Y/N is 100% not a human (part 2's part 1) (Patreon)

Y'all remember these lil gumdrops? They've returned by popular demand based off of this fic I wrote a v v v long time ago.

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i.

If anyone is taking your soul, it is me. You are my human. Remember that.

The words loop around Harry’s head constantly, not unlike windmill blades whose lock mechanisms snap during a hurricane. For months after they are spoken, it is all he can think about. All he can hear, all he can think, all he can dream, is the proclamation that had left her lips so irrefutably Harry had wondered if he had signed his soul away to her himself. 

He lost hope on an answer about two weeks after she had ignored his constant badgering. If there was one thing that he had gathered about Y/N at this point, it was that she deemed in one second what was worth sharing with him and what wasn’t. When she wanted to tell him something, she would tell him in that very moment, if she didn’t. . .well, she was not easily persuaded and he had learned that fairly early on. Which for someone as normally effectual as Harry, was incredibly frustrating. 

So here they were, a good year into their. . .whatever this was. . .and Harry still didn’t know what she was, where she was from, why she had stayed, and when his soul had begun belonging to her. 

But he is sure of two things: 

Y/N was not human.

She could eat a banquet hall of food if someone allowed it. 

In retrospect, he knew that taking her on tour with him was not a completely sane idea on his part. Having anyone tag along with him on a tour was a bit of a risk, he would be the first to say that even with people he found close it could be an uncomfortable time. People get tired, stressed out from the moving, grumpy from a constant stream of people coming in and out, and him needing to leave, and not being able to go out and be proper people with him out around the city without a possible hoard of fans crowding them. If not that, then pictures, tabloids, and cruel comments on the internet. And if not that, then the supposed friends he had were only hanging around for that lifestyle and leave when they’re tired of it, bored of him, or whatever else they might say before leaving with little explanation. 

However, Y/N is not human. She is not human, and he didn’t want to leave her at home for a plethora of reasons, including but not limited to the fact that he feared whatever it was that had been threatening him that she continued to fight, and the fact that he just -- well, he didn’t want her to leave. There was something comforting about her presence, that surmounted even her protecting him. Of all things in his life, he rarely had anything or anyone constant, and persistent in his life, whether that be his own doing or not. 

Y/N was an unrelenting force; one bottomless pit keen on any and all types of food, who only entertained the idea of him taking her out among the city either when it was deep into the night or so early in the morning that they usually ended up somewhere secluded watching as the sun rose above the skyline. She demanded cuddles on her terms, rarely got choleric unless there was something that really grated her nerves, and oozed an essence that his bandmates both adored and feared. And when he crawled into bed beside her sleeping form, or if she were to be with her eyes open and trained on the telly, or even a thick book that she reads at about ten times the speed than he ever could -- he is at ease. Complete ease, and peace, and he’d not gotten that from someone ever. 

And all she requested from him in return is that he patch her up when she got hurt. 

It wasn’t rare; the likelihood of her disappearing for hours at a time and showing up without a scratch is very low, which leads to an incredible amount of money spent on a surplus of medical supplies and a lot of questioning from his accountant that he had to navigate around. That and a lot of studying the proper techniques on how to clean, disinfect, and tend to a wound -- so much in fact, that he’s almost certain that he could be a nurse at this point. 

So when he’s torn from sleep by the thud of knuckles on the glass window of his balcony, he is only mildly disturbed by her face pushed up against the door and her silk robe having fell open to reveal a long, jagged cut spanning the side of her hip that he knew would be as good as forgotten in the span of two days. Harry always wanted to know more about what it was she was fighting and why she was fighting it, but the only information she had ever gotten out of her was very vague descriptions that left him unnerved. 

“It is rot.” 

“Rot?” 

“Imagine a home consumed by darkness, caving within itself covered with a meshwork of English Ivy overgrown throughout it, like a tumor winding through the rooms. It is all consuming, sickening black tar that coats the inner walls, and suffocates the everything within it. The basement is full of loose dirt, the ceiling sunken in, the windows have cracked and threaten to shatter, and if there be any being in that house it has been smothered and choking, filling their lungs with mud.” 

“That’s incredibly dark.” 

“It is rot.” 

He wonders if she rarely speaks of it because she knows that he couldn’t handle it. The very essence of whatever it is, is obviously something his brain is not able to comprehend, because instead of an evil being he was imagining a condemned house. Her metaphor had not fallen amongst deaf ears but it was just so difficult to wrap his head around something. . .something so big, dark, and terrifying up against Y/N. Someone so presumably soft and while detached, when she wanted she could be incredibly sweet (or as sweet as she could be in her own weird way, whether that be offering him tissues from five feet away when he’s got a cold, or if she understands that he is upset about something she will offer her snack, or even coax him into her lap and do as she likes done to her -- a whole lot of playing with his hair). The thing. . .the creature. . .the rot just continued to lose by her. 

And that fact makes Harry wonder which he should be more afraid of. 

Harry flips the covers off of his body, swinging his legs over the mattress and shoving himself up. His vision splotches a little from standing up too quickly, his mind still not having fully woken up yet. He answers the balcony door, unclipping the lock and yanking the door open. They were on the fourth floor of the hotel, so Harry was pretty confused on why this was her choice of entry, but he doesn’t question her. 

“I tried to make it quick -- to be here before you had fallen asleep -- I am sorry.” 

Another part of her, that he’ll never understand, is that she is going out of her way to keep some impending attack from him and she apologizes for waking him. She’d never murmur the thought of an apology if she ate the last muffin, or impeded on his shower by either sitting on the sink, or physically stepping into it -- but god forbid he not get sleep. It was odd, but it makes him smile each time. 

“S’fine,” he clears his throat, following her into the bathroom where he keeps all of the supplies he needs to care for her, and Y/N hops herself up onto the counter as she usually does, “You alright Babe?” 

She nods, letting the silk of her robe pool off her shoulders and reveal the lacy bralette that she had bought when he’d given her full range to his debit card. She’d taken to at least wearing a pair of silk shorts with the robe, she just always forwent the top -- something about mobility in fighting, though Harry had always imagined that just made her much more vulnerable. Especially when he gets a look at the scratches she holds; they aren’t as deep as they have been, but it was still nasty enough that he would need to bandage it, and make an effort to find her clothes that cover the obnoxious white pads. 

“I would like to visit the store you call Gucci again,” she tells him as he takes out all he needs to tend to her, simultaneously wetting a flannel in the sink so he could clean away the blood, “I would like a jacket like your own. It is incredibly comfortable.” 

“Why don’t you just wear mine?” Harry questions, “Not that we can’t go tomorrow, but m’just curious.” 

Y/N looks at him, her gaze very stern, and very serious as she tells him, “If I am wearing yours, then we cannot match.” 

Harry doesn’t even attempt to hide his smile. Where she had gotten the idea is clear -- she had witnessed Sarah and Mitch do it all but once, and before Harry could go over to greet them she had grabbed the cuff of his suit gently but with enough unseen force to make him stop entirely, “Why are they wearing the same thing?” She had asked him, and Harry had shrugged. 

“It’s fun sometimes,” he told her, “Sometimes people do it to like -- y’know, say that that’s your person in the room.” 

She had nodded and dropped it, and Harry presumed that she thought it silly. Just another silly little human thing that she would have to grow accustomed to in her time here, like drunken dancing and stupid stuffy noses that wear them down pitiful. 

So to know that she was actively thinking about it had to be just about the cutest thing in the world. Y/N wanted to go somewhere with Harry and let people know that he was her person, and while he had never thought she thought him to be more than a human she cohabitated with, this makes him warm. He had always wondered the bounds of their relationship together. If she ever saw that he amounted to more than the guy who bandaged and fed her -- if she thought this to be paternal or saw this in a platonic friendship way or even in a boyfriend tending this his girlfriend’s needs kind of way. He wondered what a relationship was even to her “kind” or if there were others like her. Was she alone? Did she feel alone? Did she really consider him to be her person or was he just her soul, or is he really just thinking too deeply into it?  

“You are thinking too hard.” She remarks, looking down to her wound, “Is it bad?”

He shakes his head, “No worse than it has been,” he informs her, picking up the flannel and facing the raw, tender skin of side and letting the wet cloth stroke against it carefully. Harry is gentle no matter how stoned face she always was, wiping away the blood, watching as it smears and streaks against the skin. He knows that he’s going to have to clean up well if he doesn’t want to be questioned and is glad that she hadn’t taken to climbing into bed beside him with a bleeding wound as she has in the past. It’s one thing to mess up his own flat and to get the rare questioning from Jeff about the drop of blood dried on the white counter, it’s another thing to have a hotel worker find blood spotted sheets and turn the place into a crime scene. 

Harry is quick and efficient in the way he clears up the area so he can visualize the four cuts -- long claw marks that had dug through the skin, like it had reached out and gotten her last minute. He’s diligent in disinfecting, places the antibiotic ointment over the thin slices and is thankful that it isn’t deep. Often he wonders if they’re ever deeper than this and she just begins the healing process quickly. Or was it that she was just too swift for it to ever gain any leverage on her? 

“You should wear more than this while you’re out,” he chides her, flicking at the flimsy fabric as he grabs for the dry gauze and an adhesive, positioning it properly over the entirety of the cut before he works on wiping the rest of the blood stained on her skin, “It’s getting cold out.” 

Y/N snorts, sliding from the counter and stopping just short of falling into him, “You should wear more.” She tells him, “You are always cold human, you may be anemic.” 

He furrows his brows, deep creases in his forehead, “You’re not g’na trick me,” he tells her, hurrying to gather up the trash, swiping up the bit of blood that was on the sink, “Plus, people will start eyeballing ya if you’re walkin’ bout without a sweater, n’I don’t feel like making up an excuse.” 

Y/N grabs his wrist, pausing his actions and dragging his attention to her. 

“I am hungry.” 

“I know, Pet, I ordered you fettucini n’ bread sticks, and there should be a slice of cheesecake in the fridge.” Her grip doesn’t leave him, and he tucks his brows back inward, “S’on the table, just go --” 

“I would like you to be with me.” 

Harry relents, tossing what he had in his hands into the bin, and follows the sharp tug that she gives him. This is her nondescript way of telling him that she would like attention, mostly just being petted on, and have him put on a movie for her (because she told him she likes his taste and trusts him to show her the good ones). It’s cute that even someone as potentially formidable as Y/N liked to be petted on and it keeps her from being too drastically grumpy with him. A grumpy Y/N is the absolute worst; all pouts, disdained glares, and the best cold shoulder anyone has ever kept. Once she didn’t speak to him for three days because he forgot to get her cupcakes when he left the hotel. In that time, she got her petting from a wide variety of people, including yet not limited to, Jeff, Adam, Sarah and even Mitch -- and she doesn’t think she even compelled them in the slightest. He onced watch her walk over to Mitch and Sarah, carefully place herself over their laps and they merely accommodated to her presence, continuing their conversation while Mitch began to dig the heel of his palm into her shoulder blade. 

She just had that way about her.

So he got into the bed, split his legs apart and was careful to mind her hip as she snuggled her way back against him. Her head leans against his chest as she cradles the box the cheesecake had come in, a plastic fork tucked between her fingers and sighing as he uses one hand to turn on the telly, and the other to begin stroking up and down her arm. She warms him, and he knows that as soon as she finishes eating and is lulled to sleep, he would be sleeping heavy and well. 

It’s soft moments that Harry doesn’t know what to make of them, but he enjoys them nonetheless. 

They make it easier for him to ignore that she had claimed his soul as her own.