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Harry likes to think he knows you well. He wants to believe that no matter how much time has passed, he still understands you to your core. He knows your voice raises an octave when you try to hide exhilaration. He knows you shyly shrug one shoulder up to your cheek whenever you receive a compliment. He notices everything you do or don't do. It's evocative, but he holds onto it with his final frayed string of hope.
What he doesn't know is how you would react to his unforeseen kiss.
He's standing completely still in the doorway of his empty dressing room, seeing no signs of you or his daughter. There's no scribbled note left on the table. No conversation was passed off to him from a crew member about where you went. No stray belongings of yours were accidentally left behind.
You're gone, having left without a trace, and the last thing he did was kiss you like an idiot. He ruined everything like he always does, never thinking rationally when he's around you. Your presence consumes him until it suffocates his lungs like the sweetest smoke. You've been clouding his judgment since the day he met you.
Harry had told everyone not to follow him after he finished the show so he could talk with you about what happened, yet now it's just him and his regret casting long shadows into the room. His skin becomes prickly and uncomfortable as he cautiously steps forward and blindly closes the door behind him. Once the outside noise is drowned out, his chest starts heaving, but it's not from the exhaustion of performing.
It's from sheer panic.
He can't breathe. The room spins around him, and his throat begins to tighten like a poisonous rope is being tied around his neck. A shaky hand reaches up to rub at his aching heart. His legs feel numb, and there's no way he'll be able to make it back to the tour bus without collapsing.
Harry fumbles with the lock on the door and then stumbles into the bathroom, holding onto the walls as they cave in on him. He flicks the light switch, causing white fluorescence to brighten his surroundings. He grips the edge of the sink to steady himself. A dreadful anxiety rolls around in his stomach, making him nauseous. He turns the faucet handle and splashes his face with ice-cold water. While scrubbing his overheated skin, he has to do a double take when he sees a glimmering object in his peripheral vision.
It's... his wedding ring.
A wretched sob escapes his mouth as he crouches into a vulnerable position, pressing his forehead onto the sink's edge and letting out sounds of pure agony. He ruined the chance of becoming a family again. He scared you off and set back any progress he made with you by miles. He's going to fall down a dark hole again after he spent ages trying to crawl out of it. He lost you again.
That's when his knuckles start pounding the counter's surface repeatedly until he can't feel his right hand anymore. He inflicts self-torture until his skin is bruised and bloody, maybe even broken, his pain staining the marble and the white silk of his trousers a crimson red. His cries as he does so sound like those of a child trying to catch a single breath, wheezy and helpless.
