caruso | harlan

She looked back up at him and Harlan, for a moment, felt like they could be in a different time. A different place. That they could be those people again.

He swallowed the thought, his gaze lingering for a breath before flicking over her shoulder at the couple waltzing by as if they couldn't possibly be more unaware of what was happening in front of them. The realization hit him that the same could be said for so many of the conversations around them; everyone was living in the complication of their own lives that he too was wholly unaware of. He looked back to Bérénice with the thought still in his eye.

She was young and foolish.

It was a sentiment that he could relate to. Though it did leave a sinking feeling somewhere in his chest.

"Anything," Harlan brushed aside the notion of cost, studying the work of art in front of them once more, that time more decisively. There was no galleon figure that he wasn't willing to pay, and Nice knew that, he thought. "I'll have Mads—" She asked where he would hang it, and his breath caught, only just, in his chest. He glanced over to Nice as his side. "You know as well as I do the painting chooses it's home," He quirked a brow.

Truthfully, he would put it anywhere just to own it, to feel the sting of nostalgia whenever he wanted it.

She kept her eyes on Harlan’s features for a moment longer after he turned back to the painting, grateful for another chance to study him up close — her warm gaze lingering on the lines of his face, the steely focus of his light eyes, and the once-familiar patch of silver-greys behind his ear. It was easy to feel like every time she looked at him now might be the last after what had transpired between them.

Nice met his gaze and smiled, encouraged by his teasing expression. “You’re right, of course.” She lifted the last of her champagne to her lips and finished the glass, glancing back at the painting one final time — final because though she was reluctant to leave the conversation they hadn’t really had alone, now wasn’t the time nor place to find out exactly how he felt about all of that—about her—and, flute emptied, with their friendship salvaged, this seemed like the appropriate time to depart and let him enjoy the rest of his night without whatever reminders she carried around with her.

“It was good to see you,” she said, her head still facing the painting. The brunette didn’t look the Quidditch player in the eye as she turned towards him, one hand lightly resting on his bicep as she leant up and brushed her lips against his cheek — lingering there with her eyes half-closed for longer than was entirely proper.


[ out ]

Harlan faltered. They held eye contact for a breath longer than he'd intended, and longer than he knew what to do with. "Mads will—" He began again before gesturing vaguely around them as if that clarified and as if he wasn't entirely lost in his own train of thought. "—organize a portkey pick up," He finally finished. The logistics of cost and transportation felt like an ill-earned afterthought. He knew he ought to not be afforded such luxuries, but they were luxuries he'd gotten used to.

Bérénice said it was good to see him and while he had preempted the leaving of it all, there was an unmistakable hesitation in his reaction. With every move she made, he moved belatedly, like he was playing catch up. Her hand wrapped around his arm he countered with one at the small of her back, and her lips on his chick he was too late to mirror.

"As always," Harlan returned with a slight bow of his head as they eventually removed themselves from each other. He wasn't sure when the next time he would see her would be, or when he would want it be, but it left something of a lingering question in the air between them. He figured she hadn't missed that. "Keep up with the muscle," He grinned, a reference his earlier comment. She didn't need luck, of course, but he felt the need to say it either way.

fin