lost cause [harlan]

Hogsmeade really outdid itself for St Andrew’s Day; the ceilidh, the food, the little boost of business from visitors wanting tourist-y, Scottish-y candies, the whisky. Business and drinking were nearly tied for Honey’s favorite thing, but tonight she had let the drinks win out. She had closed up shop before going all out, of course, but then she had to make up for lost time.

Fergie had gone off at a respectable time, but Honey had found enough mates to entertain her once he was gone. They were all coupled up, which didn’t really bother her until they were quite deep into their bottle of whisky. She couldn’t place her finger on why, except of course she could. It was only more obvious when someone brought up that article, though Honey impressed herself with how incredibly easy she was able to laugh about it now. She managed to turn the conversation to Meghan McCormack and the quidditch league in general, which more or less devolved into a minor screaming match about the Four Nations coming up.

It wasn’t until much later, when the announcement about the last portkey to London was being made, that Honey had decided it was a good idea, or had the idea at all. It was definitely a spur of the moment thing, and not something that had been eating away at her for the past several weeks, certainly not.

“I’ll jus’ grab us another.” Honey pointed to the empty whisky bottle on their table as she got up. It only took an extra galleon -- bargain -- to get on the portkey so last minute and in another few minutes Honey was leaning up against the wall at one of many portkey terminals at the British Ministry, slowly convincing her liquor-filled stomach to cooperate while not-so-convincingly trying to look like she was just taking a break to smooth down her short, tartan skirt. She recovered after another few minutes, but not enough to convince herself that this was decidedly not a good idea. It was an idea Honey had, so it had to be good; she wasn’t going to convince herself otherwise.

She couldn’t remember if she walked or apparated, but it didn’t matter. Honey was knocking on his door without any sort of plan, no prior alert that she’d be showing up. Everything was fine.

Harlan opened the door and Honey faltered for just a second. “This isn’t the best. This--” She stopped and waved her hand through the air in front of her, not slowing her words down, her accent thicker than usual. “Us.” They had decided that they were friends, that they’d stay out of trouble, that it was for the best. “The press,” she said instead, second guessing herself enough to not just come right out and say it. “Know how to fix it.”  She nodded heavily, pointing past Harlan. “Can I come in?”

The sound of knocking, though at first a figment of his dreamscape, tore Harlan from his slumber. He had never been a particularly heavy sleeper, but on this night he was out for the count and nursing various injuries quickly healed up post-match. It had been another close game, down to the wire, and as physically demanding as they came. Harlan wasn't sure if it was his age was catching up to him or if the younger players were coming in more strongly than ever, but either way, his profession was not taking it easy on him.

On a typical night, he had trouble staying down for a full eight hours, but the fatigue of the match paired with whatever mystery concoction he had been fed by the team healers had other things in mind. It wasn't until the uneven cadence of furious banging at his door became impossible to ignore that Harlan finally sat up, dark satin sheets falling down at his sides in the process.

The room itself illuminated just as it had charmed to do upon his waking, simulating the rising of the sun and cascading a subtle glow across the space as naturally as possible. Harlan glanced out the window that occupied one wall from floor to ceiling at the neon city lights. It was certainly not morning. And he was certainly not expecting anyone.

Harlan groaned inwardly before standing up despite the protest of his bones. It didn't sound like whoever was at his door had any intention of slowing down so he resigned to having to have to deal with it on his own. As he stumbled through the living space, he made a note to have a word with the doorman regarding security. This sort of thing couldn't become regular.

Thrusting open the door with every intention to make the person's life hell, Harlan was met with a surprise. Honey. The rage was wiped from his features and momentarily revealed a genuine concern as to how she had turned up there. Last they had seen each other, things were left on good terms, platonic even. Platonic enough that turning up at each other's homes in the middle of the night was not part of the playbook.

Before he had a chance to open his mouth, though, Honey was talking. Well, slurring, really. Harlan tried to make sense of the words with difficulty. His raised eyebrow gave away his amusement despite his best effort to mask it. "Even if I said no, you know that wouldn't stop you," Harlan quipped, stepping out of the way and closing the door behind them.

"What's going on?" Harlan worked hard to sound compassionate but the sentiment didn't exactly translate. He had never been the nurturing type, after all. Steely gaze carried up and down the length of Honey, wondering what series of events could have landed her here.

Honey nodded heavily, as if everything she had said should have made perfect sense; she didn’t need to elaborate any further. Did he get what she was saying? She didn’t have time to ask. There wasn’t time for anything, not after how much they had already wasted -- no, she was letting her thoughts get ahead of her, and she was still on the doorstep.

“Good point,” she conceded gracefully (she thought). She wouldn’t have let him turn her away, anyway.

She turned to get a good look at him, answer his question, tell him exactly what was going on. Where to start? “I had a drink or two--” starting at the beginning, more or less “--and that nothing to do with why I’m here.” It did, of course. She wouldn’t have done this like this -- at all? -- if she was sober, but drunk words were sober thoughts, or something, right? “I-- Shite. Were you asleep?” What time was it anyway? Did he have a match today? Normally she could think straight, remember quidditch schedules, something she did long before Harlan’s existence mattered.

“I can come back later.” She tilted her head toward the door, making her excuses. She was waffling. This wasn’t a good idea. It’d be more embarrassing to come back later, of course, now that she was already there, standing in his living room.

As if she had forgotten why she was there, or her offer to leave, Honey shrugged, waving a hand in front of her like this was all so not a big deal. She did this sort of this all the time. “Can fix any rumors about us.” Surely not by showing up to his apartment in the middle of the night, but that was beside the point. She wasn’t really out to fix what other people thought about her, about him, about them; she was circling the real reason she was there.

Where had she been going with that train of thought? Unable to remember, Honey took a few more steps into the room, stopping to lean against the back of the sofa, her arms propping her up for some sort of drunken stability.

“I--” She stopped again with a sigh. Honey wasn’t the sort of person to have any issue sharing her opinions. “We were good together,” she said finally, not taking her eyes off of him. It wasn’t a question -- she knew how true it was. “Us. You and me,” she clarified (she was still drunk, after all). “We were only not good because we were dating other people. Sneaking around.” She wasn’t blaming him. “So scandalous,” she added with a laugh.

Despite his feelings about being woken up in the middle of the night without warning, Harlan was amused.

"Yes," The 'no shit' was silent, though evident through his expression. Weren't most people asleep at this hour? It was clear from the moment Honey opened her mouth that she had a drink or two but in no way did he believe that her turning up at his doorstep was not a direct result of that. Of course, it was. "It's okay," Harlan lied, his curiosity getting the better of him. It wasn't really okay, but for whatever reason, he was incapable of holding onto his frustration about the circumstances.

Harlan half sat on the leather bar stool opposite the couch where Honey's journey paused, folding his arms over one another across his chest, waiting for some semblance of an explanation. Fix any rumors about them? He did his best to follow the train of the thought but visibly struggled to put the pieces of the puzzle together. She was going to have to give him more than that.

Quietly, the Quidditch captain sat and waited for her to formulate her thoughts. He, too, struggled to put his thoughts into words, so he was as empathetic as he could be about it. The confusion on his face softened for a moment as she came to her conclusion. She wasn't wrong. The connection that the two of them shared was magnetic, there was no denying that, but Harlan had struggled with the idea that perhaps that connection was rooted in the fact that they couldn't really be together. Not entirely, anyway.

The small shred of his conscious that, for the most part, he denied access to, looked to the positive. He and Honey had been good together, in the time before any outside forces clouded any factors of attraction. For a moment, he looked to the ground to gather his thoughts, trying to still work out how all of this translated to their current situation.

"We were," Harlan agreed, looking back up to her, hands now planted firmly on both knees. He knew Honey well enough to know the deflection of her jokes, but he decided to not address it. To be frank, he was still grappling with own questionable code of ethics. It wasn't until everything had come to light so publicly that he was forced to deal with those thoughts.

"So," He began, trying to make logical sense of the night, as he did with most everything else in life. He was pragmatic to a fault."You, not at all driven by the two drinks consumed, needed to tell me this tonight?" A small smile curled at either side of his mouth, seeded in mischief. "Are you planning on escaping the country?" Harlan raised an eyebrow. That would explain the sense of urgency and her mention of fixing any rumors surrounding their relationship. He knew it wasn't the case, but hoped it would lead to Honey opening up more about the intent of her visit.

Harlan was quiet. It was… not ideal. She had figured she would regret everything tonight — that tended to be how drunk nights turned out — but she didn’t think the regret would set in quite so quickly. It had been two, maybe three seconds since she had stopped talking but it was too much. She needed to fill the silence. Honey opened her mouth, closing it the next instant as Harlan (finally, another second later) spoke up. She nodded, quickly and firmly enough to make her see spots for a second; she wasn’t laughing anymore.

They had been good. They could still be good. He wasn’t just realizing this now. Couldn’t be.

“So,” she repeated, hoping he had perfectly processed everything she had said so she wouldn’t need to repeat herself — was that really too much to ask? Fix the rumors that they were an item by being an item? It made perfect sense.

She smiled despite herself; “That’s right.” It was wrong, and he obviously knew it, calling her bluff, and there she was not minding (again). Wasn’t that part of the appeal? She shouldn’t try reasoning with herself now, but she wasn’t thinking straight (obviously). “Not at all driven by the two drinks.” She nodded again, hopefully distracting him from the urgency with which she had made this visit. That part had been true, at least.

“Technically, I did leave the country. Was in Scotland ten minutes ago.” She shrugged, like she had ever made this trip for any reason other than ‘personal fulfillment’. She waited a beat and shrugged again. “I just—“ Another shrug. “We were good,” she repeated, having not thought much further than this point. “I liked all the non, non—“ she was looking for the word ‘noncommittal’ but the Scotch was derailing her train of thought. “What we had. Fuck.” She shut her eyes; the alcohol was catching up, that had to be it.

She pushed herself off the sofa and took a step forward, careful to keep some semblance of distance between them. “What I’m trying to say is, I think— what do you think about, I dunno, seeing where this goes.” She swallowed; she wouldn’t blame him for having no clue what she was on about — she was hardly following herself — though she absolutely would blame him. “This. Us. Not the, the cheating and all that, but—“ It was hard to find any one thing to focus on, all of his features were her favorite. It was stupid, this whole thing, but she had a hard time getting ideas out of her head once she had them, and often about much less important things. She didn’t want to have to say it, to come right out and tell him to date her, but desperate times, she supposed.

“You date me, I date you, that’s it.” Easy enough. She shifted, shrugged; she was going to hate herself tomorrow.

Harlan had never seen Honey like this. It was jarring, really, to watch as she grappled with whatever it was she had come there to accomplish because he had grown so accustomed to seeing her so self-assured. If he were being frank he thought of her as a bit of an anomaly. Even when she presumably didn't, Honey always came across as having everything figured out. She had an answer for everything and delivered it in a way that could make even the strongest of willed second guess their own opinion. Now, though, she was almost floundering.

Following the stream of consciousness as best as he could, the wizard fought a smile underneath furrowed features. It felt wrong to feel so gratified in seeing someone struggle, but he was. She was showing a side of herself that he had only previously caught fleeting glimpses. In all of her bravado, Honey had always kept him (and presumably others) at a comfortable distance. Something that he identified with all too easily.

He let Honey continue without input on his end apart from a few nods to acknowledge that he wanted her to continue. He didn't want to slow the momentum now, not yet. Without knowing, his own posture had shifted to mirror the physical output of her own opening up. Harlan's hands rested comfortably now on the back of the stool, his shoulders relaxed and jaw unclenched.

Despite himself, and everything in him that had been conditioned to be innately cautious of this sort of thing, Harlan wanted it. "Honey Flume, are you asking me out?" He leaned forward to bridge some of the distance between them despite the fact that he was still seated. He, selfishly now, wanted to hear her say it in as many ways as possible.

"What would Miss Skeeter think of this?" Harlan's voice lowered, reaching an arm out to bring her closer. Really, though, what would anyone think of this? What would anyone think of the possibility of the two of them giving an actual relationship the chance to breathe? The thought did his head in. They had both been so quick to sabotage anything before it became too real that he imagined the unchartered territory would be just as new to everyone else as it was to them.

His hand resting now on her waist, he pulled Honey to the open space in front of the stool and studied her for a moment. In her vulnerability, he saw something that had somehow outshone the countless times that he had seen her captivate a room with her charisma. "Merlin, we're in trouble," In his nonanswer was his answer. They were going to do this thing.

Honey had talked herself out. She thought she came to some natural pause, silence that he should fill by responding (though he could physically respond and that would be just as good, she supposed). Was she asking him out? Honey responded quickly, automatically with her first instinct: “‘Course not.” But Harlan leaned forward and she remembered why she was there; she had already embarrassed herself beyond repair; she wouldn’t have (nor take) the chance to say this again. “I’m asking you out,” she corrected herself, “Definitely asking you out.” She could use another drink.

The expected response — Harlan laughing and telling her she was drunk (she was) — didn’t come. She wasn’t sure when she started doubting herself, but as he reached for her, her confidence found its way back. “She’d say, ‘Lucky Mr Bellamy’, wouldn’t she?” She seriously doubted that would be the response; she didn’t want to think about how Rita Skeeter — or her brother or parents or Grace — would feel about it; it was already too much to deal with her own feelings about this. She pushed all those thoughts out of her head, trying to focus on the hand on her waist (and needing to take steps forward without falling over).

She would have appreciated an answer, though. She had done all that talking and all he could do was ask about Rita Skeeter? She had half a mind — if even that much because thanks, alcohol — to ask him out again, but that didn’t sound too appealing. He was softspoken at times and she imagined that was one of the many things she liked about him but now she was wondering why, exactly, that was. It was annoying.

Trouble? She didn’t know if she would go that far. Deep shit? Yes — but only if he was agreeing with her, that they would be good together. Date, or whatever. “So that’s a yes?” Honey couldn’t remember if it had been a yes or no question in the first place, but that didn’t really matter anymore. “Should be a yes.” She put her hand over his, reconsidering after a second — that was a much-too-cutesy move for her, wasn’t it — and letting it rest on his knee instead. This was the closest they had been since August; she really hoped she remembered it tomorrow.

Harlan watched as Honey had inevitably found her stride, falling into the outward confidence that he was so used to seeing on her. He knew that whatever it was they were attempting to endeavor was going to be difficult but he couldn't stop it now. Much like Honey, Harlan kept himself at a safe distance from most people as far as anything too personal was concerned. For the last few years, the majority of his connections had been purely physical and he had denied himself the right to need anything more personal. Despite that, though, here he was, doing just that.

Honey, now closer to him than she had been in months, stood at eye level to him as he sat back on the stool. It was both a comforting and terrifying thing to have breached that distance he found as he studied her more closely now. "Well, you haven't officially asked now, have you?" Harlan grinned. He was getting greedy now. He'd hoped that in his jest, she understood that there was no chance of turning her down now. If that were the case, he'd have found a way to politely escape by this time.

"That's a yes," He finally gave in after an excruciating pause. For whatever reason, he wanted to set the precedent that they would have to be equals in this equation if it was going to work. His heart, despite itself, was practically beating outside of his chest now. "Very bossy," He clicked his tongue briefly before pulled her closer and kissing her. This wasn't his usual brand of affection, though, it was slow and intentional. A vast difference to their usual hurried, passionate trysts.

Pulling away before he allowed himself to indulge too much, Harlan stood up with a hand still rested on her collarbone. "You should eat," Harlan decided for her, taking a step toward the kitchen. "Pancakes?" He turned back for a moment. "May still have some of that Honeydukes syrup around here," He smirked, raising a hand to his chin in thought. "Hasn't even been opened," He couldn't help himself from capitalizing on the opportunity to tease her. He had never been big on sweets, after all.

Honey narrowed her gaze; was he serious? She was nearly regretting this, Harlan, the second guessing, everything. She didn’t know how to officially ask, anyway, never mind how to even put what she wanted into words. “I--” she started, unsure where to go, beyond grateful that he interrupted her. Her eyebrows went up, half expecting him to change his mind, just barely refraining from telling him, ‘no takebacks’ before he could get a word in edgewise.

She smiled, her expression of disbelief softening a bit, doing her best to mask her sudden panic as she tried to figure out how horrible her breath was without drawing attention to herself because that was the next logical step, kissing. He spoke, rather than pulling her any closer, and she repeated him quickly, hardly processing what she was saying: “Very bossy.” She didn’t stop herself from rolling her eyes.

He got over himself then, she guessed, kissing her then. It wasn’t what she was expecting -- and if she tasted bad he wasn’t saying anything -- it was slow and sweet and lightyears away from what she was used to with him. She wasn’t about to complain, though; time was already sort of messed up, going slow and fast all at once, all thanks to the alcohol, and it was nice to have something else to savor about the moment.

The moment was over before she could get properly into it -- her hand hadn’t left his knee, for one thing -- and she pulled back for air with a bit of a pout; that, however, was replaced by a smirk as soon as he said she should have something to eat, replaced again by a pout as he mentioned actual food. Her stomach did give a little rumble at the mention of pancakes, betraying both her and the moves she was unsuccessfully putting on him. “Ha-- hilarious.” She was following after him anyway, torn between telling him to shut up and trying to distract him enough to shut him up herself.