Let Me Feel Your Heartbeat (Larry Stylinson)

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✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

H a r r y

"I can just join you guys a few days later, it'll be fine," Harry reasoned. He was too preoccupied with removing a tomato sauce stain from his t-shirt to notice the incredulous stares around him.

His easy solution was met with uncharacteristic silence and he looked up to meet Niall's eyes, finding him horrified.

Zayn's brows were raised, and Louis kept his gaze trained on the last inch of beer in his glass. Liam was absent, busy finding a bowling ball of the perfect weight—apparently there was a specific algorithm to determine this.

An awkward moment settled at their table, heavy. Around them, the typical Thursday night crowd rolled on, uninterrupted. A few lanes down, a lady got a strike and their group erupted in cheers and laughter.

Finally, Niall pointed his finger at Harry and interrogated, "Why didn't you say anything sooner?" For a beta, he could be intimidating when he was ruffled. "We could've figured out a way to make it work!"

"It's fine," Harry repeated, not sure why this was such a big deal. He understood the vacation was important to Niall but he didn't think missing the first two of seven days would be such an issue.

"It's not fine, Harry! We've been- We've been planning this vacation for more than a year! We promised we would all be there no matter what!"

Harry's alpha postured at being reprimanded in public, but he didn't let it disrupt his composure. "Trust me," he drawled, tone dry. "If I could skip my rut, I would."

Alphas tended to enjoy their ruts very much, counting down the days until they could get off work and spend the next few days with an omega to satisfy their needs. For Harry it was different, rut was something he dreaded for various reasons. The end of each rut, when he would return to his senses and feel the comfort of total awareness wash over him, was always a relief.

Niall's eye twitched and then he looked away. Harry could tell he was upset, annoyed, and frustrated but there wasn't anything Harry could do about it. His rut was coming unexpectedly and he could feel that it was going to hit within the next few days, probably on Saturday.

"How come you only just found out?" Zayn asked just as Liam returned, clutching a hot pink bowling ball to his chest triumphantly and testing out its weight. "Don't alphas have their ruts scheduled months in advance?"

"Usually," Harry evaded. He was still a little embarrassed about what happened, even if it wasn't that bad. An omega he met at a bar last weekend triggered his rut early. It could've been a lot worse, he could've gone into rut right then and there, but instead he just got the telltale signs of his "time of the year" approaching, warning him it would be soon.

"So what, then?" Louis asked, speaking up for the first time since Harry dropped the bomb about not being able to make the first few days of their group vacation. He had been uncharacteristically quiet, although it hadn't been too abnormal because Louis rarely, if ever, interacted with Harry. Often, he pretended Harry didn't exist. It would've been fine, except they were in the same friend group, and there was no effective way to avoid each other.

Harry stayed silent, so Liam filled him in: "Some omega got him all hot and bothered and triggered it early."

"What? When?"

"Last week, at Blue's."

Blue's was the bar they went to on the regular, almost every weekend. It was where Liam met Zayn, and, subsequently, Louis. It was also where the five of them got together for the first time. The bar held some pretty great memories for all of them.