Heavy hands — nine (Patreon)

Author's note: Hey loves, I’m so sorry for the delay in getting this part out! 🥺 I had a hospital shift on Saturday that turned out way busier than expected — so many patients, barely a minute to breathe — and then exams hit me hard this week on top of it. It’s been a lot. But good news: I’m officially on a short break now (thank god 🙌), which means I finally have time to rest, write, and catch up on everything. You’ll be getting updates much faster this week — I promise! Thank you all for being so patient and supportive.

Author's note: Hey loves, I’m so sorry for the delay in getting this part out! 🥺 I had a hospital shift on Saturday that turned out way busier than expected — so many patients, barely a minute to breathe — and then exams hit me hard this week on top of it. It’s been a lot. But good news: I’m officially on a short break now (thank god 🙌), which means I finally have time to rest, write, and catch up on everything. You’ll be getting updates much faster this week — I promise! Thank you all for being so patient and supportive.

word count: 3.9K

“Y/N,” he said slowly, voice gravelled, wary. “What did you do?”

She turned, guilt already prickling at her chest. “It kept ringing, I thought—”

“You answered it?”

“I thought maybe it was the bar,” she said, her voice small. “Or one of your friends—”

He was already moving. Two strides and the phone was out of her hand. His thumb dragged over the screen, and the muscles in his jaw went tight.

“Who was it?” she asked.

He didn’t answer. The tension in his shoulders was electric.

“Harry.”

“Someone who shouldn’t know you exist.” His voice was low, quiet — which somehow scared her more than if he’d yelled.

“What did he say?”

She swallowed. “Just that… you’d know what it’s about. And then he said I’ve got a sweet voice.”

That last sentence landed like a blow.

Harry’s head dropped for a second, both hands braced against the counter. “Fuck.”

“Harry, you’re scaring me,” she whispered.

“Good,” he said, lifting his head. His eyes were wild, bright with something between anger and panic. “You should be scared.”

“I don’t understand—”

He cut her off, sharp. “You don’t need to.”

“Yes, I do!” she shot back. “You think I can just stand here while you spiral like this? Tell me what’s happening!”

He looked at her then — really looked — and something in him cracked. Not all the way, but enough for her to see the fear underneath the fury.

“It was my boss,” he said finally, voice rough. “He doesn’t call unless there’s a problem.”

Her chest tightened. “What kind of problem?”

“The kind that gets people hurt.”

Her breath hitched. “Harry—”

He stepped closer, eyes flashing. “No. Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Care?”

His jaw worked. “You don’t get to throw yourself into this. You’ve got a life — classes, parents, people who’d come lookin’ for you if you went missing. You stay out of it, and you stay safe.”

She shook her head, tears stinging her eyes. “I’m not letting you walk into something that’s going to get you killed.”

He laughed, but it wasn’t a nice sound. “You think I haven’t been walkin’ into that since before you met me?”

“That’s not the point!” she snapped. “You can’t keep shutting me out when it’s about you!”

“I can when it’s the only way you survive this.”

The words broke between them — a harsh truth wrapped in something fragile.

She stepped closer, until they were chest to chest, the air between them hot and shaking. “Please don’t do this,” she whispered. “Don’t pretend I don’t matter to you.”

His eyes flicked down to her lips, then back up. For a second, he looked like he might kiss her — like he needed to. Instead, his hand came up, thumb brushing her cheek in a fleeting, desperate touch.

“You matter too much,” he said.

Her breath caught. “Then let me help you.”

He shook his head, barely. “You already did. Just by answerin’ that call, you reminded me what I can lose.”

She felt tears spill over, hot against his thumb. “Harry…”

“Go back to campus,” he said softly. “Go to class. Pretend I’m no one. If anyone asks, you don’t know me.”

“Harry…” Her voice cracked as she said his name, and that was it — the moment the wall between them broke. Tears streamed down her cheeks, her chest aching. “I can’t just forget about you. I don’t even know what this is, but you’ve made me feel—” she paused, breath catching— “you’ve made me feel like I’m someone. Like I matter.”

He closed his eyes, shoulders sinking, like her words hurt worse than the bruises on his skin.

“I don’t want anyone else,” she whispered. “I don’t want to go back to pretending you’re just some secret I can’t talk about.”

Something flickered behind his eyes then — disbelief, pain, maybe even wonder. He reached for her slowly, fingers brushing her jaw, rough thumb catching a tear that slid down her cheek.

“Sweetheart…” His voice broke on the word. “Don’t say that.”

“Why not?” she breathed. “You can’t stop me from feeling it.”

For a moment, Harry just stared at her — really stared — like he was memorizing her face, every tear, every shake of her lips. Then his hand slid to the back of her neck, and he pulled her in.

The kiss wasn’t soft. It was desperate — the kind that tasted like salt and goodbye. Her hands fisted in his shirt, clutching him like she could hold him in place if she just tried hard enough.

He kissed her like he wanted to apologize, like he wanted to thank her, like he was afraid he’d never get to again. When he finally broke away, his forehead rested against hers, breaths uneven.

“Don’t cry for me,” he murmured, eyes searching hers.

“You don’t get to tell me that,” she whispered. “You don’t get to tell me how to feel.”

Something in him cracked open then. He let out a small, broken laugh — not mocking, just tired, disbelieving. “You’ve got no idea what you do to me.”

“I don’t care,” she said, voice shaking. “Just… come back. Promise me you’ll come back.”

His smile was small, fragile, full of pain. “You’ve already given me more than I deserve.”

She reached up, brushing her thumb over the scar on his cheek. “I don’t care about deserve.”

He leaned in again, pressing another kiss to her lips — softer this time, aching, reverent. When he pulled back, his voice was low, almost a whisper.

“You make me feel… loved,” he said, like the word was foreign on his tongue. “Never had that before.”

Her heart broke at the way he said it. “Then don’t walk away from it.”

Harry’s smile faded. He cupped her face one last time, thumb tracing her jaw like he was trying to remember it. “If I don’t walk away, they’ll take it from me.”

She shook her head, voice trembling. “Harry—”

He stepped back, slow, eyes never leaving hers. “Let me handle it.”

“And what if you get hurt?” she whispered.

His smile was faint and sad. “Then at least it wasn’t you.”

Tears blurred her vision again, but before she could speak, he leaned in and kissed her once more — a soft, lingering goodbye that tasted like everything she couldn’t say.

When he finally let go, his voice was a rasp. “Lock your door tonight, yeah?”

And then he was gone — leaving her standing there with the echo of his touch still warm against her skin, and the ache of loving someone who might not survive the night.

The train hummed beneath her feet, the sound of it echoing through the tunnel like a heartbeat she couldn’t calm.

Y/N stared at her reflection in the window — pale face, wet lashes, hair stuck to her cheeks from the rain outside. She looked like someone she didn’t recognize. Someone in love with danger.

She hadn’t meant to leave her dorm.

After Harry left, she’d gone back to campus just like he’d told her to. The walk across the empty quad had felt endless, every echo of her footsteps reminding her that she was alone again.

By the time she reached her flat, she’d already decided not to cry.

That lasted maybe ten minutes.

The moment she sat on her bed, the silence broke her.

His voice kept replaying in her head — Go back to campus. Pretend you don’t know me.

But what gutted her wasn’t what he said. It was how he’d said it — quiet, like he was already mourning something.

She’d buried her face in his jacket just to smell him again. That’s when she saw it.

His phone had still been in the pocket when he left earlier. She hadn’t noticed it until now.

The screen lit up when she brushed against it. One unread message.

No name. Just a number.

11PM — same place.

Her chest tightened.

She stared at it until the letters blurred, her heart climbing into her throat.

She didn’t need to ask what it meant. She already knew.

By the time she’d thrown on her trainers and slipped into her jacket, her hands were shaking too hard to text anyone.

The message stayed burned into her mind as she walked through the empty streets toward the Tube station, the city humming softly around her.

Now, standing in the rattling train car, she tried not to think about where she was going.

About what she might see when she got there.

The voice overhead crackled, “Next stop: Canary Wharf.”

She tightened her grip on the pole, heart hammering.

The air smelled like metal and rain.

Harry would hate this — her being here, following him.

He’d shout, probably curse. Tell her she was reckless.

But she’d rather face his anger than the silence of not knowing.

She took a breath that hurt on the way out.

“Please be okay,” she whispered.

When the train slowed, she stepped onto the platform, rain still clinging to her hair, the world outside humming with danger.

The stairwell smelled like damp and old cigarettes. Y/N took them two at a time anyway, palm flat against the railing, breath catching on every landing. The corridor was quiet, the sort of late-night hush that made her own footsteps sound wrong.

Harry’s door was ajar.

She stopped. The keys cut little crescents into her palm.

“Harry?” she called, too soft, like the walls might answer for him.

No reply. Only the thin whine of the wind at the window and the faint drip-drip of the leaky tap he never fixed.

She nudged the door open with her knuckles.

The flat was dark but for the orange smear of streetlight across the floorboards. A chair lay on its side. A glass had shattered near the sink, glinting like ice. His jacket was still on the back of the sofa, one sleeve trailing the ground like a hand reaching for something it couldn’t grab.

“Harry?”

The overhead light snapped on.

She flinched, hand flying to her eyes, and when the shock of brightness burned away she saw them—the men first, because they were closest. One by the door behind her, a slab of a body, blocking the exit without seeming to try. Another by the kitchen, casual as furniture but wrong in every muscle. And then—

“Looking for him?” a voice asked, amused.

Calder stepped in from the shadow by the bookshelf and, with a small, polite gesture, moved aside.

Harry was tied to the dining chair they’d righted for him.

He’d been beaten close to unrecognizable—lip split, cheekbone blooming purple, one eye swollen near-shut. Dried blood had matted in the curl at his temple; more had sunk into the collar of his shirt, turning the fabric to rusty paper. He wasn’t slumped. He was holding himself upright the way men do when they won’t give the room the satisfaction of watching them fall.

“Don’t,” he said, voice hoarse, when she stumbled toward him. “Stay there.”

She didn’t. She moved anyway until one of the men caught her by the arm, not hard enough to bruise, just hard enough to remind her he could if he wanted to.

Calder’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Sweet voice.” He looked her over like he was inspecting a purchase. “Smaller than I expected.”

“Let her go,” Harry said. It was barely sound. It still cut. “You’ve got me.”

“Oh, we’ve had you,” Calder said, almost kindly. “All night.” He glanced at Y/N. “He didn’t come to the meeting. Went off-script the last few jobs. Lost us money he was meant to collect. Develops a conscience, does our Styles.” He tsked softly. “Consciences are expensive.”

Y/N’s pulse thudded at her throat. “He told me to stay away,” she said, and hated that her voice shook. “I did. I went back to campus. I only came to— I needed to know he was—”

“Alive?” Calder finished lightly. “Warm sentiment.” He tipped his head toward Harry. “Your boy here is warm enough. Bleeding’s warm.”

Harry’s fingers flexed against the rope. “Don’t look at her!”

Calder’s gaze slid back to him. “You used to be easy, Styles. We pointed, you moved. Then you started asking questions.” His smile sharpened. “Then she started answering phones she shouldn’t.”

Y/N swallowed. “I answered it.”

“Sweetheart,” Calder said, turning to her with something like pity, “we noticed.”

He stepped closer, slow enough for her to decide not to flinch. Up close he smelled like cologne and old smoke, like expensive rooms Harry would never be invited to. “Do you know what he is?”

“She doesn’t need—” Harry started, and one of the men backhanded him across the mouth—clean, practiced. Y/N jerked forward; the hand on her arm tightened.

Her voice came out thin with fury. “Stop! Don’t touch him—”

“See,” Calder said, almost to himself, “that’s the problem. Touch.” His eyes found hers again. “He is the man we send to remind people of what they owe. When reminding fails, he is the man who convinces them.” He tilted his head. “There are a dozen words for it and none of them are pretty.”

Y/N’s lungs burned. “I don’t care.”

Calder blinked, then smiled like a teacher humored by a wrong answer. “Don’t you?”

“I don’t care what he does,” she said, voice steadier now, because the fear had found its outline and anger had room to stand. “I care who he is.”

Something in Harry’s ruined face moved—pain, yes, but something like wonder too, like he could feel the words even if he couldn’t hold them.

Calder’s smile fell away. He reached out and caught Y/N’s chin between his fingers, not hard, just presumptuous. “You don’t care.” His voice went soft and hateful at once. “You’re a stupid fuckin girl.”

Her body chose for her. She spat in his face.

The room went silent. Even the drip at the sink seemed to pause to see what would happen next.

Calder didn’t move for a heartbeat. Then he wiped his cheek with two fingers and looked at the smear there like it bored him. His hand came back so fast she only saw the blur before it landed.

The slap snapped her head to the side. Heat bloomed across her cheek, hot enough to bring tears before she could stop them. The man holding her shifted like he’d tighten down, but he didn’t need to—she was steady again, jaw set, eyes flashing.

Harry roared. The sound ripped out of him like it had been waiting all night to be allowed. He lurched against the chair, hauling so hard at the rope that the wood skittered a half-inch on the floor. “You touch her again—take it out on me—Calder, I swear—”

Calder crouched, ignoring him, studying Y/N with a clinical curiosity that made her skin crawl. He leaned in close enough that she could see the tiny pale scar under his eye, the one a careful childhood never gives you. “Here’s your lesson,” he murmured. “Men like him don’t get to have soft things. It makes them slow. And slow men get other people hurt.”

Y/N’s voice came out a rasp. “Then hurt me. I’m not scared of you.”

Calder considered. “No,” he said, standing, “you’re not. Not yet.” He looked down at Harry. “I’m under instructions, and you know where those instructions come from. This—” he flicked his fingers between them, “—is a courtesy. A reminder. You have eyes on you now, Styles. From above. Men who don’t care how lovely her mouth looks when she sasses me.”

Harry stared up at him, blood at his teeth. “Leave her out of it.”

“That depends,” Calder said lightly, stepping back, smoothing his coat. “On you.”

He nodded once. The man by the kitchen slashed the rope. Harry lurched forward, caught himself on the table with a grunt, breath tearing out of him. He looked like he might fall anyway. He didn’t.

Calder moved toward the door. He paused beside Y/N, close enough for her to smell the cold air in his clothes. He didn’t touch her this time. He didn’t need to. “Next time I’m sent to tidy up,” he said without looking at her, “no talking. I won’t be the one you should fear then.”

He flicked his gaze back to Harry. “Keep her out of sight—or bury her. Your choice”

The door opened. Boots crossed the threshold. For a second the hall light turned Calder into a cutout of a man—edges and absence. Then the flat was quiet again, the door clicking into place like it had agreed with him.

Y/N exhaled a sound that wasn’t a word.

She stumbled to Harry, knees knocking the floorboards, and he was reaching for her before she could reach for him. His hands were shaking. He still touched her like she might break under anything else.

“You okay?” he asked, ridiculous, tender, with blood in his mouth.

She nodded and then shook her head because neither answer could hold everything. “Your face,” she said, useless.

He huffed something that might once have been a laugh. It died quick. “’M fine.”

“You’re not.” She framed his jaw with both palms, careful of the split skin, and he closed his eyes like her touch was the first clean thing he’d felt in hours.

“Should’ve stayed away,” he murmured. “Told you to.”

“And I told you I don’t care,” she said, and the tears came harder now because the saying of it cost nothing and everything at once. “I don’t care what you do. I care that you’re here.”

He rested his forehead against hers. His breath shuddered. “I’m here,” he said, like a promise he didn’t know how to keep.

She tasted salt. Maybe hers, maybe his. “We can go to a hospital,” she whispered, already knowing he’d say no.

He did. “No police. No questions.” A beat. “Please.”

Y/N guided him to the couch, his weight heavy against her shoulder. The fabric was still damp from the rain that had blown through the cracked window earlier; it smelled faintly of smoke and him.

Harry sank down with a rough exhale, elbows on his knees, head bowed. She hovered for a second, uncertain, then reached for the first-aid box on the table.

“Let me clean you up,” she whispered, kneeling in front of him.

But before she could open it, his hand came up and covered hers. His fingers were trembling, knuckles scraped raw.

“Don’t,” he murmured.

She frowned, eyes flicking to his split lip, the blood dried along his jaw. “Harry, you’re bleeding—”

“I don’t care.” His voice cracked on the words. “Just—just let me hold you” He shook his head, eyes flicking up to meet hers. They were glassy and dark, blood still drying at the edge of his mouth

Without thinking, she set the box aside and climbed onto the couch beside him. The movement was awkward — her knee bumped his thigh, her shoulder brushed his arm — but he didn’t seem to care. He just reached for her, pulling her gently into his lap until she was half turned toward him, half pressed against his chest.

He buried his face in her hair, breathing her in like oxygen. “Just for a second,” he murmured again, though neither of them moved to let go.

Y/N froze, not from fear, but from the weight of it — of being needed like that. His heartbeat thudded against her ribs, uneven and fast, and she realized she was shaking too.

“Hey,” he whispered against her neck. “You’re trembling.”

She nodded, pressing her face into his hair. “Yeah.”

They stayed like that for a long time — no words, no explanations. Just the sound of rain outside and their uneven breathing finding a rhythm again.

Y/N knew she should be scared — of Calder, of whoever came next, of the blood still staining Harry’s skin — but she wasn’t. Not in that moment.

“I don’t know when it happened,” he went on, voice low and rough, “but every time I walk out that door, I start countin’ the minutes till I can see you again. That’s not good for me. Not for you either.” He let out a shaky laugh. “But I can’t seem to stop.”

Her chest tightened. “Harry…”

“I know what they see when they look at me,” he said. “Muscle, debt, a man to point at things they want fixed. But you—you look at me like I’m still a person. No one’s done that in a long time.” He swallowed hard. “It scares the hell out of me.”

She lifted a hand to his cheek, thumb gentle against the bruise. “I don’t see what they see,” she whispered. “I just see you.”

He searched her face, almost disbelieving. “You shouldn’t.”

“But I do,” she said. “Even after tonight. Even after what I saw.”

He let out a long breath, his shoulders slumping like he’d been holding it for hours. “You should run from me.”

“Maybe,” she said, voice trembling, “but right now I don’t want to.”

That cracked something open. The smallest smile tugged at his split lip. “You shouldn’t say things like that when I’m tryin’ to be good.”

“Who said I wanted you to be good?” she asked, barely above a whisper.

For a second neither of them moved. The space between them was electric, full of everything unsaid. Then he reached up, fingers sliding into her hair, and kissed her.

It wasn’t rushed. It was slow, unsure at first—an apology, a question, a confession all in one. When she answered, the kiss deepened, his hand cupping her jaw, her fingers fisting in his shirt.

He tasted of copper and mint toothpaste, and she drank him in like he was the only thing that could quench her thirst.

His good arm wrapped around her, pulling her flush against his chest, and a low groan rumbled through him—part pleasure, part pain. She instantly tried to pull back. “Your ribs—”

“Don’t,” he begged, his forehead resting against hers. “Don’t pull away. Please. I just need to feel you. I just want to bury myself into you and forget about this shitty day.”

The words, so raw and truthful, sent a shiver through her. But she saw the waxy pallor of his skin, the way he favored his right side. “You can barely move”.

“Then don’t let me move,” he whispered, his dark eyes holding hers, full of a vulnerable need that shattered her last reservations.