SNEAK PEEK OF DEMON!HUNTER HARRY (Patreon)

Hello! This is all I have of the second part thus far :) 

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ii.

The first time Y/N had begun to realize she had feelings for Harry, the day had been cold. 

The kind of cold that seeps into the muscles and stiffens them, casting each breath a ghostly plume in the air. Autumn always brought such a crisp, biting chill towards the end, when Halloween decorations are marked down half the regular price and mirthful stuffed turkeys start filling the shelves. Every shiver felt like it might just jar one enough to shatter their bones with a full body tremble, goose pimples tickle up skin no matter how thick a coat over the arms.  

She remembers it so clearly, because she was doing very poorly at handling the cold. They had gone to see a movie at an old drive in theatre that still ran in town,  the projector’s light casted the image across a large abandoned slab of wall that had once been apart of a factory. Someone had bought out the estate,  renovated the cracks and rebuilt some foundation so that it stood firm, and assembled across from it is where the projector was being run in a nice little shack, and a few meters away from that a concession stand with a wide variety of overly expensive foods. 

It was Nathan and Ro in one car and Harry and Y/N in the other (Isobel had not been in his life at that time). They had taken Harry’s car because the back seats bent down and gave them an ample amount of space to stretch out, lay out their snacks, and shift around as much as they wanted to. This was their first time going together, given Harry had already visited with Nathan and Ro, and Y/N had gone with what could have been a boyfriend but he gave her a far too slobbery cheek kiss, was wholly on Ben Affleck’s side in (italicize this) Gone Girl and ate all of her nachos (so she had politely never contacted him again). She had idly mentioned this to Harry once and he told her he was committed to making sure she had the (italicize this) absolute best time she could have on this next visit. 

So when he rolled around to pick her up, with a big cheesy grin as he told  her to get in the front seat but don’t even (italicize this) think about looking in the back, she hadn’t known what to expect. Knew that Harry would put forth his best effort to make sure that she had the best time, but really how could you spruce up a drive-in other than maybe a cushion in the back so that her bum didn’t feel like it would fall off by the end of the film. Maybe he brought them some food so they didn’t have to waste money on the eight dollar tub of popcorn -- she would be happy with that. 

It was more than she could have ever expected though.  

Not only had he laid the seats down, he covered the floor of the car with soft sheets, cushions and blankets all spread out and piled neatly in a way so aesthetically pleasing she almost has half the mind to be jealous of his eye for stuff like this. The covers and cushions are various colors (proving he’d raided his own closet and bedspread to make things up), olive green, whites, pinks, all illuminated under the glow of battery operated fairy lights slung around the coat hooks. He brought an incredible amount of pillows as well, including some that have the arm rests to lean back on, and included an old, thick quilt that she always slept with when she visited his flat (it was her favorite -- she had told him it was because of the colors and design, which is certainly a part of it, but mostly she does because it smells like him and it lulls her to sleep. . .though she’d never tell him that). 

Y/N had warded away tears as to not seem like an emotional baby, turned to face him and hugged him so tightly that she could feel each movement of the  muscles in his chest when he chuckles. He was just too (italicize this) good, Y/N had decided. For anyone to ever think to put this much effort into something just because she had one foul experience, is enough to render her melty.  He always managed to make her feel so special; like no matter what the world may dish out to her, she was important to him, and being important to Harry meant something. Especially when relationships, both romantic and platonic in the past,  have left her feeling worn, beaten, and squeezed dry -- he gave back to her what she gives and even then some. 

When she thinks about it now, she knows it was a bit dramatic to get so worked up about it but at the moment she hadn’t cared. Her heart was so full it felt as if it would burst from her chest and as she kept her arms snug around him, she murmured just how grateful she was for him into the base of his throat. Her words vibrated against his skin, met for his ears alone as she praised him for just how wonderful she thought he was (to which his cheeks blotched warm, while he let her know that she surpassed him in the “wonderful factor” though she wouldn’t listen to it). 

Harry had been so smiley afterward as he coaxed  her into the back amongst the pillows and blankets, proving to bring much more warmth than the aggressive chill outside. Despite as much, she was still freezing cold swathed within the thick quilt, and while she tried desperately to focus on the first ten minutes of the critically acclaimed (italicize this) ThanksKilling (they mostly played movies after a few years of being out, and thankfully around the Thanksgiving season they have access to the 2008 film) she was a little too busy letting her body wrack with shivers. She tried to keep her chattering teeth to a minimum to not bother Harry who had sat just a few centimeters to her side, working on a bucket of buttery popcorn. 

And she had thought she was doing pretty good at it, until she feels his arm slipped around her blanket covered shoulder and with a soft tug, she tips down into his body like a cow being pushed over. Harry chuckled as he rubbed his hand up and down her side, “Poor thing,” he’d murmured soft, holding her closer and no matter  him only having a blanket loosely thrown around his hips and his own puffy winter coat, he was so (italicize this) warm. So, so, so warm, and she felt the shivers lessen as he held her even closer. When she’d tilted her head up to look at him, he had looked down with a smile, “Is this any better?” 

She nodded, humming her response through her clenched teeth warding away a chatter, “Th-thank you.” 

As the shivers lowered to only few and far in between, and she realized that her ear was pressed up against his chest, the gentle rump and thump of his heart so steady and calming. She would’ve taken this as an opportunity to fall to sleep if not for the fact that Harry had gone through all this trouble to make this a lovely viewing experience, coupled with her want to live in that moment for as long as she could milk it. When they sat like this, it was easy to forget that there was nothing romantic between them. 

It had been that night, that she had allowed herself to entertain the thought of kissing him for the first time. 

Of course, the thought had come to her before, but it was fleeting and when she could feel it approaching like an itch at the back of her brain, she would almost immediately scratch it. Feelings made things complicated and messy, especially with the chance that they are not reciprocated. Y/N would rather spend eternity knees deep in a piss filled sewer than admit to Harry that she might have feelings and be told that he hadn’t felt the same. She’d only been the first one to admit she liked someone one time before, when she had overheard talk at work about how this boy was thinking about asking her out but he was just too shy. And after a week of hyping herself up, she’d gone into their shift and asked him towards the end, only to find out that he had been talking about a girl with her same name. 

So she wouldn’t do that again and if that meant that they could stay as they were, cuddling without the worry of feelings, nor Harry thinking he was leading her on with any sign of affection. . .well, then so be it. 

But it was certain that night, when she felt herself smile at the sound of Harry laughing drags her from where she was tucked against his chest, and looked up with her heart racing at the sight of his soft skin, the fuzz of hair that had been threatening a beard, the amaranth pink of his lips drawn up, and the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. There was no doubt that how she felt for Harry had surpassed that of platonic and would only continue to do so, no matter how deep she suppressed them. In the first whisper of winter, it could no longer be denied that Harry had absolutely ruined her for anyone else. 

And she was a hundred percent okay with that. 

The images of that night and the glow of her happiness replays in the back of her mind as she stands in Harry’s living room with her hand held out palm upward, her index finger pointed towards him. Only instead of being in the flat that she had always known to be his, she was in the middle of a forest in a cabin built on soil that had never carried the weight of someone who came from outside this village. Her finger was out, not because the seemingly friendly cat outside had lashed out when she got too close (which had happened twice before she got the hint not to bother him), but because Harry needed blood. 

Her blood. 

She wishes it would have been harder for him to convince her to give it to him, but Y/N was so worn down from everything she just didn’t much care anymore. If knowing meant getting a small prick in the finger and smearing it on a questionable piece of old parchment paper, well then everyone can just say that curiosity killed the cat.  And she knew, if she went a minute more without knowing just exactly was going on here, she would be driven mad. 

Y/N’s heart raced, both at the sight of the long, and surprisingly thick pointed needle (he had brought out a wooden box with intricate carvings, which held the paper, the needle, a bottle, and a small sliver of cloth) and at the anxiety of what he would tell her. He was human, wasn’t he? Or would she have to wrap her head around something else confusing that might run her distraught? She almost tells him to hurry it the hell up, but he’s being so slow and delicate as he prepares, sterilizing the needle in the bottle of clear fluid. “If there were any other way to do this, you know I would.”  He tells her and she knows he would, because he’d said about five billion times prior when he explained what he had to do. 

“Why my blood?” 

“It’s a troth -- like a promise -- it’s the only way they’ll let me tell you, which I know is shit but if there was any other way I could tell you I would.” 

“Who?” 

“I can say after -- Babe, I promise it’s not going to be used for anything but. . .but this is how they do things, this is the only way, and I wish I could change it but I don’t have that power.” 

“Okay. . .okay, yeah, what like a blood oath or something?” 

“Or something.”