Work Text:
Numb.
Harry stared at the brick wall across from him, slumped in his chair. His mate Jack sat next to him, engrossed in the conversation he was having on his phone. Harry wondered if Jack would even notice if he walked out right now—just got up and left without a word. They took an Uber from the flat, so Harry wasn’t being held here by anything other than his own lack of motivation.
Lack of motivation. He nearly snorted. How many times did his father scream that at him when he was going through school? He was always being reminded of his lack of motivation and how embarrassed his father was of him. So many wonderful childhood memories. It was a wonder he didn’t go home more often.
The nurse materialized from the backroom, her bubblegum pink lips turned up into a friendly smile. “Mr. Lowden?”
Jack looked up from his phone, straightening up. “Yes?”
“Dr. Abbott said you’re free to go,” she told him. “He’s a bit tied up with another patient. He’ll call with the results in a week.”
“Lovely,” Jack said. “Thank you so much.”
“That’s alright. Thank you for coming in.”
“Come on, Styles,” Jack said, patting Harry’s thigh.
Harry got to his feet, ignoring the nurse’s eyes on him. He first noticed her staring at him when Jack came to check in for his appointment. Jack looked like he wanted to say something, but Harry was glad he didn’t.
He followed Jack out of the office, tugging his cap back over his head to protect his ears from the cold. Jack zipped up his bomber and nudged Harry with his elbow. “Thanks for coming with me.”
“Had nothing better to do,” Harry said with a shrug. He knew he wasn’t Jack’s first choice; their other roommate, Tom, would’ve been better emotional support than Harry was. Tom was like a walking angel—from his pretty bright smile to his pretty bright personality. Harry didn’t even know what it was exactly that Jack went in for, and at this point, he was too afraid to ask.
Jack stopped in a Costa for a coffee, and Harry stayed outside, pulling out his cigarettes. With one hanging from his lips, he patted the pockets of his jacket for his lighter. He felt like such a cliché: leather jacket, nicotine stained fingers, tattoos. A permanent line on his forehead from frowning.
No prospects or skills if you talked to his dad, which Harry rarely did if he could help it.
Even that, he thought miserably, made me a horrible cliché.
A few minutes later, Jack walked out with two red cups. Harry dropped his cigarette to the sidewalk and crushed it with the heel of his Vans, little red embers jumping about. He accepted a cup from Jack with a nod. He didn’t have to ask to know that it was tea inside of the cup. A splash of milk. No sugar.
“Got plans tonight?” Jack asked as they started down the sidewalk.
Harry took a sip before he said, “Nah.”
“Niall is playing at Barry’s bar tonight. Come with.”
“I’m good, mate.”
“You never come out anymore,” Jack said. “It’s one night. What’ll it hurt?”
Everything, Harry didn’t say.
He tossed his tea in a trashcan as he walked by before stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “Okay. One night.”
---
There was a bloke at one of the tables that Harry couldn’t stop looking at. He first saw him when they walked in. He was at the bar, chatting to Barry, who waved to their group when they walked in. They locked eyes, and the corner of his mouth twitched, like something was funny. Harry found himself wanting to know what it was that made him smile like that, but then Tom grabbed his hand and started pulling him towards the stage, where Niall was setting up.
Niall was in the middle of playing his third song when Harry excused himself from their table to get another glass of wine. He wasn’t much of a beer drinker, which was the source of many a ribbing from his mates, but their jokes weren’t going to make him pay 5 quid for a pint of piss water.
Barry was taking orders from another group when Harry walked up to the bar. He nodded in Harry’s direction and held up a finger when Harry set down his empty glass. Harry turned back around and leaned his elbows on the countertop, letting his eyes trail around the bar while he waited. The place was packed for a Thursday night, completely as a result of Niall and his reputation. He played the kind of music that everyone seemed to like, even if they pretended like they didn’t. He’d been on Harry for months now, trying to get him to sit down for a writing session, but Harry managed to keep eluding him. When they were at university, Harry wrote two of the songs that Niall was still singing to this day, but he hadn’t written anymore, nor did he plan to. Sometimes Niall played them during his shows, which is why Harry never wanted to go.
That was Harry Before. Harry Now didn’t want to look back.
“Another red, H?” Barry asked suddenly.
Harry looked over his shoulder and nodded, pivoting more to the side to face his friend. “Please. Thanks, Barry.”
“Make that two,” a voice said from Harry’s opposite side.
Harry turned fully around to the source. The guy from before was standing next to him, a few inches shorter than he was. His dark hair was browner this close, and Harry could see the little mole on his chin. His eyes flickered to Harry, his mouth twitching again. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Harry said. Maybe it was the wine or the nerves at the prospect of Niall playing one of his songs tonight, but he couldn’t help but add, “I didn’t think I’d find another wine drinker in this particular bar. I was sure Barry stocked the bottles for me.”
“This is my first time.” His cheeks turned a little pink at the innuendo, and Harry wondered if he did it on purpose or not. “I was dragged along. The bartender went to uni with my mate Aneurin.”
“Small world,” Harry said. “I’m Harry. Friend of Barry’s. The bartender, I mean.”
“Fionn,” he said as Barry came back with their glasses.
He gave Harry a bemused look. “You alright, mate?”
“Yeah, great,” Harry said, picking up his drink and taking a sip.
“Go give this to Niall then,” Barry said, sliding a bottle of water towards Harry. “He’s due for a break soon.”
“Okay.” He glanced at Fionn, who watched the exchange with interest. “It was nice to meet you, mate.”
Fionn nodded. “You, too.”
Harry grabbed Niall’s water, and his wine, and walked back to the stage. Niall was lifting his guitar over his head when Harry approached, his brown hair sticking to the sweat on his forehead. He smiled at Harry before he spoke into the mic, “I’ll be takin’ a little break before the next song. Enjoy and thanks for coming, everyone.”
“Good job,” Harry said as he handed Niall his water.
Niall unscrewed the cap and took a long drink, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Thanks, H. Wanna play the next one with me? I’ll play while you sing—“
“No,” Harry said immediately. “I’m good.”
He didn’t wait for a response before he started walking away. He drained his glass and set it on an empty table. He pushed his way through the growing crowd until he was the backdoor. Using his shoulder, he shoved it open and stepped out into the back alley, the air already crisper than inside. He leaned against the wall, his shaking hands going for the pack of cigarettes. He barely got one out when the door opened again, and Fionn stepped out.
His hazel eyes went straight to the unlit cigarette, narrowing a little. “Those will kill you.”
“Good,” Harry said before he could stop himself. He shut his eyes and took a deep breath. “That’s not what I meant.”
“That’s alright,” he said as he came to stand across from him, leaning against the opposite wall. He nodded to his cigarette, which was still unlit. “Still going to smoke that?”
Shaking his head, Harry slipped it back into his pocket. “I don’t smoke in front of other people.”
“Why?”
“It’s not my decision to make.”
Fionn stared at him for a second before he asked, “How old are you?”
“I just turned twenty four,” Harry said. “How old are you?”
“Twenty.”
Harry nearly considered breaking his rule, just for one drag. “You’re still in school then?”
“I never went. Did you?”
“Yeah.”
“What for?”
He considered lying. His answer only ever invited more questions, and Harry didn’t feel much for answering questions. “Medicine.”
Fionn’s eyes widened a little, betraying his surprise. Harry looked down at his white Vans, which were scuffed and falling apart from age. He couldn’t remember the last time he bought a new pair of shoes. He had to have been living at home still.
Ages ago. Another lifetime. An alternate universe.
“My dad’s a doctor,” Harry explained even though Fionn didn’t ask. “A surgeon. He always wanted me to be one, but I talked him out of making me go straight out of sixth form. Bought myself some time. I never applied to medical schools during uni. Couldn’t do it. Didn’t exactly go over well when he found out.”
“What do you want to do then?” Fionn asked.
Harry leaned his head back against the wall, the brick gritty and hard under his skull. “Nothing at all.”
There was that hollowness again.
He rubbed against his chest with the heel of his hand, like maybe he could scrub it away.
Fionn’s attention dropped to his hand. When he lifted his eyes to Harry’s, his voice was barely audible. “What happened?”
“Life.” When he closed his eyes sometimes, he could still feel his dad’s fists making contact with his cheek, knuckles breaking skin. A broken nose. His mother’s screams. The sensation of hands wrapping around his throat, squeezing until his head started to spin.
Blood, blood, blood.
How ironic that his father saved so many lives and yet he didn’t hesitate to try to take his son’s.
He wondered if his friends could see it on him—the scars. They weren’t physical—his parents had enough money to make sure no one would ever find out—but they were still there. You just had to look hard enough.
Fionn pushed off of the wall and took a few steps towards Harry, who didn’t move. He was too intrigued. He wanted to see what Fionn did next. He wanted to see how much nerve was bundled up inside of him. He wanted to see if Fionn was looking.
He stared down at him.
Waiting.
When Fionn brushed his hand, he waited for that tingle to shoot up his arm.
When Fionn reached up and touched his cheek, he waited for his heart to quicken.
When Fionn pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth, he waited for his breath to catch.
He was waiting. Always waiting.
Waiting for a fist to connect.
Waiting for sleep to come, to take him away from his own thoughts.
Waiting for someone to save him.
Waiting, waiting, waiting.
“Is that okay?” Fionn asked as he pulled away.
Harry nodded. “Yeah.”
Now that he was this close, Harry could see Fionn’s eyes were a little glazed over. “Do you want to come back to mine?”
Harry’s stomach dropped a little.
He focused on the bit of wall above Fionn’s head. He swallowed the lump in his throat.
“Yeah.”
Numb.
---
Harry rubbed his thumb over the smooth stretch of skin below Fionn’s chest, his cheek pressed against Fionn’s arm. He urged his heart to feel something, anything, but even as Fionn slept soundly beside him there was still nothing but that hollowness in the center of his chest.
He rolled over, the thin sheet sliding off him a little to reveal the laurel leaves at his waistband. Outside of Fionn’s window, the moon stared down at him. He could feel the pity in its gaze. He was a nothing thing—empty and useless. A poison. More than anything he knew that being with Fionn would end up hurting Fionn more than anything else. He’d seen that hungry look in Fionn’s hazel eyes when he asked Harry to come back with him; he remembered seeing the same look in his own eyes whenever he looked in the mirror. But Harry could never fill that void for Fionn because Harry himself was a bottomless pit, where hopes and dreams went to die, and he couldn’t expose Fionn to that.
He thought maybe Fionn saw him, but he was wrong. Fionn just saw what everyone else did, and he could never be what Fionn wanted him to be, even if Harry wanted to be that, too.
He didn’t know how to be.
Not anymore.
Numb.
Quietly, he slipped out of Fionn’s bed. He collected his things from around the room: socks, shirt, pants, and jeans. He waited until he was on the other side of Fionn’s bedroom door before he dressed himself. He grabbed his shoes from where he left them by the couch and his house key and phone from the coffee table. Before he left the flat, he found a pen in one of the kitchen drawers and wrote a quick note on the notepad stuck to the fridge.
Outside, he put up his hood to keep off the rain and started walking aimlessly. He wasn’t used to this part of the city, but he knew eventually he’d come across an underground entrance. It was early still—the sun had barely risen—but Harry could sleep on a bench while he waited for The Tube.
As Harry crossed a park, the fog still heavy in the air, making everything look like a scene out of Wuthering Heights, he wondered what Fionn would do when he woke up and realized Harry had done a runner. He wondered if he’d try to get his number off of a Barry, or if he’d tell his mates what a terrible lay Harry was and how much of a twat he ended up being. He wondered if he would try to forget him, wash the sheets to erase every trace of Harry that had been left there.
He wondered if he’d find someone else, someone better.
Someone whole.
And then he wondered if he only managed to take a piece of Fionn with him, making him more like Harry Now instead of Harry Before. He wanted to turn out his pockets, to make sure he didn’t accidentally nick anything on his way out, but sometimes these things couldn’t be helped. Sometimes people took things from you, and you were left to deal with the aftermath alone, just like you were before they came into your life in the first place.
Harry didn’t want to be the reason Fionn learned that particular truth, but it was too late to turn back now.
He wondered if his father ever felt the same.
---
Fionn,
I’ll never forget you. Thank you.
-H