MET GALA HARRY PART 2 (Patreon)

Sorry I'm the ABSOLUTE, POSITIVELY, W O R S T person ever and this took so long but it is here :D MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! 

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Y/N thinks that she ought to be applauded. 

Not for anything she’d actually done, but for the effort in which it takes her to keep her mouth shut.  She’d never been very good at not spilling her guts about anything and everything at a moment's notice, especially when it came to telling Harry things. And to not remind him of the small invitation he had given her as he snuggled against her, his ear pressed to her chest, just after she’d told him she would have jumped his bones if given the chance. 

You should’ve.

She keeps replaying it in her head, trying to determine just exactly how he meant it. Harry had always been a flirty bugger, but normally she could differentiate when he’s just trying to make her squirm and when he is being legitimate about something. If he makes a suggestive comment about them sharing a bed together, he wants to see her get bashful and then feel proud about it; when he snuggles his way into her side, he wants to cuddle and he will demand it if necessary. And not only had he said that he told her he wanted to keep her to himself - that he’s selfish about her, and that she was his person. Those weren’t just flirty little statements he made to get under her skin.

It had been a month since it had happened, meaning a month since the Met Gala, and a month after being reminded that Harry’s sphere of existence surpasses her own. Things had settled back into their normal realm of things; Y/N went about her business, as usual, Harry was in the studio, slammed with meetings about the album and budgeting already, and neither of them talked about Met Gala. Apart from Y/N suggesting that he wear more “nipply” garments, that is.  The questioning behavior and remarks on Harry’s part had not ceased after the Met Gala, that’s for sure because he kept planting these little seedlings in her brain that flourish into wild plants of emotion. 

Like today, when Y/N questioned why he had been inviting her to the studio so often. Not that she minded it any, and she told him as much, but she just feels like such a bother there. A nuisance that he had to check up on constantly, who was useful to run out for lunch when they were in the depths of a session (not that it was requested of her, but she had fine-tuned her ears to growling stomachs so that she felt at least a little useful when she was hanging around), who answered Harry’s calls if he was in the booth and told them he would get back to them later. It was amazing to see the process, watch as Harry came up with lyrics, the sound, the pace, how his fingers move on the strings. And she was even more amazed by the fact he wanted to share such a personal experience with him. 

Harry had dodged her question when she had originally asked it. It wasn’t until later that night when it was only the two of them and Mitch left that he answered her. Mitch stepped out to answer a call, leaving Y/N and Harry in what Y/N had appropriately begun calling the “piano room” alone. She listened to him fiddle with the keys, walking his fingers along the artificial ivory and Y/N had made a comment that brought his lips up in a smile, “You ought’a not hold back,” she had mentioned idly, “Like, be a hundred percent honest, even if it means sorta throwing someone under the bus. It makes the music better,” she shrugged her shoulders, “Or at least I think so. Not that I like hearing about people being sad but it’s like - you can relate better to it, y’know? Do something that makes you wanna cry.” 

He looked over to her, a lopsided grin that makes her scrunch her nose up, “What?” 

“S’nothing,” he murmurs, “You remember how you asked why I keep bringing you ‘round?” She nodded, her hand supporting her face with her elbow on one of the side tables beside the emerald green couch she sat with her legs stretched out. Harry slides his tongue over his dry mouth, biting down on the inside of his lip as he continued, “I’m not trying to be a sap or anythin’ but you just - you make me want to do good, does that make sense? You always push me and praise me, but you call me on my shit too and I --” he sighs, shaking his head, “You’re my muse in some regards, aren’t ya, Pet? I think you are.” 

Not only should she be applauded, she should be given a fucking medal. 

Who just does that? Calls their best friend their muse and tells them they should’ve taken the chance to jump their bones and go on about how he gets selfish when it comes to her because she is his person. It’s ridiculous! Did he want her to go all goo-goo eyes for him? Was this some sort of sick game he had fun with? Did he want to be the only boy that she was capable of thinking about? 

It was all fucked. It had been fucked since she started getting feelings for him in the first place! Because she could never just mind her damn business, she always had to get attached, and emotionally invested, and Harry was just one of those people where it was so easy to get attached. Especially when he appears to be just as close to her as she feels to him -- but what happens when he gets in another relationship? Does she sit around and pretend like it doesn’t hurt? Does she pretend that she doesn’t want to crawl out of her skin at the mere idea of him caring for someone else as much as she cares for him? It fucking sucks doesn’t it? Falling for your best friend? And when your best friend might just be the most sought after person - it sucks even more. 

Of course, this doesn’t stop her from tagging along with him. If anything, she feels like she’s at the studio even more with him. He asks her opinion on lines, on certain chords, on different tunes and no matter how many times Y/N reminded him that she had no musical training, he would shake his head and remind her that, “Sometimes it’s better t’a get an opinion from someone not worried about the semantics of it all.” 

Once it was spoken aloud that he believed her to be his muse, he made a point of making sure she was around and was unabashed about it. She wondered if anybody else had been clued in on this information or if it was just something that she was now aware of with him. Whatever it may be, wherever Harry would be, Y/N was close beside him, whether it be combing her fingers through his hair while he jotted down in his leather-bound journal or with her socked feet in his lap while he and Mitch hummed and strummed. Harry liked most when Y/N would dance with him, he made a point of dragging her up from her seat whenever there was something to dance to. May it be his songs or somebody else's, he wasn’t picky, he just liked to jump and move and sing at the top of his lungs and no matter any hour of any day, Y/N was game whenever as long as he could get her to a stand. 

Like the other day, when he had all but slid into his kitchen in fluffy socks with his phone in hand, Holding Out for a Hero blaring through the speakers. He dragged her from the toast she’d been spreading his homemade mango jam on, spun her around, made her dip, sang so loudly it echoed off of the kitchen walls. Their fingers were locked together tightly, he slipped and slid on his socks, took a tumble and brought her down with him, and the whole moment was filled with laughter and joy and it was good -- they were happy.  

(Even when they were in a heap on the floor, tangled limbs, giggling breathlessly into each other and undoubtedly sore already.) 

She wishes she could say the same - that Harry was her muse as well - but hell, she could barely pay attention to her own feet when she’s with him. That’s why she’s in the predicament she’s in now, with ankle swollen and aching, and Harry Momma Bearing himself around her. Whatever Harry had been discussing beforehand had apparently been so enthralling, Y/N couldn’t have been bothered to see the dip in the sidewalk, a crater that she stepped into sideways and twisted her ankle. Harry squawked out a noise much more alarmed than Y/N’s own, had immediately dropped into a panic and said he would call an ambulance if need be. It was a moment where Y/N had to manage calming Harry down while biting past the pain of her ankle, but her eyes water, which made him panic more, so he stuffed his arms beneath her body and pulled her up. They weren’t too far from the car (Harry had left with her to go get smoothies for everyone) so he barely had to pivot before he placed her back in the passenger side, and drove her to the nearest Urgent Care. 

It was there they found that Y/N had gone and sprained her ankle. The doctor sent her off with ace bandages to rewrap with, two ice packs, and the suggestion that they go get extra-strength Tylenol for the pain. No matter her protesting it, Harry had called off his studio time as he sat beside her in the small assessment room and explained to them what had happened. Again, after he hung up, she tried to tell him that it wasn’t worth it, “Just call me an Uber, Babe, and I’ll go home and rest. It’s just a sprain, not a broken bone.” 

Harry had seemed disgusted that she would even think that up. 

“First of all, I hope you know that I would never send you off in a bloody Uber when m’capable of driving,” he had begun, wiggling to the edge of his seat in preparation to leave as soon as the nurse came back in to remind her of the  RICE (rest, ice, compression, elevation - respectively) method, “Second, it’s not like I’d be able to focus without you there anyway.” 

There was an ample amount of convincing involved in having him not carry her out of the building, but he did demand that she have crutches at least for the walk to the car. He drove home swiftly, made a pit stop at the grocery, came out with about thirty bags too many and then promptly informed her that he would be making his mother’s special chili that was meant to warm the soul inside and out. Not that it was particularly cold, but he kept it about thirty degrees too cold in his flat and if that’s where they were going, she would need to suit up. 

Which is why he also bought her a heated blanket, a new set of pajamas, and a slipper for her working foot. 

“Why are you going so all out, hm?” Y/N inquired when he insisted on carrying her to his door and setting her down on his couch. 

Harry answered so matter of factly that she wouldn’t have caught it had she not been paying attention entirely. 

“‘Cos babe, we’re almost done with the album and if my muse is down for the count, what good am I?” 

Her heart stuttered, “You’ve been throwing that word around awful loosely,” she tells him, allowing him to raise her leg by her calf, resting her ankle on the couch pillow that sat atop a regular pillow. His movements are tentative and his fingers are gentle, whereas he usually has a firm grip on her there are barely dents formed in her calves where he held her. Very strategically did he place the ice packs a top and on the sides of her ankle. When he retracted, he squeezed her knee and took the heated blanket out as she shivered, wrapping it around her (leaving her feet out) and leaning over the couch to plug it in. “I mean,” she began again, “I feel like you just say it to stroke my ego.” 

“I say it because it’s the truth.” He responds in an uncharacteristically serious manner, “You put me in a headspace that just - I write much better in it. I’ve become suspiciously dependent on you n’I think you must’ve cast a spell on me or summat.” 

“I didn’t cast a spell,” she huffed, “Wish I would’ve, then at least I’d feel at least a little more deserving.” 

He clicks the blanket on, setting the remote near her. 

But then he lowers down to his knees and locks their gazes. 

“I said what I said, and I meant it. You don’t have to do or be anyone or anything specific to be someone’s muse - you are mine and that’s that, whether you think you are deserving or not.” A small smile teases his mouth, “It feels like you’re only disputing it so you can hear me say it again and again --” 

“Stuff it,” she grumbles at him, halfheartedly nudging his shoulder but he catches her hand, his brass rings cool against her skin and puckers a kiss on her knuckles (she tries to pretend that this doesn’t make her insides flutter) “You’re the worst.” 

“I’m the best and you know it,” he pushed himself up, “Now, the Very Light of my Inspiration, I’ll be off making chili. If I come back and you’re doing anything but RICE-ing then I will be forced to keep the strawberry roll cake from you and that would just be cruel, wouldn’t it?” 

Y/N wonders, as she watches him walk away, was it possible to love somebody more than she already loves him? Y/N thinks that she ought to be applauded.