I can describe it is ‘permanent’.” Y/N pauses her reading to take a long gulp of water, the coolness soothing the dry and parched feeling in her mouth and throat. “‘Anyone who knows me knows that I have trouble committing. The idea of having something forever, of being in one place, normally terrifies me. But the idea of having you forever, and being in one place with you forever…that’s all I want. I want us to be permanent to each other. Even when we struggle, and we will struggle, I know that we won’t fall apart. Committing to you isn’t any trouble. It’s as easy as breathing. I’m sure of you, and I’m sure of us. I love you, permanently. I’ll love you when you’re sick and gross, and I’ll love you when you’re old with a bad hip.” A small laugh falls out of Y/N’s mouth before she continues. “I’ll love you when you haggle at flea markets for the best prices, and I’ll love you when you do something so stupid that it makes me want to tear my hair out. I love you permanently, and I want all of our family and friends to witness me saying that. I’ll never back out, or bail, or run away from you. You’re the one thing in my life that’s never felt hard. You’re my home base, and my north star, and you bring me back down to Earth whenever I need it. I love you permanently, Laure. I’ll never stop’.”

As she finishes reading, Y/N folds the paper back up, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand before grabbing the other note sitting on the table. She pushes them towards Harry, her misty eyes unable to meet his. “Here. Put these away again, somewhere safe.”

Harry takes the vows from her, slipping them back inside his inner jacket pocket for safekeeping. “It’s probably—” He clears his throat once more, and Y/N knows that the vows have caught him in his chest just as they’ve caught her. “It’s probably good that we read them now, so that we’re…prepared for the ceremony.”

“Yeah.” Y/N wraps her hands around her coffee mug, the warm ceramic surface heating her cold fingers. “You’re right. They really…love each other.”

Harry taps his fingers against the table top, a concentrative and thoughtful expression on his face. His eyebrows are knit together above his stormy green eyes, and his pink tongue swipes over his pinker lips once before he speaks. “You know, Laure is my closest friend. I don’t want her to get hurt.”

Immediately registering the tone of Harry’s voice, Y/N’s head snaps up, her own eyes becoming stormy as they meet his own. “Jo would never hurt Laure.” Y/N says defensively, the hairs on the back of her neck pricking up at even the suggestion of her friend hurting someone. “Didn’t you hear her vows? I’ve never heard her sound so sure of something in her entire life.”

Harry’s jaw flexes at the cadence of Y/N’s voice, and his is just as agitated when he responds. “I’m just saying, if anything ever happened—”

“And I’m just saying, it won’t.” The tension between them doubles as Y/N shoots Harry an icy glare. “Do you just look for the worst in people? Is that all you do?”

“You think I look for the worst in people? Really?” Harry barks out a harsh laugh, pressing one hand flat against the table as the other fixes his bandana. “Christ, if that’s what you think of me—”

“Why would I think anything else?” Y/N asks incredulously, tilting her head to the side as she regards him. “All you’ve shown me is—”

“Alright, I have the turkey club on whole wheat, and the burger here.” Gracie appears suddenly to Y/N’s right, her tray loaded with food. “Here you guys are…” She sets the plates down in front of Harry and Y/N, her gaze darting between them nervously as she reads the tension in the booth. “Is…there anything else I can get you two?”

“No.” Harry’s voice is hard. “We don’t need anything else.”

…

By the time Harry pulls the car into a motel just off the highway in Lexington, Nebraska, all Y/N wants is a moment alone. The strained atmosphere during that day’s drive had been unbearable, and between the anxiety from her confrontation with Harry and the sound of thunder beginning in the distance, Y/N just needs some space to herself to relax and calm down.

Of course, just because that’s what she needs, doesn’t mean that she’s going to get it. When Harry returns back to the car with a single key in his hand and a sour look on his face, Y/N knows for sure that the universe is against her.

This room, at least, she’s pleased to find, has two actual beds, which are pushed up against the wall perpendicular to the door with a small night table between them. However, that’s where her pleasure stops, as the click of Harry turning the lock behind her just reminds her that she’s trapped in here, with no chance to get away from Harry, the oncoming storm, or any one of her problems that have developed over the last four days. The reality of the situation hits her all at once, and it takes all of Y/N’s self control to toss her bag on the bed and walk brusquely to the bathroom, slamming the door and locking it behind her before she allows herself to show a sign of her emotions.

The rest of the evening passes in silence. She showers before changing into her sports bra and boxers, but the amount of exposed skin sends a vulnerable shiver down her spine. Y/N opts for pulling a sweatshirt over her body, and then sets herself the task of braiding her hair to distract herself. After that’s done, she busies herself with her skincare routine, taking up as much time as she can in the bathroom before she absolutely has to leave its private interior.

Harry, however, seems to want to see as little of Y/N as she wants to see of him, and pushes past her to enter the bathroom the moment that she steps out of it. His routine, it seems, is designed to take up just as much time as hers was, because by the time Harry exits the bathroom, the scent of his shampoo trailing behind him, Y/N is already tucked under the covers of her bed, although she’s far from asleep.

In the time it took for her to shower and get ready for bed, the storm had picked up, and the only thing audible in the room was the sound of rain pelting against the roof and window, the wind howling through the trees, and Y/N’s shallow, uneven breaths. She wraps the sheets tightly around herself, pulling them taut to her chin with clenched fists that tighten every time a clap of thunder echoes through the room. Although she’s turned to face the wall, away from Harry, she can hear his footsteps pause as he gets a glimpse of her shivering form beneath the blankets, and she does her best to will herself to appear asleep. Breathing in as deeply as her tight chest will allow her, Y/N attempts to even her breathing, forcing her shoulders rise and fall in a way that appears natural and normal. But all it takes is one clap of thunder for the controlled motion to go out the window.

“Y/N…” Harry’s voice is low, but despite its raspy cadence, it lacks the rough edge that it had earlier. The bed behind her squeaks, signalling that Harry’s taken a seat on the edge of it. “Are you—?”

“I-I’m fine.” Y/N says quickly, pulling the sheets tighter to her chin as another shiver rolls through her body. “Go to sleep.”

There’s another creak of Harry’s bed, and Y/N imagines him climbing under the starched linen covers, his damp curls flopping into his eyes as he lays back on the lumpy motel pillow. The image is almost enough to distract her until there’s another clap of thunder. The sound seems to shake the motel room, and Y/N can’t stop the small whimper that leaves her lips as her body jumps in response.

“When I was a little kid, my mum took my sister and I to the fair every year.”

Harry’s deep voice cuts over the rain, and Y/N shifts in her bed, turning over to face him. She keeps the covers pulled up to her chin, but readjusts herself so that she can keep her head on her pillow while looking Harry in the eye. “What?” She asks, confusion audible in her quiet tone.

Harry shifts himself as she does, continuing to move down until he’s completely horizontal, with one hand tucked under his pillow as he speaks. “My mum took my sister and I to the fair. It came to Holmes Chapel every spring, and there were always rides, and games to play, and so many things to see. It drew crowds from nearby villages every year, really big crowds, and my mum always held my hand tightly so I wouldn’t get lost.”

“I don’t understand, what—” Another clap of thunder shakes the room, making Y/N flinch halfway through her sentence.

“You’re okay.” Harry says immediately, his calm jade eyes focused on her as the reassurance slips from his mouth. He waits a moment, gauging Y/N’s body language and waiting for his examination to be positive before resuming his story. “So…my mum always told me not to wander off, but when I was six, I did. I saw some older kids playing games that I wanted to play, and Gemma was busy playing some sort of game with a ball—I can’t really remember what—and when my mum turned her back, I ran off.”

Y/N’s about to open her mouth to ask why he’s telling her the story when the answer clicks into place in her head. She thinks back to the conversation in the car the day before, how she told Harry that it helps when someone talks to her to distract her from the thunder. That’s what he’s doing, she realizes, as she forces herself to focus on his quiet and level voice. He’s trying to keep her calm, even after everything she said and did today.

“I don’t look like it now,” A small smile flits across Harry’s blushed lips. “But I was pretty scrawny back then. And all the people around me were so tall, my eyes were barely level with their hips. Everyone was rushing around, going in all directions, and I kept calling for my mum, but she couldn’t hear me. No one stopped to help me. I felt like I was…trapped. Like it was a huge forest of legs, running all around me, circling me, and I couldn’t get out. I was probably only gone for five minutes, but to a six year old, it felt like an eternity. And just something about it…I don’t know. It changed me. I still don’t like crowds because of that day.”

Y/N’s shoulders unclench the slightest bit as another gust of wind blows against the window. “That must have been scary.”

Harry’s own shoulders lift in a slight shrug as he shifts the sheet to cover him more. “It was. But I can’t change it. I just have to deal with the repercussions of it. That’s all a fear is, really. A side effect. We just have to deal with them as best we can.”

More thunder booms loudly outside, but Y/N manages to keep her flinch to a minimum, despite her hands curling into fists again under the covers. “Harry…” She whispers his name into the darkness between them, his outline barely visible save for his green eyes. “I’m—I’m sorry about today.”

Harry shakes his head, his damp hair rubbing against his pillow. “You don’t have to apologize.” He whispers back, his tone as gentle as she’s ever heard it. “I was an arse. I shouldn’t have pushed the topic.”

“I shouldn’t have been so uptight about it.” Rubbing her eyes with one fist, Y/N lets out a low sigh. “I felt so shitty all day because of our fight. I’ve never…none of our fights have ever made me feel like that.”

“Maybe it’s because…” Harry’s tentative voice trails off, his eyes flickering to the ground for a brief moment before staring back at Y/N nervously. “I don’t know. I thought we were getting along better. For a moment, at least.”

“We were.” Y/N’s teeth tug on her bottom lip, and she feels a sudden shyness overcome her at the admission. “I’m sorry I said that we…weren’t friends. I think…I don’t know. I’ve been stubborn for so long, but I can see now that you’re different than I thought you were.”

“Yeah. Me too. I was wrong, too.” Harry runs a hand through his damp curls, a soft laugh leaving his mouth. “How did we even end up like this? I barely remember what made us hate each other so much in the beginning.”

“Seriously?” Y/N raises an eyebrow, barely peaking out from beneath the sheets as another clap of thunder sounds. “You don’t remember?”

Harry mimics her expression. “Do you?”

“Yes! It was the very first night we met. We had that double date with Laure and Jo.” Shifting beneath her covers, Y/N moves herself into a better position on her side, so she can be more comfortable while still maintaining eye contact with Harry. “And you were rude, and made inappropriate jokes, and you left in the middle of the date to go chat up a sorority girl!”

“Wait a minute, no!” Harry protests the memory, half sitting up in his bed as he speaks. “That’s not what happened!”

“Yes, it is!” A small laugh falls off Y/N’s lips at his indignant reaction. “I remember it perfectly!”

“No, you remember it wrong!” Although a flush creeps up Harry’s neck, there’s an amused smile playing on his lips, a tiny hint of a dimple just barely appearing in his visible cheek. “I was making jokes to try and break the ice, which didn’t work on the Ice Queen, it seems—” Harry motions to Y/N teasingly. “And you’re the one who started talking to some bloke before I started talking to that girl!”

Another clap of thunder echoes through the room, but Y/N hardly notices as she thinks back to the night they met, and who Harry could possibly be referring to. “A bloke—? He was a classmate of mine! I had to talk to him!”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t have to enjoy it so much.” Harry grumbles, crossing his muscled arms over his sheets. “I had been so excited when Laure said she had an American girl for me, and then—”

“You were excited?” Y/N asks, her voice laced with surprise. “Really?”

The flush on Harry’s neck works its way to the apples of his cheeks. “Well, yeah.” He mumbles the words as his eyes drop from Y/N’s, slipping both hands beneath his head. “She said that you were funny, intelligent, witty, beautiful—”

“And then you met me, and realized that it was all a lie?” Y/N finishes for him, rolling her eyes in the darkness.

“No.” Harry gives a small shake of his head as his body shifts, the motel bed creaking under his weight. “No, she wasn’t wrong. You were all of those things. But I wasn’t, and it seemed like…I don’t know. Like you didn’t think I was good enough for you. I couldn’t keep your attention.”

The teasing smile slips from Y/N’s face as she registers Harry’s words. “You thought that I thought you weren’t…good enough?”

The nervousness is clear in Harry’s voice now, even over the pounding of rain against the window. “That’s what it seemed like, yeah.”

“I never—I didn’t think that.” Y/N says slowly, managing to relax her body beneath the sheets as she keeps her focus on the memory of meeting Harry. “I wasn’t exactly thrilled to be there, but that’s because Jo set the date up without telling me. I thought you were handsome, and I liked your accent, but then you started to act weird, and you started flirting with that girl, so I thought you were an ass.”

“You still think I’m an arse, princess, be honest.” The teasing tone replaces the nerves, and for once, Harry’s joke has the intended affect on Y/N. When she rolls her eyes again, it’s more playful, and the same tone is in her voice when she responds.

“I told you, don’t call me princess.” She replies, running her teeth over her lip gently. “So…I guess we both kind of fucked up that day.”

“Yeah.” Harry nods, a sheepish smile playing over his red lips. “I guess so.”

“Can we just restart?” Y/N’s voice is small when she asks the question, barely audible over the sounds of the storm raging outside. “Like, all the way from the beginning. No more grudges, no more yelling. Even if it’s just for this trip, for Jo and Laure—”

“It doesn’t have to be just for this trip.” Harry cuts in, his eyes catching Y/N’s again. “We’re going to have to be around each other for a long time. It’ll be a lot easer if we get along.”

Y/N nods in agreement, tugging down her covers to extend one arm towards Harry. She makes a fist, holding out just her pinkie finger to him with half a grin on her face. “Truce?”

The space between their beds is small, and Harry’s long arm easily makes it across the no man’s land to meet Y/N’s pinkie with his own. He loops it together with a smile that matches hers, tired and content and just at the edge of a humble new beginning. Harry’s response is almost inaudible as thunder booms loudly outside the room, but Y/N can still pick out the cadence of his accent under the noise.

“Truce.”

(pt II)

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lollypopsx · 2 years

Note

What about life during quarantine for Charleigh and Harry? Like maybe they do tiktoks and char posts them? Or Harry makes then go on runs or something?

Drabble Request

Drabble Masterlist

——————

For a Father and Daughter who were used to travelling country to country for work, quarantine was both a pain and a pleasure.

It was very difficult for you two to adjust back into staying in one place, to get used to the new rules and dealing with the anxieties of not knowing what was coming next. But it also gave the two of you time to rest and make the most of spending time together in the comfort of your own home.

3rd April 2020

"Dad hurry up!" Charleigh calls out and smiles, propping her phone up on the table and standing back so she is in full shot. "Cherry, I can't do this! It's confusing!" Harry whines.

"Shut up complaining Dad!" She giggles and starts the song, Savage. Harry desperately tried his best to catch up with Charleigh, barely keeping up to her level.

"Wow Dad...you truly are awful at these!" She laughs as Harry pouted. "Hey you!" He scolds playfully. As she posted their masterpiece, it very quickly went viral. Of course it did, it was Harry Styles. Of course it would go viral in seconds.

“Right young lady. We are going for a run. Go and get changed!” He chuckles, earning a groan from Charleigh. “But Dad-” She whines. “Shut up complaining Char. You know the deal! Come on. I’m not letting us stay cooped up here constantly”

“I hate running” She mutters and smiles as she goes up to get changed.

14th June 2020

“Dad? Where are you?” Charleigh calls, wandering up the stairs and to Harry’s office, where he was reading over some contracts.

“Yes Cherry?” He peaks up to the door.

“I need you downstairs in the home cinema...it’s urgent!” Harry frowns and gets up, rushing down behind her. “What’s happened sweetie?”

You wander into the room, the lights were dim and the screen was white. “Sit down...” She smiles.

“Charleigh Reign if this is a pregnancy announcement....” He half jokes, yet his face was firm.

“Dad we’ve been in quarantine! I’m not pregnant! Sit down” She laughs and shakes her head gently. She sits beside Harry and presses play on the remote, taking a nervous breath as the screen pops up, with the familiar guitar string melody of The Story Of My Life.

‘To My Dad’

The title screen begins, Harry’s face softening instantly, as Charleigh appeared on video with her guitar, in Harry’s home studio.

“Written in these walls are the stories that I can't explain I leave my heart open but it stays right here empty for days

She told me in the morning She don't feel the same about us in her bones It seems to me that when I die These words will be written on my stone”

Charleigh’s voice sang sweetly through the speakers, as her face filled the screen. The screen began to flick to a few old photos, a couple from each year she has been alive, of her and her Dad together.

As Liam began to sing, the screen cut to a video of Liam from his own studio, followed by each of the boys. As well a this, Charleigh had filled the song with video clips of their moments in quarantine. From Tik Tok dances, pranks, singing together, baking and exercising to comforting each other through panic attacks and tears.

It was the same kind of moments that they had experienced throughout their 17 years, since his miracle girl joined the earth. But to watch moments on video, to a song that meant so much to them, was a real tug on their heartstrings.

Charleigh had edited the video together herself, but she couldn’t keep the tears down as she watched Harry’s reaction. The video was a perfect example of the relationship they share, their closeness and their appreciation for each other.

The final line of the song echo’s through the speaker, the screen going white and one final message:

‘Thank You For Always Being You. All my love, Cherry x’

The light’s brighten slightly, Charleigh had tears falling down her face as she looked up at Harry, who’s eyes were red and puffy, his cheeks soaked and tear stains on his shit.

They looked at each other and both let out a chuckle at the state of the pair of them. “Come ‘ere” He smiles widely, his eyes beaming with pride at the woman his daughter was becoming.

“You never, ever need to thank me...” He whispers, pulling her into his arms closely, tears still slipping from his eyes.

“I do...you’ve kept me safe, and you’ve turned me into the person I am today...and I’m proud of the person I am.” She whispers, cuddling herself into her Dad’s chest tightly.

“I’m always proud of you. Best thing that’s ever happened t’me you are. My little Cherry...my angel” He whispers, wiping his cheeks and smiling at her happily.

“I love you Dad” She whispers, feeling her voice crack.

“I love you too kiddo” He smiles, pressing a kiss to her head and rubbing her back gently.

——————

Tag List: @harryhoney-bee - @sunandherflores - @beachwood-cafe - @damnasstyles - @awesomebooklover17 - @hazgoldenstyles - @evanjh - @harrysbracelet - @nerdypartytrashpsychic - @harryssweatcreaturee - @hibaiqbal12

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seriouslysnape · 3 years

Text

Picture Perfect

Draco Malfoy x Fem. Reader

Warnings: Sexual implications (a lottttt of them)

A/N: I might do a part two to this...

Word Count: 1,635

“Like them? I love them.”

You watched with anticipation as Draco popped another one of the Bertie Botts Flavour Beans into his mouth. His sculpted jaw moved up and down as he chewed. His eyes suddenly shut tightly and his face contorted into disgust. You leaned forward a tad, curious to see what mystery flavor he had picked. He swallowed hard and coughed at the foul taste.

“Soap.” He sputtered, reaching for the glass of water on his bedside table.

You bursted into laughter, laughing even harder at the way he brought a hand to his chest as the taste dissipated from his tongue. He grinned at you from over the rim of his glass, taking another sip.

“Your turn.” He said.

This was a game of sorts that you and Draco liked to play whenever the two of you made a trip to Hogsmeade. Honeydukes Sweets Shop was your absolute favorite place to go and make pleasurable purchases. There were endless rows of candies and other tooth rotting snacks that were your ultimate guilty pleasure.

You were always sure to snag a new box of Bertie Botts Flavour Beans. You and Draco would sit in his private, prefect room and take turns selecting a bean and seeing which flavor you were bestowed with. You were snug in one of his Quidditch jumpers, your legs wrapped around his waist while the two of you sat on his bed.

Draco was always less fortunate than you during this game.

You took a bean into your hand, taking a breath when you put it in your mouth. Your tense shoulders relaxed when you started chewing. A delicious, fruity taste flooded your tastebuds, a cheeky grin appearing on your face. Draco threw his head back in exasperation at the sight of you getting yet another good flavor.

“Again?” He asked.

You nodded.

“Cherry.” You smiled, swallowing the small candy.

Draco’s blonde eyebrows raised, a devious look crossing over his face. His hands rested on your thighs that were secured around him, leaning forward.

“Mmm. Do you mind sharing?” He smirked.

You hummed affirmatively, capturing his lips in a hot kiss. His tongue danced with yours, tasting your familiarity and the traces of cherry candy. His hands went to the side of your neck to bring you closer, while you gripped at the collar of his sweater. His kisses muffled your girly giggles, a chuckle vibrating out from his own chest.

You tapped his shoulder to pause your make out session, a mumble of realization sounding out from your throat. He whined when you stopped kissing him, but based on the bright look on your face, you had something in mind.

“I have something for you.” You announced in a playful way.

His gray eyes darkened a touch, his fingertips drumming on the skin of your leg.

“Is that so?” He questioned, making guesses already in his head.

You were giddy with joy as you scrambled from his array of blankets and his comforter. You reached into your backpack, pulling out a solid black book with a red bow on it. It was a rather large book, about the size of his Care of Magical Creatures textbook. Draco felt a quick surge of panic. He was the worst about remembering holidays and birthdays, and he instantly thought that maybe he had forgotten something special.

“Don’t get mad if I have, but...did I miss something?” He asked.

You let out a snicker as you rejoined him on the bed. Ever since he had forgotten your birthday a few months ago, now he was always afraid he was going to miss something else.

“You haven’t. This is just something I’ve been working on.” You bubbled up gleefully.

You set the book on his lap, watching as his eyes raked over the cover. He felt a warmth in his chest at being given a gift just because you cared. He pushed the bow off of the sides of the book, opening the cover to see a little note you had written for him, signed at the end with your name and everything. The thick pages indicated to him that it was a picture album.

He turned to the first page, an unmistakable smile of jubilation appeared on his face. The first two pages each had four Polaroid like pictures secured evenly. You were smiling happily in each of the first several photos, wearing different outfits and in different locations. Draco’s heart was beating with exuberance in his chest as he looked through the first couple of pages.

“Oh, darling. These are great,” He praised; “They’re positively stunning. They-”

His sentence was cut short when he got about halfway through the pages, his voice getting caught in his throat when the pictures immediately took on a new theme. His smile faded into a shocked, slight jaw drop. The second half of the book was filled with sultry, boudoir style photos. His fingertips trailed over one in particular where you were wearing your school robes, but the only thing you were wearing underneath was one of Draco’s Slytherin uniform ties settled between your breasts.

In other photos, you were wearing different sets of lingerie. There was one lacy, black colored set that almost made him faint right then and there.

He was knocked speechless, unable to string together a single sentence. You were beginning to feel a little self conscious, and even a bit embarrassed that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. You had honestly expected him to completely attack you with feverish kisses or fuck you right then and there. The fact that he was completely silent was unsettling.

You fiddled with your hands in your lap, uncertainty in your tone as you spoke up to break the silence.

“I...do you like them?” You wondered, hoping to get a positive reaction.

Draco’s eyes never left the book. He turned to the next page, a rush of arousal flushing over him at one in particular where you were completely naked, stretched out on his bed and giving a look so seductive that it made Draco’s belly flutter. The sight of you naked on his bed...it was hot.

“Oh, baby. Darling, my love...” He breathed out, trying to complete at least one full thought; “Like them? I love them.” He almost growled.

You exhaled a breath of relief, feeling a sense of excitement as he continued to rake over them. He turned to a new set of pictures, a hot blush creeping onto his cheeks.

“You’re so stunning...so sexy.” He purred.

You laughed shyly, a bashful smile washing on your face. You rubbed his knee, your hand feeling like electricity on him. He couldn’t look away from the scandalous photos, each one becoming more dirty than the last. He was riled up and he was already looking forward to having this book at his disposal.

“Who took these?” He pondered, wondering which one of your lucky girl friends had the pleasure of seeing you actually model these outfits and strip down naked.

You just had to take advantage of this moment. You couldn’t help but mess with him just a little bit. You choked down the chuckle that would surely give you away.

“Potter.” You lied.

Draco’s head snapped up so fast and his eyes filled with an indescribable look of hot jealousy. He chest tightened, but relaxed when he realized you were kidding based off of your burst of laughter. He sighed harshly and rubbed his forehead as you laughed at his intense reaction. The thought of you asking Harry Potter to take these photos for you filled him with such a rage, but he even laughed it off when he knew you were joking.

“That’s not funny.” He said pointing a finger at you, and continuing to go through the photos.

Your giggles died off, and you answered him honestly.

“Pansy took them. That’s how I was able to sneak in here when you weren’t here.” You explained.

Draco nodded, his jaw still slightly ajar as he loomed over them. You patiently waited as he finished looking through them, his pupils dilating more and more by the minute. He closed the book once he was finished, his eyes finally flickering up to you. He had grown a very prevalent erection, and his eyes were filled with an intense amount of lust. You knew one thing for sure.

He was going to rock your world tonight.

Over the last year or so of dating you, he tried not to be so aggressive when it came to your sex life. He tried not to pounce on you every time he felt turned on. He knew that sex was supposed to be the ultimate romantic connection, and not always supposed to be rushed. After those pictures though, he wanted you BAD. You could tell he was antsy, waiting (and also praying) for you to give him the okay.

You leaned in, your lips just barely brushing over his, before you brought your lips to his ear. You purposely let out a wanton moan in his ear, a tantalizing sound to your voice.

“Touch me, Draco. I know you want me.”

In a millisecond, Draco was on you. He kissed you roughly and pushed you down onto his mattress. He kept your hands pinned above your head, leaving open mouthed kisses on your neck as he intentionally drew the most wonderful sounds out of you.

“What are the chances of you wearing one of those hot little outfits under this jumper?” He said in a steamy voice.

You squirmed against his hands, but to no avail. You rolled your hips into his, trying to create some friction. You threw him a wink, your response sending him into full fuck mode.

“Why don’t you find out?”

#draco #draco malfoy x you #draco malfoy x female reader #draco malfoy fanfiction #draco malfoy x reader #draco malfoy imagine #draco malfoy smut #harry potter draco #harry potter #seriouslysnape

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littlemisslipbalm · 3 years

Text

I live in the neighbourhood - Part 3

What happened to the cycling classes after work and the occasional drinks with coworkers? Now it was flying to Italy to vacation for the December holidays with Harry and his family and friends.

Ok part 3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and the final part of ilitn i believe! let me know what you think! plssss! Not proofread, but your support means the most and it means the world to see your thoughts, literally anything about it, and this little harry I always have to remember that’s the simp your honor ^ right there! anyway happy reading!

Read Part 1 | 2

Word Count: 10.9k | Warnings: swearing, smut! (finally) - oral (m+f receiving, dirty talk, choking? i can’t remember ngl there might not be, sloppy sex, outdoors by the pooldeck just btw, christmas, idk but hopefully nothing I missed, feelings! happy ending (possibly rushed

“You’re really flying to Italy and then traipsing around the Italian countryside for three weeks with Harry and his family? I cannot believe you’re leaving me behind.”

“You’re gonna kill me for saying this, but he had said I could invite a friend or two if I wanted. But I thought it’d be weird with his family so you literally can’t be mad at me!”

“Fine. I’ll move past it, but how did you move past the whole panic attack? Like you barely spoke to him for a month and then he’s on your doorstep and you’re kissing and agreeing to a Roman Holiday?”

“It’s Harry,” she sighs, laying down on her couch. “How could I not, I got scared because he was gone, but once he was back, nothing else mattered.”

“I guess,” Cate mumbles.

“Oof, sorry Cate I have another call, I’ve got to go…”

By the time she tries to pick up the other line has gone to a message and she’s left to listen to her boss over a voicemail:

“Hey Y/N, I know your holidays have just begun, but I wanted to inform you that you’ll be getting a new client in the new year. Big artist! Anyway, just wanted to inform you that I’ll be emailing over some of their paperwork. Feel free to ignore it until the new year! Have a nice trip.”

She sighs. “Interesting...but will definitely be waiting for the new year to even think about work,” she says to herself.

She throws her phone to the side. Tired of all the phone tag and messages she had begun to have to deal with as the Holiday season dawned more and more upon her. She had more important things to think about. Most important being the suitcase laid out before her and the flight she was bound to be taking in less than 24 hours. This time, she wouldn’t be picking Harry up from the airport. No, this time they were flying out of London Heathrow together.

Together together? She wasn’t sure. The kiss on her doorstep and plea of Italian holiday meant a lot to her, but did it scream committed relationship? She had no idea when it came to Harry. Maybe it was better not to ask and just wait until he told her. Wondering had gotten her in a pit last time and she never wanted to feel the way she had over the last month while he had been gone.

She sleeps in her bed for one last night before leaving for a month. Harry had managed to convince the airline to allow Rori to ride with them in first class, so she wouldn’t have to leave her dog in a kennel or with friends during the holidays. She was grateful for that and she just didn’t understand how she had gotten so lucky as to have someone like Harry in her life.

They fly first class and while Harry had secured her ticket last minute, she insisted that he take her money to pay for the ticket. She was determined to not lose herself in this process. She would happily go along with Harry’s crazy life as long as she maintained her constitution. And paying for her own ticket was one of her ways of doing that.

The flight is short, a quick jaunt compared to the arduous trips across the Atlantic, both her and Harry were quite used to from their work and family lives. He smiles at her throughout the journey, coming across the aisle often to check on her and pet Rori. He would make little jokes that wouldn’t make anyone else laugh but them and he would grab the airpod she would take out and play whatever she had been listening to and offer a dance. His little dances were so sweet, if strange and awkward in the small flight cabin.

She wore grey marbled leggings and a matching thick strapped tank top beneath a nondescript hoodie. Harry’s dressed quite nice for traveling, she presumes in case he’s papped. Linen trousers, a collared coat, and some beaded necklaces he had taken to wearing over the last few months - each month seemed to add on another necklace, but she wasn’t counting.

He had reminded her to bring large sunglasses for the airport.

He had said “I don’t care if we’re seen together, but it’s more for your comfort. I hate when my friend’s lives are put on display for the whole world. You’re not the one who signed up for this.”

She had been appreciative and grabbed her largest pair of sunglasses because truthfully she didn’t want to be seen with Harry. She didn’t want the whole world knowing her or her business, it wasn’t who she was. No, not at all. So when they step off the plane and head to baggage claim after customs, she feels aware of her surroundings in a way she never has been. It reminds her of the way Jeff, Charlotte, and Mitch had conducted themselves in the bar that one time. Extremely alert. Watching people’s eye movements and considering whether they recognized her companion. She trails behind him a fair amount, three paces at least. Harry glances back every few moments, checking in to make sure she’s still with him as they move through the bustling airport.

They make it to baggage claim with no stops, but sadly Harry’s luggage seems to give him away. That or just his presence, he was a 6 foot tall and extremely broad man who gave off this energy that couldn’t help but turn eyes. And all it took was one of those eyes to recognize the fluff of hair, the olive-y skin, the peaking bird tattoos and colorful necklaces to alert the world of just where he was.

He doesn’t get stopped for any pictures, but she feels the number of eyes on him grow. She also watches as Harry doesn’t shrink from the growing attention. If anything, it simply makes him move quicker, but only slightly. He glances at her once to see her hood up and big green glasses covering up half her face. Rori has left his carrier and is covering the other half as she pushes a cart in front of her. He makes a nondescript nod and then sets off towards the exit, she follows behind easily.

By the time they’re in the car that was waiting to drive them to Harry’s villa, he’s gotten buzzed by Jeff just to check-in since a few photos have been uploaded of him at the airport. People were so fast. She shook her head in disbelief as she looked up Harry Styles on twitter and saw the scene she had just been apart of minutes ago on her screen now. She’s unrecognizable in the photos she happens to appear in and to everyone else she looks like another traveler instead of Harry’s companion or whatever she was to him. Instead of his friend.

Harry calls Jeff as they’re driven to his lovely sprawling home near Lake Como. He informs him they’re fine - he is quick to ensure that Y/N is well after asking her himself once they had gotten into the confines of the small car. She thinks it’s sweet especially because she was sure that Jeff really was more focused on Harry and his well-being since he was both his friend and his client while she was just an extra. The two men talk about the flight and customs and what Jeff will be doing with his holiday since he had turned down Harry’s invitation to come out to Italy as well. This leaves her to stare out the window at the passing scenery. She and Rori are completely content with this as they watch the tranquil life around them as they pass by little forests and towns over cobblestoned ground.

The colors seem brighter throughout Italy compared to the sad and gloomy winter of London. The dreary scape traded for something far more picturesque. Italy growing ever more beautiful the closer they drive to Harry’s home. Everything was so radiant, from the sun shining above her head to the little dew drops still pooled on the perfectly green leaves of plants she knew not the names of.

The car pulls up to the long driveway to Harry’s place which he insisted was just a house, but she knew better. The driveway felt like half a mile of perfect cobblestones, seemingly handpicked to make the smoothest drive. Outside the house sat a gorgeous little convertible that was in between steel and cream and sparkled in the sun. The top was currently up, but she could tell the interior was just as nice as the exterior. Harry had a thing for cars and she suspected that no matter where he was, he managed to keep his cars in perfect condition.

The house was breathtaking due to its simultaneous simplicity and intricacy. It’s coloring was variations of cream and gold and some terra cotta. But it sprawled into the hillside behind it and wrapped around the nature to the side of it and the pool to the back right of it. There also was a little separate shed like thing that also seemed to be a residence. Harry insisted it was just an extra bedroom, but it looked like almost another house to her.

As she stepped out of the car, she thought that she might get lost in that house if she was left to wander around it by herself. A feeling she feared to get accustomed to.

The door of the house was a dark green that seemed oddly familiar to her as she walked through it. And when Harry looked back to make sure she had gotten in the house alright she recognized it. His door somehow matched the color of his eyes in dark lighting. A green that was timeless and ancient at the same time. A green that was unnerving yet inviting. A green that was Harry. She never thought she had a favorite color, but in that moment she was sure it was his eyes.

Harry calls her name and she realizes he’s been saying it for awhile.

“Sorry?”

He smiles fondly at her confused face and leans towards her as if he might kiss her. She stops breathing in that moment, wanting more than anything for that to be his next move. His chest brushes against hers, his warmth invading her space. His face is a mere milimeter from hers and she can count every speck of stubble on his jaw. But his lips don’t brush gently over hers in a way that she knew was addicting. Instead, his strong hand reaches past her and shuts the entrancing green door gently.

His eyes flicker back to her face when he pulls back, taking a single step backwards to allow for a comfortable space between them. Still close, but not like he’s about to embrace her expecting frame and kiss her.

“I asked if you wanted a tour of the house? Or if you just wanted me to pick your room.” His eyes are crinkled at the corner, a smile on his face even though his mouth is hung open in a lingering question.

She blinks her eyes and twitches her head to glance around the rest of her surroundings. Rori had run off the moment they had gotten in the door. The hallway Harry and she found themselves was narrow and simple, a single painting right behind Harry’s head was the sole decoration and a tapestry style rug beneath their feet. She nods after a moment, feeling all her words caught somewhere in her throat for no reason at all.

“Good,” he nods and gives her a funny look, trying to understand her quiet demeanor. “Just drop your stuff here for now,” he adds.

His hand encircles her wrist, as it had grown accustomed to, to lead her through the house. She bites her lower lip to muffle the little giggle that somehow escapes her as he tugs her playfully down and through the house.

He goes on about almost every piece of art and trinket he has hung and placed throughout the house. Each thing has its story and Harry waxes eloquent on every single one. He shows her each room in the house and then leads her outside through the single door of the master bedroom on the second floor. The door takes them onto a small balcony that overlooks the center of the estate which included the pool and then a garden to the left of the converted poolhouse - what Harry insisted it be called when Y/N had told him it was a mini house.

His hand has traveled down to intertwine with hers as the tour had drawn on. So as he leads her down the little spiral staircase to the ground floor, she hums at the warmth his thumb rubs into her skin ever so softly. His eyes flicker to her face and hold her gaze for a moment as he watches her descend the last two stairs.

She smiles at him, her cheeks rosy from the air outside. They walk between the garden and the pool to reach the “converted pool house” and she stops for a moment to dance her fingers through the perfectly clean pool water - he must have had a housekeeper who came by recently to open everything up and clean it all.

“This is truly amazing, Harry,” she sighs as she stares out at the entire house from the single stone upstep to the little cottage. It gave her a view of the entire place besides the front of the house. It was gorgeous.

Harry nods, tucking his head to his chest slightly, possibly feeling a little bashful. Behind the successful man that stood before her was a young boy with a dream that had made this possible and he never forgot that.

“Thank you,” he says sincerely and unlocks the door of the cottage, a similar green is painted on this door as well.

She goes ahead of him at his request and he watches her fingers on the green paint, caressing it softly, each finger never wishing to leave it as they slowly depart its surface. This place is just a microcosm of the house they had just been. A kitchenette, a living area, a bedroom, and a full bath - including a freestanding tub.

She all but runs around the place, fingers running over the countless spines of books that Harry mindlessly chose to store there in ceiling high bookshelves and eyes taking in prints of personal photography he had been too nervous to store anywhere but here. There were larger poster sized prints as well as smaller ones, all black and white, of different scenes on the walls of the living area. Some were portraits of loved ones, others were landscapes of cities and countryside alike, and some were of past lovers with their hair swept behind them as they looked back at Harry in some beautiful place. She smiled at these obviously film photographs and turned to Harry after a moment, almost mirroring the people in the more personal pictures.

“When’s the last time you used your camera?” She asks.

Harry’s figure is perched in the door, his body slightly slumped on the frame while he rolls his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger. He hums, thinking back to the last time he took out his camera.

“Last tour...I think. I got film back with Camille in it and I just didn’t feel like putting more in it after that,” he rasps out and clears his throat at the end, clearly unnerved by the topic.

“Well, these are beautiful, you have a smart eye for catching precious moments,” she smiles softly, understanding Harry’s apprehension.

“Thanks,” his voice still a bit deeper than usual, “I still use my Super8 pretty regularly when I’m doing things for work. Like when I shoot music videos, I usually bring it along to get my own footage for later.”

She only nods and watches him enter the room, moving closer to her to gaze at the images more up close as well.

“I like to have something to remember it by. Just in case, someday,” he starts and sighs, eyes trained on the wall of memories, “My mind isn’t what it once was.”

She watches him delicately place his hand on the couch behind them to brace himself and she notices the slight fear in his face as he says it. She blinks at the scene in front of her. A man in an amazing moment in his life fearful that it might all disappear from his vision someday. A horrible thought that seems to plague him more often than one would expect.

She nudges closer to him immediately. Her shoulder brushes his arm as she presses her head to his own shoulder and stays there firmly.

“Thank you,” she whispers and his head drops down to look at her face now radiating warmth against him. “For sharing this with me.”

His hand on the couch moves to wrap around her shoulders and pull her closer. Instinctively, she wraps her arms around his waist and he rests his head atop of hers. He stays silent but places a chaste kiss in her hair. She squeezes harder, telling him everything is alright and all he had to be with her was himself.

He switches his gaze between the girl wrapped up in him and the pictures of the rest of his life in front of him and he takes it all in. He feels safe, a comfort he was hard pressed to find with his life always on the move. The bustling change felt eons away while he was wrapped up in her. She was constant and kind. Understanding. She took him as he was, no expectations. That realization has him melting further into her, his head dropping down to her shoulder and nosing into her hair. His hands cusping at the back of her neck and the small of her back. And he presses firmly yet gently.

They stand there, swaying slightly to an unknown tune that played only in their private world of just them two.

A branch sways too and breaks them out of their reverie when it taps against the French doors that lead out to somewhere else in Harry’s estate.

“I think I’d like to stay here, if that’s alright,” she says, pulling back from him only slightly.

His hands migrate from their embrace around her back and neck and slide to her hip and her shoulder separately. Her hands both rest on his chest and she feels his consistent heartbeat that she had been listening to for the last few minutes against her ear.

His eyes sparkle at her suggestion. “Really? There’s plenty of spots in the main house,” he rushes.

“No, I love this place,” she glances around once more, soaking in the cozy room that housed Harry’s art. “Plus, your family will be here tomorrow and you should all be together under one roof for the holidays. I know how rare that can be.”

He nods in agreement and twists a tendril of her hair around one of his fingers slowly. She doesn’t notice until he makes an experimental and playful tug on it. Her lips purse at the feeling and her eyes narrow.

“You’re an evil little thing under all those layers of niceties and kind words, Mr. Styles,” she says as she pulls away from him.

Now that it was decided on where she would be staying for the next few weeks, she wanted to get her things settled and take a shower possibly. She also needed to check in on Rori and see what he had gotten up to while they had been wandering.

Harry laughs, filled with an unmatched glee as he follows her out of the cottage and back into the main house, “I can show you evil if that’s what you want, dove. I’ll give you anything you want.”

And while she knows he’s saying this in jest, she knows he’s also telling the truth. He’d give her just about anything she wanted, all she had to do was ask.

After settling the house a bit, finding where Rori wanted to sleep - he chose inside the main house, and some showers, she and Harry both felt refreshed.

She walked out of the front door of the cottage and crossed to the French doors at the middle point of the house. They had them open to get fresh air in the house and she walked right through and into the kitchen where she found Harry and her dog happily perched on the countertop.

Rori batted at Harry’s hands and nuzzled into his scratches as Harry cradled him to his chest. It was criminally sweet and she knocked on the door frame to pull Harry’s attention away from her furry friend.

“You look nice,” Harry smiles.

She glances down at her outfit; a cashmere olive colored sweater and high waisted cream corduroys along with her sneakers of choice. She thought it was casual, but she appreciated the compliment nonetheless. She murmurs a thanks and a quick “you too”, she didn’t even need to look at what he was wearing, he always looked good. Her head tilts to rest on the door frame as well, her eyes trained on Harry’s face.

“Do you want to go for a drive?” He inquires as he places Rori back on the ground.

The dog scampers to her side for a moment before running off to do his own thing. Her lips quirk up on the sides and her eyes narrow slightly. He’s looking at her with a quiet confidence set in his jaw that she doesn’t quite understand.

His smile makes her bite her lip, slightly unnerved by the energy he was giving off. Maybe it was because they were completely alone - not something new to them since that’s how they interacted almost solely, but something about being in Italy seemed to have shifted the dynamic. Something in the water or whatever that saying was.

“Do I get to drive?” She stands from her leaning position and crosses in front of him.

His laugh comes out quickly and heartily. “No chance, dove.”

She groans and pushes at his shoulder.

“Trust me, you’ll like it better. Can just enjoy the scenery, don’t have to focus on the road.”

He wraps a hand around her waist and then scoots her towards the door that would lead them out of the house. She giggles at the contact and she feels him watching her. It felt nice, felt simply theirs.

He drove her down the driveway and onto a country road until it merged into a road by the lake. He brought the top down so the wind rushed around them, blustering about as he drove at a quick yet somehow leisurely pace. She glanced at the scenery and took a few pictures, but something else kept demanding her attention.

Harry. He was a quiet kind of handsome in this moment. It wasn’t in your face, it was just how each curve of his skin seemed perfectly placed. Every pore was clear and every mole had a reason. His tattoos peeking from his collar and shirt sleeves were that perfect inky black that remained smooth. It was consistent, the way his hair fell over his forehead and he would smooth it back without even thinking. His eyes were focused and bright, yet slightly stormier than normal. It was beautiful. He was beautiful. And she wondered what she had done to be beside him at that moment. Wondered what it was that she had done to be cared for by Harry.

His hand on her leg brings her out of her mind once again. His looks always seemed to get her lost in thought. He was just that special. No one else had ever caused any similar reaction. His fingers splay on her thigh, no rings on them today. He rubs his thumb back and forth softly and she leans closer to him to whisper in his ear. They were completely alone, but it felt like something even the wind didn’t deserve to hear.

He tilts his head to her, eyes flickering to her movement for a moment and then back to the road. His hand on her thigh slips upwards with how she moves.

“I’m the most lucky girl in the world,” she says, her lips brushing the shell of his ear as she says the words.

She pulls back and stares at him, her hand going down to her thigh to play with his lovingly. He looks at her again and sees her serious expression. This causes him to pull over on the side of the road by the water. He rubs at her thigh again with his thumb and she shifts in her seat.

“And why’s that?” His voice low as he asks and shifts the car into park.

“Because I’m here, with you. And I wouldn’t trade that for anything in this world.”

He hums in response and licks at his lips when her sweater happens to fall off her shoulder. She notices the slip, but doesn’t bother to fix it since she also saw how Harry’s eyes danced over the newly exposed skin.

“I wouldn’t trade this either” the words dance slowly off the tip of his tongue. His accent fuller as he says the last word. “Let’s walk around,” Harry suggests when he sees her eyes flicker between his and his lips.

They explore the grassy area that lives just before the dip of the water at Harry’s request. He guides her along with his hand entwined with hers. Her eyes stay on only him still, the scenery unable to compare to the beauty of him that she was just fully realizing how bad she wanted to be enveloped in. His profile is illuminated by the sun shining above them and she swears he’s sparkling under the light.

The fear of what they were and all of the things that came along with labels were the furthest away thoughts. The man who had been the quirky neighbour had transformed into the man she was pretty sure she was in love with. Too afraid to say those three words, she decided the best thing she could do was to show rather than tell.

“Harry,” she calls and he stops his wandering, turning to face her instead.

A hand reaches up to trace over his strong cheekbone and caresses down the side of his face and cradles his slightly stubbled jaw. Her thumb rubs over the place where his dimple often showed up. He sighs into her touch and says her name back. His voice fails him as he gazes down at her, everything he means to say dies in his throat, for once at a loss for words.

She purses her lips and reaches up to connect their lips, having missed his sweet lips touch. They were meant to press against hers. Harry seems to forget how to breathe, her initiating the kiss between them, something foreign to him, but not unwelcome. He leans down to make it easier on her and she glows in his reciprocation. His hand shifts to cradle the back of her head as the kiss continues. Their lips dance, brushing back and forth, tongues slightly licking into one another’s mouths ever so delicately, playfully even.

A specific clash of teeth as the kiss continues leads to a breathless laugh from her as Harry presses himself closer to her. His other hand pressing her waist safely into him. She happily obliges, sinking one hand to rest over his backside which makes him smile.

“Naughty,” he mumbles against her brightening lips, eyebrows bobbing over his closed eyes.

She laughs now, her head tilting up for a moment, eyes opening to look at his face, yet up so close it's just his eyes and upper cheeks. His eyes are extra large from this angle and the grey green they had been dancing between had merged into a darkening seafoam green that was rather rare for them. She wanted to take an inventory of every color his eyes managed to be, but she was sure the list would never end.

“You like it,” she quips back, a peck sneaked at the corner of his mouth. That little love touch leads to more minutes of making out. Her supple and soft chest against his strong one, hands roaming the other’s body searching for purchase. Soft sighs and gentle moans leave Harry’s mouth when she nibbles at his ear and leaves loving kisses to his neck and collarbone. She makes similar sounds when he laves his tongue over the hollow of her neck and mouths happily on her neck.

The sight of them is two lovers enthralled in each other’s mouths and bodies in a meadow beside a lake. The sounds of nature are only overtaken by their happiness with each other.

When he ruts his hips against her body and she writhes against him with eagerness previously not seen, Harry realizes just how in public they are and he pulls away. A whine of discontent falling from her lips before she can control herself.

“We should…” He falters again, staring down at his neighbour he had begun to want more than anything else in the world, “Should head back.”

“Right,” she nods curtly.

Hands falling back to her sides, but Harry grabs one of them and intertwine their fingers as they had them before. She smiles so wide her eyes crinkle at the corners and he can’t help himself to peck at the left side of her temple.

They drive back to the house and Harry suggests a dip in the pool which Y/N agrees to easily. Something to cool them off from the heavy makeout session they had partaken in down by the water.

“Everyone else is arriving tomorrow,” Harry says after he surfaces from his expert dive into the deep end. He treads water lightly and drifts towards her.

She’s floating on her back a little ways from him. Her hair was shimmery all wet again and the skin of her face glowed with tiny droplets. Her eyes were closed as she moved her hands back and forth through the comfortable water.

She feels his eyes on her, burning into her, waiting for a response. She peaks open one eye and looks at him. His cheeks pinken quickly from the slight embarrassment of being caught, but he doesn’t look away.

“It’s going to be really fun, Harry,” she rights herself and swims closer to him causing him to smile happily. “I’m really happy to be here.”

“It won’t be just us anymore,” he says, swimming backwards and creating a slight chase for her as she follows after him.

She narrows her eyes at his tactics, but still follows as he swims to the edge of the pool where they could both stand.

“Nope, but we’re gonna really get the holiday spirit flowing. Family dinners and games, shopping for gifts...this really is one of my favorite times of the season,” she smiles back at him and puts her hand against the edge of the pool, her chest emerging from beneath the cooling water.

Droplets roll down her chest, racing down her body and in between her cleavage. Harry’s eyes follow the water droplets disappearing beneath her bright red tied bikini top. He gets distracted when the air pebbles her nippls beneath the thin wet fabric, his tongue darts out to wet his lips at the sight. The round of her breast was especially full in the thin fabric. He had never seen this much of her despite their friendship lasting for many months now. It was...mouthwatering and his eyes stayed trained on her breasts as they rhythmically moved up and down with her breathing. It was like a spell.

That he was brought out of when a splash of water flicks at his face. She gives him an obvious look saying she had caught him staring and then she rolls her eyes at his smirk obviously not embarrassed by his latest fixation.

“We won’t be alone like this,” he steps closer to her, his own chest running with water droplets. His hair messy and wet atop his head as he pushes it off his forehead. “Possibly at all for the next three weeks,” he continues and hears her breath catch as he moves even closer. His body hovers a moment away from hers as he stares down at her. His nose almost brushes hers as he starts to lean down. She stays almost completely still. Her head moves though to allow Harry access to where his mouth seems to be headed, the side of her neck.

“After today,” he whispers before smudging an open mouthed kiss just below her ear.

A small gasp escapes her at his hot breath and a searing kiss against her chilled skin. She feels his smirk on her skin as he continues down her neck, leaving spongy eager kisses down the column.

“Well, I don’t think that’s a problem,” she tries to remain composure, feeling the burn inside of her pitch back up. The fire had dulled from the kissing by the lake once they had swam, but here he was pressing into her once again. Suddenly more eager and forward than he had ever been. Her breathing is hard to regulate with his expert hands running along her naked sides below the water and his legs backing her into the edge of the pool while his lips make love to her neck.

“Oh?” Harry hums, moving a hand up to fiddle with a strap of her top, the wet nylon twisting easily and then he lets it snap back softly. Her arousal only grows from the tiny smack. “Not a problem, eh?” His lips travel down between her breasts and she gasps in anticipation.

“Won’t be able to make you feel this good anytime you want,” he breathes and then ghosts over her covered pebbled nipple.

“You’re a tease, Harry,” she grips at his shoulders that are hunched to allow him to kiss on her. Her eyes having the perfect view of his curved neck and spine, the skin an expanse of clear perfect flesh, no tattoos in sight from this angle. The little curls at the nape of his neck trickling with spare droplets as he sucks on her own skin.

“Hmm…” his lips travel back up to the underside of her jaw causing her to tilt her head back and her stimulated chest to press into Harry’s. A chuckle passes against her skin as he feels her two points press into him.

Then, suddenly, he pulls back and grips at the back of her head to make her look at him. His eyes are deep and dark as the day starts to wear on, the sun beginning to set off in the distance.

“Maybe I need to demonstrate just what you’ll be missing out on?” He tilts his head at his suggestion and the glimmer in his eyes shows that he knows exactly what he has to say to get his friend - and soon to be lover - riled up.

Her chest heaves once, longing for the warm touch of Harry’s lips again. “What are you getting at?”

“Wanna make you feel so good you’re begging me to call my family up and tell them to not bother coming because we won’t be leaving your bed for the next few weeks.”

A breathless laugh leaves her, in disbelief, but also in wanton need. Her desire for him grew tenfold in the last ten minutes. His last sentence leaves her itching with longing. For his touch as he promised it.

“Give me the best you got then,” she challenges, her conviction never wavering despite her needy state.

That little sentence is what sets Harry’s eyes ablaze and has him gripping her waist and picking her up and setting her on the edge of the pool.

A quick press of his lips against hers and a “wait here” before he’s pulling himself from the water and shuffling to grab one of the towels he had laid out. She watches him curiously, confused why he had just promised to ravage her but was pausing to towel off.

He comes back with the towel and lays it behind her.

“Harry, what are -”

A finger presses to her swollen lips as his other hand goes to her shoulder and lays her back.

“Do you trust me?” He asks.

She nods, eyes wide and glassy as she stares up at him kneeling over her, his body between her bent knees. He leans down to press another kiss to her lips and then begins his decent.

“Gonna make you feel so fucking good, sweetheart,” he whispers.

Down her throat that he had happily been sucking on. His lips ghost over her still hard nipples and his hot breath has her arching off the ground immediately. A whine leaving her lips when he mouths between her two breasts in the valley just above the tie of suit. His fingers dance around on her skin, playing with her swimsuit fabric and she wants to scream at him to just untie it and really touch her, but she refrains. He continues his assault down her body. His hands grip at her knees when his lips travel below her navel. Her breaths have grown more strained as he’s gotten closer and closer to her heat. The cold wet fabric that covered her was a poor substitute to what she wanted to rub against her.

“Please,” she begs in a sigh as Harry’s lips skip where she wants him, instead traveling to her upper inner thigh.

He spreads her legs wider with his arms and her back arches further, her body just about fully on display for Harry. His eyes flicker up to her face that was staring right back down at him, watching his every move.

The cheeky bottoms left little to the imagination and the ties on the sides were so enticing Harry’s fingers smoothed up her thighs and began to toy with them. His face now hovering over her clothed center. His breath fanning the flames of her arousal just below the cherry fabric.

“See,” he smirks, eyes back on her face, “I haven’t even touched you yet, but you’re already begging.

“You’re an ass,” she grits out, trying to not be bothered by how easily he has gotten her in this position.

He clicks his tongue and tugs experimentally at one of the bottoms ties, “S’not a very nice thing to say to the man who’s about to stick his tongue in ya’?”

She gasps and slaps at his right shoulder at his crudeness. “You’re dirty!”

“And you’re wet,” he says confidently, smirking up from between her legs.

His fingers finally tug the ties undone and pull the fabric away from her center. The red bikini bottom falls limply to the ground and Harry’s eyes train on her glistening mound. Wet with the pool water as well as her arousal. To add to the cool air ghosting over her newly exposed skin, Harry blows his own breath over her. She writhes at the sensation, she bites at her lip to hold back any possible moans.

He glances at her face again and settles one arm to be wrapped around her leg and pressing down on her left hip. His other hand snakes between his face and her body and lightly drags between her folds. She bucks her body again, completely in need of some friction after all of the build up and teasing of today. Every nerve down there was electrified at the possibility of Harry finally touching her like this.

His finger pulls back and a string of arousal clings to him, a testament to the filthy thoughts she had about her neighbour. Thoughts she had pushed away for so long until recently. Thoughts she only indulged in in the dead of night, when she was exhausted but her mind insisted on wandering to the green sharp eyes that might stare at her if he ever were to delve into her depths. Her hands would travel to where he was now and rub out a triumphant shake of her thighs and heaving chest all in hopes that maybe he would bring her to that euphoria himself one day. Well that day was today.

He filthily takes that finger into his mouth and grins. “So wet,” he corrects.

His eyes disappear from view as he launches into his work. His drying curls flop over his forehead and tickle at her lower stomach slightly. He flattens his tongue and licks a strong stripe between her folds. The wet from her weeping hole spreads to her lips and around her clit as his finishes the lick with a little swirl. He uses his free hand to spread apart her lips a little more and takes the new angle to suck on the little puffy nub that is already throbbing. She gasps audibly when he pulls off of it with a squelching sound.

“Fuck,” he sighs and goes back to eating her out, happily pressing his tongue into her.

His hand on her hip travels to grope at one of her breasts and he deftly pulls at the top’s tie and grips onto her skin underneath the fabric. The strong grip mixed with his expert work between her thighs has her moaning loudly and her body writhing as he builds her up.

“Yeah, sweetheart,” he rasps, thumb on her nipple flicking happily back and forth. “Scream it out,” he says into her quivering center, “Nobody around to hear you, be as loud as you want.”

She moans louder at his words, her hands gripping harder into his hair. The thought of this scene turns her on even more. In all honesty, if someone did hear them she’d kind of like it. If someone walked in and saw her stretched out next to the pool with their wet bodies writhing against each other in pleasure. Harry’s head buried between her thighs making her feel better than she ever has, her breasts falling out of their top as he massages them harshly.

“Taste so sweet,” he groans, lapping at her tight hole, the muscle contracting against his tongue’s invasion.

She liked how messy he got with it, not that she really had much coherent thoughts in this moment. But his hot tongue swiping up and down and back and forth over her glistening lips and sucking on her clit left her breathless. Her juices and his saliva were making a mess of her thighs and the towel below her. When Harry felt her getting closer he’d back off and pay attention to another part of her and then go back to sucking and nipping perfectly into her.

She was eventually stuttering out, “I’m going to cum, Harry.” Breathing becoming uneven as she was about to tip over the edge. He nods, sucking harder at her clit one last time before taking his tongue and pushing it in and out of her hole, one of his thumbs traveling to rub over her clit in quick succession.

“Cum for me, dove,” he mumbles quickly before going back to making her feel good.

She grips her own nipple now with one hand and Harry’s hair with the other, her hips pushing up into Harry’s face over and over again. And then she’s hitting her climax and tipping over the edge, a moan ripping from her throat and freezing on her face as Harry eats her out through it. His tongue licking over her quivering pussy. His thumb rubbing comforting circles around her clit until she stopped shaking. Her breathing slowing down, eyes fluttering open eventually. They lazily stare at the man below her who’s lips and chin are slick with her juices as he grins up at her.

“Do you want me to call my mum now or wait until you’re fully back on earth,” he says slyly and kisses the inside of her thigh once more. Eyes lovingly staying on her pleasured out face.

“Seriously talking about your mom while you’re still between my thighs,” she breathes out, completely in disbelief. Harry and her had never gone that far before and it was life changing. He had been right, even if she didn’t want to admit it, she wasn’t sure if she could go three weeks without that again.

He sits up and begins to gently pull back on her swim bottoms and tie them back up. She lays there watching him work.

“How about now?” He asks with a smirk, moving to sit beside her and help her sit up when her bottoms have been readjusted. The fabric against her newly sensitive area was definitely interesting, but she couldn’t care with Harry beside her. She ties off her top on her own, even though Harry gestured that he could do it.

“Shut up,” she laughs and takes a hand to caress at his cheek.

He nuzzles into her touch.

“You forget I’m staying in the cottage...separate from everyone else,” she winks at him.

“Think they’ll still be able to hear ya’ from in there, dove. You’re a loud one,” he bites the inside of his cheek as he teases her.

She huffs and drops her hand, “I was gonna return the favor, but now I don’t think so.”

It’s Harry’s turn to laugh and reach out to her face, he pulls her face close to his, bringing her eyes level with his. “I’m just teasing. Plus, you don’t need to return the favor, I’ve been wanting to do that for ages.”

A laugh bubbles from her lips at the thought of Harry wanting her as much as she wanted him and she pecks at his lips. She grimaces only a little, tasting herself on him still.

“We’ll just have to be sneaky,” she pulls back and rests her forehead against his.

“Yeah,” Harry breaths out. His breath hitches when he feels her hand begin to trail down his chest and fiddle with the hem of his shorts. Her eyes are trained on his, expressionless like she wasn’t beginning to palm his hardened length over his sticky swim shorts.

“I told you,” he musters, “You don’t have to.”

“But,” she rasps, finally. “I want to,” she licks her lips with determination, “Want to make you feel good, too.”

He hums as her soft fingers go back up to the hem of his shorts and he helps her pull them down as he gives a nod of approval to her watching eyes.

Her eyes widen when his length is finally revealed and its bright red tip stands tall and strong against Harry’s stomach, placing itself slightly just below one of the ferns. Harry watches her lick at her hand and then places it between his thighs, her body positioned right next to him. On her knees, she makes an experimental first pump, seeing how his body responded. Her eyes mainly watch his face and an open mouthed smirk twitches onto his face when he notices her gaze. She pumps him again, twisting her wrist this time and swiping at the precum leaking from his tip. A groan leaves Harry’s mouth at that and his stomach flexes, the skin beneath his many tattoos hardening.

“Feel good?” She inquires.

“Great,” he breathes out as she leans forward on her knees and attaches her mouth over his head.

She slowly moves her head down and attempts to fit his entire length into her mouth, but despite her best efforts, she can’t quite get her throat to open up for his entirety yet. After holding him there for a moment, his head scratching at the back of her throat, she pulls off. Heaving a sigh and continuing to work him with her hand, her now glassy eyes look at him. Saliva gathers at her mouth and Harry can’t help himself but reach one of his hands from behind him to her lips. He swipes at it and presses the wet to her lips which she sucks at eagerly, a whine hidden beneath the action.

When his hand pulls away she says, “You’re quite girthy.”

“Girthy?” He sputters, both at the funny comment but also that she’s said it while still jacking him off.

“Mhmm,” she nods seriously, “Couldn’t get you all in.”

“That’s alright,” he starts, but falters on a specifically masterful tug. She grins, knowing what she's doing to him. “You seem to excel, no matter the setbacks.”

“I’ll get it eventually,” she begins to speed up her strokes, “Just need a bit of practice.”

Then her lips are pressing back onto Harry’s prick. She sucks solely at his head and Harry moans out as he gets more sensitive. Then she slides down further and bops her head vigorously. She wants Harry to come undone for her just like she had for him. Make him feel like she had moments ago. And within a few more minutes of enthusiastic sucking and pumping of her hands, even some fondling of his balls which Harry had been extremely receptive to, she has him stuttering beneath her.

One hand gripping at her hair, while the other keeps him upright, Harry’s head is thrown back on his shoulders as he tries to keep his eyes open and trained on the girl taking him so well down her lovely little throat.

“I’m almost there, sweetheart,” he pants, his hips bucking up once as he begins to lose control.

This only spurs her forward, spit drooling down his cock every time she pulls back from his slightly. Her ass is high in the air now as she arches over his length, trying to get him to unload.

“Taking me so well,” Harry praises. “Fuck,” he exclaims at another squeeze of his balls.

She swirls her tongue around his runny head and then hollows her cheeks and sucks on him with everything she’s got. This has Harry cursing and repeating her name, his load spurting into her mouth as she stays still. His chest now covered in beads of sweat as he tries to catch his breath after tipping over the edge himself. His eyes are trained on her. She keeps her lips diligently around his cock, wanting to swallow everything he’s just expended. When he’s done, she pulls back and sits on her legs, swallowing quickly and staring at Harry as she does it.

His eyes bug at the sight. She was the hottest woman in the world and she’d just sucked him off so well that he’s pretty sure he saw stars. Then she made eye contact as she swallowed his cum with her pretty little bikini barely covering her anymore, as she seemed to shift slightly uncomfortable in her drying bottoms. God, he was fucked.

“Shit,” he says, still trying to catch his breath. “You’re an absolute angel.”

Harry’s family arrives the next day and the pair have a hard time keeping their hands off of each other. She doesn’t know why they decide to start this little game where they pretend like they don’t want to jump each other’s bones each minute of the day. But as the days go by, they maintain to his family and chosen family that they are only neighbours who became friends. Anne gives a knowing look to Gemma every so often and Gemma’s boyfriend whispers in her ear sometimes, but for the most part they buy it.

No one notices that some nights Harry’s or Y/N’s beds are vacant sometimes. They don’t see him descend his spiral staircase at midnight or see her scamper next to the pool and slip into her cottage in the wee hours of the morning.

In the nights, it’s Harry’s soft lips pressed against her hot skin, panting praise and leaving little bite marks that can’t be seen with clothes on. Her lips mouth at his shoulder when fills her up and she exhales a breath that feels like she’s been waiting to let go for her entire life. They make each other feel good and they don’t talk about it but the secrecy of it makes it all the more enticing.

At least that’s what she thinks. Harry had been completely ready to tell his family about him and Y/N, at least that things were new between them, but when she introduced herself to his mum and Gemma she had said she was a friend. Harry had gulped, his adam’s apple bobbing hard, taking in the change of direction and agreeing with Y/N immediately. “Just a friend” he confirmed with a nod of his head and glance at her. She had smiled wide and given a hug to the other most important women in his life like she’d known them forever.

He didn’t understand why she wanted it this way, but his objections would be forgotten when night fell and she’d do the things he’d only dreamt of. Her breathy whimpers and pliant body would all but wipe his mind of any other thoughts but her and then he had no complaints, just a wish for the night to never end.

Y/N doesn’t even tell Cate when she calls her a week into the trip. It’s just something she wants to keep to herself and Harry. Their own private world.

It’s Christmas Eve when that bubble pops. The Champagne has been flowing for hours non stop - well only stopping when a different drink is in their hands, whether that be red or white wine or a mixed drink Harry has decided to concoct.

In the big Italian house, he’s free of prying eyes and he’s able to truly spend quality time with his loved ones. They have fancy dinners at private restaurants, go on gorgeous hikes, swim, and relax. They have a good time with playing holiday games, which they do most nights when they stay in.

Tonight’s the first night that Harry and Y/N haven’t ended up on the same team. He fears that most times he cheats it by swapping a paper or two, but tonight the alcohol has fizzed his brain and he forgot. This shouldn’t be a problem, not really. Except that everyone in the house has learned over the past week and a half that besides being perfectly matched in almost everything else, Harry and her are both equally and extremely competitive. Being on the same team has both advantages and avoids squabbles like the one the house has found themselves in at half past 11.

Harry’s arguing that his team got the last question before the buzzer went off, but she won’t back down. She is sure that Gemma had said the correct answer, but after the timer had run out. Everyone else was too sauced to care, but Harry and her were adamant and passionate about game play. As the argument heats up, Anne gives Gemma another one of those looks.

Y/N has stood up and crossed the short distance to Harry. She’s a breath away from him and he puffs up his chest, his eyes dark and serious as he’s ready to fight for this win all night.

“The time was out,” she says simply, but her eyes are beginning to glower.

“No. It was not.” He states back.

His eyes narrow at her as she stares right back at him.

“Was too.”

“Was not.”

They go back and forth, rapid fire as the alcohol in their veins flows straight to their mind and hearts.

“Children please!” Gemma exclaims, finally growing tired of the bickering. “It’s Christmas. Harry show some spirit and let your guest have the final say.”

They think she’s done but then adds, “Or else she might never want to come back here.”

Harry exhales harshly through his nose as his gaze flickers to his older sister and listens to her scolding. Handing over the timer to Y/N, which had been what kept them from moving on, he turns on his heel and walks out of the room.

“Oh gosh,” Y/N says after a moment, her frazzled mind processing that Harry’s leaving has something to do with her. A hand goes to her lips for a moment, a ghost of his warm breath still there, but gone too soon.

“I’ll...I’ll be right back,” she confirms and exits the room, following Harry’s footsteps.

She finds him on his front porch step, his breath misting in the cold air, much like it would back in London when they’d walk the neighbourhood streets together.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” she says, placing a hand on his left shoulder to really get his attention.

He turns from looking out at the clear night sky, his nose and cheeks already pinkened from the night breeze. His eyes are still dark out here, but there’s no malice or anger behind them. His lips tilt up on one side for a forgiving half smile, but there’s also some pain mixed in there.

“You wouldn’t not come back, right?” He asks helplessly, his smile faltering.

She swallows, taken aback by the question, both unsure of where it came from but also how exactly her drunk brain was supposed to respond with the double negatives.

“I’d come back next Christmas and the Christmas after that, Harry,” she whispers, “If you wanted me to of course.”

“Of course I’d want you to. I want you, sweetheart. All the time.” His voice isn’t slurred, but it’s raspy, a slight dry mouth from all the alcohol consumed tonight.

“Okay,” she confirms, “Then I’ll come back.”

They stand on the porch silently for a few minutes, eyes on one another, but no movement towards anything. It’s not a profound moment for their hazy minds, despite the meaning behind their words. It’s not quite clicking for them, but maybe tomorrow when they wake up with massive headaches it will register.

“I really am sorry,” she repeats when she sees little goosebumps begin to prick at his skin.

He had forgotten a jacket. And while his drunk blanket makes him immune to the feelings, her brain still registers that she doesn’t want him to get sick.

“S’alright. For what it’s worth, I was being a little childish. So, m’sorry too.” He says sincerely, maybe a little slurring of words slipping in.

He reaches a hand out of his pocket to touch at her upper arm. She can feel his warmth from beneath her thin long sleeve. They smile at one another and turn to reenter the house, feeling the giggly tide of alcohol wash over them again. Euphoria on their mind rather than family game malice.

Just as they’re about to open the door to the house. The two of them at the precipice of a house, a place they often find themselves, Gemma swings it open face and with little care for its heaviness. She glances between her brother and his “friend” and then up to the top of the door.

The top of the door? Why was she looking at the top of the door? Mistletoe.

“Mistletoe!” Gemma exclaims, pointing between the two of them. “You’re beneath the mistletoe, go on!”

Harry shakes his head in protest, falling onto the sword of friendship again. But then Y/N is grabbing at the back of Harry’s neck and pressing her lips to his. It’s a little sloppy, but Harry can’t help but enjoy the taste of her against him. They slot together like they usually do, but this time his sister is watching them, which is a little odd, but his muddled mind quickly forgets that fact. Her tongue is the deciding factor as it licks into his mouth and he licks back, pulling her closer by the waist. They get lost in the kiss and only pull apart when they hear a cough.

Gemma is now accompanied by the rest of the household watching them in disbelief. Everyone’s eyebrows are raised and even Rori is standing with the group, confused that the humans didn’t know they were doing this.

“Erm…” Harry has no idea what to say, shifting to face his family more fully.

Y/N blushes and shrinks into Harry’s chest, feeling like a teenager caught in the closet with her crush.

“That’s not how friend’s kiss one another,” someone murmurs.

There’s a few “I knew it”s mixed in as well with the rest of the chatter.

“Well…” She finally musters and throws a hand out to her side in a ta-da motion,

“Happy Christmas!”

After the revelation on Christmas Eve, everyone won’t stop teasing Harry and Y/N. The two laugh it off but something always nags at the back of their head. What they were to the other person. The status of this relationship. This friendship that had taken a turn to something else entirely.

It’s another Eve of a holiday when Harry finally musters up the courage to ask her directly. They learned from Christmas day that they couldn’t drink as much as they once did for multiple reasons. So on New Year’s Eve, they both choose to only consume a couple glasses of Champagne.

It starts with “Can we talk about us?” right after midnight. Right after Harry’s just started the New Year with her lips on his. She hears his question and takes it in, her stomach twisting with nerves and possibly excitement as well, and nods.

They slink off to his bedroom, but not for the activity everyone else was certain they were engaging in.

He sits them on the edge of the bed, both her hands clasped in one of his. He’s been quiet all day, she just realizes as he stays silent another moment longer.

“I love you,” he says in his dimly lit room.

Her jaw drops slightly, not quite expecting those three words yet.

“You don’t, don’t have to say anything yet. I just wanted you to know that,” he continues. “And that I want to be with you.”

“Harry,” she starts, breathless at his words.

“No,” he stops her again, “I felt something draw me to you the day you moved in across from me on Sherwood, like I was meant to know you or something. Then I met you and you made me feel so comfortable, all I wanted to do was be with you and that month when you didn’t really talk to me...dove, those weeks were wretched. But when I came back, it was like nothing happened and I was so happy because I couldn’t fathom life going back to the way it was before you. When we kissed, I felt overjoyed, I was so happy that you liked me like that because every time you called me friend...felt like a knife in me. I don’t want to be just your friend,” he pauses to say her name again, “I don’t want to be just your lover, I want to be your boyfriend or whatever they call it now - If you’ll have me.”

He takes a deep breath and blinks away the little well up of water that had grown in his eyes. He had forgotten to blink for a moment he realized.

His stare had been intense as he’d confessed all of his feelings to her, but she didn’t feel intimidated, his gaze had warmed her with its sincerity. It had strengthened his confession.

She sighed, her own eyes not as strong as his, unable to hold his gaze as she herself said her own confession.

His hand rests between them on the bed, steadying himself upright with it. She places her own hand over it and their fingers slightly intertwine. She feels him begin to fiddle with her fingers like usual. Like normal.

“Thank you,” she starts, “Of course I’ll have you. All the time, Harry.” She repeats his words from Christmas Eve back to him.

He starts to interject, the rambling thing, but she tugs at his pointer finger and he takes it as a sign to be quiet.

“I want to be your partner, too. I want it all with you, lover,” she gazes at him now, his free hand reaching up to caress her cheek in that moment. “Want it all,” she repeats in a whisper before he’s kissing her again.

Kissing her and kissing her. Over and over again. Because she was his. And he was hers. And it was a happy beginning. A happy new year and a happy new beginning of a relationship that was bound in friendship, born out of proximity, and nurtured by two kindred souls.

And it all started with her parents making her take her dog. Harry really needed to thank that dog for being the best wing man to ever run around on four legs.

Who knows who that new client of Y/N’s might be...

678 notes · View notes

apollostears · 4 years

Text

WILD SLEEPER [ multi ]

↬︎ Featuring: BTS (Namjoon, Taehyung, & Yoongi), GOT7 (Jackson Wang), Stray Kids (Hyunjin), & Harry Styles

↬︎ Warning(s): cursing and some suggestive themes

↬︎ Creator(s): Kit & Maya

*gifs not ours*

Min Yoongi (BTS)

Yoongi values sleep. Sleep is love, sleep is life.

So having a s/o that sleeps like they’re fighting demons, is beyond him.

Y’all might end up having a discussion about your sleeping habits because baby is not with the shits

cuddling is pretty much nonexistent because shit gets hot real quick and you can’t stay in one position long enough to really get comfortable

however, whenever he does wake up because you’ve shifted for the eighteenth thousand time, he fixes your bonnet because it never fails to come off your head

you always feel bad whenever Yoongi winds up on the floor, completely over trying to stay in the bed, and ends up having small back pains or a crook in his neck

at some point you suggest sleeping on an air mattress (or the guest room) as a way to solve the problem

yoongi no like that

he deadass squinted his eyes like ‘wtf’ and told you no

then it was your turn to look at him like ‘wtf’ because didn’t he just complain about a sore neck?

yoongi may give you shit about how you sleep, but he doesn’t want to sleep without you

he doesn’t care where he ends up, as long as he starts with you in his arms

yoongi values sleep, but he values you as well

Jackson Wang (GOT7)

jackson ‘puppy’ wang was NOT with the shits AT. ALL!!

like as soon as you showed signs of being a shitty sleeper, he was like nope on the floor

don’t get me wrong, jackson craves cuddle time, but only during the day

you tried not to take offense to the fact that jackson basically kicked you out the bed, but it hurt a little ngl

you were only on the floor for maybe a week before you woke up one morning in the bed with him

slight panic attack had ensured because you thought you had upgraded to sleep walker status until jackson explained that it was his doing

lowkey slapped tf outta him for bitching about your sleep habits just for him to put you back in the bed

like yoongi, i feel like jackson would just really cherish every chance he has to feel you, even if its at his own expense

eventually, around month four of sleeping together, you finally got your life right

jackson honestly thought you were dead the first night you had barely moved

he definitely shed a few tears as he shook you awake (cry baby ass)

you would’ve found the scene a little heartbreaking if you hadn’t of just finished a ten hour shift and wanted to fucking sleep

jackson didn’t care that you were cussing him out for waking you up, he was just happy you were alive

ever since then, y’all have had peaceful nights of rest (until the mfer developed sleep apnea but that’s a story for another time)

Kim Namjoon (BTS)

Nami was honestly v concerned at your inability to stay still.

I’m talking he called a sleep therapist on your ass

after a long talk with your mom, who explained your tendency to sleep like you fought the devil, he understood there was nothing to fear

out of all the boys, nami is the most patient

is he tired af sometimes? definitely

does he regret sharing a bed with you? you bet your ass

but he loves you and he loves your plush skin being in his arms

translation: he likes grabbing your ass and titties

you aren’t a very wild sleeper, but your scarf/bonnet does come off every night and nami is there to help you put it back on

i feel like, eventually, nami becomes a rough sleeper himself and y’all’s room looks like Edward and Bella’s in Breaking Dawn every morning

one position y’all always manage to be in is with y’all’s feet entangled and you pulling his arm towards you (if that makes sense)

overall, namjoon would probably feel some type of way at first, but then discover that y’all are the same person and become an unruly couple together

Hwang Hyujin (Stray Kids)

Let’s face it Hyunjin is a cuddle bug so you being a crazy sleeper makes this hard

Just kidding he just holds you tighter

He can be a crazy sleeper himself but definitely can’t outshine you

I strongly believe the only way he could cuddle you without you being so squirmy is by laying his head on your stomach and holding you from there

If he’s had a rough day you let him sleep before you so he can get comfortable before you go crazy

He will put back on your bonnet if it falls off

If you’re a kicker???

Not a problem

He’ll just tangle his feet with yours now no kicking

Problem solved

Yes he does wake up before you to take a picture of you in your final form

Don’t worry you’re a crazy sleeper and he’s a blanket stealer

match made in heaven

You never wake up fully on the bed and that is the most entertaining shit ever to him

You always wake up to him giggling and the sound of his phone camera

All of the members will see these pictures

ONLY THE ONES WHERE YOU ARE DRESSED

R.i.p. the pillows because you’re always pushing them off the bed

Never a dull moment in the sheets awake or not ;)

Kim Taehyung (BTS)

I just KNOW Tae is not having it

You’re gonna sleep and you’re gonna stay still

PERIOD

He most certainly squishes you under him to keep you from battling in your sleep

Be prepared to wake up sweaty because he’s hot af (literally)

He’s come to the conclusion that rough sex helps you sleep more peacefully

He likes to try different remedies to help make you less restless

He won’t admit it but he has a section in his notes app where he writes down what works and what doesn’t

Lil scientist

You sleep crazy, he snores

I dont make the rules srry</3

He makes you lavender tea and milk EVERY night

Doesn’t help you sleep but he enjoys the moment all cuddled up with tea

enjoying each other’s company

Before you start fighting in your sleep smh

I almost forgot!!!

He ALWAYS sings you to sleep

ALWAYS

It’s one of the best remedies

He lets you get comfy in bed so he can rearrange you when he lays down

your crazy sleep positions are art to him

No matter how crazy they are

If you fall on the floor you might spend the night there if he isn’t too far into his sleep

Him always asking if you were dreaming and what your dreams are about to piece together your position

You guys never start the morning without that discussion and a few stray kisses

He may try his hardest to keep you still at night but he will never shun you for it ever

You’re his love so there just isn’t a way he would ever try and shun you for being human

Harry Styles

Nothing

And I mean nothing

Will ever disrupt Harry’s sleep

He sleeps like a rock

His face is always glued to your back

No matter where you end up Harry is not far away

You most certainly won’t end up on the floor

If you do...well you both will so oof

Some how you both always end up somewhat in each other’s arms when you wake up

There are NEVER any blankets on the bed because you two don’t know how to act

Harry is a hugger so he always has something he’s hugging

It won’t always be you

But you can’t be mad because you are all over the place

Expect him to wake you up with a knowing smile on his lips

His raspy voice asking if you were running from him in your sleep

He truly doesn’t mind your sleep style to him it’s damn unique

Take pride in it

Certain positions you wake up in DEFINITELY get him going (if y’know what I mean)

Expect to hear a rough "Look so good f’me petal"

Suddenly sleeping with your ass out becomes a habit ;))

423 notes · View notes

sweetsubharry · 3 years

Note

Hii!! Do you have any fics where Harry is the Damsel in Distress and Louis saves him?? Bonus if it's a kidnapping fic

Thank you very much!!

hiya! 💞 yes I have a couple of those! :) I do love a good classic rescue fic!

The first four are kidnapping and the rest are just the damsel in distress type of thing! I wasn’t sure how severe you wanted the distress? So the one’s where Louis is comforting Harry from a thunder storm and stuff I didn’t include, if you want to see those types too just send me another anon :)

Anyway! Please stay safe and read the tags everyone! 💞

Count The Wolves And We'll Sleep Tonight by scribblewrite

Louis's the Alpha of a powerful pack and Harry's his omega.

When Harry's taken by rogue alphas, Louis will do anything to bring him home safely.

Burning Skies by emeraldharry

They both watched as ice and fire danced across their palms, hypnotized by the small things they could do with their powers. Snowflakes swirled around each other as the mist twisted about like a small tornado, while the fire in Louis' hands swayed and twirled gracefully—bright and warm and beautiful.

Before, Harry couldn't even think of touching him with the fear of turning his skin to ice. Now, he knew that Louis wasn't some ordinary human to shy away from. Louis was bright, fiery flames, a body of powerful waves of heat. Louis was everything he was not, his polar opposite, but it was all the more reason that they fit together just right.

[Mutant au: Harry likes to think he's normal. Except, normal boys don't freeze everything they touch. Louis thinks he's perfect just the way he is and shows him just that. Zayn is a telekinetic, Liam is a rising YouTube star, and Niall is the best human best friend there is.]

You Took My Heart By Surprise by LiveLaughLoveLarry

There is reason to believe Prince Harry’s life is in danger. After a failed kidnapping attempt, Louis is assigned to guard Harry around the clock. He is the best at what he does, but he has a tendency to not get along with clients. Louis and Harry start off on the wrong foot, but it soon becomes clear that neither is at all what the other expected.

~*~*~

Queen Anne met Louis’ eyes. “While your file documents many remarkable accomplishments, it also contains a number of early terminations. Why is that?”

“It all depends on what your priorities are,” he said slowly. “If your primary concern is protection, I’m your guy. If you’re looking for someone polite…” He shrugged. “I don’t generally try to be rude, but social graces aren’t what I’m being paid for. If someone values being sucked up to over being protected, that’s their problem.”

“You seem quite well-mannered,” Anne said, frowning.

Both Nick and Louis snorted at that. “You’ve only known me for ten minutes,” Louis said. “Give it time.”

cut your teeth on my heart by turnyourankle

Louis has worked as a security officer for years, but he's handed his first opportunity to be team lead. The assignment is nothing like what he expected.

Harry has spent years trying to distance himself from the pressure of the Twist name and legacy. But it's going to be hard to avoid when his mum hires him a bodyguard.

turn the sky black into a sky blue by orphan_account

Harry forgets that noses exist. Louis is a badass motherfucker. They bang.

“I’ve been in love with you since I dropped my books in the hallway and you made fun of me when you picked up my John Green novel off the ground.”

Save Me by CupcakeStyles

It took a door to slam him to the ground for Louis to look up and meet the broken eyes of Harry Styles, finding it in himself to want to help this boy from his misery.

I'm falling again by nancy01

Liam gripped Harry's shoulders and ordered him to look at him. "Harry, tell me what's wrong?"

Harry couldn't hear what Liam was saying anymore, could only see and hear white noise. He wanted the hands to encase him and hold him, not keep him away at a distance.

Harry tried to speak but all that came out was a whimper again.

"Harry? Talk to me!" Liam ordered again.

"Gonna drop." Harry managed to get out, tears leaking down his face.

harry drops on stage and Louis has to save him

If I Just Breathe... by whisperingwind

Harry has an asthma attack in the middle of an interview. Cue Louis saving the day, yet again.

Title from "Breathe" by Michelle Branch

If you're lost, just look for me by whisperingwind

Maybe the pain wouldn’t be so hard to withstand if it weren’t for his low tolerance.

Sure, he stubs his toe and tears up, and yeah, he might go to Louis for excessive cuddles after getting whacked in the head with a red bull can, but this is something entirely different.

He feels like he’s dying.

“Shh, shh, shh,” Louis whispers, trying to calm him down, and brushes his fingers through Harry’s hair. It’s slightly damp from the sweat rolling off his body, especially the sweat coating his face and neck. He doesn’t like seeing Harry cry, especially over things as petty as being a bit ill.

Though Louis is starting to realize that Harry is more than a bit ill. “You have to tell me what’s wrong.” It’s a command. He has to keep that overlay of sternness in his tone in order to get what he needs from Harry, otherwise he’ll never get a straight answer from the younger lad. “Deep breaths, come on. I need to know what’s going on and you’re the only one who can tell me.”

Or Harry contracts Appendicitis. Louis saves the day, again.

Title from "Walking in the Wind" by One Direction

How Much? (Enough) by iwillpaintasongforlou

Harry has an asthma attack during X-Factor rehearsals and only Louis ever listened closely enough to know what to do to help him. That's sort of how things go between them, though. Louis revolves around Harry, a bit. Harry revolves around him too, a little. Somehow it works- very much a lot.

tell me that I'm wrong but I do what I please by moonlightlouis

au where Harry and Louis are in a relationship and someone hurts louis' baby so he defends his honor

(twenty minutes later) wound up in the hospital by b4byhoney

“Baby, I think a quick trip to A&E might do you some good, hm?” Louis keeps his voice as calm as possible. He doesn't want to startle Harry or make him scared, but he knows that Harry’s fever is too high and he can't risk Harry choking himself into another attack when he's so poorly.

He hears a sharp intake of breath come for Harry and he knows Harry is starting to panic. Louis moves his hand from Harry's hair to his back, rubbing circles into his sweat-soaked shirt.

“No, no. Shh, don't worry, darling. Everything is okay, you’ll be okay. I just know that the doctors will be able to make you feel much better much sooner than I can...Just want you to get healthy as soon as possible, okay?”

or the one where harry has the flu and louis is a protective, nervous-wreck of a boyfriend

We Are Inevitable by mmargarita

“What’s the second flaw?”

“The second inevitable flaw in your plan is:” Louis stood straight and walked towards Harry, grabbing his chin. Harry’s breath hitched. “Us.” Louis smiled. “We’re inevitable, baby. We’re soulmates, and we both know it. You just need to come back to me.” . . . . 30/07/2020: This work has been edited and corrected, and now has 7k words more.

Snow Soaked Love by sunniskies

They take off down the hill together, Louis pulling slightly ahead, relishing the rush of adrenaline as he twists his body deftly through the powdery snow, his skis kicking up a haphazard pattern of tracks in his wake. He can hear Harry laughing loudly over the noise of the flying snow and Louis thinks about how he can’t wait to kiss him when they reach the bottom.

Louis and Harry take a weeklong skiing holiday, but when Harry gets hurt, their plans shift.

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abundanceofsoph · 3 years

Text

SkyFire 3: Chapter 9

BBC Radio 1 Breakfast Show with Nick Grimshaw : October 2017

Word count: 3.8k

SkyFire 3 MASTERLIST

Please for the love of god, if you like the story just hit the reblog button. I’m starting to run out of motivation to post since no one ever shares these chapters.

>Instagram posts

After the Phoenix show, the band took a weeklong break before meeting back up in Paris to kick off the European leg of the tour. During their break, Adam returned home to his young family and Sarah and Mitch took a short vacation together, while Aurora and Harry joined Niall in celebrating the release of his debut album, Flicker. They, along with Liam, Louis and some of Niall’s friends and family all arrived at his London house for dinner and drinks to celebrate the launch after Niall had spent the day doing press. It was a really casual evening, with everyone scattered throughout the living room, kitchen, and heated patio. Later in the evening Aurora found herself sandwiched on the sofa between Liam and Louis while Harry was off being the social butterfly he was, flitting from one conversation to the next. Rori loved that about the two of them, as much as they loved each other they never felt the need to be glued to each other’s sides when out with friends. She had just finished filling the boys in on the excitement of the first leg of the tour when Liam posed a question.

“I noticed you guys have a 2 week break between Milan and Singapore,” he said. “Got anything planned?”

“We’re planning to be home for 8 or 9 days and then fly to Singapore a few days early to hopefully explore a little,” Rori explained. “Why?”

“Well I was wondering if you wanted to get in the studio with me,” Liam replied. “Lou and I wrote a song a few months back and the demo I put together got selected for the next Fifty Shades soundtrack, but they want it to be a duet. We thought you’d be the perfect fit.”

“Oooh, that sounds like fun,” Rori smiled. “Do you have the demo on your phone?” Liam nodded and Rori fished her AirPods out of her purse and quickly linked them with Liam’s phone to listen through the track. “I love it!” she declared once it reached the end. “Oh, this is going to be so much fun.”

They were interrupted from continuing by a slightly tipsy Niall calling everyone’s attention to where he was standing on the coffee table.

“EVERYONE!” Niall yelled. “I just wanna thank ya all for being here to celebrate all of this. It’s mental that after so many months my baby is finally out in the world and every single one of you played a part in helping make this happen.”

“TO NIALL!” Rori yelled, raising her glass in the air. Everyone echoed her words, cheersing the jolly Irishman.

xXx

A week and a half after Niall’s album launch, after shows in both Paris and Cologne, the Styles’ were back in London for two back to back shows in Hammersmith. The day after the shows, before they headed up to Manchester Harry was due to appear on Nick Grimshaw’s breakfast show on BBC Radio One as Kiwi was releasing as a single that day. Unfortunately, when Harry came of the stage after the second show his voice was in shambles. The tour doctor headed straight for Harry’s dressing room and after a quick consult he was placed on vocal rest for the next 36 hours in preparation for the next show. Aurora immediately called Grimmy to explain the situation while Jeff attempted not to panic before joining her on the call. After much discussion between the 3 of them and many eye rolls from Harry, it was decided that Aurora would attend the interview the following morning so that Nick wasn’t left hanging without a guest and Harry would stay home to rest before travelling up to Manchester in the afternoon.

xXx

“Good morning you’re listening to BBC Radio One, I’m Nick Grimshaw and this morning I was supposed to be joined by Mr Harry Styles but unfortunately Hazza’s come down with a bit of a cold so he’s sent along his wonderful wife to fill in for him. Aurora thank you for joining me.”

“Thank you for having me Grimmy,” Rori replied. “Wish it was a bit later in the day, but you did buy me a coffee so I’ll let you off without too many complaints.”

“How generous of you love,” Nick smirked.

“Only for you,” she giggled, throwing a wink across the table towards her friend.

“So, I had all these fantastic, insightful question for Harry about the album and the tour and the release of Kiwi as a single today, but alas I’ve had to throw all that out the window. Figured since I’m bluffing the questions, we might have a bit of fun today and given that it’s Hazzas fault you’re up this early, what do you say we have that fun at his expense?”

“Are you gonna get me in trouble when I get home Nick?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it love. Besides we both know he’d never get mad at you, that boy is smitten with you.”

“We’ll see about that. What sort of fun did you have in mind?”

“How about we throw to a song and when we come back, I’ll start with a few softball questions.”

“You’re going to play nicely, aren’t you?” Rori asked as the mics were muted and a song started playing for the listeners.

“Of course,” Nick smiled. “I know where your boundaries are, and I text Harry last night to see what he was comfortable with us discussing in regards to song meanings and he gave us the all clear.”

“Alright then,” Rori sighed. “I guess it’s too late now to back out.”

“Oh, don’t be like that,” Nick laughed. “We’re gonna have a fun morning. You ready? Song’s almost done.”

Aurora nodded and readjusted her headphones.

“Welcome back, if you’re just tuning in, I’m joined this morning by the one and only Aurora Styles. Now Rori, your husband Harry, he’s a good mate of mine and the fans listening at home will be very aware that our boy H doesn’t like to talk about his private life much but between us gals I’ve got a few questions.”

“Oh god.”

“Now, now. We’ll have none of that. I’m wondering what married life is like?”

“It’s wonderful,” Rori answered. “We’ve been married for a little over 7 months now and it couldn’t be better.”

“And you’ve been together for what, 4 years now?”

“Something like that,” Rori agreed.

“What was it that first made you fall for him?”

“Oh um... I’m not sure what the first thing was, it just kind of happened. The dimples certainly didn’t hurt,” she joked. “But in all seriousness, I think it was just how genuine he was.”

“Boring,” Nick replied, rolling his eyes dramatically.

“No, I’m serious,” Rori laughed. “We met at the AMAs right before my first ever solo performance and I was in the middle of a panic attack and he just sat down next to me in the hallway and talked to me until I calmed down. We’d never met before and he just saw me freaking out and thought ‘I’m gonna help her’. You don’t find a lot of genuinely kind people in this industry and he’s always astounded me with how selfless he is.”

“That’s too cute. It’s disgusting. How do you manage being in a relationship with someone who is idolized by such an intensely loyal fan base?”

“Honestly, I love Harry’s fans. How could I not? They love the same things in him that I do. They recognize his talent and his kindness and they’re so supportive of everything he does. I’m honestly just so proud of him so of course I love his fans because he deserves to be adored.”

“You’re very sappy this morning sweetheart,” Nick replied. “Don’t get me wrong I’m loving it, you’re normally much sassier with me when you’re more awake. So how has it been being on tour with Harry and being a part of the band?”

“Oh my god, it’s so much fun. We have the best time when we’re all playing together, and we all get along so easily that it never feels like work. The tour has been incredible so far, getting to play this fantastic album to so many fans. I’m very lucky. There aren’t a lot of careers where you get to spend every day with your husband doing what you both love.”

“Speaking of the incredible album let’s play the new single Kiwi and when we come back, we might have a bit of a chat about the other tracks.”

After Kiwi finished, Nick grinned cheekily across the desk at Aurora as he welcomed the listeners back. “And we are back everyone, now before the song break, we were discussing Harry Styles, the self-titled debut of Harry Styles and Aurora I’d love to pick your brain about it since you were involved in the entire creation process, weren’t you?”

“From writing to recording,” Rori agreed.

“So which track is your favourite?”

“That’s tough. There are a lot of very personal songs on the album and in one way or another they’re all my favourites for very narcissistic reasons, but I think if I had to pick one, I think I have to pick Sweet Creature. It’s just a beautiful song.”

“You would pick a song written for you as your favourite.”

“I mean in my defence every song on the album is either about me or I wrote it so there was no humble way to answer that question, and also Nick,” she paused, smirking in anticipation for the rest of her sentence, “who said it’s about me?”

“Wait. Are you saying you’re not Harry’s Sweet Creature? Well who is it about? Did he step out on you?” Nick joked.

Aurora chuckled. “No, he didn’t step out on me, and I’m not telling you. She knows who she is and all I’ll say is that not all love is romantic love. Besides everyone who assumed it was about me didn’t even really listen to the song. I mean how could we have started out as ‘two hearts in one home’?”

“Well I’m sure all the fans listening are having a bit of a breakdown right now over that,” Nick laughed. “I want to come back to talking about the album later, but since you’ve never been shy about addressing fan theories, I thought it might be a bit of fun to look at what fans are talking about online. I’ve taken to Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr overnight to find out what's on their minds, what do you say Rori?”

“Let’s do it,” Rori replied.

“Excellent. Let’s play a song first and when we come back, we’ll be addressing fan questions, and speculations. This is Taylor Swift with Look What You Made Me Do.”

While the song played Rori and Nick talked and joked around about what he had found online and he promised, once again, that he wouldn’t put her in any uncomfortable situations.

“Welcome back,” Nick said. “This morning we’re answering the internets burning questions with Aurora Styles. First ones gonna be a soft ball Rors. It’s from twitter user @IwouldSellMyLeftKidneyForAuroraStark, who tweeted: My life is in desperate need for an Aurora Styles solo album/tour. Who do I have to kill to make this happen? So, when are we getting your solo work, love?”

“Oh wow, that’s very sweet,” Aurora replied with a blush, “But please don’t sell your kidney for me, you’re gonna need that. As for the solo work, while I appreciate the support, I don’t think I will ever go solo. I enjoy the collaborative process too much and a solo tour just wouldn’t be as much fun as touring with Harry. I will continue posting covers and demos to my YouTube channel and we have been tossing around the idea of a demo tape album so maybe you will get an album from me at some point.”

“Well I for one would be first in line for a vinyl of your Demo Tapes series,” Nick replied. “I found a tweet with a theory about some of your songs from twitter user @HarrysSuits. How cute is it that Aurora Styles has like 5 Songs that she’s written either about or with Harry that have the same or very similar titles to 1D songs? I mean there’s The Little Things, Just You and I, Still I Fly, Where I Belong, and All Night.”

“I mean when you lay it out like that there’s definitely a trend,” Rori admitted with a chuckle.

“You didn’t do it intentionally?” Nick asked.

“Not at all. Yikes. Makes me sound like a bit of a fan girl doesn’t it? Naming all my songs after theirs?”

“A little bit,” Nick chuckled, holding up his hand with his thumb and forefinger pinched together.

“How embarrassing,” Rori said sarcastically.

“Very embarrassing,” Nick replied with a matching tone. “I hope they don’t notice because how awkward would it be if they know you’re a fan?”

“I’d die.”

“Thank god this is a private chat that no one else is listening too,” Nick laughed. “Ok so earlier in the show you hinted at the story behind Sweet Creature and I was hoping, since Hazza isn’t here to stop us, we can dive into the rest of the album. The fans and I couldn’t help but notice that there seems to be a bit of a common theme throughout the album with it being tied into the Columbia shooting and I've got a fan observation here from the account @18monthsTheySaid, it’s quite an in-depth thread but I’d love to get your take on it so here we go:

Whatever you do, don’t think about the fact that at least 4 tracks off HS1 are about Aurora and the Columbia shooting. These are obviously just my interpretations of the songs and I might be wrong but I’m gonna say it anyway.

Meet me in the Hallway: I think this is about the immediate aftermath. He’s roaming the hospital hallways, needing pain relief and he’s ‘gotta get better’ because he feels the need to pull himself together and be there for Aurora. He’s begging her ‘Just let me know…’ because he’d do anything to fix it or make it easier for her.

Sign of the Times is probably one of the most overt ones on the album, I mean ‘why are we always stuck’n running from the bullets’? and I’m pretty sure ‘we don’t talk enough… will we ever learn?’ is about how we can never seem to have an actual conversation about gun reform in this country and until we do we’ll never change.

Two Ghosts: ‘we’re not who we used to be’ is obviously about the fact that they both changed so much in the wake of the shooting and I think the idea of them being ghosts is Harry examining the alternative reality where she didn’t survive and maybe he wouldn’t have survived it either.

Ever Since New York: I mean the title says it all really. ‘Tell me something I don’t already know’ is maybe asking the doctors for better news because she went through so many surgeries and the results were always the same. And ‘Brooklyn saw me empty at the news’ I think is reference to Rori’s dad, Steve Rogers who’s from Brooklyn and some of the Avengers call him that occasionally in interviews.”

Aurora remained silent for a moment once Nick finished reading out the twitter thread. She was so often blown away by how observant the fans were and how much they picked up on. “When we sat down to write the album in 2016 we were so heavily stuck in the aftermath of Columbia that I don’t think it’s a surprise to anyone that a lot of the album is in reference to what happened to me and the fallout from that,” she explained. “This album was about us piecing ourselves back together in many ways and I think if you listen to the whole thing you can hear that entire process of us healing together. The incredible thing about Harry as a songwriter and as a performer is that he’s always been so good at making you feel exactly what he’s feeling when he sings, and clearly people are picking up on that tone and over-arching theme.”

“Was it difficult to write about what happened?” Nick asked.

“Some days,” Rori admitted. “There were a lot of tears but the thing I love the most about music, and the entire song writing process, is that it’s the best form of therapy. When I’m writing I can admit to feelings I wouldn’t otherwise be able to talk about. You can be really vulnerable in way that feels safe and comforting and then when you’re able to share that with the world and you let them in, it’s an incredible experience.”

“And I think I speak for everyone when I say how much we appreciate you and Harry letting us in. Now before either of us get too mushy, let’s throw it over to your favourite track off the album. This is Sweet Creature.”

While the song played, Nick looked across the desk to where Aurora was taking a deep breathe to steady her nerves after talking about something so personal. She loved talking about song writing and the meanings behind her lyrics, but she always got a little nervous when it was Harry’s songs she was talking about, knowing that he felt the opposite about sharing the stories behind the songs. He had told her countless times that while he wasn’t comfortable having those conversations he would never stop her from talking about it, but his silence on the topic always made his fans desperate for information which put a lot of pressure on her when she spoke about his work.

“Alright,” Nick said, “you ready for the last one?”

“Is it what I think it is?

“It is. Not too late to back out if you don’t want me to ask. We can just talk about the BBC recording or about the tour some more.”

“No, it’s ok,” she replied. “It’s about time I say something. Just nervous about the response.”

Nick nodded in understanding and turned back to the microphone as the song reached its end. Aurora felt her heartrate rising and her hand started to shake as anxiety clawed at her throat.

“Now we’ve been addressing fan theories and answering the internet’s burning questions here this morning and we can’t really have a segment like this without touching on the biggest theory surrounding Harry that dates back to the very early days of his career and I know neither of you have ever addressed this publicly but when we were chatting last night about you filling in for him I asked if it was ok to bring this up and you both agreed I could ask…”

Aurora shifted in her seat hesitantly, her palm growing sweaty as she anticipated the next question. She’d avoided commenting on it publicly ever since she and Harry announced their relationship, which was not to say she didn’t have strong opinions about the topic. She just knew that it would cause a stir amongst the fans.

“For years now, fans have speculated that Harry and his bandmate, Louis Tomlinson, are in a secret relationship and that they’re management forced them to hide it so as not to alienate their fan base. In the past both yourself and Louis’ girlfriends have been accused of acting as beards for the lads, but you’ve never addressed the overwhelming online presence of what the fans call Larry Stylinson.”

“I really don’t like talking about it, Grimmers,” Aurora began. “But I guess by staying silent a lot of fans have taken that as an answer, so what I will say is that I’m not angry at those fans. I am sad though. I’m sad that they think it’s ok to harass myself or Eleanor or Danielle or anyone else in Harry and Louis’ lives. I’m sad that they saw two boys who saw each other as family and loved each other and that those fans couldn’t accept that two men could show affection for each other without it being romantic love. What worries me are all the boys out there who see the way these girls have acted over the years and how much that has reinforced the toxic masculinity in their lives. The fear of being seen as gay stops so many boys and men from telling their friends that they love them. My best friend Ella and I act the exact same way as Lou and H did in the early days of the band but because we’re women no one has ever accused us of being lesbians. The harassment has affected all of us and I know that the fans are acting out of a place of love. They love the boys and they want them to be happy, but it’s honestly just gone too far, and it needs to stop. The Directioners are such wonderful people who are so inclusive and loving and I think they need to remember that and remember that we see the things that they say online. I guess if there was one thing I would say to those fans if they’re listening it would be that I know you love Harry and Lou, but by attacking myself and the other women in their lives you are hurting them and I’m certain that that is not what you want, so instead I ask you to channel that love into supporting them and lifting them up.”

“Thank you love. I know you don’t like talking about, but I must say I completely agree with you. Now we’re going to go to one more song and then when we come back, we’ll wrap this up and let you get on with your day. How about you introduce this next track, Rori?”

“Thanks, Grimmy,” Rori said. “From his incredible new album which dropped less than 2 weeks ago, here’s Niall Horan and myself with Seeing Blind.”

“You handled that well,” Nick told her once the mics were muted. “Kept your cool and explained yourself clearly.”

“Thanks,” Rori replied with a small smile. “Think I might stay offline for the next few days to avoid the worst of it.”

“Probably a good idea love,” Nick agreed. “Ready to finish this off?”

“Let’s do it.”

When the song ended the pair chatted for a few minutes about the rest of the tour before they reached the end of their timeslot. “Well thank you for joining me this morning for a bit of a cheeky gossip session Rors,” Nick finally said. “For those of you listening at home that are missing Harry this morning, tune in to BBC on Thursday night for Harry Styles at the BBC, an hour long show with live performances and interviews with yours truly.”

NEXT CHAPTER

OR CONTINUE READING ON AO3

#skyfire fic #Husband Harry Styles #harry styles fanfiction #dad!tony #ptsd #domestic fluff #iron dad #step dad steve rogers #aurora stark #harry styles #tony stark

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atruththatyoudeny · 4 years

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Monthly Reads | December 2019

Oh, look, it's the 28th! Time to appreciate all the amazing authors who make this fandom as special as it is! ♥ Here are all the fics I've read and loved this month:

I Just Want You to Stay | SadaVeniren | a/b/o - kidnapping . friends with benefits - fake/pretend relationship - mutual pining - misunderstandings - fluff - angst - bonding - 35k Louis and Harry have been roommates for four years, comfortable in their routine and their relationship. But all of that is about to change.

When half spent was the night | juliusschmidt | Christmas - Girl Direction - pregnancy - labor - birth - 15k Hi Harry, I’ve skimmed your website and am interested in hiring you to be my doula. I’m 7 ½ months pregnant and not keen to do this whole labor and birth thing alone. After looking around, I thought you might be a good fit because you mention enjoying unusual people with unusual birth requests. I can meet up any day this week. Lou

I Think You're Already Home | jaerie | a/b/o - surrogacy - mpreg - strangers to lovers - panic attacks - famous/not famous - anxiety - mental health issues - 38k Seeing Louis Tomlinson today, it would be hard to guess that he was ever once a member of the world's most famous boyband. These days he doesn't even the leave his own house. The truth is he can't leave his own house. He can't even remember the last time just standing at an open door didn't send him into a debilitating panic attack. But, against his friend's advice, Louis is ready to add meaning to his life again. He's ready to start a family. So what if he doesn't have an omega? There are plenty of surrogacy services just waiting to help the rich and famous become parents. He just has to find the right one for the job.

Christmas Glows With Love | Beanno28 | Christmas - strangers to lovers - light bondage - 5k Harry, a photographer, is taking photos for a porn magazine cover. Louis, a solo porn star, is up for just about anything!

You'll Be Home For Christmas | 2tiedships2 | Christmas - a/b/o - friends to lovers - 15k “Honesty, Lou, just ask Harry for help.” Louis remained silent as he continued to scowl at the Christmas calendar Niall had hung on their refrigerator. “And be nice to my calendar filled with holiday cheer,” Niall instructed. “You’re going to burn a fucking hole in it from the way you’re glaring at the innocent thing. It’s not the calendar’s fault that your heat is starting so close to Christmas.”

Bigger Ain't Always Better! | lovelarry10 | Christmas - friends with benefits - hospitals - 10k Harry buys Louis a rather naughty birthday present, and they eagerly hurry back to Harry's flat, eager to try it out. Neither of them expect what happens next....

Santa's Lap | larryatendoftheday | Christmas - strangers to lovers - 4k Louis is a grown man, and he will absolutely not go see Santa with his siblings. And even if he gives in, he definitely won’t enjoy it. Right? A Christmas story about unexpected gifts, featuring Harry as a mall Santa and Louis as a great big brother.

Down From the North | Chelsea Frew (chelseafrew) | Christmas - fluff - 3k Single father Louis is anxious to introduce his boyfriend Harry to his small daughter now that their relationship has grown serious and Christmas is on the way. Little does he know that his daughter has already met his boyfriend....

Sugar cookies and Trash Brownies | Lemon_cakes_tea | Christmas - 4k Harry and Louis are rivals at their children’s school’s annual Holiday Bake Sale. Harry’s pristinely-shaped and iced cookies are the favorite every year amongst the soccer moms, but Louis’s “trash brownies” are threatening his reputation!

All Hearts Come Home For Chrismas | Beanno28 | Christmas - coming out - established relationship - 8k Harry told his new boyfriend, Louis, that he wanted to bring him home for Christmas with his family, assuming that he would have come out to his family by the time the holidays rolled around. It's now the day they're meant to leave and he still hasn't told anyone in his family he has a boyfriend. He decides to just show up at his Mom's house Christmas Eve with Louis and hope for the best.

(Im)Perfect Christmas | Harryskiwiposes | Christmas - meet-cute - 3k If you asked Harry where the last place he thought he'd find himself on Christmas Eve was, he'd have answered - knocking on his neighbor's door, during a blackout. Yet, here he is.

An Aurora Grove Christmas | dandelionfairies | Christmas - first meetings - 18k Harry gets lost on his way to St. Louis. The roads are horrid because of the snow and he ends up spinning into a ditch. Lucky for him, he finds a cabin nearby, as well as a cute blue-eyed man who immediately helps him. Unfortunately, his car is stuck for the night, but at least he has a place to stay with Louis. With the snow continuing to fall and another storm front coming through, will he ever make it out of Aurora Grove? Does he even want to?

Save me, call me baby | delsicle | a/b/o - mpreg - pregnancy - established relationship - light angst - 14k Louis didn't plan for him and his husband to be pregnant at the same time. Somehow, it works out. An omega/omega love story in three snapshots.

Listen To Your Heart | lovelarry10 | deafness - friends to lovers - mutual pining - 35k Louis has always been comfortable being Harry’s one and only. When Harry starts to branch out, Louis has a hard time letting him go. Harry is very lucky to have someone who listens to what he has to say, despite the fact that he’s deaf. He’s finally feeling like he’s coming into himself, but Louis seems bothered by his newfound confidence.

Waited All Year To Be Near | lovelarry10 | Christmas - light angst - mutual pining - kid fic - established relationship - deployment - past mpreg - 27k Harry’s preparing for the holidays at home with his four children while Louis is deployed. All he wants is his husband home for Christmas. But Louis’ half a world away...

The Truth I Can't Explain (Smoke and Mirrors) | FallingLikeThis | werewolves - blood mages - slavery - magic - telepathy - violence - 9k Louis Tomlinson scans the horizon. It’s dark, but his werewolf eyes are equipped for that. He sees clearly in the inky black of the forest around them. He and every other wolf can see the moment the first blood mage crosses the boundary into their compound. The mages must think they’ve disabled the wards on the edges of the boundary but the wolves did that themselves when they found out the mages were coming. Louis’ pack has opened the door and put down the welcome mat. It’s up to the mages whether that mat becomes stained in blood.

Brighten My Northern Sky | twoshipstiedup | fluff - humour - 10k Harry, Louis, a phone number and fate.

Swipe Right for a Clean Flat | lululawrence | roommates - friends to lovers - humour - 3k The one where Harry and Louis are flatmates and Harry is tired of Louis not doing the washing up. He figures signing up on Tinder as a hot girl might be just the fix for this issue.

Playing To Win | jacaranda_bloom | Big Brother AU - enemies to lovers - secret relationship - 36k Big Brother UK alumni Louis Tomlinson and Harry Styles are selected for the UK vs Australia All Stars series with a massive one million dollar prize in the offing. They’re both fit and smart and would make a great alliance... if only they can stop their feelings from getting in the way. OR the one where Louis really doesn’t want to like Harry, Harry is struggling to quell his growing fondness for Louis, but sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you just can’t fight fate.

Heels Over Head | kingsofeverything (FullOnLarrie) | meet-cute - masturbation - voyeurism - 3k Louis Tomlinson returns from tour to find that his new next door neighbor doesn't realize his backyard is not completely private.

High Heels, Red Dress | Anonymous | World War II - mpreg - period-typical racism - period-typical homophobia - queer culture - drag queens - 15k Louis answers the call when Pearl Harbor is attacked and there is no way around it. The United States is at war. Hiding his queer identity isn't so hard until he attracts the attention of a particular soldier. It's all lies and secrets until the war is finally over. Maybe then Louis can finally have his happy ending. It's up to fate to decide.

#fic rec #my fic rec #monthly reads #my reads #larry fics #completed fics #28th appreciation

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popularryculture · 5 years

Text

Author Reveals (January)

Superhuman Tonight by Rearviewdreamer/ @all-these-larrythings

Words: 22862

Chapters: 5/5 Fandom: One Direction (Band) Rating: Not Rated Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson Characters: Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Liam Payne, Niall Horan, Original Characters Additional Tags: Misfits AU, freak ice storms, Superheroes, Superpowers, Community Service

Summary:

A group of young offenders doing community service get struck by lightning during a storm, and begin to develop superpowers.

Making Waves by haztobegood/ @haztobegood

Words: 30257

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: One Direction (Band) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson Characters: Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Liam Payne, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Lottie Tomlinson, Clifford Tomlinson Additional Tags: Overboard AU, Romantic Comedy, Enemies to Lovers, Light Angst, Kid Fic, Amnesia, Panic Attack, Smut, Masturbation, Hand Jobs, Sex Toys, Anal Sex, Barebacking, Rimming

Summary:

After Louis Tomlinson, an arrogant millionaire, is thrown overboard and loses his memory, a mistreated employee convinces him that they are married. Thrust into an unfamiliar life he cannot remember, Louis must learn to live with his new husband and daughters and adjust to a less extravagant life.

Or, the one where Louis can’t remember, Harry needs money, and Niall has a plan. An Overboard AU.

Far From The Tree by AlwaysAqua/ @always-aqua

Words: 28425

Chapters: 1/1

Fandom: One Direction (Band)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson

Characters: Louis Tomlinson, Harry Styles, Jay Tomlinson, Anne Cox, Troy Austin

Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Friends to Lovers, No Smut, Mentions of homophobia, some homophobic language, Louis’ Dad Is NOT A Good Guy, There Is A Lot Of Emotional Abuse, Fashion Designer Louis, Famous Louis, Non-Famous Harry, Best Friends, POV Alternating, Slow Burn, I Feel Like I Should Be Better At Tagging Things, Tags Are Hard, my apologies, For all of this, Popularry Culture Fic Fest, Based Off Of Kelly Clarkson’s Song Piece by Piece, Jay’s Death Does Have A Significant Role In This, Minor Character Death

Summary:

“I love you, you know that, right?” Louis asked with a shaky voice and a delicate hand placed across his chest. He had seen Louis place a hand on his chest hundreds of times as a way to remind himself to breathe evenly.

“I know.” Harry tried to keep the sadness from his smile. He couldn’t recall how many times in their lives they’d had this exact conversation, but somewhere between the five-hundredth time and now, its meaning had changed for Harry entirely. Still, now was not the time to go into all of that. In fact the time never seemed right, so once again Harry swallowed down the ever-present dull ache his heart felt for Louis. “Love you, too, Louis.”

“You’re my best friend,” Louis smiled softly.

“And you’re mine.”

“For forever?” Louis asked, voice small.

“For always.” __________

Or, Harry and Louis have been best friends since diapers (twenty-some years ago) and somewhere in the middle of Harry always picking up the mess that Louis’ father has habitually left in his wake, Harry accidentally fell in love.

I wish that I could let you love me by Cherrie/ @exquisitetrouble

Words: 12532

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: One Direction (Band), Little Mix (Band) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson Characters: Louis Tomlinson, Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Perrie Edwards Additional Tags: Liam and Jade are there for like two seconds, very background Jerrie, even more background Ziam, Oops inspired, Alternate Universe - College/University, Frat Boy Harry, but he’s not really a typical frat boy is he, Also Louis is really bad with names

Summary:

Could he handle leaving for six months? He asked himself in his head, and soon enough another question followed: could he handle staying, knowing who he would be staying for?

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aggresivelyfriendly · 6 years

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~Meet Me In the Hallway~

This is it! Your happy little Blue Pill!

Special thanks to, well everybody, but @bleedinglove4h, chels the wise, @dirtystyles, Niki the creator, and @nocontrolforlouis The Encourager!

And thank you to everybody who reads! And all the writers too, ALL THE LOVE!!!!

Blue Skies-Epilogue One

I'm sitting in front of a freestanding glass in my knickers. Knickers is a bit of an understatement, because the rig that I have got myself strapped into may be a feat of engineering. The last time I was here, about to say 'I do', I had looked perfect but felt so hollow inside that I was having a panic attack. Today, it's the opposite. Well, not exactly. I don't feel hollow, of anything, I'm brimming. I'm even up a little because the love weight I'd found when in the neoinfancy of my relationship had stuck around. And I'd somehow been ok with it. Because the love had stuck around too. And so had I.

We have a strict no running policy.

But I'm sitting here practically naked except for white straps, because my mum has insisted on being in charge of my dress. Claiming it was one less thing I needed to be fussed about. I'd agreed, because frankly I've been floating on air through this entire process. But it is a little chilly in this place and I'd really like to get in my dress.

I love my dress, it's slim and sophisticated and high end. It's a dream, but I can't say I don't think of my perfect dress. How one woman could have had three separate wedding dresses by 26 years old left me scoffing at myself.

"Knock, knock!" I hear my mum's voice call over the click of the door and I laugh out loud.

"Why do people say 'knock knock' instead of actually knocking?" I ask.

"Dunno, I just didn't want to catch you unawares." She looks so healthy and I see her admire herself in the glass.

"Mum, I'm basically naked in here, you are a welcome sight." I smile at her as she hangs my dress on the hook. "You look well fit!" I can't help but compliment. She smiles and looks at her silhouette, glowing. If the second bout of cancer and the resulting mastectomy had yielded anything positive, it was my mum's appreciation of her new boobs. Apparently my dad's too, as she likes to tell me so that I make a face and my dad can say, "Wanda!" Then he smile at her conspiratorially.

I love watching them now, honestly. All the subtle touches and lovely consideration they have for each other is so amazing now that I have their story. Now that I've fictionalized it and gotten it published. I'm in on their secrets and it's such a gift.

"How's it look? All those wrinkles only you could see ironed out?" I stand up to look and my mum stops me.

"Give me a moment, I want to take a picture."

"But you've already seen me in it, Mum?"

She looks weird for a minute, "I know," she stutters, "but I didn't take any pictures of the lovely thing, because I was afraid they'd be seen and spoil it."

I shrug at her reasoning, but let her sift through her teeny bag and get her phone out and up.

"Oh My God! Mum!" I cry as I open the white garment bag and tears spring to my eyes. I'm totally overwhelmed. "Mum! How? How did you find it?" I gasp out as I slip the cover off my dress. The dress, the perfect one, that I tried on and should have taken as a big fate sign from fate. In some ways I did, I suppose.

"I didn't!" She says

"I did." And then I hear Harry's voice come through her phone's speakers.

My first reaction is to run to the phone and see his face. Then I realize I'll spoil the surprise of my undergarments. Then it dawns on me, he's seen my dress. After everything we have been through I don't want to chance fate at all. I can't wear the dress if he has seen it.

"Oh, Harry! Thank you, but I can't wear it now not if you have seen it!" I stamp the heel of my shoe just a bit, though I know it's childish. I really am a little sad I can't have it.

"Told you!" My mum says into the speaker. "It's not a video darling. And Harry hasn't seen the dress. But I may have mentioned it and he latched onto the idea."

I snatch the phone from her hand. "What did you do?" The words are recriminatory, but my tone is full of air and the tears I'm trying to suppress would look like soap bubbles under a microscope because I am so happy.

"I called your mum, after I'd read our book, to see where in Jamaica you were," he says. "Seemed like fate I was there too. Though you beat me to the punch on that one. Your mum and I got to talking and she told me how she knew, well,had a strong inkling the first one wasn't gonna take. And she told me about the dress." His voice, always thick and deep, was like a malted milkshake with his emotion now. "I knew then that I had to get ahold of it. Your mum warned me I couldn't see it. But she did a little leg work and my assistant tracked a couple down."

"A couple?" I gape, though he can't see me.

"Yeah, Angel, I didn't know what size you would be when we made it down the aisle. And I wanted you to have optio—"

"Harry, I love you!!" And I'm crying in earnest and know that I'm gonna have to start all over on my face. I'm especially glad contouring and strobing have passed out of fashion, because the minimalist look is all I am going to be able to pull off with the rivers of emotion flowing through me today.

"Oh, Melody, I think I've loved you since you were sat in that hallway in a stained shirt listening to 'Happily' on your headphones."

"You could hear it?" He never told me that.

"Yeah, like, I totally could. Now my love, it took us many, um, years, roads, and hallways," he emphasizes, "to get here, and I'd quite like to call you my wife sooner rather than later. Fix your face, and get your ass down that aisle, please." he finishes with politeness.

"Can you ever just be a twat, baby?" I laugh.

"Nope, I was raised too well."

"Too right." And I hang up on him with a laugh and giggle cry my way to the mirror to fix the red on my cheeks.

When I get there, it looks more like a blush, and my wet eyes glisten. I am a bit of a mess and I like it that way, so I wipe my face and redo my eyeliner wings and ask my mom to put me into my perfect dress. The dress I knew I should marry Harry in, when I wasn't even sure that we would get here.

I was pretty certain we were not going to get there while I sat on a beautiful little island and waited, and waited, and waited. I'm not sure what I expected and I had mourned enough expectations in my life that I should have known better by then. But I didn't, I guess I thought that after I ate two whole crows when I emailed Gemma and Anne and asked for their help that the giant organ beneath Harry's smooth, decorated chest would be touched and he would come to me.

In my imagination, I'd be sitting on the beach, or better yet, walking down the tiny hallway between my quarters and the door to the school and a knock would sound, and on the other side would be the boy, the man of my dreams. "Melody," my full name in that way only he could say it would slip between his upturned red lips and I'd watch his arms come up. There would be hesitation, but he'd open to me and I'd find my place, that place where my head notched into his collarbones and my lips fall just on the top of the sparrow's wings. His lips would press to the side of his neck and we would just breathe, just for a moment while we reacquainted ourselves with all the ways we fit together.

I'd hope I'd finally be able to find the words, but if all I could say was "Harry!" That will be ok, for the time being. There will be times for words, but right at that moment the things we need to say can wait. We have said a lot, but we hadn't touched, not like this, openly and with want and hope, in so long. Then we'd move from hugging to kissing, and that could go on for all night for all I care.

That's a lie, there are places deep inside that I only feel when he is inside me. And I'd want that form of communication, communion, as soon as we could find it, too. But after that, I could go for some kisses that last all night.

These were all of my hopes, pesky daydream induced expectations.

After I got the terse response of, "You mental?" from Gemma after my email I figured I may have to let them go. But it only took another terse message of "I'll pass it on" a week later to have me doodling Mrs. Styles in the margin of the journal I was still meeting during my afternoons.

Anne's response hadn't come for some time, over a month, and I hoped it was down to her age, and not that she saw my name and immediately deleted the email.

We had got on immediately and I missed her. She would reach out to me when Harry and I were apart, and she was lovely and comforting. It felt like she loved me once. Losing her didn't hurt like losing Harry, but it ached when I thought about it.

Her response was an address, below it was the word "Go." And that was it. I received it in the morning on a Friday nearly five weeks after I had gotten so desperate that I reached out to two people who may very well have hated me. And one responded as expected, then changed her tune. The other said nothing, then gave me an address, which when I googled I discovered was two hours away by car, four by bus.

I could only conclude that they read my book, or Gemma did, and it at least convinced them to share it with Harry. The most concerning point was that his mom had given me his address, but he had my love letter, the book, the story of our lives, and he hadn't come.

But he had come to me, three times at least, and I said I would wait, or come to him, or meet him.

It was time I met him more than halfway.

I had a full day of classes I had to finish. Much good it did my students and me to be there. I was incredibly distracted. I spent at least the last hour in my classroom deciding if I should get dressed and freshen up and get an hour later start, if the bus was on time, which it would only be if I tried to push it and get ready and run for it, or if I should go like I was.

That morning had been like any other and it was hot, but less muggy, so I'd thrown on a cotton sundress that tried to meet my knees with the oldest undies I'd packed because I really needed to do laundry. I was incredibly nervous, I kept telling myself that I had no idea where Anne was sending me, but there was a loud voice in my head screaming that she was sending me to Harry, and that somehow he was here in Jamaica. It felt like serendipity.

The bus was crowded and hot and I was sandwiched into a window seat next to a young mother with a very little baby, who seemed to be sleeping or nursing the entire way. I'd smiled and cooed and before journey's end, the mother had smiled and passed me the baby and promptly fallen asleep. Luckily the baby stayed that way too. I didn't know little ones smelled so good. I had to shake the mother awake when it was my turn to pull the chain to stop the bus. She looked as confused as I felt when I handed her child back to her, but gave me a sleepy smile when she looked at the sleeping infant.

The bus depot was free standing and didn't seem to be near much of anything, though it was painted with a food advertisement, the black and red paint stark against the white walls. I pulled out my phone and the GPS said I had a 30 min walk ahead of me, seemingly uphill. That was poetic justice, I'm sure Harry felt he had an uphill battle with me from day one. Sometimes I did even with myself. There was a part of me that hoped that this time, we could get it right. That we were older and wiser and knew our flaws and could communicate around them, that it would be easier this time, that the moments of high flying joy, like sailing on a trapeze, were not coupled with plummets to the ground below.

I was trying to think of what I'd say to him, because I wasn't gonna allow myself to clam up the way I had a habit of doing, not this time. And he may have not read our book, though I was fairly certain that he was in possession of it and that his mother felt like we had a shot. Or she wanted to give Harry the opportunity to break my heart in real time. That didn't sound like Anne at all, so I struck that thought from my head.

I was thinking about her motivation and my mortification and the fact that she knew entirely too much about me and Harry's former sex life. It made my future chockful of humiliation, maybe. I would hopefully be in a situation where I would have to see her, share a meal, maybe even lots of Christmases, if this went my way and I wasn't back on a sweaty bus in rural Jamaica in an hour's time. And she would know Harry took my virginity. My cheeks heated.

I felt the first drop hit my nose and there was no counting the rest of them. It cooled my blush at least. I could see the house by now, nestled on a hillside, and I could hear the sea crashing but not see it. In other circumstances, I may have admired it. Right now, I was running instead. My dress was a light blue, but I was fairly certain the top would be sheer and the bottom caked brown in a few moments. I kicked off my sandals and grabbed them on a run just as I reached the porch and nearly fell scrambling up the steps on my slippery feet, they seemed insistent on going the opposite way I wanted them too. When I reached the top stairs under the awning I looked out and caught my breath. Even in the deluge, the view was green and wild and gorgeous.

Even more gorgeous was the group of men coming over the rise from the direction I could hear the waves coming from. I could pick out Harry, farthest from my left and slightly in front, as ever. He was too far off to see, but I could recognize the set of his shoulders and his loping stride, hips slightly forward, and the mess of wet tendrils on his head woke a longing in me that made me forget all about talking.

As if he could hear my indrawn breath over the pounding rain, his head came up and he stopped while his companions kept walking. Looking at him across a distance, it was a familiar place. We were missing a hallway, but maybe this should be a new beginning.

All of my feelings were out in the open, so being contained by walls would feel wrong.

I watched the water drop off his hair to the ground and followed it down to his bare feet and watched the surfboard he carried, a longboard like my now shared acquisition, drop by his feet into the soggy ground. It spattered his toes with mud. I followed the mud up and passed its ascent to his knobby knees and wet thighs where fabric clung on and revealed ink I'd never seen. The tucked up fabric nearly reached the drooped waistline on his right side and I say the ferns I'd traced and hated and loved so fiercely, and my eyes continued their caress. He was bigger since I'd last seen him, more robust, a man. I hoped mine. I wanted to fly along his collarbones like those sparrows he'd chosen. His mouth had always been a distraction, but I glanced over it now, and found his eyes on my messy form.

His friends had stopped and I think I heard "H" ring out. I echoed it.

"H?" I called. I needed a sign. I'd make the first step if needs be, but I had to know if he wanted me to close the distance between us. There was a infinitesimal nod and a half step on his part and I dropped my things and tripped down the stairs, my legs going faster than the sucking mud at my feet wanted me to go. I got right up to him and stopped short.

"Harry." I breathed and caught him by the neck while his hand circled my waist. That gave me a confidence. "I'm so sorry, H!" and I pushed his hair off his forehead where it nearly covered his eyes, I needed to see his eyes. They were warm but surprised, maybe a little wary, but he still had his hands on me. That was good.

"Melody, what're you doing here?" His voice tumbled low, and it was like the vibrations of it moved through me and I understood those more than the actual words he said. "How'd you find me?" He asked and he didn't sound mad or wary any more just curious with a hint of the feeling when you find lost keys and you are running late.

"Your mum. She just sent me the address and told me to go." My head fit into my place on his chest, that concavity that had deepened and was unmarred, but that I had claimed by writing my name with my tongue and fingers, right over his heart.

"Ah," he returned into the shell of my ear as he found his niche. Where his lips could curve around the angled line where the back of my neck became the front. "Hi Angel."

"Hi Baby," I hummed.

"Excuse me gents?" Harry said, pulling his head away and the breeze I felt on my neck with the pouring rain was a shock after his warmth. He hoisted me up, his arm going under my ass and I clutched his hips with my thighs as he climbed the stairs. He nudged me with his chin to look up, when I did, all I could see was the blue ring at the edge of his irises with just a touch of jade before the black. Some buried knowledge resurfaced and I slanted in the perfect opposite angle to him and felt hot breath pass my lips before his mouth clasped onto mine. We'd kissed a bit in recent memory, but it was frenzied and desperate and wrong.

This was everything right. My arms gripped him a little harder as the stairs bounced me against him and he stepped up into the house. "H, did you read it? The book?" I asked straight away, couldn't help myself.

"I did, Melody," he caressed the syllables, "over and over. But, I just, I wasn't sure I was ready to come to you."

I wanted to climb down then, feeling wretched. "Do you want me to go?" And I dreaded the bus ride.

His arms tightened around me and he kissed me, a light touch of his lips, deepening while he held me just the doorframe. He'd wiggles him tongue into my panting mouth and I whined the moment he stopped. I felt myself dripping.

"We are gonna get the floor all wet," I warned.

"I wanna get you all wet, fuck the floor." He dove back into my kiss and the walls sailed by me in a blur as he took me down a seemingly endless hallway before pressing me to the door at the end of it. That answer had me gasping and climbing his hips.

"H, Baby, shouldn't we talk first?" I hated myself for asking while he moved to my neck and was trying to juggle getting my wet dress strap off my shoulder and getting the door open.

"After." After, yeah, that felt like a solid plan when my nipple slipped out above the cup of my sundress as he got it to my waist. His opposite hand was working on getting the bottom of my dress to the same place at the equator of my body.

"Ok, yeah," his mouth closed over my peak and I bit my lip and opened my eyes in response. "Shit, H, we are still in the hallway!" I was very inclined to let him have me against the door with the warm firm presence between my thighs, but I remembered his entourage outside, including the man who had brought me Harry's CD in Shanghai.

"So?" He bit out while biting down and I moaned his name to the air around us when I heard a door close with a little too much force and an awkward burst of laughter.

That woke me up a little. "So, do you want your friends to be an audience for this?" He had settled his chin on my breastbone to look up at me and I was breathless with being near him like this. I was hoping this wasn't some kind of 'love you goodbye'. It didn't feel like one. It felt wild and wonderful, but also like a prologue.

He took the hand that had been at my waist and clutched my chin, his thumb found my bottom lip and I was willing to go as high as he wanted to take me. Harry must have wanted that, my desperate agreement, because he pushed my weight, with an 'uff' from both of us, against the door to hold me up and found the door knob. He carried me in to a dream of a bed with four posters and I caught a little writing altar out of the corner of my eye. It was beneath the window, just like mine, and thrilled at the symmetry.

I smiled at him. "Hey, I love you."

He stopped a foot from the bed. It was abrupt, his plan interrupted by my words. He unhooked my legs from his hips and sat me on my feet. I could practically hear the brakes he put on our physical momentum. It scared me. Had I said it too soon? It felt long overdue to me.

"Baby?" I questioned as he stared at me. I ducked my eyes and switched to "H?" While I tried to pull-up my strap to cover my still exposed breast.

He caught my hand and pulled it back down, then did the same to its compatriot and my dress thwacked against the wooden floors. He pushed his thumbs into my undies and had to get them to nearly my knees before the cling of the water in them released my flesh. Harry then took care of the board shorts that wanted to adorn his flesh.

Once we were both naked, he cupped my face with both hands and kissed me soft and slow. With his eyes closed he pulled back a fraction of an inch and said, "I love you." Then his eyes popped open and found mine there still tight with a fraction of worry. "Of course, I love you, Melody." My name was a song again and the first time I was bare to him, when he had kept his jeans on, was echoing in my mind.

But he was bare to me too. So I mimicked him and held his face like it was the most precious thing I'd ever found, because it was. Then I put my hand over his pounding heart. "I never stopped loving you. I want to love you from now on, better."

"Yeah." He answered and pushed me back to the bed and used his forward momentum to lay me out beneath him, his mouth catching my lips quick before finding the notch where my collarbones met. "Dreamed about this, you coming to me," he said from between my breasts, mouthing at each again before moving to the the tips of my ribs, and then my right hipbone before he kissed my lower stomach until it fluttered like eyelashes. "Wasn't able to come to you. Least not yet. But, just today I woke up with your smell," he opened my thighs, "in my nostrils" he inhaled then bit where my thigh joined my pelvis and I yelped his name. "God.'" he swore, then he pinched my thigh.

"Ouch!" I was startled from the cloud I was climbing up."What was that for, asshat?"

"Just wanted to be sure I wasn't dreaming again." He smiled and rubbed a thumb over the intimate place his fingers had marked.

I reached down and yanked his drying curls. "There! Feel like a dream?" I sassed.

"Yes, actually!" His dimples made me want to scream, "But I couldn't taste in my dreams." And he put that mouth on me, right where I wanted him, without preamble or caution. The stroke of his tongue painted me in pink swirls and red lines. When he split me open with his fingers and coaxed a tiny orgasm out nearly immediately he chuckled.

"That was quick." He congratulated himself.

"It's been a while." I explained.

"Yeah, years," He grieved before getting a serious look and going back for seconds.

His long strikes and flicking tongue erased every minute between us as a real orgasm, the quaking kind that requires a scream, came out. Before I could even fathom where I was, I felt his tip at my entrance and breathed out as the pressure kept up and he pressed deep into me.

"You good?" He asked and though I had found all the words, I could feel him everywhere within me and their letters were just beyond reach right now. He filled up all of my hidden places and was physically just that touch beyond comfortable. He always had been.

"Yeah, you're just," I looked down at his head, he'd bent himself to keep up the pleasurable touches, licking at a nipple and his nose found the crease between my torso and arm. He rolled his neck to look at me to finish that sentence. I hadn't even said it and he looked proud. I wanted to knock him down a few pegs, but if a large cock was a pride for a man, he had every right to it. And what's more, he knew how to use it. That was the real delight, for me. I rolled my head to him. "You're filling me up, Baby." He preened and used his right thigh to push me more open to him, until he was seated at the end of me.

"Yeah? It's good?" I was gonna take the piss because I thought for a minute he was just fishing for compliments, but when I looked in his eyes, insecurity was the bait on the hook. He seemed genuinely concerned somewhere inside of him that having him inside of me wasn't everything I had needed for years.

I pulled a hand off of where it was clutching his shoulder and smoothed up until the web between my thumb and fingers cradled his ear. "H, Harry, I missed you so much, all of you, but nothing feels like being yours like this." And I flexed my hips against him to gain just that extra centimeter to prove it. My head rolled back on my neck involuntarily and Harry seemed mollified enough.

He pulled out to the tip and rode back in and my sweet touch switched to a grasp at his hair in response. The opposite hand reached for one of the poles of the bed while he stroked into me. I needed something to hold onto. I bit into my arm to stifle a loud moan when his rolling motion picked up a circular aspect and his pubic hair rubbed against my swollen clit.

He had hold of my shoulders, but he released one to pull my teeth from the flesh of my bicep. "None of that. Let me hear you." He groaned on his upstroke himself, it wasn't overly loud, but anybody near the door would know what we were up to. Not that our reunion scene wasn't a clear enough illustration. But to make it harder for me to keep quiet he caught the hand in his hair and the one gripped onto the bed for control with both of his hands and held me fast, while he picked up his centrifugal pace.

"Harry!" came out on a shout and I bit my lip.

His head went back and he groaned his approval. He fucked into me then and the only real sounds for some time were the beating of our hearts where they were pressed together, the slapping of our skin and the uncontrollable utterances he was pulling out of me with every push.

"Fuck, fuck, H! I'm gonna..." and I was just about to crest a wave that felt like dropping in on a board when he slowed his perfect pace and pulled out. "Wha?!?" I complained.

He just shook his head at me. "Not yet." And he flipped me like a flapjack and traced his mouth over my spine, lingering on my sacral space until my squirming and gasps encouraged him to find the tips of my shoulders where he bit and kissed until I was gripping the sheets. I'd pulled the cotton off one corner of the bed and was gripping mattress by the time he angled my hips to arch my back up and I looked over my shoulder to watch him wet his tip with spit and clutch the glans with his hand, his thumb angled to fit himself in. It occurred to me that he was bare and we hadn't had a discussion.

"Baby," I said with a tone meant to catch. "Are we good?" I nodded at his bare dick. Though it seemed at least 30 minutes too late for this conversation.

He looked confused for a minute, his gaze had been very focused on the hub of my body. He shook his head a little. "Yeah, you?"

"Covered." I said thinking about the IUD I'd had for years.

He leaned down then and kissed my cheek sweetly and I looked him in the eye when he pushed in and rocked back onto him. He held my gaze and brushed my hair back holding it all in one hand while he held his chest lightly on me and found the rhythm that still made me shake. From behind, he hit a spot along the front of my canal that made me writhe and my eyes closed soon without my permission. I bit into the arm I was laying on until the orgasm I had caused me to taste a tiny hint of rust.

"Oh Angel, fuck!" Harry responded to my joy and pulled me up onto my knees with him. I was shaking and whining a little from the over stimulation, but he didn't slow down. He rubbed the tops of my shoulders sweetly with an occasional grip while he was fighting off his end.

I felt a tear and a sob come out because of all of the feelings and the next wave that was coming on. I choked on my feelings, "Harry!"

"Melody, it's ok baby."

"Let's make it ok?" I looked back at him and then found myself babbling as I reached a peak higher than its predecessors. "I love you Harry, I love you so much, we have to make this work, and I won't run, Not again, I love you, please."

"Angel, it's ok, God damn," he panted. "I love you, too." And he began to empty himself inside before pulling out and finishing by painting my back as he stroked himself to completion.

We were both breathless and Harry laid himself on my back and I knew we were going to be glued together if he didn't get up soon. I wanted to stitch his skin to mine, so that was ok with me. But I knew I needed to see where Harry was at. I'd confessed a lot, and he'd received it, me, favorably, but I needed, we needed, to talk.

But for now, he kissed my sweaty hair and temple and rolled over, pulling me into his chest. I heard his breath level out and decided he had earned some sleep. That may have been the fuck of my life and he had given me some amazing ones before.

The sun was still up and I was in the wet spot. I was the wet spot, since Harry had decided to mark me. I was thankful there was an en suite, and I was starved. I went into the bathroom and rinsed off, though it was with regret, because I wouldn't have his sweat on me anymore. I smelled him in my hair but knew I had to wash it. It was a mess before his hands had found it. I had to suppress a little scream, because when the water hit my body and I felt the little marks on my body and realized that Harry wad in a bed very close to me naked and had told me he loved me I was overcome with gratitude and leftover frissons of pleasure had me smiling like a loon at the shower wall. I sniffed his shampoo and body wash before using them and figured they would do as a replacement. They didn't smell like my Harry, but they were Harry enough. I wrapped my hair in a towel and threw on his robe hooked over the door.

I didn't want to wake him, but I was starved, and I was not brave enough to fish out his clothes to wear and face the men who probably knew too much about me, mostly unfavorable. He may have been here on a lads holiday, but my inclination was that he was here working on album two. So, those guys knew me too well, without knowing me at all, for my comfort. Maybe my ego a little too.

I sat at the bedside and looked at Harry, his hair had dried extra fluffy and was a riot of curls from my hands when we were kissing. His mouth was gaping a little bit and whereas in the past I'd probably have stuck a finger in there to startle him awake, I decided to test my luck, like winding up my arm at a fair to knock down stacked bottles after already winning a huge stuffy. I leaned down and kissed his pouty lips and stroked his hair.

"Harry," I whispered. "Baby? Can you wake up?"

He blinked his eyes open and looked a little bit like Bambi. His eyes narrowed for a minute in confusion before he said, "Melly?"

"Hi baby, I hate to wake you, but I'm feeling a little self conscious and I'm starving. Feed me?" And I pouted a little.

He dimpled but his edges were all blurred, and he reached up for me and pulled me down.

"Hmmm, Yeah, I can do that. Cuddle me a minute first?" And he rolled over to position me as big spoon. He was still the most endearing imp I'd ever met. I could also feel he was gonna go to sleep on me.

"Hey, sleepyhead, I'm sorry but I'm really hungry babe, the bus took almost four hours and I left straight from school." I explained.

His interest must have been peaked, because he rolled over. "You're still at the school, then?"

I smiled into his shoulder, because that made me sure that he had read our book, a couple times as that was a last minute detail. Or his mom told him. "Yeah, it's fun, and it gives me time to surf and write."

His eyebrows really flashed then. "What're you writing now?"

He smoothed a hair behind my ear and I was about to tell him all about Wanda's wifedom but my stomach made a crazy noise and he burst into laughter.

"You weren't kidding! Your stomach sounds willing to digest me," he snorted.

"You do look right tasty!" I said and nipped his shoulder.

"Come on then, let's find you some tea." And he hoisted his naked self up and me with him. He was rummaging through drawers while I picked up my soaked dress and was figuring out how to ask when a shirt and boxers hit my face.

"Thanks!" I smiled and my heart stopped when I realized what the shirt he had given me. It was the Rush shirt I had first slept with him in. "Harry?" I asked, my heart in my teeth.

He came to me and wiped under my eyes, "Later, let's eat." And I slipped on the memory and the shorts and we scooted down the hallway to find an empty galley style kitchen. Harry pulled a mango out and started cutting, handing me pieces as he went. I basically ate the whole fruit off the knife. He smiled at me fondly, and pulled some prawns from the ice box and a green vegetable. He sautéed them together and handed me a serving. Getting two forks for us to share the plate. We ate, me sitting on the countertop and Harry standing between my legs.

I flushed everything down with the water he poured us to share and smiled at him, sated. "That was delicious, H."

"Yeah, better?"

"Much!" I assured and hooked my legs over the back of his knees. He pressed his forehead to mine and pinched me lightly on my thigh.

I yelped.

"Just wanted to be sure I wasn't dreaming again."

But it was like a dream. He took me back to his room and we only surfaced for food for a day or so. And the only reason we inhaled lungfuls of air then was because Harry had made arrangements.

"But I don't have anything with me. I don't even have a bathing suit!" I complained as he packed things.

"That's fine, 'where we're going you don't need any clothes.'" And he laughed his head off at his bastardized back to the future quote.

"You aren't funny." I reminded him and he turned to me and tackled me down to the white bed and tickled me until I lied and told him he was.

I really did need clothes though, at least a bathing suit, and toiletries. My needs had gotten pretty basic since I moved to Jamaica, food, shelter, a bathing suit, some dresses, thongs, cellphone, my journal, and occasional access to a surfboard, but he was insistent I didn't need anything but him.

We both knew that wasn't true. I wanted him and he wanted me. But we both needed other things and people as well, and we needed to talk.

Maybe that was why Harry insisted that we be alone for a bit. So here I was at another beachfront hut in Jamaica. This one was much posher than the others and had an amazing view of the ocean on a large wraparound porch. I was watching the sun rise when I'd had trouble falling asleep. I didn't want to sleep, I wanted to be awake and feel the twinges of use Harry had left me, sore thighs from holding them up and tender between them when I sat on hard surfaces, and tangled hair left down to cover little red patches and bite marks.

He was also looking worse for wear. But he seemed to have no trouble sleeping. But, as Anne had told me, he had always been a excellent sleeper. I was thinking about how we should do it this time when a steaming mug was sat at my elbow, and an arm came around my middle, and Harry hooked his chin over my own. He smelled like me, us, and high thread count sheets, and home.

"So, what are you worrying about out here?"

"We need to talk H."

"So, let's talk Angel."

And we did. Mostly about going forward. We left the old bones buried because we had already dragged them out and beat each other with them.

After coffee, we lay in a hammock for most of the breezy morning and planned.

"What did you think of it, H? Our book?" I was biting my lip in anticipation. He'd given me a little idea, but we still hadn't actually talked about it.

He looked at me with his eyebrows close together and forehead wrinkled up. "I think that your interpretation of us was better than mine. Beautiful and I know you said you aren't a poet, but it was lyrical love, and an amazing apology. A really grand movement. Inspiring. I was just writing through my feelings, before I could come to you. He kissed my cheek.

"What are your feelings?" I got brave enough to ask, looking back at him to watch his eyes.

"My feelings are as they ever were. I love you, the way you compliment me in so many ways. I want you to stay with me, and talk to me and never run. Not again. About killed me last time, and the thought of you with somebody else, ever again." At that he didn't use words, but the tight cinch he had on my waist and the tension rolling off him meant he didn't need them.

"I won't run, H. Learnt that lesson." I turned in his arms and looked at him. "Besides no running, what do you need from me?"

"I need for you to tell me what's going on in your head, Melody. Like, I don't think I can wait for you to write a book every time. Though, it was lovely to read about how much you wanted me. I should have stole your journal in those early days. Would have saved us some time." He tickled my side carefully, to lighten the moment I would guess.

"Nope, you were to busy being afraid of Michael. And I should have stolen yours. Was there anything about me in it?" I turned in to him a bit and looked up at him, both my eyebrows up.

"Yeah, loads. Told you I had a massive crush."

"Maybe now we should just exchange journals?" I proposed and his face flashed like a camera with excitement.

"That's an idea. Like, if there is something we can't say! We give the other the journal—"

"But we can't read without asking, yeah?"

"Deal," and he shook my hand then raised it up to kiss it to seal it.

"But that only works when we are physically together, H. What about the rest of the time?" I craned my neck to watch his face fall into a small frown.

"I think that should be less of a problem now. You're gonna go with me."

"Um, you may want to ask me things before you assume!" But I knew I was going to go with him. I could write anywhere. And I'd learned the value of being near him.

He turned to me then, and at first he looked unsure before he caught my Cheshire grin, "Melody," he said solemnly and though we were in salty gear from our surf competition that morning, in felt like I should be in something more formal for the occasion. "Will you please promise to be with me, always, and everywhere, to take care of me when I'm sick and whiny, and not to hide from me, ever, no matter how messy you feel, not to it lie to me and to never, ever, run?"

My eyes wet at his requests. I noticed he didn't ask me to love him, I think we both knew that feeling was never our problem. "I promise," I said and was ready to slice my hand and press it to his to make the bond ancient and unbreakable.

I was quiet for a moment to get myself together and think. He let me be while he played with my hair, straw like where the water had given it texture.

"Harry, will you promise to tell me things first, especially the best and worst things. Before you tell anybody else. To let me see you face," I poked his dimple to illustrate this, "Everyday, no matter what, and to show up for me, even when I can't ask for it. And to ask for words when I'm not giving them." We hadn't talked much about how much it hurt me that he never came when I was helping my mum through breast cancer. But having buried Robin, we both knew he knew now.

"I promise, Melody."

Our vows today are based on these lines we spoke together in Jamaica, full of the knowledge that comes from hurting the person you love most deeply and a strong desire to get better.

We got better, and as he gazed at me in his mum's back garden I knew I'd meet him anywhere, and do it all again, to get here. Nothing else would do.

Hallways are meant to lead you to a destination.

Here's ours.

#harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fanfic #harry styles smut #mmith #meet me in the hallway #epilogue one #one direction #one direction fanfiction

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brugioshi · 6 years

Note

you asked for drarry prompts: moving in together but Harry has a panic attack because there's a storage cupboard under the stairs

That’s What Love Is, Idiot AO3

Harry and Draco’s relationship transformed first with a bang, then gradually over time. Grievances all seemed petty to Harry after the battle. Still, old habits die hard— particularly as it pertains to emotions. During their eighth year, Harry forced himself to perform small favors for Draco— a compliment here, assistance carrying books there. Each time, Draco’s eyes betrayed overwhelming amounts of gratitude and bewilderment. This made it easier to see the pure-blood boy in a sympathetic light. Draco’s animosity towards Harry had long stemmed from a sense of comeuppance, rather than genuine dislike. It was easy to reciprocate his small kindnesses. Eventually they had a rapport of sorts. They weren’t close friends, but they were no longer enemies.

After their commencement ceremony, Draco found Harry alone in a corridor. He’d been reflecting on his time at Hogwarts— the only home he’d ever known— and picturing his future after leaving it. Draco hugged Harry, made the briefest flicker of eye contact, and left without a word. That was the last Harry saw of him for almost a year.

The next shift in their relationship was through Hermione. Unsatisfied to merely train as a Healer, she also attended Harvard School of Medicine.

“It’s imperative that Healers be holistic,” she often said, as if she wasn’t the first and only person to hold such a mantra. “Knowing how to treat muggle ailments will no doubt come in handy when I’m healing wizards again.” Harry couldn’t imagine how this could be the case. Sometimes he suspected Hermione merely loved being in school. Still, she seemed wiser than she was as a girl— not just smarter, but intelligent in a way that transcended “books and cleverness.” Or, maybe she was motivated by the price of rent in Boston. It kept Ron’s desire for children under control.

Harry’s work as an Auror kept him in London most of the time, but he visited often. When he did, he found himself surrounded by old friends. Arthur Weasley insisted on visiting constantly, of course.

“And you say muggles run tests to see what’s wrong with them?” Arthur asked during one such visit. His eyes lit up whenever Hermione talked about muggle medicine.

“Certainly,” she replied.

“Like an examination of sorts? Do they use a scamtron?”

“No, no,” she said, careful not to laugh. “Usually a nurse will extract a bit of blood with a syringe, and send it to a lab to be examined.” Arthur learned in, absorbing every word. “The other kind of examined,” she added carefully.

“And are vampires a problem? Do they sneak in to the labs much?”

This time Hermione did laugh.

“Not that I know of. There aren’t many vampires in Cambridge.”

Ron stayed in their nearby flat, tending to the one child they did have. Molly flanked him whenever the family visited, cooing over little Minerva and critiquing Ron’s parenting.

“You need to read to her more, Ron, it’ll help her become verbal faster. Her name does mean ‘wisdom,’ you know, you don’t want her being a laughingstock…”

“My name means ‘wise counselor,’” Ron protested.

“That’s what mum said,” George piped up from the couch, “she’s at risk of being a laughingstock.”

Harry laughed good-naturedly, cuddled into an armchair between the two groups. He intermittently listened to this conversation, and the one between Hermione and Arthur. He loved these trips. He’d been worried about leaving Hogwarts, especially after his best friends moved to America. He thought he’d be alone. Instead he had something of a family. Not enough for Molly, of course, who often asked when he’d find a wife.

“Or a husband, dear, it’s all the same,” she’d say, hand patting his shoulder. “I just want you to have someone special around.”

“You’ll be the first to know,” Harry assured her. Secretly, he was tempted to let her to find out by accident— harmless revenge for her prying. But even if he’d had the heart to do such a thing, he wasn’t sure he’d ever get married. The Dursleys were incapable of love; his parents for killed for it. What if he was bad at being a parent? What if something happened to him, and the child grew up alone? Would he ever find someone who wanted to spend their life with him— someone he felt secure with?

Some months into Hermione’s training, she noted that she’d connected with Draco. He was living in Salem, where he curated ingredients for the local wizard marketplace. His aptitude quickly led to an additional job: adjunct professor of potions at Ilvermorny. Seamus Finnigan was the Flying Instructor there. He quite delighted in the Irish heritage present in Massachusetts. The two had formed an unlikely friendship. More unlikely, however, was the working relationship that formed between Draco and Hermione.

She relayed all this to Harry via owl. Her revelation came as a shock to Harry. Several conflicting thoughts ran through his mind: Why would she ever work with Malfoy? Wait, I don’t hate him anymore. But it’s not like she ever spent time with him— I thought she still hated him. How is Ron taking this? How can she be so casual? His fevered thoughts culminated in the memory of Draco hugging his after graduation. He scrawled off a note:

Hermione,

Do you mind if I apparate over this weekend? Would love to visit you and Ron.

Intercontinental owl post was a bitch to deal with. It was nearly Saturday by the time he received her affirmative reply.

***

Harry was bursting with questions when he arrived, but he waited until he could get Hermione alone.

“Are you all right there, Harry?” Ron asked. He scooped up Minerva, who snuggled into her father’s neck. “Let me make you dinner. You look restless— have you been getting enough air?”

Harry stood to hug Ron. His paternal instincts were adorable— moving, even. He was like a scrawny, tall Molly already. After the embrace, Harry looked through tears of joy at his friend. Ron looked back, entirely befuddled.

“Okay,” said Ron. “You’re kind of acting like Hermione when she was pregnant. If you’re feeling like her, too, I’d better get started on dinner.”

Hermione looked up from her anatomy textbook, one eyebrow raised, smirking at her husband.

“It’s a bit early for dinner. Go walk Minnie around the park, if you don’t mind; I’ll make Harry some tea.”

Satisfied, he strapped Minerva into her stroller and pulled out his wand.

“Solis praesidio.” He looked over at Harry, smiling proudly. “It’s like sunblock, but it lasts all day. Amazing, right?” He face glowed with far more passion than he’d ever shown for a subject at school. After several tangents on the art raising children— “lately Ethel O’Marra’s books are in style, but I just think Emily Yuri has the better perspective, couldn’t live without the spells of the month in Magical Dads either”— Ron departed.

“He’s really found his calling, has’t he?” Harry asked.

Hermione set down steaming mugs of black tea between them.

“I always knew he’d be an amazing dad. One of the things I love about him.”

“Granted, I didn’t have a vested interest in it, but that never occurred to me.”

Hermione gave a warm, wise smile.

“Not to brag—” She smiled at the irony. She didn’t mind bragging; it was underrated. “Or yes, to brag: I have a knack for reading people.”

Finally; an in for Harry. For some reason, her vague aside about Draco had been on in his mind all week.

“Speaking of that—”

“Draco. Yes.”

“I wasn’t going to—“

“Oh? What were you going to say?”

Harry sat dumb, brainstorming excuses.

“So,” Hermione continued, “Draco. As I said, he’s a buyer for some of the shops around here. Of course, he’s a veritable expert on potions— a natural consultant on the subject.”

“Malfoy as a freelancer… it doesn’t seem to fit him, somehow.” Because Malfoys don’t work, he thought. “And he’s a professor, too?”

“Adjunct. He’s planning on resettling in London at some point.”

“Why be here at all, then?” I’d also pictured him living in Malfoy Manor. Wait, why do I have so many opinions on Malfoy?

“I think he just wants to get away from his family. His past, to an extent. His title, certainly. America’s not as interested in lineage. You don’t find muggles saying they’re one-thousandth in line for the throne, and you don’t find wizards marching about with impunity.”

“A curator for wizard shops— I suppose he travels a lot.”

“Some. Often he’ll find something important in the muggle shops around here.”

“How?”

“Well, Salem has a bit of a history, you know, if you bothered to listen to Binns—”

“I didn’t.”

“Well, a lot of muggles were killed for being witches. They blamed everything on witchcraft. Mainly, it was women who were a bit different that paid the price. Hundreds of years later, people interested in wizardry gravitate here. It seems dark, I suppose. Maybe it’s defiance of evil.” Harry could relate to that, at least. “So, one can find useful ingredients in their stores, if one really knows what they’re used for. Generally, it’s muggles who own and frequent the shops, tourists and the like, muggle witches. Real wizards go to Sarah Wildes Square.”

“Muggle witches?”

“It’s an oxymoron, I know, but it fits. People without wizarding blood who perform spells. I don’t know much about them.”

“I just can’t picture Draco Malfoy in a muggle establishment.” The part of Harry who still resented him suppressed a grin at the image of Malfoy tucked between tourists, looking deeply awkward.

“Oh, he’s completely changed. Dated a muggle witch who owned one of the shops, even. Didn’t work out. He dates a lot.”

Harry had no idea why the top of his ears turned hot.

“Well, I can picture him being a bit of a playboy.”

“Don’t be rude. He just didn’t feel comfortable with a muggle. Had to reverse any enchantments in his flat when she visited.”

“Or he’s just biding his time, holding out for a pure-blood,” he jeered. “Be a bit hard to find anyone with as long a pedigree as the Malfoys.”

“You’re awfully full of criticism today. You seemed to really take to him in eighth year. Anyway, he had a bit of a thing going with a professor. He came from a long line of medicine men, and they didn’t work out either.”

Harry felt a peculiar sense of comfort at this. Hermione studied Harry carefully, taking a long sip of her tea.

“Getting here must have been awfully last-minute for you. Intercontinental owl and all. You know they have cormorants do part of the trip? Come again next weekend. You two should reconnect.”

“I don’t know about that,” Harry said, sitting up stiffly, “but I’ll visit you and Ron. Have you told him about working with Malfoy?”

“Harry! He’s my husband! Of course I told him.”

At this point, two redheads burst into the flat.

“She’s asleep,” Ron shared. He gingerly carried Minnie into the nursery. When he emerged, he sat with them, conjuring up his own mug of tea. “What is it you told me?”

“Working with Malfoy.”

“Right,” Ron said. “We bumped into him on Wildes. I wanted to snub him, personally, but I remembered how nice you were to him after the war. Hermione’s been sharing chemical compounds of muggle medicines with him. He whips up similar potions, tries to mimic their effects. Maybe Healers could use them.”

“I don’t really get what the point is,” Harry admitted. “Wizards can literally ’stopper death.’ What’s the point?”

“Well,” Hermione said, “have you ever heard of a wizard being treated for mental illness?”

***

Work was particularly exhausting that week. There was a rash of raids— all dumb kids who romanticized Voldemort’s reign. It disgusted Harry. He wished they knew what being a Death Eater really meant.

Between the adrenaline of the raids, the late hours completing paperwork, and his frustration at those who dabbled in the dark arts, Harry felt almost sick. Impatient for a change of scenery, he decided to leave London a bit earlier than expected. He doubted this would trouble his friends terribly— and anyway, he couldn’t exactly ask for their permission. After work wrapped up on Friday, he scrubbed the week off of him and apparated.

He was greeted by a crackling fire, the warmth of which was instantly soothing. There was a domestic peace in Ron and Hermione’s apartment— a sense of love he couldn’t replicate in his own solitary flat. He slowly took in his surroundings, all illuminated in shades of orange: Hermione, still in her scrubs, sat deep in thought over a table littered with diagrams. Toys were strewn about the floor between her and an old, worn leather chair. In it, a man with unmistakable platinum hair flipped through a portfolio.

“Draco.”

He turned upon hearing his name, and looked quite surprised by the source.

“Harry.”

“Well, sit down,” Hermione piped up. “We’re examining flaws in a new antidepressant. Draco feels they might be remedied by replacing certain elements with mandrake seeds. Perhaps it’ll interest you—”

But the reverie remained intact. Harry stood fixated, staring into the eyes of the equally motionless man before him. Draco’s face was hypnotic. His eyes were as expressive as always. His mood would forever be transparent to any who cared to look at them closely enough. His cheekbones stood high and pronounced. All of his features, in fact, seemed to derive their attractiveness from their very severity. As if to illustrate this, his pale skin stood contrasted against black robes. Even the way he sat was elegant— so much so that Harry suspected his posture was affected, but did not mind one bit.

A shrill beeping broke out. Hermione removed a pager from her scrubs pocket.

“I have to go,” she said. There must be an interesting case at the hospital. I’ll probably be back late.”

Harry followed her onto the stairwell.

“What am I supposed to do with Malfoy?” he hissed.

“Perhaps you should have anticipated an awkward arrival,” she replied, “as you’re here early.”

“I’m sorry, truthfully, but how could I have warned you?”

“I’m a student at a muggle university, Harry, I have the internet.”

“Are muggles still using that?!” said the 1980 baby incredulously. “And what was the business about cormorants, then…?”

Ron opened a door at the bottom of the steps, head down and garment bag in tow.

“I’ve just dropped Minnie at the neighbor’s. I have your dress here. Did he come? This wasn’t the easiest reservation to get—” Ron squinted up the dark stairwell. “Oh hey there, Harry.”

“You planned this,” Harry accused in a hushed tone. “But why? And also, how?”

“Divination’s not so useless after all,” Hermione said. “Lock the door on your way out.”

She ran down the steps. Harry wondered if she’d answered his last question, or both.

He took a deep breath and stepped back inside. Malfoy was packing his things, his robes swirling around him.

“Suppose we’re done for the night, then.” Draco looked awfully sheepish— a holdover from their last year at Hogwarts. “Are you staying here? Should we leave a note for Ron, saying where Hermione is?”

So he was oblivious, too— of course he was. Hug of gratitude or not, he didn’t likely wish to be trapped with his former enemy.

Well, thought Harry, that’s too bad for him. I will not spend tomorrow being lectured about divination from Hermione of all people.

“I’m starving,” Harry said truthfully, “and I don’t know Wildes Square too well. I also get the feeling I’m not precisely welcome here until tomorrow. I’m not honestly sure what the night holds for me.”

“We never do,” Malfoy remarked, slinging a bag over his shoulder. Come with me. I have an extra room.”

***

He never went so long without seeing Malfoy again. At first, they would only meet during Harry’s occasional trips to Cambridge. There, he would watch Draco’s face in the firelight, stern with thought as he consulted with Hermione. They’d meet up for a meal or two, joke about their respective colleagues. One weekend when Minnie was teething, Harry showed up at Draco’s, practically begging for a reprieve from the crying. They holed up together, watching movies and talking about nothing. When night fell, it seemed stupid to move from Draco’s bed to the guest bedroom. So, he didn’t. They didn’t do anything, per se; just cuddled a bit as they fell asleep.

Draco began to visit London a night or two each week. He’d listen patiently as Harry ranted about work. Draco never broke eye contact. He looked at Harry with empathy when he complained of stress, agreement when he said it was all worth it, and pride when he brought dark wizards to justice. Harry didn’t want to get his hopes up, but sometimes Draco seemed to look at him with affection, attraction, even love. If nothing else, at least he had someone to fall asleep next to.

Then one snowy day, as they laughed madly at inside jokes outside Harry’s flat, Draco put his gloved hands over Harry’s cheeks and pulled him in for a kiss. When his head stopped reeling, he decided he never wanted to be without Draco. Draco, for his part, agreed.

A few weeks into their relationship, it became clear why Draco had trouble remaining close to people. Some nights he’d lie awake for hours, sweating through bedsheets, struggling to breathe. Sometimes he pushed Harry away, staying at his own place in America for days without visiting. Other times he flew into a panic when Harry left, as if he’d never see him again. Fortunately, Draco didn’t hesitate to talk when he was calm. The details spilled out of him. He’d been waiting ages, he said, for someone to listen without judgment or an ulterior motive.

He detailed everything: how he sometimes felt as though he were back in Malfoy Manor, with Voldemort lurking around. How his heart raced so badly he sometimes thought he might die. How a simple word or object could make him feel as though he were back in the War.

There were some things Draco couldn’t quite elucidate. Harry noticed them anyway. Draco seemed to bathe a lot— often several times a day. One night, Harry drifted off to sleep, lulled by the spray of the shower. When he awoke three hours later, it was still running.

“Draco? Are you okay?”

He opened the door to the bathroom, to find it was pitch black inside. Draco knelt on the shower floor, head against the wall, barely awake. Under the ice-cold spray, he scrubbed one forearm again and again. Harry grabbed the biggest, warmest towel he could find, walked Draco to bed, and held him under the covers until his shivers turned to sleep.

Draco healed over time. He kept busy with Hermione, who doubled as a counselor of sorts (“Utter conflict of interest, of course, we simply must train wizard therapists when we get the chance.”) While much of his improvement was due to meetings with Hermione, journaling, and other methods he’d undertaken on his own, he never hesitated to remind Harry that he was his saviour in more ways than one.

Five years later, things had fallen into place for the class of 1999. Hermione finished medical school, and completed a residency in psychiatry. She and Ron moved back to England, where Hermione’s theories attracted a great deal of interest.

“I worry that Minnie will never lose her American accent,” Ron griped, “but I love her anyway.”

Seamus continued teaching at Ilvermorny, eventually striking up a romance with Marcus Flint.

Luna ran an independent newspaper from her home in the countryside. Neville gained renown as an herbology scholar. They had children early and often, each equal parts whimsical and brave.

Draco had just finished his arrangements to open an apothecary on Diagon Alley, where Hermione’s findings were sure to make the business a success. Draco flipped through his business plan, lying in bed next to Harry.

“I guess you’ll be needing a place to stay,” Harry said, “now that you’re returning to London.”

“Sure, I’m just about to close on a house.” Draco shared this so casually it made Harry’s mouth drop.

“That’s nonsense! You should stay with me,” Harry said.

“Bit last-minute of you, but I can’t complain. If it hadn’t been for that trait of yours, plus the ingenuity of a certain mutual friend, I suppose we wouldn’t be together. But yes, of course you’ll be living with me.”

Harry grinned, and swept Malfoy onto him, papers flying everywhere.

“Excuse you,” said Malfoy playfully, “I was reading that.”

“Shut up. You bought us a house? That’s adorable.”

“It has a few extra rooms. You know, if you decide to have little mussy-haired Potters running around.”

“I can’t think of anything better. Since you’re such an avid planner, I suppose you’ve thought of names for them?”

Malfoy turned serious for a moment, stroking Harry’s hair.

“I think I’d like to honor my mentor,” he shared. “Name my son Severus.”

“I like that idea,” Harry said. “It’s a wonderful way to honor a mentor. Of course, that means we’ll be naming him Albus.”

“I’m sure we’ll come up with a compromise.” Draco leaned in to meet Harry’s lips, pressing his chest onto his. “Building a life together. It’s so beautiful— doing all the things my parents never did for me.”

Harry remembered the trepidations he’d felt years before. He tried to stuff his concerns down, enjoy this time of transition. However, it didn’t feel the same.

***

“You should see the house,” Draco said the next morning, “now that I know you’re definitely in.”“I’m really not particular,” Harry said. He had a strong premonition they’d have this very conversation several times, once they got around to planning a wedding. “It’s a house,” Draco said. “Kind of a momentous purchase. You should at least see it— make sure you like it.”“All right, but I’m sure it’s perfect. I’ll only go because I’m excited to move in.” Even if I’m also seriously overanalyzing the risks, he added silently.

The house was surprisingly cozy. Harry had thought Malfoy would gravitate towards a sprawling estate, all perfectly finished mahogany and velvet drapes. Sure, it was elegant, but it was also somewhere Harry could feel comfortable.

There was just one thing. In the front hall, below the staircase, there was a cupboard.

He’d been unable to take his eyes off it while Draco conversed with the real estate agent. It seemed to pose a threat of some kind— as if looking away would somehow be disastrous. He felt his robes were moving with the force of his heartbeat. He hoped no one noticed. Stepping out of the house, he was able to breathe easily again.

“Are you all right?” Draco asked. “You’re sure the house is okay?”

“Yes,” Harry said, forcing a smile. “It’s perfect.”

During one his Salem trips, Harry had gone to a muggle museum about the witch trials. One room was filled with statues, each of which lit up with accompanying audio. One of the few men executed was depicted. He had been crushed to death, rocks piled high atop of his chest. Beneath layers of boulders, the man let out a tortured groan: “More… weight…”

Harry felt he had a rock on his chest whenever Draco shared news about their soon-to-be home. He didn’t dare say anything about it. He was supposed to be the one who protected Draco— not the other way around. What if his newfound vulnerability ruined Harry for Draco? Or worse, what if Draco regressed as a result of Harry’s own traumatized state? He was angry at himself, at the Dursleys, at life— it wasn’t fair. What had he done to deserve these feelings? He should be able to live in a world with cupboards under stairs without falling apart.

Within months, the house was ready. This time, Harry wouldn’t look at the cupboard. It was, it occurred to him, not unlike Draco and his Dark Mark. Except these days, he didn’t ignore it as much. Sometimes Harry found Draco actually peering directly at it. The first time, he’d felt sure this was a problem.

“Hey,” Harry had said, stepping towards him and gingerly cupping his shoulder. “It’s okay.” To his surprise, Draco had looked back at him and smiled.

“I know,” he said. “Hermione taught me about this thing— immersion therapy. When you’re in a decent emotional state, you immerse yourself in the memories that bother you. It gets easier to deal with over time.”

Maybe that was all Harry needed. Unpacking that first day at home, he intermittently stared at it or avoided the sight. He didn’t feel as bad as he had prior. Maybe it was working.

But that night when Draco touched his neck, Harry pushed him away with more force than he’d meant to.

“Whoa, okay. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t know what’s up with me.”

“Just tired, maybe? You know, you can tell me anything.”

“I know,” Harry lied.

It went on like this for some time. The fact that things were slow at work somehow made Harry’s anxiety worse. The less actual problems he had, the more the past seemed to creep into his consciousness.

They held a housewarming party. Molly arrived early to help set up.

“It’s such a lovely home, dear, but it feels awfully empty without children…”

“Oh my god,” Ron whispered over his tea. “Ignore her. We have three now and she still asks when she’ll get another baby to coddle…”

Neville brought them a houseplant heavy with red and violet blooms.

“It’s pretty, of course, but it also has medicinal properties. Congratulations on your apothecary. Let me know if you need help with supply.”

“Thank you, Neville,” replied Draco, as if anyone could have predicted such a civil conversation between them in their younger years. “I definitely will.”

Neville beamed proudly. For all his maturity, he still seemed to marvel at acceptance. Luna, on the other hand, couldn’t care less about it.

“You worked at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, right?” she asked Hermione.

“Yes, I did my residency there.”

“I’ve been there. The campus is pretty, but it’s roving with vampires.”

Seamus and Marcus made an appearance as well.

“I would have liked for us to cause a scandal,” Seamus said. “House rivalry and all. Of course, you blokes had to go and ruin that for us,” he added with a wink.

When they’d gone, Harry turned to whisper to Draco.

“I honestly thought Marcus and Wood would be a thing.”

“They were,” Draco whispered back.

A couple walked into the kitchen, at first a blur of dark robes and platinum hair. This time, however, the sight was not a happy one for Harry.

Harry shot Draco a venomous look before greeting their guests.

“Lucius! Narcissa! It’s… a pleasure.”

Lucius looked less happy than Harry was.

“Well, congratulations on this… lovely home,” the elder man said, placing a glass-encased Hand of Glory on the center island.

Draco, having long ago learned of Harry’s Knockturn Alley misadventure, shot Harry a hopeful smile. It went unreturned.

“We’re just so proud of you boys,” Narcissa said, laying her own hand on Harry’s chest. Sense memory cheered him up somewhat.

“Thank you,” said Harry gratefully.

The couple left mercifully early. Harry immediately pulled Draco into an empty room.

“Why were your parents here?”

“Are you serious? I’m a small business owner. You think I bought this thing on my own?”

Harry bristled at his own stupidity, but continued to direct his anger elsewhere.

“You couldn’t have told me?”

“It really never occurred to me that you wouldn’t assume for yourself. Besides, I don’t want to talk about them more than I have to.” He looked disappointedly at Harry and sighed. “Honestly, I get it, and I’ll tell you if I invite them to something in the future. But really, how could you think that was harder for you than it was for me?” He left the room. Harry stood in the dark for awhile, guilt and self-loathing now mingling with his anger and panic.

He bluffed his way through the rest of the evening, thanking guests for coming and putting on a brave face. When only he and Draco remained, they proceeded wordlessly towards the staircase to retire. Then, Harry turned to the cupboard— and proceeded to slump unto the floor.

Draco knelt beside him, calmly assessing the situation. Harry’s eyes were fixed on something far in the distance— something Draco couldn’t see.

“Can I touch you?” Draco had learned this habit from their first night at the house.

Harry tried to speak, but failed for lack of breath. Through no small effort, he managed to nod. Draco locked his arms beneath Harry’s, walked him up the stairs, and lay him down on their bed. After disappearing for a moment, he reemerged with a small vial of pink liquid. Upon being uncorked, a tuft of smoke curled up. It smelled of lilacs and chamomile.

“It’s kind of like Muggle Valium,” Draco said, “with a hint of a beta blocker. Basically, it will slow your heart down, and make your anxiety a bit more manageable.”

Harry took the vial and drank it. To a small degree, his panic subsided.

“It’s certainly fast,” he remarked.

“One of the many ways magic improves upon muggle medicine. What happened, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“The Dursleys.”

Draco nodded; he had a fair degree of understanding, but not enough to make the connection.

“Before I went to Hogwarts— before they felt they were being watched— they made me live in a cupboard under the stairs.” He rambled on for awhile, paused, and added: “I don’t want to be a bother to you.”

To his horror, Draco laughed.

“It isn’t funny.”

“The situation isn’t, I’m sorry, but that is.” Draco ran a hand through Harry’s still-damp hair. “Why would you be a bother to me? I want to help you.”

“But I’m supposed to help you.”

Draco laughed again, and gently pulled Harry’s head to face his.

“That’s what love is, idiot. Being strong when the other person is weak.”

Harry took Draco into his arms. He felt he would never fall asleep— his heart still raced, albeit less so than before— but when he did become calm, he was exhausted. When he awoke, bright afternoon sunlight streamed unto the empty bed.

He found Draco downstairs, wand in hand, looking satisfied with himself. In front of him, the staircase stood sans cupboard.

“Is this okay?” Harry asked. “Shouldn’t I learn to live with it?”

“There are some things we can’t avoid,” Draco said. “Scars, for example. We both know a little about that. Memories. Life in general. Cupboards under stairs? Personally, I find them tacky.”

Harry laughed harder than he had in months. He embraced Draco, who met him with a deep kiss.

“Draco— you’re amazing,” he said.

“I know. And if you try to be Strong Mr. Saint Potter again, I swear to god I may hex you.”

Harry nuzzled into Draco’s neck.

“I do believe you’ll make good on that threat. I wish I could be as vulnerable as you, and honestly, I’ll try to be more open about the things that scare me. But they’re just that: fears. Promise you won’t take them as me not wanting a future with you, okay?”

Draco nipped at Harry’s earlobe.

“How could I make such a foolish mistake? I’m amazing.”

#answered #rachel oc #drarry #drarry fic

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