Harry is a great friend but he's still so in love (Patreon)

FULL DISCLOSURE: the smut did not make it into this part!! IM SO SORRY I'M THE WORST D: But these two pining dummies were just two soft to make them plow each other right off the back and I thought of something much cuter and much smuttier for them to have a proper go at each other!!! but i do apologize for nothing but fluff ahead!!

(PSA: my dear friends, I have found out that I am horrible at writing addresses on envelopes so don't make fun of me when you get your goodie!!!!) 

part 1 

part 2 

part 3

part 4 

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v.

Cora sent Harry a message. 

It was nearing four months since they had split up at the beginning of summer. Four months since Y/N had told him and he had practically spit in her face as his response. Four months since he found out that she was telling the truth because Y/N had no reason to lie to him, and Harry was being cheated on. Four months since he had appeared at her door sobbing because he was hurting and she was his best friend, no matter what they went through together, she brought him the most comfort than anybody else could (just second to his mum). Four months since Harry realized that he had been a shit friend and wanted to spend all of his time catering to Y/N in every way he could without passing a threshold that might make her think she was a rebound to him. 

A lot could happen in four months. The sweltering heat of summer could change to the mild, cool temperatures of autumn, UNI could start back up and reintroduce the stress of the school year, Y/N’s job would bring out their pumpkin flavored bakery goods that she would bring home for him if he spent the night at her flat (and didn’t bother to leave when he woke up). He would exchange his shorts for corduroy trousers and his short sleeves for sweaters, Y/N would steal a majority of his baggy, heavy clothing items to keep warm in his flat (that always seemed to be subzero no matter how high he had the heater going), he would try to pretend that he hated seeing her walk around his clothes. They could go from staying up all night fucking around, to staying up all night helping each other study for upcoming exams or encouraging each other to finish that paper they pushed off to the last minute. 

And Harry could realize that he was completely, immutably in love with her. 

As the days grew colder, Harry’s heart grew warmer, and his feelings were more and more difficult to ignore. She made him feel so soft and melty; he wouldn’t go a day without wishing that at the end of it he would return to a shared home with her, kiss her on the lips and cuddle her until they fell asleep. Sometimes he got a muted version of that -- sometimes when she met him at his flat for a movie night but got there early and let herself in, it felt like it. Like he was coming home to her and she was waiting ever so patiently, and maybe she would pucker her lips dramatically and smack a kiss to his cheek if he brought her a strawberry shake. If he was lucky he wouldn’t have to work for the cuddle at all, she would just fall into his body or drag him into her own and they would watch the movie and pet on each other (she had a knack for rubbing her fingers in delicate patterns on his skin wherever she could -- he thinks it’s something she finds comfort in doing, and therefore, it comforts him twice as much). 

But Harry had never claimed to be anything but greedy. He wanted kisses, and proclamations of love that were rooted down in more than just platonic promises. Harry wanted to take her home and show her off, that he somehow managed to find the best person he thinks exists on this planet. He wants to spread her open and make her feel good in every way that he could. 

Harry just wants her. . .he wants all of her, and in return, he would give all of himself. 

So when Cora’s name popped up on the screen, Harry’s feelings were in no way conflicted. He would never forgive her for what she had done to him, and while their relationship had meant a lot to him at the time, he saw now that it wasn’t anything truly spectacular. At some point he really did think he loved her, but he hadn’t known what it really meant to be in love until now. Not until he spent this time yearning and pining for something he didn’t even know if he really deserved. 

The message was simple. Can we meet up and talk? I feel like things were just. . .there wasn’t a lot of closure on either end. I’d like to explain myself. 

Harry had felt there had been a small bit of closure on his end, but he does realize that she never really gave an explanation. It had mostly been tears and her saying it was a mistake, that she should have told him but she didn’t know how to. And while Harry had mostly moved on from that, he still wondered why she had decided that he wasn’t worth even telling that she didn’t want to be together anymore. He had thought they were pretty happy, at least in the grand scheme of things -- Harry hadn’t seen any problems developing. That’s why he was so disbelieving of poor Y/N when she told him. . .when she told him and he threw her feelings for him right back into her face. 

He remembers Cora trying to get into contact with him soon after it happened, and remembers waking up to Y/N telling her off, but since then she hadn’t tried anything. Things had been relatively mute and he’d assumed she’d moved on with her ex, but he guesses this was still a chapter that needed to be shut and sealed between them. Which is why he agrees to coffee Friday morning, only because he knew Y/N worked a small early shift from around 6AM to 11AM  and had lectures until around 3PM. Afterward she would probably shower the day off and they would do something together -- Y/N has a list of spooky shows she’d like to binge watch with him, so they would decide which one and what to eat and go from there. 

His Fridays were always free, so he had time to kill until he could see her again. That’s why he’s strolling into the place he and Cora used to frequent for coffee, ordering his vanilla chai latte, scouting her out at the seat in the far corner booth -- the place they always used to sit (he supposes she felt it necessary to set the scene a bit theatrically). Harry greets her politely, sliding into the seat across from her and peeling off his coat once he’s sat, “How have you been? Well?” 

She nods, “Yeah, I’ve been alright. You?” 

“Just fine,” Great, actually, because I’m spending loads of time with Y/N and I’m a hundred percent sure I’m in love with her is what Harry wanted to say, but he stopped himself. . .he wasn’t cruel, and while he never wanted an ex to think he was still hung up on them, he didn’t want them to feel like shit either. Even one who cheated on him, “So. . .” 

“Right,” she clears her throat, sitting up a little straighter -- she wears the mauve colored turtleneck that she used to when he left love bites on her throat, and around her neck, the delicate gold chain that her Nan had given her at Christmas. . .Harry had been present for it, “I just wanted to discuss some things with you. I know we left on not so great terms. . .this should have been done sooner, but when I originally tried to come see you, Y/N basically told me to go fuck myself.” 

Harry’s brows furrow, “She was trying to protect me,” he defends her, “I was really fucked up about all of it, and she’d -- she was taking care of me. Things were too fresh to try to discuss much of anything.” 

She looks uncomfortable for a moment, clearing her throat again, “Right, well. . .I just wanted to explain to you why,” she took a slow, easy breath, and a sip of her chocolate mocha before she continued, “It had only been happening for a month before we broke up -- it shouldn’t have been happening at all, I know, but it was for a month. I was happy with you, I really was,” she tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear -- it was more platinum than it typically is, so he knows she just had it done, “But word was going around that you were planning on leaving me.” 

“You --” He began but she cut him off quickly. 

“Just let me finish! It took a lot to do this, so I need to get it out,” she twists the ring on her pinky finger anxiously, “One of my friends had overheard Y/N telling Adam about her feelings for you and she let me know, just so I could keep an eye out for her. I knew she was your friend but I didn’t know how. . .I wasn’t sure how deep that friendship was, you know? Knew you messaged each other often, but most of your free time, you and I were together so I wasn’t sure.” She shakes her head, and Harry thinks it's more at herself than it was at the situation as a whole, “So I started paying closer attention to you two, when we were out and it just. . .it made sense. Though I’ll admit her feelings for you were far less blatant than vice versa, because I could practically feel it exuding from you. The way you laughed at her jokes, how you hugged her, how you spoke about her, how you looked at her. . .you looked at her like she had created the universe for you. You didn’t look at me like that,” she sighed, running the pad of her thumb across her brow bone, “Then I couldn’t help but start wondering if when you were with me, did you want to be with her? When she messaged you, your whole face lit up -- even if you were being physically faithful, it started to feel like you were emotionally cheating on me. So when I ran into Thomas it just. . .things got out of hand.”

When there is a significant pause in her story, Harry takes a moment to gather his thoughts, which are speeding through his brain quickly. It was a lot to hear -- to hear someone’s “reasoning” for cheating on you, no matter how remorseful they sound, was a lot. But this left a lot for him to unpack in general, because if someone would have asked Harry back then if he was in love with Y/N, he would have said yes in a cutesy, platonic way. Had he really been in love with her the whole time? Had he been emotionally cheating?

“You should have spoken to me,” he settles for saying, “As soon as you started thinking like that, you should have just spoken to me and we could have communicated and gotten through this without it being this. . .this big mess, because I wasn’t --” he paused, the skin between his eyebrows wrinkles in thought, “I didn’t know I had feelings for Y/N until recently.”

“Then this is good then,” she concludes, “Because maybe you would have realized a few months or years down the line, and all of this would have been harder.” 

“Cheating probably wasn’t the best way to go about it,” he takes a small sip of his drink, “All things considered.” 

She nods silently, still twisting her ring around, “That’s. . .well, that’s it, I guess. That’s all I had to say. There was nothing wrong with you -- you were perfect, but -- but I felt that I wasn’t who you really wanted to be with.”

Harry scratches the tip of his nose, “I’m sorry you felt like that. I really did like you, Cora. . .thought we would have been together for a while.”  

There was a solemn, and silent agreement that the coffee was over. Harry gathered his things, bid her one last farewell, and slid out of the door into the crisp air that awaited him. Compared to the warmth inside, the deep, slow inhale he takes introduces an icy burn through his airway but it helps clear his head. Harry tries to think back to a time where he and Y/N weren’t spending most of their time together. . .he thinks back to when he was with Cora. He had always favored Y/N over most of his friends, and not in a particularly blatant or obvious way. Harry just enjoyed Y/N’s company, appreciated her humor, and was genuinely excited when he knew that they would see each other. Yeah, maybe his heart kind of felt like it skipped a beat every so often when her name would pop up on his phone, but he hadn’t thought he had feelings for her like that. He had been perfectly happy with Cora. . .at that point, he couldn’t have imagined being with anyone else. 

He thinks about this as he goes throughout the rest of his day, up until the afternoon when he’s on his way to her flat. He’d stopped at the store and got her, her favorite candies and a new autumn candle he thought she would like, so he was excited to surprise her with them. That, coupled with the joy that he got from seeing her, is why he stepped into the flat with a big smile on his face. Typically this big smile is meant with a sing-songy voice and Y/N’s mutual excitement to see him, but instead he’s met with tears. 

A soft, fresh face of tears and her shuddering breaths. 

“Oh no,” he pouted, tripping over the corner of the rug as he rushed into the living room to comfort her -- it made a giggle leave her otherwise downtrodden face, but the tears didn't stop, and his heart broke, “No tears, please no tears. What happened, Sweet girl?” 

She inhales a shaky breath, “It’s stupid,” she responds, but Harry shakes his head ferociously. 

“It’s not stupid if it’s making you cry,” he sat down beside her, cradling her cheek with his hand just for a moment so he could coax her gaze towards him, “Tell me what’s wrong, hm? And I’ll do everything I can to make it better.” 

Y/N runs her thumb beneath her eyelids, across her dewy cheeks as she attempts to compose herself enough to get it out. Sometimes she got like this, when her days were hard, but it was rare that Harry ever experienced it first hand. He always heard tales of her small breakdowns but she was incredibly reluctant to let anybody see them. It made her feel weak, she once told him, when people see her cry she felt guilty and weak and she hated it, so she didn’t. So his worry is laid on thick as he waits for her to tell him what happened, because he’s almost certain that if someone hurt her feelings he would just have to seek them out and have a chat with them himself. Nobody makes his girl cry. . .nobody at all. 

“It was just a shitty day,” she says shakily, “And I’m over exhausted, and sleepy, but I’ve got this stupid essay to write and -- and this next bit isn’t your fault,” she starts, her hand resting on his thigh, fingers mindlessly playing with the material of his sweater, “But Adam. . .he saw you with Cora for coffee and I’m not -- I’m not crying because you went,” Harry’s heart drops to his stomach, “But I wish you would have told me. Did you feel like you couldn’t tell me? I know I wasn’t very fond of her toward the end there but that doesn’t mean. . .you don’t have to keep it a secret from me if you wanted to get back with her.” 

“Get back with her?” Harry gapes, “What? No! Not at all, Sweetheart, I’m --” he turns a bit more so his body is facing her fully, “She just contacted me a day or two ago asking for coffee so that she could explain herself, not so that we could get back together. And if I was having any thoughts like that I would have told you.” 

Y/N nods, “I just,” she hiccups a bit on a breath, “I just didn’t want you to feel like you couldn’t tell me things. You could tell me anything. . .that wasn’t -- I don’t want you to think I’m batty or being possessive, I just want you to be okay and happy and feel like you can tell me things.” 

Harry smiles, chuckling warmly, “Of course I feel like I can tell you things, Sweetheart. I feel like I could tell you anything,” he strokes her cheek with his knuckles, skating his fingers around her ear, “It was going to be one of the first things I told you after you told me about your day.”

“Yeah?” He nods, and she sniffles, “Well, go ahead and tell me then, since I’ve gone and embarrassed myself.” 

Harry wasn’t exactly sure how to word it, without lying to her, which made his heart race and his cheeks flush warm. If he tells her that Cora thought he was in love with her and that’s why she cheated, and Y/N questioned further, or made a joke about it, Harry doesn’t know if he could keep it a secret anymore. For weeks now it had felt like at any moment he would just burst from the seams and express it loudly -- he would tell her just how much he loved her, and how he’d felt like this for a while, and how he might have felt like that for even longer and had not known he did.  

He treads carefully, “Um, basically, she said,” he cleared his throat and suddenly, he feels a lot like Cora trying to explain it to him, with Y/N’s wide, watery gaze waiting for him to continue, “Well, she explained it that she had felt like I was already emotionally cheating on her.” 

Her brows raise, “What? Holy shit, with who?” 

A small, puffed laugh leaves him as he realizes there is really no way around it, “Well, with you, actually.” 

If possible, her brows raise even higher, “With me? Oh my goodness,” she shook her head, “Did I like -- did I unknowingly ruin your relationship?” 

“No!” He exclaimed, shaking his head, “Not at all, Pet, you were just an unknowing party. She said that she just thought my feelings for you were more than that of friends and she sought out comfort in her ex -- that was basically it.”

“That’s so irritating -- how is she going to blame her cheating on you, by throwing the situation so it seemed like your fault?” She snorted, “And like you’d ever like me like that. . .what was she thinking? So silly.” She sighs, “Do you want chinese food tonight or thai?” 

Harry blinks at her, his face set as stone, “Why would that be silly?” 

Y/N is leaning over toward her coffee table, plucking out a tissue and grabbing for her phone, “Hm?” 

“Why would it be silly for me to have feelings for you?” 

Her brows dip just slightly, “I just -- I mean you don’t, you know? So she mucked it all up for no reason.” 

“I just didn’t know I did yet,” Harry says, and it’s cryptic, and Y/N’s face contorts in confusion but Harry feels the words following slide from his mouth like he had no control over his damn jaw -- but it was too much, and too long denying himself the admittance of these feelings out loud, “I think I might have loved you back then, but I didn’t know that I did. I had only realized it a few months ago, but I. . .I do have feelings for you. And it’s not silly.” 

Her mouth hangs open slightly, dumbfounded as her brain tries desperately to catch up with what he just did, and Harry’s own trips and stumbles and fumbles as it tries desperately to make sense of what he just said. A mix of regret and relief flood him as he slowly withdrew his hand from where it had been holding onto her leg, “I shouldn’t have -- I’m sorry I --” 

“Don’t apologize.” She rushes to say, grabbing his hand,  “Please don’t apologize, Harry I’m just. . .you like me?” 

“I love you,” he responds, completely transparent, “God, I -- these past few months have just taught me that I wouldn’t want to spend my time with anyone else. You’re all I think about, and you make my heart feel so warm and big, and I’m always such a melt when I’m with you. And I just. . .I love you. And maybe everyone could see it before I could, but I’m seeing it now, and I don’t want to hide it from you anymore. I hate hiding things from you.” 

“Harry,” her eyes refill with tears, “Oh, Harry, you stop it right now,” she squeezes his hand on the side of too tight, “Are you -- this isn’t’ like a joke or anything?” 

“Why would I joke like that?” He squeezes her back -- he thinks they may be cutting off the circulation to each other’s hands, “I was. . .I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t want you to think you were some rebound or anything, so I thought I would try to wait it out and maybe do it in some romantic display of affection, but. . .but I didn’t know if you’d have me. I didn’t know if you still had feelings for me, especially after how I had thrown them in your face.” 

Y/N snuffled a little -- it was her turn to stroke tenderly at his skin, “No matter how many times I wished them away to make things easier, I’ve always had feelings for you Harry. You’re really g’na have to catch up though because I’ve got a steady two years of pining under my belt.” He laughed breathlessly, and while the reality of their situation hadn’t set yet, Y/N’s words zip through his mind and send him straight to floating in the clouds, “Would. . .could I kiss you?” 

Harry nods, wordless as she begins to inch forward, and he’s staring at her mouth as she runs her tongue over her lips. It’s why he sees them part gently, and why he’s far more aware of the sharp inhale she takes before she tilts her head to the side and sneezes into her arm. It was one of her loud sneezes. . .the kind that would make a silent room jump, and Harry barks out a laugh as he rubs her shoulder, “Christ! Bless you,” he shakes his head, “Are you okay?” 

She peels away from her face with a deep frown, “I ruined the moment!” 

“No you didn’t,” he murmurs, “You’re just snotty from crying.” 

She dips her face into his chest and breathes in deep, and Harry continues to rub her back slowly, steadily -- he should have known it would have been as easy as this. Everything with Y/N was easy, and confessing his love for her was no exception. He thinks that’s what he might love the most about her (second, of course, to her earth shattering sneezes). 

“When I’m un-snotty, I’m gonna ravish you,” she promises, her words muffled, “Like rose petals and everything -- the whole nine.” 

Harry grins. 

“I’m sure you will, Fabio.”