The shower was running and, standing in your tiny studio kitchen, you listened to Harry cheerfully whistling an unfamiliar tune through the splashes, occasionally interrupting the melody with excited, indecipherable words. You squeezed your arms around yourself, suppressing a chill, and you took a deep, rattling breath as you stared at your bed. Sheets and the duvet were still twisted and tangled, abandoned and untouched since you'd both finally managed to drag yourselves out of bed. You gnawed your thumbnail, the whole of last night replying itself in your mind....
***
"Get your feet away from my food!" you cried, flicking Harry's ankle bone.
"Ouch, fuck!" he yelped, pulling both of them off the coffee table as quick as lightning and covering them with his hands, shooting a reproachful look. "Stop that, you...."
"You earned it," you said without remorse. Grabbing your container of Chinese, you balanced it on your knees while splitting a pair of chopsticks. "How would you like it if my feet were in your mouth?"
He snorted and you growled, opening your dinner and sinking back into the sofa. "Eat," you demanded, but his mouth was permanently quirked, eyebrows high on his forehead with the multiple jokes spinning in the factory of his mind, packaged and destroyed without delivery. Your initial companionable silence as you dug in, starved, gradually gave way to satisfied slurps, sucks, questions with full mouths, and the occasional choking cough that was quickly doused with water when you weren't careful enough.
"When are you coming back?" you asked, twirling noodles around. Don't look, don't look at him, because then he'd guess or assume — it didn't matter if it was true or not, he didn't get to just—
Harry was silent, and a quick glance against your better judgment found him intently digging through his container for his favorites. He was frowning, jaw sharp, and by now it didn't seem he was digging so much as... avoiding.
Your heart sank and you knew even before he said it, but it didn't make it any less of a blow. "Dunno," he said, lofty, cool, and still without looking at you. "Nothing planned yet."
Nothing? Like, at all?
You nodded, but internally you were stomping your feet and kicking up dirt.
Pop. It was like the bubble your apartment had always been — the happy, sheltered, rosy bubble — had been pricked and was caving in around you in a slowly wilting fashion.
"That'll be nice, though," you said. "Staying home for once?" It was nice — it was — and you should be happy for him. Part of you was, but the other part — a larger, nastier part, maybe — was hating London, hating his job, hating that nothing demanded he return, and hating yourself for wishing for him to be forced to run himself ragged between work obligations and a night in with you.
"Bit of a reset," he nodded. "Time to think and work on some other stuff."
It was good for him, you reminded yourself again over your sinking disappointment. It was good for him to pause and to have the time to write — he scribbled from time to time, and you knew he never stopped, but being able to sit in one place to hear his own thoughts without interruption.... This was good for him. It was good.
But it didn't feel good.
The noodles you'd nagged him for over his shoulder, arms around his waist and voice muffled in his neck as he placed the order, suddenly tasted greasy, cold, and unappealing, and you couldn't possibly fit any more of them in you if you tried. You stuck your chopsticks deep in the pile before setting the carton on the coffee table.
Harry swallowed a large mouthful. "You're done?" he asked.
"I'm full," you said. "Here, you can have some if you want. I'm going to brush my teeth."
YOU ARE READING
Blurred Lines // h.s.
Fanfic"You've worn makeup plenty," you said. "Haven't they ever taken it off you before?" "Not like this," he murmured. Your wrists tickled his nose and he hardly dared to breathe in case it threw off the tender, careful way you were touching him. "There...
