FWB Harry part 4 (Patreon)

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part 1 

part 2 

part 3 

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iv.

Harry has always been good at pretending something hadn’t happened.

He rarely ever mentioned his ex who was more or less the reason she and Harry had started seeing one another -- the last Y/N had heard of her was when she idly asked him if they’d broken up the second time she saw him. Harry responded with a pinched brow and a stony, “What do you think?” before he tugged her in by the hips, heaved her up on a table, and fucked her like he hated her. 

Once he’d gotten in a fight with another bloke. Y/N stayed home that party but received several frantic messages from Adam detailing that someone had come up, punched Harry square in the jaw, and started spouting some nonsense about Harry having made a pass on his ‘bird’. Harry, understandably annoyed, hit him back, but the fight was broken up after a few mutual blows and shouted expletives. He told her that Harry stormed out and before Y/N could even begin to worry about where he went (they’d been having sex with one another for a few months at that point so it was hard to not worry), there was a knock on the door. 

“Holy fuck --” she began as he pressed past her into her flat, heading to the kitchen where he sought out a bag of frozen peas (which she only had because he liked them so much), placed it to his reddening jaw, and turned to look at her.

“Put something good on the telly, yeah? And m’not watchin’ Twilight again.”

(Of course, no matter how many attempts she had made to cater towards his wounds he wouldn’t let her -- until he was asleep, then he couldn’t fight her on it, so she tended to the cut above his eyebrow and his busted lip. She had even left him pain medicine on the coffee table for him to take the following morning.)

And he was doing a damn good job of pretending like he hadn’t told her he loved her a week ago. 

It was almost like it didn’t happen at all. Y/N found that she was second guessing herself despite the fact she’d been up for about three hours after he fell asleep just mulling over it in his head, simply from how casually Harry had regarded her that following morning. For a few weeks now, if he woke up before her he took to waking her up by blowing a raspberry against her ear which was both obnoxious as it was endearing, and patted at her bum if it was showing.  She jolted awake to his chuckle and a murmur of, “Up you get, Babe, me mum made brekkie.” 

After a good five minutes of waking up, she begins to realize why she was so exhausted -- that she had stayed up later than he had because he’d decided to mutter a choice few words to her. Though he disappears from the room before she has a chance to bring them up, and when she follows in his wake down to the kitchen that smelled of maple and bacon, he’s shacked up at the counter. She lifts herself up on the barstool beside him, he takes a look at her and presses the plate closer to her, “Eat up then, don’t hurt her feelings.” 

“Hush, Harry,” Anne turned from the stove, bringing a small warmed pitcher of syrup over to them, “You only eat if you’re hungry, yeah? I’ve got to head to work so I won’t know if you throw it out.” 

“Thank you so much,” her voice was raspy as she knuckled the sleep out of her eye, “And thank you for last night, it was all really lovely.” 

Anne looped around the counter and pulled her in for a hug, rubbing up and down her bicep quickly, “I’ll be seeing you soon. We’ll go for lunch.” 

They bid their goodbyes and even then, Harry was so relaxed, she wondered if he had even said it at all. Had she imagined it? Had he said olive juice and she just misinterpreted it? Or was she really half awake and it was one of those dreams that happened but only kind of, so she was swimming between consciousness and slumber and conjured it up. A waking dream or something like it. There was no fucking way he could have said that to her though. Mr. “This-is-definitely-not-and-will-never-be-a-relationship” would never profess his love for her, cuddled close, keeping her warm. 

He clears his throat and uses his left hand to rub the nape of her neck gently, “Got a bit of a rat’s nest going this morning.” 

“Shut up and eat your toast.” She grumbled in response. 

Then a whole week passes by of Y/N wondering if it had happened, then knowing that it had definitely happened, but not knowing how to bring it up. It felt too real yet like a dream all at once, didn’t it? It was fucking with her head, but it would align with everything that had been going on. How much softer he’d been with her, all the comments he’d been making -- Harry was many things, but he wasn’t sadistic. He wouldn’t string someone along for the hell of it so if he was making these comments. . .if he was saying he couldn’t sleep with anyone else, that she’s the only one he could be real with, that he loves her -- there has to be some truth behind it, right? 

She was beyond frustrated, enough so that she invited Adam over, pumped him full of sweets and demanded to know what it was that Harry had said to him. When he refused, she gripped the edge of her throw pillow and swatted him with it. She kept at it actually, but he merely squawked and squealed, attempting to dodge it but not quite making it far enough over to. It was as she revved up the thirtieth slap that she paused before she could follow through, and when she looked up to see what stopped her, Harry was looming over the both of them. She’s alarmed, rightfully so, because she had thought she locked the door but maybe she hadn’t, and Harry wasn’t supposed to come over tonight but sometimes he showed up unannounced. . .like right now. 

“What have you done this for?” He questioned her, removing the pillow from her hands entirely, “It looks like you’re trying to kill him.” 

“I might,” she grumbled, “I’m sick of the both of you.”

Adam took her by the hips to anchor himself, wriggled out from beneath her and gathered his bearings before he reached for his keys on the coffee table, “As much as I love bein’ beat with a pillow, I’ve got an exam to study for Babe. See you t’morrow, yeah?” 

He had all but ran out from her flat, which left her and Harry alone in her living room. She was staring him down with a furrow in her brow, opposite to the relaxed way he’s regarding her, “What have I done?” He asks her but doesn’t seem all too concerned about it, twisting his rings the way they were meant to face as he toes off his trainers.

“You --” she begins, but she just can’t bring herself to say it, and that only frustrates her more. . .frustrates her to the point where she could just yell, “You’re just the worst.” 

A chuckle leaves him as he strolls closer to her, comfortably looping his arms around her shoulders and dragging her in, “Give us a cuddle then,” he hums, stroking his palm up and down her back soothingly, and she hates how much it makes her melt, “I missed you today.” 

“Don’t start,” her voice is muffled against his chest, but she makes no move to wiggle away from him, “I’m mad at you.” 

“Why’re you mad at me, hm?” His fingers curl at the hem of her shirt, rolling it up in the way he does when he coaxes it off her body, and Y/N hates how easily she goes with it. How all he has to do is take a bit of a step back and she raises her arms for him to peel it off, but instead of what he might have done (he’s in a rush to get her tits out usually), he reaches down and pulls his own shirt off. Y/N is confused for a moment until he takes her hand, guides her toward her couch, and plops down, dragging her with him. She squeals as he flops down to his back, but he eases her down to stretch across him. 

“What’re you doing?” She asks him finally, when his fingers dance along her spine. 

Harry hums, looking at her like it was obvious, “Having a cuddle.” 

“Topless?” 

He nods, “Skin to skin reduces stress,” he says it casually, helping her position so her cheek was pushed against his chest and she could hear his heartbeat — a gentle, calming thud that could lull her to sleep if she allowed it, “What’s wrong?”

She sighs heavily, hating how much this all did soothe her. Her fingers lay over the laurels at his hips, tracing the ink with her nails, “I don’t get you.”

“You don’t?” He raises his brows, holding her closer, “Reckon you get me more than I get myself sometimes.” 

Y/N shakes her head the best she can in their position, pausing at the trail of hair leading from his belly button beneath his sweatpants, where she gently pulls, “I’ve got no idea what the hell we are, Babe,” she finally conveys with a deep set pout of her lips, thought she makes no move to look at him, cuddling further into his side, “From the get you reminded me that this wasn’t anything and that we would never be anything but you’ve just -- you’ve been mixing signals lately, haven’t you been?” 

Harry is silent for a moment, before murmuring a soft, “Yeah?” 

She nods, “Yeah.” 

Then they are quiet again, Harry gently tracing the curves of her back leading up to her bra where he fiddles with the strap -- there’s no intent behind it really, sometimes he just likes to run the soft material through his fingers. Y/N focuses on his heartbeat and his breathing, wondering absently if this is how it might feel to be a baby. Soothed by the presence, the sound, the gentle ebb and flow as his chest rises and falls and the cooed thud of his heartbeat. 

Never would she have thought they might end up in a position like this; hell, even two months ago she would have bet that their relationship would go no further than originally intended. Though, she figures that it never really works like that, does it? You can’t do something so intimate -- share something together like what they did -- and garner no feelings at all. Y/N knows when her feelings started to blossom. When he had fucked her nice and hard, then took care of her so nicely afterward, cuddling her, bringing her back down from the floaty place she’d been dancing around in. She remembers opening her eyes and seeing his seafoam green gaze, calm, a small smile at his mouth as he uttered, “There we are. Hi, pretty girl. You’ll spend the night with me, yeah? I’ll keep you warm.”  

“You told me you loved me,” Y/N finally uttered, muffled by her cheek pushed up against him, “I dunno if it was like -- if it was because you wanted to be with me or if it’s like how I tell Adam I love him.” Her hand tickles along the ridges of his abdomen, watching as his muscles jump and goosebumps pimple in her wake, “It’s confused me.” 

“If I told you I love you, then you know how I feel,” he answers easily, without avoiding her questions as he usually does which both throws her off and eases the tension building in her muscles, “You make me happy. . .easy as that. When we’re together, I’m calm, I miss you when you aren’t around, and I reckon that your presence had stopped being about the sex for me months ago, I reckon. Just like being with you.” His heart has sped up, Y/N can hear it thud more rapidly in his chest, “When I think of you, I feel warm and happy. . . you mean a lot to me.” 

Y/N pushes up from him so she can see his face, looking for any hint of doubt or playfulness in his features. Not that she would think Harry is the one to play about when it came to his emotions -- she believes he keeps that part of himself very close. He’s careful with who he shows a certain side of himself to, and even then, he had told her before that with his girlfriends he never allows them in a hundred percent of the time. But she’d seen Harry at his worst. She’d seen him grumpy and quiet, happy and bright, she’d witnessed him cry when things just don’t feel like they’re going right, and she’s seen him rejoice when everything feels spectacular. Y/N knows how he’s feeling merely by the quirk of his brow -- she knows him. And it’s not to say that it isn’t the exact same vice versa. Harry had seen Y/N at her most vulnerable and never held it against her. Had seen her laugh and cry and everything in between.  

They just know each other. 

She doesn’t know what to do. Doesn’t know what to say in return, to tell him that she feels the same for him, but she feels her face warm under his gaze, even more so when he cradles her face in the palm of his hand. Y/N melts into it, letting her eyes flutter shut, “Is that okay?” He asks her gently, running the pad of his thumb over the round of her cheek. Nodding, Y/N leaned forward, brushing the tips of their noses together before their lips met. The scruff above his lip and at his chin was indicative that he hadn’t shaven in a few days; it tickles the skin around her mouth. 

It’s soft -- softer than normal. A mutual expression of love more than anything else, but that doesn’t stop Y/N’s heart from racing. It doesn’t stop her from using her own hand to hold his face, tickling around the shell of his ear how he likes and Harry hums against her, vibrating through her mouth. She moves, straddling his thighs between her own and struggling not to smile when his hands meet her sides. It tickles her, she can’t help the laugh that bubbles from her throat and he smiles against her mouth in return. 

They part -- Harry lulls his tongue over his lips to taste the remnant vanilla honey chapstick she’d had left on him, “You’re happy then?” 

“Of course, m’happy,” she rolls her hips just a little, smiling when a punched out little groan leaves his mouth, “You were the one so hell bent on this being nothing -- I never. . .I’ve always liked you a little more than I should.” 

His brows furrowed, “You never acted like it, did ya? Thought you were okay with how it was.” 

“Thought you never wanted it to be more than what it was,” she countered, wiggling her fingers beneath his own so that she could hold them, and he keeps her hovered over him with the strength of his arms alone, “I’ve never been so close to another person. . .even if you’re a grumpy lug all the time. I love you and I reckon I did first too.” 

Harry grins, straightening out his arms above his head which in turn stretches out her own, lowering her so that his face rests between her breasts where he blows a playful raspberry. It makes her giggle, struggling to wiggle free from him but his grip on her hands is tight, and when he does release them, it is to tickle up and down the length of her body. Fingers dancing and biting at her sides as she’s thrown into a fit of laughter, attempting to curl into herself but even that doesn’t stop the onslaught of his fingers. 

When he finally gives her a moment of reprieve, and she’s nothing but huffs and giggles, she’s sat on him panting, chest heaving with each breath and he rests his hands comfortably on her hips again, “Will you make me waffles? How I like them? I would but m’lazy.” 

“Was this an elaborate ploy to get me to make you waffles?” She teases, palms to his chest. He hums and Y/N rolls her eyes as she began to pull her leg from where it was trapped between his thigh and the couch, but suddenly he tightens his hold on her with one hand, while the other rests on the leg she was attempting to move, and before she can think much of it he’s coaxing her back down to his chest, “This is counterproductive.” She tells him but he merely sighs contently. 

“I’m not ready to stop cuddling you yet.” 

And, well, Y/N would be lying if she said she didn’t feel the same.