Work Text:
The dim light in the room was enough to notice the man's agony: the muscles tense under the satin shirt, a painful expression on his face and the sweat running down his neck.
It wasn't the first time, nor the last.
Pink lips, a sweet voice that called his name, a voice endowed with love, love he never thought he would receive one day. The first one to greet him in the morning, the same one that haunted his thoughts during the day, knowing that he would go to bed at night in search of his beloved.
She, she would never leave him. And the conviction that true love lies in the heart of the woman with a wide smile and contagious laugh motivated him to dive into a deep epiphany.
He would give anything to touch her just once, and to see her leave with sad eyes and a painful goodbye made him desperate, Harry groaned, a guttural sound escaping his pale lips.
Immersed in his own solitude, his green eyes snapped when he woke up and it took him exactly seven seconds to stare at the white ceiling, perhaps as white as the papers on the worn desk.
But she wasn't beside him, and his heart burned in pain.
A world-renowned writer: born to be a star, Harry Styles has made a name for himself in the literary field, renowned for his touching melodramas and unique writing. His last work being his most famous, the young writer no longer saw himself in the same way.
Without her, nothing makes sense.
Threading his injured fingers through his hair, Harry fought back the tears that insisted on falling every time he woke up. Oh, if he could sleep for all eternity, he would go to hell looking for a solution, knowing that the consequences would be null when he saw her smiling again... Even without knowing her name, even without knowing who she was.
And he never forgot the first time that his beloved appeared in his dreams: shortly after finishing Daydreams, he fell into a peaceful sleep on the couch after celebrating his success on the first day, imagining a flowering field, like where he used to live at the beginning of his career.
And she appeared like a spring breeze, her long hair caressing her face and transmitting the peace that he never felt in life, like a worthy love at first sight, he went crazy. She ran through his thoughts the next day, and everything sounded automatic: how he would ask his assistant to grab his coffee at exactly 1:32 pm, and his mind snapped with the realization that the woman hadn't left his thoughts for a single moment.
He needed her.
Desesperately.
But she was his doom, and it wasn't long before his wife and children left for London, leaving Harry alone in the cozy house in Holmes Chapel, where he only felt complete when she was around. A need that came much more than the physical, a completely romantic and unreal love, one that had never come close to what he felt one day for his partner, nor for anyone else he had been involved with throughout his life.
She, she sounded like poetry. It was her sweet melody, the soft autumn breeze, her deep and looming desire, a love more than carnal.
The rain was falling outside, and the writer got up after painful moments with an empty expression, heading to the kitchen in search of something that would whet his appetite: but, in vain, he dragged himself to the bedroom again, sitting on the bed in a deep silence in front of him, facing the raindrops outside.
Living without her was meaningless, and he focused his energies as if he could materialize her in front of him, sweat trickling down his back as the pressure on his hands grew stronger. An almost primal sound escaped, but something didn't feel right... as if the body radiated pain, the chest burned, senses seemed somewhat distant.
Barely felt the tip of his fingers, and before he could even realize, she showed up.
Beautiful, beautiful as he'd never seen before and it made him smile, it wasn't long before she mimicked it, her ruddy cheeks adorably highlighted.
“Come with me, Harry.” the sweet touch on his hand.
Chrysanthemums swirled in his nostrils as he reached out toward his beloved. The touch felt so real that his eyes watered, but the very moment his fingers reached hers, she was no longer in the room. And the overwhelming sense of peace confused him.
She, she was the one. In an almost mystical sunset, he held someone else's waist, still observing the blue immensity of the sea that surrounded them. In a boat strangely similar to the one he used to describe in his work, they sailed away towards the north. But she was there, and as soon as the woman turned around to face him, his heart overflowed with pure happiness.
“Let's be happy, love. I don't have to leave anymore.”
Without telling anyone, not even his friends, he sailed away with her. Harry grinned, the pressure on the stranger's waist growing stronger as he bent down to kiss her, taking her full lips in a sweet touch.
However, reality didn't wake him up: clinging to the sheets, Harry was plunging into his own melancholy and agony in an abundant way, his uneven breathing denouncing his sick state. Despite the narrowed eyes, a small, perhaps almost imperceptible, plaintive smile filled the man's face.
And that, without a doubt, was the end of it.
Next to the persona of his most famous work, the woman whose name he never knew, Harry sailed towards the north under a beautiful and warm sunset, leaving the damned reality behind in the blink of an eye.
And she would no longer need to appear in his dreams, nor would she need to surround his deliberately precise daydreams. She was his own reverie, his oxygen. And, if he could ask heaven for anything, he wanted that woman to be present in his next life.
And for him, death would be nothing more than an escape to true happiness.
Far from everyone, Harry Edward Styles, the renowned and prodigy writer, passed away on a rainy night. Leaving behind two children and a successful career, he had closed his eyes forever at the age of thirty-seven.
In memory of her, the woman who lived only in his head.
She, he needed her.
She... and he barely knew who she was.
She, just she.
Always, always about her.
She.