Pretty Boy || larry

three

{all credit goes to the original author}

three

Harry doesn’t bother setting an alarm before going to sleep. He figures that if he wakes up and it isn’t 9am yet, he can go back to sleep. And if he sleeps too late he’s sure that the prince will tell him to wake up and bugger off already now that he’s done his good deed for the year giving a hooker a good night’s sleep.

He half expects to be woken at least once during the night and prompted to perform some sort of sexual act, since he has technically been paid to be at the prince’s disposal for ten whole hours. To think that it might involve just one blowjob and one quick fuck was absurd to say the least. Especially considering that his time with the young regent had been- dare he say it- actually good. There was just no way that he, Harry, the world’s favorite punching bag, was going to get paid ten thousand pounds to be well fucked once and let alone in a bed as soft as clouds for nine hours straight.

But when Harry does start to stir, when his body has had its fill of rest and started prodding him to seek food instead of blissful unconsciousness, he realizes that he hasn’t been touched since he lay down what feels like a lifetime ago. He’s still lying safely on his tummy, blankets cocooned around him, face buried in a pillow that smelled like fabric softener and mint. The realization that the man had meant no more sex sinks in and Harry blinks his eyes open in surprise.

The bed beside him is empty and Harry’s stomach plummets in an instant, shattering the peace of the morning. “Oh fuck,” he gasps, dread seeping into his bones. He’s been skipped out on, he never took the money, he’s going to have to go home empty-handed and hours and hours late for curfew-

He probably should have expected more from the man who’d been soft and foolish enough to actually pay a perfect stranger to sleep, because of course the money is laying right on the desk. It’s one of the ten-grand stacks, sure enough, just like he was promised. There’s no note, but Harry doesn’t let the little flicker of disappointment in his stomach grow into anything bigger. Money’s money, after all.

At this point he knows he’s going to be screwed when he gets home anyways- it’s nine thirty and he has a strict curfew of seven- so he allows himself the luxury of turning the telly on while he slowly washes his face and combs his hair and otherwise makes himself presentable again. No bruises or bite marks, he sees in the mirror, which is always nice. Covering them is a pain in the neck, and he doesn’t have money to waste on shit tons of concealer, anyways.

He gets dressed slowly, too slowly to be excusable, pretending like he’s a normal twenty year-old with a normal job that lets him get ready for work in the morning watching some medical drama in a comfortable home as he straightens his tie. The show ends, though, eventually, and Harry doesn’t let himself sigh about having to turn off the telly and tuck his money into his jacket and leave the room. He just returns the room key left on the nightstand to the desk clerk on his way through the lobby and steps out into the midmorning sun, not something he’s usually awake to see.

Some people might find a walk in downtown London on a busy Thursday morning to be boring, but not Harry. He never gets to see London so alive. There are so many people, all dressed so nicely, all bustling around in the broad daylight like they’ve got nothing to hide. He’s sure they have, of course, but probably most of these people would never dream of paying someone for sex, even if he was on the classy side.

The expensive suit he dons to go pull gets more and more out of place the closer he gets to home. Skyscrapers turn to warehouses turn to crumbling shacks of houses, and Harry’s heart gets heavier and heavier. A block from home he ducks into an abandoned phone booth, glass too coated with grime for anyone to see in, and pulls the money from his pocket. With trembling fingers he tears the little band from around the stack and counts out ten hundred-pound notes from the hundred and tucks them into his pocket. Nine thousand is still three times more than he usually comes home with. No one has to know he actually made ten. He can keep this aside for a rainy day, an emergency fund, and no one has to be the wiser. That’s the mantra he repeats to himself as he replaces the rest of the money and exits the phone booth, hurrying home before anyone decides to jump him and take his earnings for their own.