history repeats [harlan]

london | 2 jan 03

Honey leaned against the wall of the elevator, chewing on her bottom lip. She hadn’t made this trip since St Andrew’s Day -- they had decided that they would be better off out of the UK, away from prying eyes -- and she was sure she wouldn’t be doing it again after this, not because they would go right back to rendezvous abroad, but because she finally realized what a horrible mistake it all was. Dating @Harlan Bellamy : it had seemed like a great -- albeit influenced by incredible amounts of whisky -- idea at the time, but events -- one event, really -- of the past twenty-four hours had set her mind straight.

They had plans to meet in New York for New Year’s Eve; Honey was spending the holidays in Majorca with her family and with the time difference, she was going to be able to sneak away while everyone was still sleeping. Her family wasn’t exactly privy to her new relationship, so sneaking seemed called for. Of course, Honey hadn’t anticipated her mum being in such a good mood (around her, especially); her family had stayed up well past midnight and had more than their fair share of alcohol; she sent an owl to Harlan, rescheduling -- she knew she couldn’t reschedule a holiday but she figured Harlan understood familial obligations -- for the next night when she’d be back in Hogsmeade.

He didn’t show, didn’t write. Honestly, she was surprised it took this long -- nearly six weeks -- for this whole thing to implode. This relationship? Was that what is was? Hardly. (Honey wasn’t about to self-analyze, to figure out that she was only mad at him because he was making the decision to end things, apparently.) Whatever.

Honey scratched her head and tucked her hair behind her ears as she stepped off the elevator, finding the door far to quickly. She paused, but only for a second, not exactly rethinking things but also not not rethinking them. Honey could only think of one reason Harlan didn’t show; his reputation preceded him. It was preposterous, that anyone would want to cheat on her but it was possible, she supposed. She had thought this over plenty of times; she would probably only yell a little; she’d call everything off officially before he got the chance. She’d be in and out in five minutes, tops.

She knocked, tapped her foot as she waited. The door opened and she just barely stopped herself from asking ‘who is she?’ though admittedly, her second choice wasn’t much better: “What the fuck?” She pushed past him, preferring not to do this in the hallway. “I’m done making excuses for you, Harlan.” She didn’t clarify or expand on the long list of excuses she had told her family and friends over the past weeks, to keep everything between them. It was too much effort, just for it to end like this. “Where were you?” She’d be shocked if he could be creative.

London was covered in a haze. It had been pouring all evening. The rain melted the fresh, white snow into a dark slush on the streets. It stopped only as night fell to reveal an apocalyptic scene below him. Harlan studied the city from the wall of windows in his living room, one hand wrapped around his glass and the other firmly in the pocket of his black slacks.

Though he hated to admit it, Harlan was prone to sulking. Ever since he was a child. He couldn't help it, either, no matter how hard he tried. When he wasn't happy about something he lived in that feeling, and tonight was no exception.

The Griffins had a late New Year's celebration, though it had done little to alleviate the disaster that was his actual holiday just hours before. He had been stood up. Left on a shitty rooftop bar in New York fending off drunk strangers with glowsticks. He supposed he'd been waiting for the other shoe to drop with Honey but hadn't expected it to crash and burn so spectacularly.

It had been her idea, after all. The trip to America. It was another on their list of locations to avoid the press. They'd almost successfully run for long enough to believe that they might be able to forever. As it turned out, though, she sabotaged that before the chance was given.

A knock on the door startled him. He wasn't expecting anyone, but the memory of sending out a dozen of owls from New York, fueled by overpriced cocktails and his own anger, came back to him. He straightened out the sleeve of his cuffed white button-up shirt before downing the rest of his whiskey.

The door revealed the last person he wanted to see, though, and she was mad. Harlan had to practically pick his jaw off from the floor. Some nerve she had. "Oh, of course, Honey, please do come in," He gestured after the witch as if she had bothered with any sort of formality. "Great to see you too," He shut the door, turning to face her with a sarcastic smile.

"Where was I?" Harlan repeated slowly, rubbing the palm of his hand to his jaw in thought as he made his way to the kitchen to pour another drink. "I was at the bloody Sky Fucking Bar," Harlan took the liberty of creative naming. "Celebrating with a thousand of New York's finest," He held up his glass in mock cheers. "And you, was your New Year's all you'd imagined it to be?" His eyes narrowed at her, waiting for her to try and talk herself out of this one.

Honey squeezed her hands into fists, holding them at her sides, just barely convincing herself to do anything except show him her middle fingers and leave. She didn’t want -- didn’t need -- this attitude from him. Great to see her, she was sure; he was just grateful she hadn’t interrupted anything. Unless she had -- her eyes scanned the room quickly (and hopefully, inconspicuously) trying to find some sign of illicit activity she wasn’t involved in - but maybe even Harlan was that stupid.

He was infuriating, standing there so casually, having a drink like this was any sort of normal conversation. Every time they had ended things -- albeit nothing as proper or serious or exclusive as their current attempt -- they had done it with a lot less effort. It just… stopped. She was far away from admitting (sober) that she couldn’t just walk away from it this time, that she was too invested already, that she cared -- no, she needed to gain back all the dignity she had lost the last time she was here, proposing the absurd idea that they should date.

“Where were you?” She repeated, slower this time so he could understand -- she was using such big and complicated words, after all. She didn’t follow after him, instead just trailing him with her gaze. He said he was at the bar and she was happy he was paying attention to his drink rather than her; her confusion was obvious on her face. Did she have her days wrong? Not working for a week could do that to a person. Did Harlan have his days wrong? One too many bludgers to the head? She waited for him to realize his mistake (though she was more than happy to correct him when the time came), that she was talking about last night, when he ditched her, not the other way around.

But he wasn’t ready to eat crow, apparently. “Excuse me?” New Year’s certainly what she had hoped it would be -- it was lovely and she loved her family, of course, but she would have much rather spent it with Harlan  -- and that was precisely why she had rescheduled. “Do you get so many owls from fawning women that you managed to overlook mine?” She crossed her arms across her chest, gaze narrowed as she willed Harlan to admit he was at fault here. It wasn’t the owl’s fault, anyway. “Or were you just so busy last night you couldn’t find the time to see me?” She raised her eyebrows; either way she wasn’t about to be pleased with his answer.

Harlan leaned back against the counter, dropping an elbow casually. He knew that as much as he could meter his reaction despite his heart beating angrily against his chest, the more it would infuriate Honey. And that was exactly what he wanted to do. Decidedly, it was not the most sensible way of dealing with a problem in a relationship, but then again, at no point in whatever it was they the two of them were doing had either been particularly sensible.

She repeated the question. The wizard opened his mouth to mirror her slow speak but a nagging realization gave him pause. This wasn't the reaction of someone who had purposefully left him in New York alone on New Years. At least not a rational one, that is. He narrowed his eyes, searching her face for any sort of indication as to what in the hell was going on, but found only more confusion.

"I didn't get an owl," He replied, folding his arms across in chest defensively, unaware that he'd mimicked her own movement. Well, he didn't get her owl, that is. Truthfully, in his anger, he'd sent out about a dozen owls looking for an escape from New York, a distraction. In the end, though, he couldn't go through anything. He spent the night alone, with whiskey.

"I have no idea what you're on about, Honey," Harlan's voice was a fraction softer than it had been moments before though his gaze and stature held firm. He wasn't going to take the blame for this. Not all of it anyway.  "I was in New York, you didn't show up, and now I'm here," He shrugged his shoulders as if it were just as simple as that. "Figured I'd leave you to whatever it was that was keeping you so busy," The whoever in his mind, was implied.

“You didn’t get an owl.” She thought that maybe if she said it, she’d be more inclined to believe it, but she quickly proved herself wrong. Her owl had been sent with plenty of time to spare; he should have gotten her note before he had even left the hotel they were going to share later that night. She didn’t know what she was more upset about now: him not showing up to her place last night, or him being too preoccupied to notice an owl at his window. Not that she would ever admit it aloud, but Honey was an idiot for thinking he could change, even if she was trying.

Honey rolled her eyes as she dropped her arms to her sides. “Don’t Honey me.” She knew it was her name and what else was he supposed to call her, but it sounded too much like he was talking down to her now, as if this was all her fault.

She softened for a second as Harlan explained himself, but his one sentence excuse wasn’t good enough. She parrotted him, anyway: “I was in Majorca, I invited you to Hogsmeade, you didn’t show up, and now I’m here.” She crossed her arms again -- keeping her hands away from her wand, which didn’t mix well with her temper -- and stared at him, thinking she might get a rise out of him. He was too calm and collected with his thoughts; it wasn’t fair.

Neither was his accusation, really. “Whatever was keeping me busy,” she repeated with a laugh, dropping her hands again. “I know you’re not saying what you want to.” She wasn’t either, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that they were silently accusing the other of the same thing. “Go ahead and ask who he was.” She paused for a second before adding, “Or she. I’m not picky.” She ran her hand through the air, motioning toward the man in front of her. “And you have personal experience being one of my poor choices, so...” She trailed off and shrugged, trying to be as nonchalant about the situation as he was, but most likely missing the mark by a long shot.

Harlan sat back on the counter. He took his time. An ankle languidly crossed over his knee in coordination with the hand that rest under his chin. Though his nature was to react, and to react quickly, he fought instinct. When it came to Honey that sort of thing didn't translate well, and he had no intention of giving her the satisfaction of seeing him unsettled. Not now.

An eyebrow quirked as she mirrored his statement. He opened his mouth to refute the statement but was stopped by the continuation of her train of thought. Palm now resting casually across his chin, Harlan couldn't help but smile. It was the kind of smile that was very evidently not an indication of pleasure. In fact, the tug at either corner of his mouth felt unsettling, even to him. He listened though to what she had to say. He owed that much.

"Go ahead then," Harlan stopped short of asking the real question, raising a hand absently to the air. Who was he? Or she. Hell, the logistics of it were of minimal value, after all. "Do share," He prompted casually. The entire thing stemmed from the core of the mistrust that they had forged their entire existence upon.

And you have personal experience being one of my poor choices. He recognized her attempt to push the barb farther into his chest, but it didn't alleviate the sting. He sucked in a deep breath of air, biting down to stop himself from saying all of the things his temper wanted him to scream. "That what you've come all the way here to say?" Harlan took a drink, aware that he had avoided offering her anything. "Probably could've owled..." He spoke over the brim of his glass before finishing it off.

Go ahead then. He still wasn’t asking, wasn’t reacting, wasn’t matching her tone, just sat there instead, actively not trying to resolve things (not that she could claim she was trying to resolve things in the best way, but c’mon). He wasn’t a doormat; this wasn’t how it was supposed to go at all. She wanted him to ask so she could defend herself, prove him wrong. There was no one else -- it was Harlan, only Harlan -- but she wasn’t going to tell him that without a reason. Honey had admitted too much already, letting on that she had any sort of feelings -- more than the sort she could stuff down her pants -- for him.

Honey could share, she supposed, but he was too calm. He didn’t care that she was upset -- huge shock there -- and didn’t mind thinking that she fucked everything up because he already had. She was typically better at beating down these kinds of doubts, and she hoped she wasn’t letting it show on her face.

He wasn’t budging an inch. She thought she saw his expression shift, but he slipped right back into his stoic nonsense. It wasn’t satisfying, not in the least. “Is that--” It wasn’t; she had so much more to say to him -- she thought she would end her evening by accepting his apology so they could celebrate New Year’s properly (Scotch and sex) -- but she was regretting coming here, sending the owl, asking him to date her in the first place. He couldn’t be bothered to be angry, or be anything, really.

“Probably should have,” she agreed, quieter, realizing she was being just as stubborn as the ass in the kitchen; she wasn’t being forthcoming but also: what was the point? She had been thinking about this, about him, for days, wasting her time. He ‘didn’t get her owl’ and didn’t care to find out why she had stood him up, hadn’t put in the same effort that Honey did to make things right -- that’s what she had come here to do, wasn’t it? -- and didn’t have anything to say to her now. She tore her gaze away from him and stepped to the door, leaving before she had the chance to stop herself.

Harlan's gaze stayed fixed on Honey. He was waiting for the smart remark in return, but there was nothing. A fleeting feeling struck him that maybe he'd gotten it all wrong. That maybe Honey was being completely honest. He set down his now drained glass and folded his arms across his chest, reminding himself of all of the red flags that he'd been so certain of just moments before.

He knew Honey. And she knew him. And maybe that was the problem.

Turning over a new leaf wasn't something that he had ever been any good at, but with her, he wanted to try. Hell, they hid from the world for weeks, secluded in their own bubble where no outside forces could interfere, something that he now recognized was an attempt on his part to avoid the inevitable. To avoid this. He held so tight, and for so long, to his own doubt that it somehow always came back to the surface.

Probably should have. Harlan's heart sank. At that moment he usually would have been feeling victorious, reveling in the satisfaction of being right, of proving her wrong, but he felt the opposite. His mouth went dry at the thought. He was torn between the idea that he couldn't possibly be wrong and the idea that he'd completely missed the mark with his assumption.

"Damnit!" He hit a fist to the marble counter he'd only just moments before been so casually propped against as he hurled his accusations. He did know Honey, and he knew that she was telling the truth. It dawned on him then that perhaps he had created the whole thing as some sort of sick self-fulfilling prophecy. He always did find a way to destroy the good things before they got too sweet.

Running both hands through his hair, Harlan paced the kitchen. The two options he had were clear, and neither was ideal. He stayed, and fumed, or he admitted that he was wrong. Before he had a chance to second guess himself, Harlan hurled forward and threw open the door.

For whatever reason, he thought just maybe she'd still be standing there, waiting for his apology, but it was Honey. Of course she wasn't. Harlan's shoulders dropped. The hall that led to the elevator was typically vacant, though now it felt infinitely more so. Suddenly seized by the need to see her, to explain himself, Harlan fished the want from his front pocket and thought of the first place that came to mind. Honeydukes came to life with ease, and he was off with a soft pop, leaving the hall empty again.

[fin]