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oghoneytryst · 6 years

Text

edge of the universe.

request: y/n is a few years younger than harry and he subsequently holds back his feelings.

where harry fears that he will ruin y/n’s youth.

a/n: I am the absolute worst and I apologize to anyone that has requested something for me to write. After months, here is a finished piece, I hope you enjoy and I’m sorry if it’s not worth the long wait for me to put something out but oh well what can ya do

send me your thoughts on this piece right here :-)

PICTURE CREDIT: revivalstyles on Instagram

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Harry shivers in the grey of September.

His tucked heart peers dangerously from the home of his sleeve. His coat—refined with every stitch of faux fur—suffices just enough to shelter him from the breeze that sings to the city. He shoves his hands in the loose, warm pockets, and gazes out to the drunken London streets.

Ever-bright stars rest upon the pillow clouds of an obscure night; the universe blankets over both. Harry focuses on the glimmer of a single celestial body and sends it a discreet kiss with regards from his more youthful, now-fulfilled wishes.

Hopeless, torturous, frightening nights like these—he prays the angels listen instead.

“I can give ya my coat,” Harry speaks up, licking away at the dry patches of his lips. “If you’re cold. I don’t mind.”

“I’m not.”

“Really, y/n, it’s not a big—”

“I’m fine,” she repeats herself. The bitterness is cruel on her tongue.

Harry sighs. Her long-sleeve arms cross stubbornly over her chest. He notices the subtle attempt she makes to shift closer to the warmth of the street lights; a cute little schoolgirl-crush type of sway. Her face, however, seethes with an annoyance that causes his bottom lip to shrivel between his teeth.

“Alright,” Harry mumbles. “If you’re sure.”

“I am,” she retaliates. It’s clear that she favors having the last word.

A muffled marriage of music and cheers vibrate from the brick pub’s interior. In spite of it, the silence of the night washes over their scribbles and scribbles of thoughts.

Harry coughs.

Dim street lights illuminate their stress: knitted eyebrows, pensive lips, adverted eyes. Oh, her eyes; the tension in her eyes float heavenly and its frustrates him so, so much.

“It’s late,” Harry points out, leaning back against the grimy pub wall. The search for her evergreen soul—skipping from pub to pub to pub—has exerted the weakness in his youthful, yet aging bones.

“Not really,” is her quick dismissal.

Harry shuts his eyes, resting his head against the uneven surface. “Not really? 2 in the morning isn’t late for you?”

Y/n shrugs, disguising her shiver beneath it. “Didn’t it used to not be for you? Don’t you remember a time when 2 in the morning meant the night was just getting started?”

Harry curiously opens his left eye, and raises the corresponding eyebrow.

“It was more around 1 am, which I never really learned was a mistake, cos’ I’d have to be up by 5 in the morning. Still, feels like ages ago.”

Y/n nods, and silence ensues again.

Nothing. She does absolutely nothing, and still, she excites him. She exudes a fearless charisma that is parallel to his own confidence, and even so, she carries something that has been unknown to him before.

“How did you,” y/n begins, then clears her dry throat. “How’d you find me?”

Harry opens his eyes. He knuckles at them, a quiet “Uhhh” slugging off the tip of his tongue. “I kind of just ... I know that you’re prone to celebrate more passionately than most. The harder part was figuring out where exactly you’d do that. I know that back in your hometown, you like going to the pub by the field, but here ... it was just a harder game to play.”

She scrunches her face at his cryptic words, chubby cheeks raising to her eyes. There is a question stuck in the back of her throat, but she almost doesn’t even want to hear the answer.

“How long have you been looking for me, Harry?”

The older man puckers his lips shyly. He raises his hand up to his eyesight, the needle in his watch ticking the precious seconds away.

“About ... two hours almost. One hour and 47 minutes.”

Y/n blinks. Then, a short, minuscule, half-hearted laugh. “You should’ve just went to sleep. I would’ve been fine.”

“It’s a large city, y/n. A lot of people.”

“Really? Huh. Never knew that a lot of people resided in a large city.”

“Y/n,” he repeats, a sharp thorn of a warning, but his tone as soft as the rose’s petals. “You know what I mean.”

“Care to elaborate?” she teases, tilting her head to belittle him.

Harry purses his lips. He should repent pursuing a relationship with someone four years his junior, but he doesn’t. He just doesn’t.

“Of course,” he agrees, following along with her act. “I will in the car.”

“The car?” she repeats. She pronounces it so slowly, as though she were biting right through the words.

“It’s just around that corner there.” Harry points to the left. “We can go back to the hotel, where it’s nice and warm. Maybe watch a movie.”

“A movie?”

“Yes, do I also have to explain where the movie will be? There’s a thing called Netflix. You can access it on a contraption called a television.”

Y/n laughs, but it lacks the humorous tone that fills Harry with fulfillment. It’s condescending. Ridicule.

“No, I’m uh, I’m not going back.” She shakes her head. “I wasn’t planning to tonight, anyway. I have some people inside the pub that offered me their couch to spend the night on—”

“You’re not sleeping on some stranger’s couch just to get piss drunk and bitter.”

Harry has never really spoken to her that way. It’s far too passive aggressive for his taste, but he feels obligated to look after this reckless being that he adores. He will chase after her until he has wasted away.

Y/n, however, never asked to be babied.

“I missed the part where I asked for your permission,” she retaliates, but doesn’t give him the opportunity to respond before her legs are carrying her back to the entrance.

As sluggish as he feels, Harry’s instinctive reaction is to grab her back by the arm. His soft hand clutches and pulls, and in an instant, he hears them. The simultaneous clicking of pesky and peering camera shutters.

Y/n notices them too, but avoids staring into the void of the lenses. Instead, she stares up at Harry, scowling at him with her eyes, warning him to let her go.

“I spent two hours of my night,” Harry whispers, “looking for you—”

“I didn’t ask you to do that.”

“I don’t care. I did it anyway, because I was worried about you, because despite what you may think, I care about you, y/n. A lot. So, please, save me the trouble of having to be tomorrow’s cover story and get in the car so that we can talk about this.”

Y/n’s bad-tempered expression refuses to fade away, but there is something, a tiny little something that sinks back into the whites of her eyes. Harry can see it crumble within her, even if she doesn’t say anything to confirm it. He can only accept her delicate tug from his soft hold, and admire the poise in her walk as she follows the path to his chariot.

In the vehicle, the silence crashes against the tinted windows that imprison their echoing thoughts. It is unwelcomed and unloved. It is the spontaneous cliff-hanger, the brokenhearted letter of a lover, the consequence of insecurity and self-loathing.

Harry has his suspicions over how naked and bare his heart will become in a matter of minutes. Albeit, he refuses to taint his charming tongue with the frightening truths of his beautiful mind.

He stalls in the meantime. He tells y/n, “I’ve been writing some stuff down,” but does not recite the words that surely must be memorized by a song-writing genius such as himself.

“That’s good,” y/n chastely replies. The heaters begin to defrost London’s bitter air from her crossed legs and arms, twisted like a salted pretzel.

Though the response is bare, she truly does feel joy for him. She has listened to his agony for the past couple of months, which has strained her heart more than she cares to admit. His doubts overpower his confidence, and at rare occasional moments, he hates himself. She assumes it is these doubts that are to blame for his hesitance over the issue at hand.

He, instead, wishes to pause this moment with her. He desires an impossible manipulation of time where their actions do not impact the outside world surrounding them, and vice versa. Perhaps then he will be table to push these troubles of theirs away until they fall off the edge of the universe. For now, he can only hope that nothing has been permanently written in the autumn stars.

“S’nothing that can be used for a song,” he continues. “It doesn’t rhyme, but I guess I could tweak it a little bit—”

“Harry,” y/n interrupts, unaware of how her manicured hand reaches over to blanket his red knuckles on the gear shift. It’s annoying how much she cares for him. She loathes how natural it has become to comfort him in his stress, especially since he has made it rather clear that he doesn’t need it. He doesn’t need the security that she carries in her touch, or else he’d scream it to the sun, and compose a romantic medley that breathes his air into her lungs.

“I don’t know what could possibly be going through your head right now,” y/n admits, her vision cascading across his features bathed in gloom, “but I want to. You’re so hidden in your own mind and it’s hard to tell if any of this is worth anything.” The young girl shakes her head. Her much smaller hand returns to the familiar pudge of her lap, and she continues, “I don’t want to be like everyone else who barely knows who you are or how you’re feeling.”

“You’re not,” Harry says, pulling his own hand away, only to play with the steering wheel.

“I sure hope not,” she replies, but it is difficult to detect the tone of her voice. “That’s why I’m giving you a minute. One minute to collect your thoughts and tell me why I’m in this car right now, and not someone else whose time you can waste. Or else, I’m walking out and you better not come looking for me.”

It is a cruel proposition that seems fair enough to her. Harry has spent hours searching for her tonight. He must have conjured up a million thoughts while doing so, and now she weighs his shoulders with the pressure of a minute. 60 seconds to figure out how to say it all in a way that will make her understand something that he can’t even comprehend himself.

A handful of seconds later, and Harry huffs the nerves out of his system.

“I am,” he pauses, shifts his vision from right to left, then continues, “I’m devoted to you. Hopelessly, like Olivia Newton-John would say. I know that it doesn’t ... really come out that way, erm, but I guess, I don’t know, it’s cos’ I can’t really say it, properly with my own words. And m’sorry ‘bout that. M’sorry that I didn’t say it back.”

Those final words that swim past his precious lips are the ones she least expects and suddenly her own throat runs very dry. She had expected him to swivel and swerve his way through a series of erm’s and um’s, struggling to connect similar ideas in the midst of his fear and confusion. In some strange and parallel universe, he does all that and more.

But here, the stars shine brighter, and the crisp air is daunting, and the city drinks away. And two lovers sit in an ambience of uncertainty with a set of minds beautiful enough to waste their daydreams on each other.

“M’sorry if I upset, you,” Harry continues when his counterpart does not reply. “Back at the hotel room, when you asked about this. It wasn’t ... I didn’t ...” he softly groans, the waves of his grown-out curls bouncing as he leans his head back in frustration. “I just ... wasn’t expecting it, alright?”

“Alright,” y/n repeats, as though it were vile for her newly found voice. “It was alright when I’d said it months ago. It was alright because I didn’t expect you to say it back and I didn’t want you to. I wanted you to say it when you felt comfortable enough, when you actually meant it. And if you didn’t think you’d ever feel the same, I at least expected this to be over. But you kept me waiting for months, Harry, and you still have me waiting.”

“Y/n, I didn’t mean to—”

“No, of course not,” she interrupts. “You never mean to, but you do it anyway. I just don’t like feeling with way, H. Waiting around for you to build up the courage that you don’t even have. I mean, when’s the last time you told someone you loved them, in that way?”

Harry’s bottom lip hides between his square teeth. He searches the depths of his poor mind, even if it is useless. Has he felt love for a person once so significant to him? Of course; he has played the role of a helpless fool much too many times. His only problem is his incapability of expressing it.

No lover wants to feel unloved, and none of his have ever been so patient. Not with him, and not with the manner in which he lives.

Secluded, despite being photographed wherever he goes.

Bombarded with the attention of raging fanatics who are invested in every detail of his every affair.

Fearsome, in constant, constant fear – must everyone be the same? Must everyone that he welcomes kindly in his life drain him of his trust every time they leave?

She has been patient. She has endured endless hell with him, because she loves him, and that is where the difference lies. She loves him, and instead of leaving him in the bitter dust, she gives him a chance, practically begging to him to find a reason worth her time.

She has been patient, and he has taken advantage of that.

The silence is frightening to him. It feels as though at any second, she will stay true to her word, and he knows that the pain that crosses him will be well-deserved.

Harry makes a decision then. In such an abrupt manner, he reaches into his back pocket, and slides out his phone covered in a pale and pretty pink case. The screen illuminates with the time – almost three in the morning – and the scenery that he has assigned as his lock screen. His right thumb works quick to unlock the device, a simple pattern of six numbers that people all across the world would love to know.

The device makes a quiet noise, indicating that his many secrets are unlocked. His many apps appear on the screen, right over the home screen wallpaper that not many people get to see. Y/n is very fond of social media, even if she admits that it can be rather troubling. She’s particularly amused by Snapchat, and the many silly filters available for her pictures. His home screen wallpaper is a picture she had taken in an extravagantly large mirror at some restaurant somewhere, the two of them wrapped up in each other’s arms, with an animated bear of some sort appearing over their playful faces.

He doesn’t know if she has caught a look at it, but it’s not meant for her. It’s his reminder, one that will please his eyes whenever he goes to do something related to work or simply for his leisure.

He taps onto his notes application and hands the phone to y/n without a second thought.

“Go to the first note,” he instructs, placing the device carefully on her lap. He scoots away then, closer to the window, cowering in silent fear.

Y/n grabs onto the phone, examining it due to the rarity of having it fall into someone else’s hands. She does as he says and taps a finger onto the note, the typed words not nearly as appealing to her aesthetic senses as she’s hoped.

Spring in her step

Livelier than summer

Deranged thrill

In her youth

Evergreen soul

Y/n knits her eyebrows. She attempts to scroll, curious to see if there is anything else worth reading, then asks, “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“It’s ... I wrote it. ‘Bout you.”

She shifts her eyes back to the note and squints her eyes at the tiny font. “Deranged?”

“Yeah, but it’s ... it’s not like, what you think. I know it’s like, shit, but I did say I have to tweak it a little. I don’t normally like to write things down on my phone, but it was just kind of ... I haven’t been writing to make sense. I’ve just been writing what comes to me.”

“And what came to you is that I am deranged?”

“No, dammit, y/n, stop focusing on that,” Harry blurts, losing a fraction of his temper. “Can you take this seriously please?”

“Can I take this seriously?” Y/n sits up, clutching the phone tight in her hand. “What exactly am I supposed to take seriously here? The fact that I tell you I love you and months later you respond with a measly stanza on how insane I am?”

“No! That’s completely opposite of what I meant.” Harry sighs. Out of the anger that boils in his blood, he reaches over and snatches the phone back, revising the typed words that he assumed would fix everything. “I’m trying to open up to you. Let you in on my thoughts. M’sorry if a measly stanza isn’t perfect for you. Next time I’ll write a whole fucking album, would that satisfy you?”

“Harry, where is it that you’re getting so lost in translation? Whatever you typed down in there doesn’t tell me anything about how you feel. It’s just as cryptic as anything else you’ve written or said. I don’t want a song dedicated to me, or an album, or a poem. I just you want you to be honest with your emotions, and you can only seem to do that in a song.”

“That’s not true,” he denies, but his nostrils flare, and his kind eyes cannot meet hers.

“It is,” she nods, “and do you know why? It’s because songs can’t hurt you, Harry. They can’t leave you. They can’t break your heart. Not really. If anything, the most painful songs are what help heal our broken hearts. It’s therapy. But real pain, that is telling the person in front of you why you can’t look them in the eyes right now. And maybe then she’ll tell you that it’s okay to be afraid of getting hurt.”

She really is deranged, Harry thinks to himself, locking his phone and shoving it deep inside the pocket of coat. He’s made a habit of closing his eyes whenever the stress of a situation becomes too much. This time, he hopes that it will somehow block out her words that swarm and buzz through his throbbing head.

It’s remarkable, this effect she has. She is so young, but her heart confesses as though it has lived through years of wisdom and experience. And that is the problem of it all.

“M’not afraid of getting hurt,” he says, voice low and weak. He opens his eyes; he turns to look at her and remembers her the way that she is – in case if it is all a dream. “And I will open up to someone from time to time, as you can see I’ve just tried to do. If not, I’d go insane.”

“So, what then?” she asks. “This whole thing, the reason we’re sitting here at 3 in the morning. What’s this all about?”

“You,” he says, simple and straightforward. “It’s about you. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Me?” she repeats for clarification. “Your problem is with me?”

“You’re not a problem. I just ... I don’t want to ruin you, y/n. At your age, I had to prove myself to everyone, and everyone was older than me. I wanted to impress them, so I matured sooner than I needed to, and that was fine for me. I enjoyed it. But years later, you come around, and you still have this innocence about you. You haven’t seen the world the way I have and you shouldn’t have to, but you will, and all I can think about is protecting you from it. And a part of me says that you need protection from me, from this whole lifestyle of being followed around by cameras and getting shit-faced at bars because your boyfriend upset you.”

Y/n’s lips part. The words begin to absorb into her brain like a soaked sponge, but it is rather overwhelming to hear so many words come out of Harry’s mouth. So many words that suddenly connect the pieces of a broken puzzle.

“You deserve better in your youth, y/n,” he says, “and I don’t want to ruin you. But I am.”

It hits her like the cold, bitter London air. The mere stanza is a call to her youth. She is something fresh to him, new and evergreen. She is quick on her toes and her energy mirrors the warmest season of all. She is not deranged – there is simply a madness to her age, one that drives her to storm out of their hotel room and disappear for hours; the excitement of it all clouds her better judgement because it is a thrill to be rebellious and independent.

It explains why he has devoted hours of his night to her, and hours of his life. It explains why he has held himself back for months, keeping her suffering in such a prolonged waiting period.

“Your problem isn’t with me,” she realizes. “It’s with how young I am?”

Harry nods, almost as if he has reached a limit on his spoken words.

“I don’t ... I don’t really see how that’s a problem,” she says, though she’s trying very hard to understand. “I mean, it’s not like I’m some child incapable of taking care of herself. I’m not a child at all.”

“I know you’re not,” Harry inputs, “but you’re still ... it’s new to me. Being with someone that’s not only younger than me, but significantly younger than me.”

“I’d hardly say that four years is significant. My birthday is coming up anyway.”

“If you have to say that your birthday is coming up, y/n, then you’re younger than you realize.”

“Oh, fuck off.” Y/n turns away, tucking her legs in a crisscross manner.

Harry chuckles. “Believe me, I wish I could. It’s not possible, y/n. It doesn’t matter how much I hold back, I can’t...”

Harry’s words trail off, his sentence unfinished with an infinite number of endings. He stops himself, but y/n catches on quick, and her curiosity gets the better of her.

“Can’t what?” she presses on, leaning towards him in anticipation.

He shakes his head and changes the direction of his words. “I don’t want to change you, y/n. I hate seeing you so caught up in this, this routine. What I’ve done in the past, I don’t necessarily like it, but I’ve done it and there’s nothing I can do. But I can at least try to keep you from making the same mistakes.”

“And what mistakes would that be?” she ponders sarcastically. “Getting shit-faced at a pub? Having even a lick of alcohol? News flash, my family has been sneaking me sips of their drinks since I was 15. It’s a normal way for someone to relieve themselves. And as for the part about me getting hurt,” y/n shrugs and whispers, “too late.”

Harry despises the feeling in his chest. He hates himself more than usual, to know that the one thing he wanted to avoid is something that he unintentionally let play out. It is his fault – he is to blame for all of this, all because of his own fear.

But if there’s anything y/n has taught him, anything that her youthful mind has so brilliantly expressed, it is that fear is power. To embrace fear is the most elegant gift a person can give to themselves. To fear the love that he has for someone is natural, and despite his trouble with communication, he refuses to push away from her any longer.

He wonders if the cameras are still lurking around. Whether they are or not, it doesn’t matter. Whether there are wanderers lost in the city who happen to peak into his tinted car, it doesn’t matter. Harry leans closer, cups her soft cheek and jaw with his enormous, ring-clad hand, and presses a warm kiss onto her cold lips. He holds himself there, breathing in her frosty scent, memorizing the taste of her youth, and pulls away to meet the loving gaze that lives in his imagination. And there, in the early morning shadows, he whispers to her the words she has longed to hear; the words he fears the most.

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