do you not think so far ahead?

Honey smirked softly as Harlan ran his hand over her; it wasn’t anything new, and it shouldn’t have been unexpected given how they were sitting, and it definitely shouldn’t have felt so nice. Her expression softened into more of a genuine smile and she relaxed it a bit more because even that was too much. “Good.” She didn’t have any plans to hate him again, so it was good that he wasn’t going to tell her that she should. When had she leaned in closer? She hadn’t noticed doing that.

Fuck, he was drunk; it was obvious before but it was more so now, so close. (That, and he’d mentioned their relationship, which she didn’t think would happen otherwise.) But she wasn’t, which might have been why she was continuing the conversation instead of shutting them both up-- or offering to take him home, like she really should do. “I thought we were.” In hindsight, it should have been clear that there were nothing but red flags, but now she was looking at it with rose-colored glasses or whatever dumb shit it was.

She swallowed hard as she searched his face. “I--” tried, she was going to say, but she didn’t want to sound like she was accusing him of anything (though was it an accusation if he’d actually done the thing?).

His hand was under her jumper and her breath caught in her throat, almost too distracted. “We had our moments,” she said after a few seconds. It was better than saying they were better before, a year ago, two years ago, when she’d almost exclusively seen him when dating someone else. How was that better than properly dating? She brought her free hand up to his arm, her fingers grazing over the fabric on his elbow.

She thought that they were. Honey and Harlan, cut out for a relationship? Even back then, in the thick of it, the idea felt like a foreign concept. He let out a chuckle that was verging on exasperated, both skeptical and smug— the latter oh which he had no right to feel.

Harlan's hand had worked into a rhythm across her skin. Slowly and deliberately he moved up and down her back with the tips of his fingers. The action was another on the long list of things that he was in no place to indulge in that night. "Do you think that?" He paused and attempted to sit up to face her more square on. "Really?" He asked out of genuine curiosity and it showed in his features and in the way that his voice had softened along with them. They had their moments, sure, but what good had that done them?

Vaguely, he was aware of Honey's fingers over the uncharacteristically wrinkled linen shirt where it was rolled up just below his elbow. Thes skin of his forearm was tanned from the summer, hair lighter than usual. He hadn't noticed how disheveled he probably looked until that moment.
 
Harlan rested his hand on her side over her jeans, applying light pressure. "We did," He looked her in the eye and held there. He wasn't exaggerating (he never was). There had to have been a reason they had been so drawn to each other, some otherworldly positive that outweighed the negative. That was the point in which sex blurred all of the lines for him. Biting the inside of his cheek, Harlan thought aloud. "You were always hard to find," Fuck, he really was drunk. "Not—" Literally. "Suppose we both were..." They were masters of running, the two of them.

“‘Course,” she said, before he asked if she really thought that. She swallowed hard, her jaw tensing subtly as she searched his face, as if it might tell her what answer he was expecting. Or hoping. His tone had shifted to something else, something more familiar to the hushed tones they sometimes used in her bed, or his, some sort of genuine interest. Those last few weeks—after his Portree match, the one where she met Bérénice, before he finally told her about Bérénice—she thought things really were going to work.

She couldn’t really focus, though, and she didn’t have the benefit of being drunk to blame for it.

He had both hands on her now and she thought that’d be it. He was drunk but not drunk enough to regret being there, so— she was hard to find. Find how? What was he trying to say? She was there literally whenever he wanted, like now, after literally running across the street to see him. They were both busy and they had schedules to plan around but who didn’t? The answer to that was obvious; professors had weekends and summers off, didn’t they?

“I think if we—“ she paused to consider just shutting him up but she didn’t think she’d get another chance to talk to him like this— “Had more time.” Before he— “I was getting better. Trying, like.” However long they had lasted had been enough to get her like this, all hung up on him even after everything.

Honey leaned a little closer. “You don’t think so?”

Either Honey was dangerously optimistic or Harlan was far more cynical than he once thought. They seemed to have landed on opposite ends of the spectrum as far as how they thought things had been ended between them, and whatever chance they stood at fixing them. Harlan figured he was clouded by the bad instead of the good— both of which there were plenty. “No… it’s not that it’s just—” He began, the soft blues of his eyes were dimmed from the drinks but on fire under the warm light of her living room. They scanned the ceiling before landing on Honey just as she leaned closer to him.

“I don’t know what I think,” Harlan smiled something melancholy to match the sinking feeling in his chest.

He wanted to say that he never felt like a viable part of her life, with her, together. What they had was never going to sustainable at the rate that they were going— hiding away, blaming each other for their own predisposed judgment of themselves. “A lot of things, I think maybe I… projected onto you, my own shit, you know…” Harlan began, his hand slowing as it moved up her back, then back down to anchor at her side, his thumb running along her skin where it met her jeans under her jumper.

He had no right, he knew, to indulge in enjoying the way she felt under his palm, but there he was.

Harlan ran his tongue along the inside of his lip in thought, catching her eye again as she remained steady over him. The question had been plaguing him since they ended things—  was he so skeptical of her only because he was of himself? In hindsight, he didn't know who he trusted less. He adjusted to run the hand that had been on her side through his hair, then down over jaw. He'd said sorry enough and that left a chasm of quiet as he tried to find the words that he wanted to say.

Instead, he did what felt natural, his hand pulling her gently down at the nape of her neck. He paused to study her eyes, give her a moment to stop him, before running his lips over the side of her mouth, bordering her cheek. It wasn't the feverish kind of kiss that usually classified their rendezvous, but something more of closure.

It wasn’t that, but then what was it? She couldn’t tell if he was agreeing with her, that he was acknowledging her trying; maybe he just didn’t know the extent to which she had tried. If she’d been more honest at the start about things--people, specifically--then it would have been easier to show him how she’d been actively trying, avoiding situations (and people, again). But-- Harlan didn’t know what he thought, and Honey was having a hard time figuring out what his expression was trying to say.

She didn’t want to lean back now, but it felt like the moment to lean in any further had passed. She didn’t return his smile; this didn’t feel like a particularly happy conversation. She wished her gin was within reach, but she didn’t take her eyes off of him to confirm if it one way or the other.

“Yeah,” she agreed quietly, though she wasn’t really following. Projecting what shit? It was hard to think with the way his hand was moving over her skin, his palms less rough than she remembered. He rested his hand but kept his tumb grazing over her skin, making it just as hard to think as ever.

They were quiet for a few more seconds, and she watched him fidget under her, lost in thought maybe. She always thought she knew what he was thinking, but she didn’t think she could even take a guess now. This wasn’t them, this sort of conversation, directly (and civilly) addressing whatever problems they might have had. It wasn’t like her to not know what to do in a situation, especially one with Harlan.

So when he reached for her, she gave up trying to read past that drunk-Harlan look in his eyes and leaned in to the familiar feeling instead. It wasn’t immediate; Honey decided to ignore his hesitation and half a second later he had pulled her even closer. She closed her eyes, sliding her hand up his arm, brushing over his shoulder before she reached for the side of his neck. She had been expecting something more, anything other than the sort of kiss she got. It felt wrong, almost, like one of those chaste kisses on the cheek when they had something to hide in public.

Honey pulled back as far as his hand would allow, catching his eye for a second before she decided she didn’t want to question what that was, didn’t want to talk anymore. She pressed her lips to his, properly, insistently, her thumb tracing a line along his jaw.

One part of Harlan was hoping for that god damn curious look in her eye to turn into something tangible— and the other knew what would happen if it did.

He was lost in an instant in the way that her lips pressed against his— nothing like the half kiss he hadn't fully committed. In hindsight, he hadn't fully committed to any of the feelings he had about her. It wasn't new with them, to be grappling between sex and something slightly more edifying. They constantly edged the place where they were just about to open up only just to fall back into a familiar pattern.

Harlan shifted so that he could get a better hold on her, to pull her closer toward his lap. The act was that of pure muscle memory, reminiscent of so many other times that they had found themselves inexplicably together. Without thought, his hand went to the back of her hair, his leg pressing up against her thigh between her own.

"Fuck—" It wasn't a singular moment of clarity, but Harlan could have sworn it might be. Either way, deep down, he knew it wasn't his place. He breathed into her neck, unwilling to give it up just yet, hand wrapped around the back of her neck with her familiar red hair tangled between his fingers. He pulled back so that he could scan her eyes, doing his part to not linger too long on her mouth for fear it might stop him. "I should go," He shifted on the armchair.

Honey didn’t need any convincing to move with him as he shifted; it was so easy, so familiar. She dropped her hand from the back of the chair where she’d been propping herself up, moving to brace herself with Harlan instead. She kept her hand on his waist for half a second before she started tugging at his shirt, wanting it free of his waistband. She moved her other hand around the back of his neck, her fingertips brushing his hairline before she slid them up further, leaning in as much as she could without getting in the way of her efforts to undress him.

She made a disappointed noise when he stopped, opening her eyes when he swore, tucked into the nape of her neck. She closed them again when she realized he was still holding her, hadn’t stopped that at least. Her breath was coming heavier, almost caught in her throat.

But Harlan pulled back and Honey opened her eyes again, bringing her gaze up from his lips to meet his eye, almost anticipating— I should go. There it was. She opened her mouth to tell him no, he should stay, but she closed it again after a second. This wasn’t like last time, when it was clear they both would have continued if they hadn’t been interrupted. She didn’t want to push him into regretting anything to do with her; it felt like a very mature decision to be making, out of character for her.

She swallowed hard and loosened her grip on him, nodding slightly. “Aye.” She waited a beat before shifting her weight off of him, too—as if he might change his mind—and tucking her hair behind her ears, give her hands something else to do. “Right.” She should offer to apparate him home—he was drunk—but she didn’t want to, didn’t want to be there and not stay with him. She didn’t think he’d change his mind about all of this between here and there. She’d sat up but she hadn’t given him too much space otherwise; she tilted her head toward the fireplace. “Can you floo to London, at least?”

Honey made a sound that nearly brought Harlan to his knees, but—

His mind was made up.

Perhaps it had been made up longer than he even realized, but all at once, it was clear that he had no other choice but to leave. If he were being less self-serving he would have decided that it was for her own good, stopping, but he knew it was just as much for his own benefit. The fucking-merry-go-round that they'd become so akin to jumping on and off of as it pleased them wasn't doing any favors, for either of them.

Harlan reluctantly kept his eyes off her as he disentangled himself from her limbs, his face hot from being pressed up to her neck, the rest of him in even worse of a state. "Yeah, I can," He did little to inspire confidence in the way that he spoke, deflated almost, and tired. He had to stop doing it, the voice in his head was loudly reminding him.

With the hand that had been gripped to Honey's side, making its way over all of her bare skin, he tapped with a few fingers. Harlan was mindful of being too brash, pushing her off of him. Eventually, he peeled himself from the armchair, adjusted himself, and glanced around the room. He hadn't brought anything with him— but somehow it felt like he was leaving a lot behind.

"Your floo powder?" He looked to where the little set was usually affixed to the fireplace mantle before realizing that it was on the opposite end. Had it always been there, he wondered? Was that another thing that he missed? "Right, then—" There wasn't much else to say. Harlan took a deliberate step forward, catching her eye one last time, apologetic, before the green flames engulfed the space where he had been.

fin

Honey nodded; he could floo. She was trying not to read into how he was sounding--could one be too drunk to floo?--and didn’t try to persuade him to stay, as much as she wanted him to. He reminded her she was still practically sitting on him and she stood up quickly, too quickly for her head, but she did her best to play it off by adjusting her jumper as she moved a few steps away to sit on the arm of the far side of the sofa. She wanted to look anywhere else, anywhere else but Harlan, but that was exactly where her gaze kept drifting back.

“Mantle.” She pointed but did nothing else helpful. She couldn’t figure out if she was hurt or offended or sad or angry or a little of everything and she wasn’t willing to find out the answer. “Right.” He looked at her finally and she narrowed her eyes a little because what was that look about but he was gone before she could open her mouth to ask.

Right then.

Honey stood up again, her eyes still on the fireplace, flames back to their warm orange-y glow, willing him to change his mind and pop right back. But if he did--and it was a big ‘if’--it’d be best if she wasn’t here. She could go down and work but she was the wrong kind of worked up for that. There was the second, more obvious distraction-- but she was mad at Will--the games--and Charlie was out of the country--the tour--and it would take far too much explanation to get Grace up to speed with everything and once she thought about it, she didn’t think she wanted to see a familiar face anyway.

She turned, apparating somewhere the pubs were open later than ten.

[[ end ]]