exactly how i feel [harlan]

Some candy was tedious, with lots of little details that required precise attention that made the day fly by; other candy was very much the opposite, monotonous and mind numbing; Honey was working on the latter. Hearing the bell above the door chime was nothing short of a godsend. She pushed the molds away and straightened up, heading back out into the shop proper, fully expecting a legitimate customer to be wandering the shop but finding someone much better.

“Harlan--” He wasn’t who she was expecting, not during business hours, not when he was supposed to be in Bali. She wiped her hands on her apron and pushed the hair out of her face; she smiled despite wanting nothing more than to have the opportunity to clean up a little bit. Last week -- after the Easter rush and before he left for his holiday but right in the middle of Honey catching back up on her sleep -- hadn’t been her best look, falling asleep before they could-- she was meant to make up for it properly when he was back, anyway. “You’re back early.”

She grinned; it didn’t look like anything was wrong -- anymore than Harlan’s usual little frown -- and she eased into a smirk. “Couldn’t wait to see me?” That was only sort of likely; more likely was that she had gotten the dates wrong because remembering details unrelated to her business was not her strong suit.

He looked good, tan, relaxed; it almost convinced her holidays were a good idea. She snaked her arms around his waist and got close, as close to saying that she missed him without having to actually say anything. “We’re nearly closed,” she said instead, hoping he wasn’t planning to make this a quick visit. She could move up the ‘making it up properly’ to tonight; she’d be fine with that.

@Harlan Bellamy

Bali had gone better than he'd anticipated. Apart from the snag with Alannah regarding the Prophet article that he had been all-too-keen to see the end of, the team had made it through the trip with any major incidences (so far). And when it came to The Griffins, that was a major feat— though, their usual fights weren't typically against one another other.

Harlan had decided on the second to last day of the trip that he had overstayed, on his terms. A homebody by nature, and perpetual over-worker, after the third day of living aimlessly on the beach with a cocktail, with no real responsibility, he knew he would go mad if he stayed any longer. Besides, he figured it was good for the younger ones on the team to get to know each other without their captain around for fear of any punishment he might inflict at the next training. 

It didn't help either that all he could think about was sex. The last time he saw Honey— coincidentally the first time either of them really had time to spend together for weeks— she'd passed out after work. He knew he couldn't be mad at that, and he wasn't, not really anyway. But it certainly wasn't helping his ability to focus on anything else.

"Don't flatter yourself," He teased, an arm sliding around her waist, quickly dropping, while the other was held behind his back concealing what he'd brought back from his travels. Honey wasn't really a flower kind of person, and he sure as hell wasn't going to bring her back any more sweets (she had enough of those), so he settled on something a bit more... local.

"Back early and I've brought you something," Harlan corrected, quite proudly. He gave her backside a brief squeeze before taking a half-step back to present the brown paper bag. "Go on, then," He prompted her to have a look inside.

"Fried dragonflies," Harlan raised an eyebrow to gauge her reaction.

It could have been worse— he could have brought the bats, or the cobra blood. "Don't eat them all at once, now," He joked as he handed the bag over before nodding to the back door. "A drink on the job?" He hoped that she had been working in the back as she usually was around this time of the night. Though he would, of course, prefer that she didn't have to work at all, he was perfectly happy to watch her while she finished up— so long as it didn't take too long.

“Don’t flatter myself,” she repeated with a grin, rolling her eyes. He might have been able to hold out one more day without seeing her but even so, he was there when she hadn’t been expecting him. It was almost like before, when they weren’t dating dating and they never really scheduled seeing each other; they always seemed to end up together, right place, right time.

Honey raised an eyebrow and bit her bottom lip as he corrected her; he’d brought her something and she’d give herself one guess to figure out what that something was. She got as far as one kiss along his jawline before he stepped back (with a simultaneous ass grab; tease) and presented her such a nicely wrapped gift. She took the bag from him and offered a look somewhere between bemusement and exasperation. “You shouldn’t have,” she said, looking in the bag and-- she put her hand in the bag to pull one out, not really sure what she was looking at.

“What?” She looked from the fried dragonfly in her hand -- it had retained its shape really well, she’d have to give him that -- to Harlan, grin shifting toward a laugh. “Gross.” She held it out to him and waved it around a little bit. “‘Course not, I’ll share.” Honey made and sold some weird things at the store -- fly fudge, cockroach clusters -- but these were new, unexpected. She’d figure out what to do with them later, once she didn’t have a fit man distracting her (and once she figured out who she could get to taste test dragonfly drops).

She shrugged, putting the dragonfly back in the bag and folding it closed again, perking up at the idea of a drink. “I think I could make an exception for you,” she offered, as if she hadn’t often made the very same exception for him multiple times before. “Fergie and I finished off the good Scotch last night,” she said as she headed back to the kitchen, setting the bag down on the first empty bit of counter she spotted. “But help yourself to whatever. I don’t have much left.” She motioned vaguely toward the large slabs of fudge on the counter along the far wall.

She grabbed the bottle of gin for herself and went about fixing herself a not-too-strong (by Honey’s standards) drink with pink lemonade, setting out another glass for Harlan. “So how was it? Did you rest and relax and--” she was looking for the word ‘recuperate’ as her mum and often reminded her those were the three R’s of a holiday but she was coming up short-- “You look good,” she finished instead, giving him a once over after she had finished fussing with her drink.

Honey played along, he grinned in return. A part of him wondered if his gift may have backfired, but as usual, she surprised him. He thought fleetingly of how it would have gone over with any of his more recent flavors of the month— not nearly as smooth.

"Without me?" He asked, following her direction to the back, letting out a deep sigh and trying his best to be offended. When it came to her brother, he tread carefully. When it came to her whole family, really. They would cross that bridge when they got there. He wasn't pushing for a Flume family dinner anytime soon, and it seemed she wasn't either. The Bellamy's had been painful enough for the year.

Harlan took a glass and filled it once Honey was done with her pink concoction that he eyed suspiciously as he poured. His was decidedly less complicated— in fact, it was the least complicated, straight up, one block of ice in the middle that he'd procured with a flick of his wand. Gin wasn't his first choice, it led to questionable decision making, but how much trouble could he get into here, with her, alone.

"Something like that," He breezed over the compliment and pulled himself up to sit atop the counter facing Honey. Under any other circumstances, he'd have put some space between them, given her room to keep working, but now all he could think about was touching her. So he did— knee pushed against her side as he leaned to sit back on the palms of his hands.

"It was nice," He began. "Even you might like it," His brow wavered. He held on divulging any of the conversations he had with Alannah just yet. They didn't seem all that important now. "There are a few shaded areas," He joked, giving her an affectionate nudge with his leg. "Good to be back," He concluded.

"And here?" He canvassed the room. It was less messy than it been weeks prior, but still, hectic. "Things slowed down?" Absently, he studied the bowl beside him with what looked to be dark chocolate. Given the last time they had any time together she was too exhausted to even stay awake, he sure as hell hoped so.

He went for the gin — and only the gin — and Honey grinned, close to a smirk at the idea of what kind of night that choice suggested for them. She didn’t think there was any work that really had to be done that night, nothing that wouldn’t be just as easy to do in the morning but then again, she only had so little left. They could get just as gin soaked in twenty minutes.

“Something like that,” she repeated before taking a sip of her drink. She couldn’t imagine a beach holiday would be anything other than relaxing — except perhaps annoying or stressful but that was why she wasn’t the one on holiday — but she wasn’t about to push it or question the real reason he was back early if it really wasn’t just to see her. Honey leaned into his touch, her hand finding a comfortable place just above his knee, doing her best to not get distracted so quickly; it was a hard task now, mind.

She raised her eyebrows and looked at him properly. “Think so?” She didn’t know how she could like it; maybe if she timed her holiday for a time zone so far away that she could holiday and commute back to work in time; all she’d have to do was give up sleeping, and it wasn’t like that was any sort of a stretch for her. Everything else — the sun and the sand and the— “Ah.” She nudged him back, laughing into her drink. “Sounds like my kind of beach party.” Shade.

Honey shrugged and turned around, leaning back against the counter and draping her arm over Harlan’s leg. “Quite.” Slow, that is. Things were picking back up from the lull in the week following Easter, but it was nowhere near the level of hectic it had been before. “Can even have a proper day off tomorrow,” she added, motioning vaguely at the work that she had left to do. “As long as I finish this.” She pushed herself off the counter and after touching Harlan one last time, she stepped toward her work. “Just have to portion everything out and get it packaged.” It was only a couple trays of fudge and it would be quick work if she didn’t strive for perfection so— it would be just a bit slower than quick.

“But after that,” she turned back to him and tugged the collar of her t-shirt down a little further for a peek. “Am all yours.” She relaxed her hand and turned back to the fudge, setting her glass down so she could get to her work properly. “So how was it, really?” She was talking to the fudge but the question was for Harlan.

They fell into a pattern— his leg pressed against her side, her arm overtop. It felt natural and comfortable in a way that Harlan didn't even know he wanted. He could count on one hand the number of times that he had been content, fulfilled even, by just being around someone aside from a purely sexual aspect (though that did happen to be top of mind).

"Well that was the idea—" He began, immediately distracted by Honey's tangent on what had to be done, even more so by her 'am all yours'. Not that he needed the excuse. Harlan smiled idly to himself, hopping from the counter. The unenthusiastic effort to keep a distance was lost. "Can I help?" He proposed, snaking a hand around the front of her waist from behind. He had never actually helped as it pertained to Honeydukes, he was useless when it came to dessert.

"It was nice— truly," Harlan wasn't sure who he was convincing. He spoke into her ear before reluctantly pulling back to lean back on the counter. He supposed he ought to give her at least a moment to finish up what she was working on, turning up unannounced and all. "We met this crew of kids," He recalled, fighting a smile, eyes flashing to the ceiling. "They were training with makeshift brooms and quaffles, bats—" He faltered. "Had a few scrimmages, left our gear with them," He breezed over anything he deemed too self-righteous.

He watched her intently over the lip of his glass as she worked. "Anyway, that was the idea—" He reiterated his earlier statement. "Figured why not come back a bit early, have you to myself tonight— tomorrow," He knew it was her day off, and he intended to put it t use. Despite the urge to push her against the counter there, he managed to compose himself.

Honey smirked, her back already turned. That was the idea— she wouldn’t have complained if that was always the idea, though she found herself minding less and less that they occasionally had other things to do, too — and maybe she could work just a little faster; good ideas didn’t need to be waited for. “Er—“ her brief assumption that he was seriously offering to help was ignored as he came up behind her, put an arm around her. She tilted her head to one side without thinking, giving Harlan the option of distracting her with kisses down her neck if he so chose. Otherwise: “Should have some more gin,” she said, pressing herself gently back against him.

She had forgotten her question by the time he answered, didn’t really process his words until he took a step back. Honey glanced over quickly as he continued, smiling to herself as she looked back at what she was doing with her hands. She stopped fussing with the fudge when Harlan paused, gave him another look to make sure that wasn’t the end of things, raised her eyebrows when he finished. He wasn’t fishing for a compliment or a congratulations-for-the-charity, so Honey offered him half a grin instead. “Found your replacement, then?” She let her gaze trail toward that patch of greys just behind his ear — the one she loved but couldn’t stop pointing out — with what she thought was an obvious way about it.

“Well that—“ she set her wand down, replaced it with her drink— “Is a good idea.” She smirked, took a sip, reluctantly went back to her work after another few seconds of giving him an obvious once over. “I just have lunch plans,” she continued, pushing a tray of portioned fudge away and pulling the little boxes toward her. Lunch plans were the original reason — she had a pretty good reason now, mind — that she was doing a bit of work that night, get most of her work out of the way so she didn’t have to sit through the meal and stress about what she had left to do.

That, and Harlan wasn’t meant to be in the UK, let alone in her kitchen; she had more or less planned to take her time, have a good chat. The fact that she was meeting Charlie wasn’t a big deal — never mind the origin of the lunch invite or how it evolved from a late-night one — but she knew who she was talking to; she didn’t want to say Harlan could be unreasonable but..

But it wasn’t a big deal. They were attempting the ‘friend’ thing. She was about to say that Harlan could come along if he wanted, but the miniscule chance he might actually go with kept her from going that route; she tried the honest one, instead. “Was going to catch up with Charlie.” Not in London, not in Hogsmeade, but that was only because she could only assume how it must look— for him, the (very) recent divorcé. She didn’t look up from the fudge, didn’t want it to be obvious she was anxious for what might be mistaken as a positive reaction.

This wasn't the first time Harlan suspected Honey a legilimens. With her body pushed back into him, she knew what he wanted, he was sure of it. Arms draped easily around her, he gave a squeeze, both affectionate and teasing, his mouth hovering over the nape of her neck— two could play at this game.

"Should do," Have more gin, that was. He pulled away from her reluctantly to lean against the counter. Gin was the last thing he needed given the thoughts he'd been having. "Sure as hell hope so," He retorted "Give those kids five years and they'll be a lifetime ahead of me," More seriously now. It was something that had been weighing heavily on him as of late— the up-and-comers there to take his spot— though, now, he felt strangely at peace with the idea.

It was probably sun poisoning. Bali, and all.

Honey's gaze wasn't lost on him. He studied her curiously as she honed in on the spot just behind his ear. Those damned greys. He would have scoffed, cursed her even if he had been able to get past his own sentimentality. In an instant, though, the tone shifted. Lunch plans with Charlie. He hated to give the kid the credit, but credit where credit was due— he certainly knew how to ruin the fucking mood.

"Hmm," Harlan focused on now on anything other than her. Even the fudge was a viable option, despite his affinity for anything but. He wanted desperately to be nonchalant, to brush it off, but that wasn't in his nature. There was a pesky voice in the back of his mind that reminded him of the hypocrisy of it all, but he ignored that all too easily. "Sounds nice," He pulled one leg over the other at the knee, holding her gaze when she finally met it.

"He taking you somewhere nice?" Harlan couldn't help but ask, his face dropped, serious again. If the kid's music was any indication, his choice of food may leave something to be desired. There was a market for it, of course, he reminded himself— among people aged thirteen to twenty-two.

Hmm. Honey didn’t look over at him yet, finished closing a few of the boxes of fudge, nodded once. She didn’t think he was looking at her either, not until he said something else, anyway. She didn’t stop moving her hands when she glanced at him. “Does it?” She found that hard to believe and while she should have let things lie -- she’d told him she was going so now she was free to go -- the way he could stay so calm about things made her want something else.

He seemed serious, but Honey couldn’t help but laugh; “No.” She shook her head and looked back down at her work. “He’s not taking me anywhere.” They were meeting at a pub in Edinburgh -- Honey suspected she was Charlie’s sole reason to ever be in Scotland, but that was beside the point -- and she wasn’t expecting him to buy her meal or anything. She moved to cut several lengths of twine, trying to move slowly and keep her focus on perfect packaging.

She shook her head one more time before she set everything down and turned to look at Harlan properly, half hoping he could read her mind so she wouldn’t have to explain herself. “It’s not a big deal.” It wasn’t, truly. “Did you know he’s seeing your seeker?” Honey didn’t think it was serious -- the man had just gotten divorced, after all -- but she left that part out. She nearly asked if he’d let her have lunch with Charlie, considering Harlan and Alannah’s alleged affair but she held back off of that one -- for now. She’d already tried to misplace enough blame, anyway.

Instead she crossed her arms across her chest, then uncrossed them a second later to let them hang at her side. She’d be happy to spend the day with Harlan, but he was the one springing surprises on her and if he kept on down his passive aggressive route -- again -- she didn’t think he’d ask her to cancel.

Fuck no, it didn't actually sound nice, but he didn't think he needed to clarify. Honey knew him well enough, and his face wasn't doing much to hide the fact.

"Right, right, of course," Harlan, despite his perfunctory effort to remain casual, came across callous. "He'll be dropping in then?" He referred to the recent visit from a one, Mr. Baker, to his girlfriend's home after midnight, because he was sad. Apparently, an ex-girlfriend was the ideal candidate for such a thing. Honey had brushed it off, said that he just needed someone to talk to (maybe he didn't have a lot of those), but Harlan, a historied scoundrel himself, knew better.

There was only one reason for a visit like that, and it almost certainly was not to talk.

His seeker. He took another drink. He was sure Honey hadn't meant it, somewhat anyway, but he detected a hint of possessiveness in the phrase, his seeker. Alannah would have his head if he ever said that, particularly after their little run-in a few nights prior. "I do," Well, he suspected after hearing about some article, figured it out after the last match and confirmed it with Al in Bali. He hadn't said it then, but he wondered if she knew what she'd gotten herself into.

Harlan remained still as he watched Honey do the opposite, his eyes curiously alit and almost green under the warm light overhead. Maybe the conversation was making her uncomfortable, that was evident, but couldn't stop himself. "Among a few others, I'm sure," Charlie didn't strike him as a one-woman guy based on what he knew. He pushed down both the fact that they were more alike than he cared to admit and the idea that Honey could just as easily be one of those other few. He knew, better than most, her track record.

“Not doing that either,” she said, not elaborating. She didn’t want him to read into why they were meeting in Edinburgh, because it wasn’t anything to worry about; Hogsmeade was small, boring at lunchtime; London was London. She knew somewhere there was a small part of her telling her she was kidding herself if she thought those reasons were even a little bit believable. Being in either place — with Charlie — was too familiar and she was doing her best to avoid that.

Honey raised her eyebrows. He knew about Alannah and Charlie, then— and was seemingly okay with it. She didn’t know if she had any right to be upset about that; if anything, that meant she had been wrong assuming things about Harlan and Alannah, which should have been a relief. Then again, she and Harlan were too similar; she’d have used that as a good cover, if she was trying to hide something. She wasn’t, of course, but it wasn’t easy to break a habit, or thinking about it.

“Alright, then,” she said, finally deciding on crossing her arms across her chest.

She swallowed, held Harlan’s gaze through his thinly veiled accusation. “You think so?” She wouldn’t put it past Charlie, of course— she had never known him to be exclusive and she supposed his divorce was further proof of what she had figured out years ago — but she wasn’t about to agree with Harlan about him, either. She’d agree with that and then it was only a small step to you’re one of the other women; she wasn’t one of them. She realized she couldn’t speak for her future self, the one who went to lunch with Charlie, but she’d like to think she’d be capable of sitting across from him for an hour or two without losing her pants in the process.

It was hard to keep track of what details she had shared, which she had kept to herself, when she had explained away Charlie’s last visit; there was the divorce, the need to talk, but she was pretty sure she had left out the why, that there were letters bookending the visit, that she’d taken a guess at why he got a divorce (and she didn’t think she was far off).

“I’m dating you, you know.” Had made a right show out of asking him out, too. She didn’t know where she was going with that, but she endeavored. “Just tell me what you want instead of being all,” she shrugged, searching for the word. “Like that.”

They were met with the place they so often found themselves— the one that fuelled most, if not all, of their arguments— neither willing to back down, neither willing to admit their own wrongdoing. Harlan's jaw was terse as he awaited an elaboration on the plans. Of course, that was never going to happen. This was Honey, after all. And they were them.

She was careful to keep her response short, calculated, he imagined. He had done the same so he had no right to fault her for it, but there he was, doing just that. "I do," He repeated cooly, leaning back now against the counter taking more than a mouthful of his drink, though it did little to alleviate the tension. Charlie Baker was effectively him ten years ago, and that man was not satisfied with just the one. Harlan, it seemed tonight more than ever, questioned it too.

It had appeared they were going to keep it up, the mental tennis, the back and forth, but Honey stopped it with, 'I’m dating you, you know'. His smugness faltered, to something more real for a fraction of a second. He wanted to believe it, too. He scoffed internally at the mention of being all like that, as she said it. He knew exactly what she meant but he was too stubborn to address it head-on.

"I didn't say you weren't," He replied plainly, matter-of-factly. The fact that she felt the need to reiterate it, though, in this context, sent an alarm bell off in his head. For something that she was making out to be so nonchalant, it felt incongruous. "I want—" He began, but paused. "—you do what you want to do, Honey," He settled on. He wished he could say that he wanted her to not go, but he couldn't. It was her choice to make, not his, he wasn't her boss.

It was decidedly not his idea of how the night was going to go.

Harlan leaned back against the counter and Honey stepped around him so they were facing each other again. She shouldn’t have been proud of it, using the fact that they were dating as some sort of point of contention. Whatever he had said was laced in accusation, though, so it was only fair — fair that she say it, not that she needed to remind him that things were different now from before.

She thought she saw his expression falter and even if she had only managed to get under his skin for half a second, that was plenty encouragement for her to keep digging further; she couldn’t help it. This probably wasn’t the best way to go about proving that something wasn’t a ‘big deal’.

“Of course you didn’t.” Honey rolled her eyes, recrossing her arms across her chest. He hadn’t said it, but his mind hand gone that direction Hers had, too, obviously, and they were far too similar; similar histories, shared histories — Merlin, they had just had this conversation a few weeks ago when Harlan and Alannah had a workout and he had convinced her it had been nothing. She didn’t think she completely believed him, even if she wanted to. That was just another brand of trying her best at this relationship.

Honey raised her eyebrows expectantly when Harlan led with I want, sent them up a hair farther when he paused. She both did and didn’t want him to tell her to not go, to get mad, to do something. Even with all those (admittedly unfair) options, he still fell short. “Oh fuck off.” Honey dropped her hands to her side before rubbing her forehead with an open palm. “If you can’t be honest with me—“ she realized this was a textbook pot-kettle situation but she wanted to drive home the fact that she was being honest with him, telling him her plans (though she didn’t know what she would have told him had he still been in Bali).

The bell over the front door chimed; Honey’s gaze lingered on Harlan’s face for a second before she looked to the clock on the wall; Honeydukes was still open. She looked back to Harlan before she turned on her heel to see if she could help that customer hurry up.

[[ out ]]

Harlan maintained composure despite himself. Her eyes rolled— accusation clear— would have usually set him off, but this was different. "What?" He asked, genuinely not looking for a fight. More than anything he was curious— of course, he hadn't why? His eyes scanned hers expectantly. Honey, he learned, never really had an answer for that sort of question, so his hopes weren't high.

He let out an involuntary chuckle, amused. "I'm being honest," He countered, speaking plainly and not bothering to cross his arms over his chest. The notion that he was being anything but that would have been laughable if it hadn't gotten under his skin so much. She had a knack for turning things around, he would give her that. So much so that he almost forgot what the fight was about in the first place.

"Right, then," Fuck off, he most certainly would. The bell from inside the shop caught his attention, but he didn't break eye contact until the moment she turned away. Harlan decided then that he was going to put in what he was given in this— whatever the hell it was— and at the moment, that wasn't a whole lot. Finishing what was left of his drink, he apparated with a quiet pop, leaving the backroom of Honeydukes empty again. She could find him if she wanted.

[fin]