please i beg u harry x reader age gap where harry is a bit insecure
OVER THE HILL ೃ࿔ HARRY LEWIS .ᐟ.ᐟ
summary: harry is about to turn thirty, and suddenly it’s like everyone around him has decided that means he’s basically ancient
content: age gap relationship, insecurity, mild angst, hurt/comfort, established relationship
a/n: this is just harry being deeply dramatic about ageing and then immediately getting shut down by josh AND reader because they have no time for his existential crises lmao
The joke starts with Ethan. Most things do.
"Right. Who wants to help me plan something absolutely humiliating for Harry's thirtieth?"
JJ immediately sits up. "I have ideas."
"I'm twenty-nine," Harry says.
"For another, what, five months?" Ethan says. "You're basically thirty, mate. You're on the slope."
"The slope," Harry repeats.
"Downward." Ethan makes a gesture that clearly represents a long decline into nothing. "Over the hill. Out of your prime. You're not going to be the baby anymore, H. What are you going to do with yourself?"
"I'm going to put you through the wall," Harry says pleasantly.
The thing is, it's not about the number.
He’s never cared about getting older. Or at least that’s what he tells himself. He watched the others turn thirty, watched them treat it like a funeral, and thought: that's not going to be me. He is not someone who does that. He is fine. He has always been fine.
The number is fine.
It's more... it's more that you're twenty-four.
It's more that twenty-four means something he's already moved past. The uncertainty. When everything still felt possible.
He remembers twenty-four. He was posting from his and the Cals flat, uploading videos at 2 am, not sure what any of it was going to be.
You're in that. You're in that age right now,and he's watching you from the outside of it like someone looking through glass.
He's already done things you haven't. He's been to places, made mistakes you don't know yet. He has six years of getting it wrong and figuring it out that sit between you like sediment, and sometimes he looks at you tucked into his side, making plans for things that are still ahead of you, and he thinks: She's going to want someone who's still in it with her.
Not someone with knees that crack on the stairs.
Not someone who remembers a version of the internet she was too young for.
Not someone who's already done his stupid years.
He doesn't say any of this, though. He's Harry. W2S incarnate. That's not him. Those insecure thoughts. And so he says nothing, and he makes a joke about Ethan's mom, and he pushes those feelings away.
Until Josh finds him in the car park.
It's much later now, and the afternoon has gone soft and slow. Most people have gone home, and Harry's leaning against the wall by the back exit, staring off into space.
He doesn't hear Josh until he's already next to him, and even then, Josh doesn't say anything straight away. Just sits down beside him, close enough that their shoulders are almost touching.
"You've been weird today," Josh says eventually.
"I'm always weird."
"Different weird." He pauses. "Since what Ethan said earlier."
Harry's jaw moves. "It's nothing. Ethan's a div."
"Yeah, he is," Josh agrees, easily. "But it got into your head."
Harry doesn't answer. That's an answer enough. They sit there for a moment, and somewhere across the car park a door bangs shut.
Josh finally turns to look at him. "The thirty thing, or the other thing?"
Harry looks up, his brows furrowed. How did he know?
"I pay attention," Josh says, like an apology almost.
There's a long pause. Harry's mouth does several things without committing to any of them.
"She's twenty-four," he says finally.
"Yeah."
"She's..." He stops and exhales through his nose. "She's got all of it still ahead of her, Josh, like… everything. And I've done all of it. I'm not... I'm not going to be figuring anything out alongside her, am I? I've already figured it out. She's going to want someone in it with her."
Josh is quiet for a moment.
"You think she doesn't know that?" he says.
Harry frowns. "What?"
"She's twenty-four," Josh says. "Not twelve. She knows how old you are, H. She knows you've already done things. And she’s still here." He says it like it's obvious. Like, Harry has somehow missed the most basic part.
Harry stares at his feet.
"You’ve seen the way she looks at you. Don’t act like you haven’t," Josh says, quieter now. "I have eyes. The boys have eyes. It's very obvious, honestly. It's a bit much."
Harry makes a noise that might be a laugh.
"Thirty's not over the hill," Josh says. "And even if it was, she'd be right there with you. That's the point." He squeezes Harry's shoulder once, firmly, and leaves.
Harry stands in the car park for another moment.
He doesn't figure anything out by the time he gets home. That's fine. Some things take longer than a car park.
You're already there when he arrives, key on the entry table, shoes off, settled into the sofa corner with your laptop like you belong there, you do, which is still sometimes a thing that catches him sideways. A documentary is already on. He doesn't remember agreeing on a documentary.
"You eat?" he asks.
"Mhm... Had yours as well," you say, not looking up. "Sorry."
He huffs out a laugh and settles down beside you.
"You're quiet," you say after a while.
"I'm always quiet," he says.
You looked at him over the top of your screen. "You literally have not stopped making noise since I met you."
He smiled despite himself and went back to his phone, scrolling without reading anything.
You watched him for a moment, then closed the laptop.
"Harry."
"Mm."
"What's going on?"
"Nothing." He could feel you still looking at him. "I'm fine."
"Okay," you said, and the careful neutrality of it was worse somehow than if you'd pushed.
You knew him well enough by now not to force it. Which meant you also knew him well enough to know something was actually wrong.
He put his phone face down on the cushion.
"Do you ever think..." he started, then stopped.
"Do I ever think?" you repeated, brows raised in amusement.
"That like..." He stared at the television. Some kind of bioluminescent creature drifted across the screen, slow and alien-like. “Like… I dunno, that maybe you’d be better off with someone your own age?”
The silence that followed was very still.
"No," you said sternly.
"I'm not... I'm not doing the insecure boyfriend thing. I'm just." He shifted, and his knee made a noise, a small but distinctly audible crack, and he laughed once, humourless. "I'm asking. Genuinely. Because I'm gonna be thirty, yeah? And you've got... you've got years of stuff you haven't done yet. Stuff I've already done, or I'm past the point of doing, and-"
"Harry."
"I'm just saying there's gonna come a point where-"
"Harry, stop."
He did. He looked at you.
You'd turned fully to face him, one knee pulled up to your chest. Your expression wasn't pitying, which he'd been half braced for. It was something firmer than that.
"Thirty isn't over the hill," you said.
"I know that," he said, which was partially true.
"And even if it was, which it is not, and I'll fight whoever said otherwise, that doesn't have anything to do with you and me. Where is this actually coming from?" You tilted your head slightly.
He didn't say anything.
"The lads been at you?"
A pause. "Little bit." He exhaled. "And the comments. Just... you know. The usual. Wroetoshaw's getting old, past his prime, gonna be over the hill-" He did a vague, dismissive gesture with his hand, like he could wave it off. "It's stupid. I know it's stupid."
"It's not stupid if it got in your head."
"It kind of is, though."
"No," you said, simple and firm. "It's not. You've always been the youngest. That's been part of how you see yourself for years. That's a weird thing to shift."
He bit his lip. "And the age gap thing-" he started.
"Is not a problem."
"You don't know..."
"I know what I want." Your voice didn't waver. "I know it's you. And I know you're acting like turning thirty is going to make you a completely different person, and it's not, it's just going to make you the same annoying, idiotic, actually quite soft person, but with maybe slightly more creaks in the joints-"
"Oi," he said.
"-and that's fine. That's what I want. That's what I signed up for."
He was quiet for a moment. The documentary kept going in the background.
"I just don't want you to look at me in five years and think you missed out," he said, and it came out quieter than he'd intended. "Like... there's things you'll want to do that I've already-"
"Then we'll do them again," you said, like it was the simplest thing in the world. "Or we'll do different things. Harry, I'm not with you because of what you have or haven't done. I'm with you because of..." You paused, and he thought you might go soft on him, say something earnest and devastating, but instead the corner of your mouth turned up. "Well. I'm still working out exactly why, frankly, given the state of you."
He laughed, properly this time, and it broke something loose in his chest.
"Cheers," he said.
"Any time."
He reached over and pulled you into him, and you went without complaint, tucking yourself against his side like it was somewhere you'd been a hundred times. He pressed his mouth briefly to the top of your head.
"Thirty's not that old," he said, after a while.
"It's really not."
"The lads are all older than me still."
"Every single one of them."
"And I've still got a better hairline than JJ...."
"Objectively." You smiled.
On the screen, the deep-sea creature had found something luminous in the dark and drifted toward it.
"My knees are gonna be even more embarrassing in another few years," he said.
"I know," you said, and you sounded completely unbothered. "I've already made peace with it."
He tightened his arm around you, and neither of you said anything else for a while.