VII-2: Oh Marcel (AU part II)
Also called: The Marcel Smut (Read part one here)
Shout out to @overad and @legend-waitforit-harry, my main babes to talk all marcel things about. Also to J(legend-waitforit-harry) and @harrysperfectdimple for being angels and beta reading this big chunk of words T.T you’re the real MVPs
Prompt: Harry, pitifully called Marcel as a sour joke, is a nice, young, straight-A student, with a bully that hates him on a personal level, and what he thinks is an unattainable crush on his bully’s ex, who he’s started to tutor and befriend despite how much he dreams of her in the dirtiest of situations. Maybe little old marcel has a chance?
In which Harry and y/n start to form a beautiful friendship, stained by y/n’s past and Jonathan’s blind rage.
Harry felt relieved as he punched his way through a boxing routine, happy he was able to move around a class due to the teacher cancelling on the original time, so he was free to pick up the sport once more at the gym close to campus. For some reason boxing helped him relax. Something about delivering blow after blow to a punching bag felt very liberating. Like screaming without actually having to scream. Only one thing wasn’t allowing him to fully concentrate on his class.
The instructor had told him to drink water and rest up before the next set of exercises and that’s when he glanced through the glass walls and door that divided the boxing area from the rest of the gym and spotted her stretching. Harry immediately gave his back to her direction and cursed under his breath, eyes blowing wide open. Y/N came to this gym too? It made perfect sense, it was close to campus and it wasn’t that expensive, specially for the students. But he didn’t think he’d ever run into her at any place other than the hallways, when they would, by random chance, intersect in the same building. His hands felt sweaty under the bulky red gloves as he remembered the embarrassment that was talking to her last time when she had come around with his forgotten notebook. Harry, with a fast beating heart, tried his best to focus on just hitting the bag, but his mind would wander and he itched to look back at her. She hadn’t noticed him and deep down he wanted that to stay that way. He didn’t really want her to see him all sweaty and tattoos full on display.
Although, when he thought about it, now that he had finished working at the tech place he had been working as a paid intern at, he didn’t have to wear the mandatory vests, so everyone would see his tattoos full on display when he went back to class later in the afternoon not in his classic button up. His contract ended and he didn’t want to continue working there. Instead he applied to go back to his first part time job at the bakery down the road. He figured he had saved up enough money working at a boring tech firm long enough, so he just waited until his contract was up and packed up his things. He was grateful for the experience and all the things he’d learned but he was about ready to go to a much more fun job that would still give him enough cash to get through campus living. It all worked perfectly with his changed schedule, plus he enjoyed the smell of freshly baked goods any time of the day.
He rushed to the showers right after his routine was over. He stretched in the boxing area, still cautious that y/n wouldn’t spot him, and ran to get clean and changed into some comfortable post-workout attire. Pushing his glasses up his nose he took a big breath before walking as fast as he could without looking like a lunatic, over to the staircase that led to the exit of the gym. He kept his gaze down. Maybe if I don’t look up she won’t see me, he kept thinking to himself in a clearly dumb logic. It’s not that he didn’t want to see her – God, all he wanted to do was see her, no matter when. And talk to her – but it was the latter he could never do when she was in front of him, so he would rather avoid running into her all together so that he’d never end up looking like a nitwit in front of her again.
It’s obvious that if you’re not looking at something other than your feet as you walk, you are bound to crash into something, anything, at some point. Which is exactly what happened to Harry. He felt his body collide with another body and with his luck, before his brain could figure out the shapes and colours, he already knew he had crashed straight into y/n, and since they were at the very top of the stairs, the blow had sent her almost tumbling over. His reflexes kicked in and his hands reached out as he pulled her to him, keeping her from barrelling down the flight of steps.
With wide eyes and at this proximity Harry noticed the light in her eyes, and the redness to her cheeks that was extremely adorable and making him blush and stumble over his words.
“I-I… M’ so sorry!” she smiled at him one of her signature sweet smiles and for a second Harry wondered why he needed cardio after all.
“It’s ok! Hi Harry! I didn’t see you here, came for a workout?” Inside her mind she was slapping herself, because what else could someone go to the gym for? She didn’t know why but Harry made her a bit clumsy. She liked his company; the sudden inexplicable nerves that came with it? Not so much.
“Uh y-yeah. I umm… I took b-boxing back up…”
It was funny to watch. How they both seemed to be at a loss for words, how they both looked a lot more flustered than someone who’d just finished a workout routine. How Harry still had his arm around her and held her very close to his frame. Although this one he noticed and he immediately let go of her, careful not to push her back too harshly, as he cleared his throat.
“Would you like to grab breakfast with me?” she asked suddenly and Harry didn’t know what to answer. So he did what he knew how to do best: fix his glasses incessantly. It was a nervous tick. He’d remove them and wipe them and fidget them back on, tap at them, then push and pull and push and pull as his brain wracked for something to say, or rather tried to remember how to tell the mouth the correct positions to go to so that he could form words.
“I just… I uh… I have c-class…” it wasn’t a lie. He did have class… In four hours. But y/n didn’t know that and all she could do was nod as she made him promise that next time he’d grab a bite to eat with her after the gym, to which Harry had to say yes – not that he wasn’t dying to – and continued playing with his glasses during.
Deep down Harry knew he would never be able to grab a casual bite with the girl that flooded his dreams, the girl that made him reconsider running the treadmill – beyond everything, the conversation had left him breathless and with a heartbeat he could worriedly call a doctor about – the girl that made his chest and pants tight at just the glance of her hips in the fitting activewear she donned for the day. But it was nice to imagine. It was nice to wonder. To think that he could be the confident guy who asks her instead, and takes her out and keeps a nice conversation flowing, enough so he can charm her in some way that she’d want to hang out with him more and more.
It was nice to imagine.
And he didn’t need to imagine it much because he found himself being silently beckoned over by a whispering y/n that same night at the library.
“Hey” she spoke in hushed tones as he sat down in front of her with shaky hands and taking a deep breath. Inhale. Exhale. Harry let out a tiny “hi” in response and forced his eyes to focus on the textbooks in front of him. Y/N understood, after all she was here to study as well.
It was hard not to notice her struggle silently after a while. She kept sighing and every time she erased something she did it a bit more furiously than the last. It was difficult for Harry not to take a peek at her exercises from over the rim of his glasses. With a small grin he figured out the answer to the question with ease in his mind, and leaned his hand over to her notes, circling down the correct option as she looked at him amused and confused.
“It’s Thermochemistry…” he whispered leaning back to pay attention to his notes.
“What?” was all she asked and Harry lifted his book so she could see the front. Of course he was taking Chemistry IV when she was on her second time taking Chem 101 and on her way to fail it again. “How?” she asked to which he just shrugged. Chemistry was his thing. He liked it. In fact he was taking it as extra credits, quite literally just for fun.
“I like it” Harry said taking a quick glance at the clock and noticing it was about time to go. The library was closing soon and y/n also got the hint, hurriedly picking up after herself while staring at Harry. To y/n, any one that liked or could deal with chemistry was a study case. It was her worst subject all through high school, and all the time she lost pulling at her roots to learn it made her eventually hate the matter, so she couldn’t understand how someone could get any of it, let alone also like it to the point of needing or wanting to take the subject 4 times, each with more complex topics than the last. In that moment, Harry seemed like an alien of some sort – specially cause his green eyes never cease to look extremely green – but he also looked like an angel. A blessing.
Harry found himself agreeing to y/n’s claims for the second time that day. Whatever she said – no matter how hard it made it for him to breathe and how much anxiety the thought of her caused him – he found himself nodding to. In his nervous tick he started messing with his glasses when she asked him the craziest thing ever.
“T-tutor… you? Me? I mean…” Her eyes were shining as they walked side by side down the field and in the direction of her building. She nodded excitedly, quietly begging for him to agree. When you put it in perspective it was logical. If you are failing a subject and know someone that could help, why not ask them to help? But even in his smart brain, the situation sounded so insane and out of this world. Him? Tutor her? His palms were already sweaty and his mind felt like it was starting to forget the most basic of the elements in the periodic table. Was it Helium, Lithium, Beryllium? Where was Oxygen again? Still, he was saying yes and agreeing on a time and a place before he knew it.
Biology wasn’t his best subject, but he believed there had to be some substance she expelled out of her body to make him agree to whatever she asked for so easily.
“Not bad” Harry hummed, reading over one of the exercises he’d asked y/n to do, pushing his hair out of his face and sliding his glasses up his nose as he scribbled on the sides of the paper. Compared to how little he had explained so far and how much she seemed to be struggling, the sheet had more correct answers than he thought he would achieve on the second day of tutoring her.
Y/N was sat at his desk in his dorm room and Harry’s sweaty palms had calmed down a lot since she arrived an hour before. The whole idea of tutoring her was still crazy to him, specially when in the back of his mind he knew that before she was set to arrive, he had taken a nap and dreamt, once more, of her riding his thigh and moaning his name in his ear, and Harry just had to jerk himself off quickly before the real y/n showed up at his door. It was hard to look at her smiling face whenever she understood a concept, and not picture how much he would like to have her spread on his mattress under his body, or wonder how accurate her real life moans were compared to the ones his subconscious made in his imagination, but Harry was making his best efforts to continue focused despite the looming memory of that one dream.
“Awesome!” she chirped back, reading Harry’s notes on the sides of her exercises and putting them in her backpack to revise later. Letting out a sigh she picks up the rest of her materials and books. “I’m spent, and hungry” y/n groans and Harry can’t help but chuckle. Thankfully the past study sessions had also served him to not be so stuttery and shy around her, allowing him to get somewhat comfortable when it came to talking to her.
To him it seemed like a miracle that he’d ever be able to be fairly casual around y/n, but he was handling it so well he even surprised himself – and y/n a little – when he let out a “Let’s go grab something to eat then” after she’d stretched and gotten up from her seated position with a smile after Harry’s statement.
That’s how, 15 minutes later, y/n finds herself sat in a booth at a burger joint in front of a Harry that she’d started getting to know slowly. Deep down she was also thankful that she seemed to be getting along with Harry smoothly, knowing how strangely nervous she would get around him. A few weeks back she was completely convinced that Harry never saw her as a friend, considering how he basically avoided talking to her, but she’s glad to see him speaking freely and see herself laughing along with the curly lad as they joke over what’s left of her serving of fries. And y/n didn’t know it then, but Harry felt the same way.
“You know…” she starts, intrigued and amused by how quickly they had grown more comfortable around each other “I always thought you didn’t like me” Y/N’s cheeks are flushed red under Harry’s strong gaze through his frames.
“What? Why?” Harry wonders out loud, fixing his glasses around. How could she think he didn’t like her? Quite contrary, he was shocked she didn’t already know he died inside every time he caught a glimpse of her smiling his way. Y/N shrugs.
“I don’t know, we never really talked much” “I did like yeh. I do.” the words come out of his mouth before he can stop them, and so Harry’s left scrambling to make sure his actual feelings aren’t exposed on the booth’s table. “I mean, you uh… You j-just looked nice and... and I never really knew w-what to say to you, s-so I… I don’t know I k-kept my distance?” luckily y/n nods, understanding what he meant.
“You know what you could have talked to me about?” “What?” “Chemistry 101. We had it together! Maybe I wouldn’t be taking it for the second time if you had spoken to me back then” she jokes, mocking anger and pointing at him accusingly, making Harry throw his head back in laughter. “Oh god. Yeah, maybe” he says, shrugging after taking a deep breath and sip from his soda “but I didn’t want you to hold me back” he smirks, biting back at her joke making her gasp in shock. “Harry!” and they both continue to poke fun at each other and fill the small restaurant with loud laughs that could easily get them kicked out if it wasn’t for the fact that the place was almost empty.
The laughs they share and details they discover about each other, keeps both Harry and y/n busy enough not to see the seething stares of one young bully from across the street. Jonathan’s fists tighten at the sight, almost drawing blood, and if his personal vendetta with Harry wasn’t already personal enough, this had just made it.
Walking to and from his dorm to class was about a level 4 out of 10 of a dangerous situation for Harry. He tried to do it early, or when a lot of people were around so he could blend in and escape Jonathan whenever he could.
And in hindsight, Harry wonders if he’d been more alert and less occupied on what he would teach y/n later that afternoon – and how cute she’ll look once again – maybe he would have noticed that, this time around, Jonathan had a hawk-like vision driven by rage and hunger for his target, him. Maybe he would have noticed that today Jonathan seemed a lot more angry than any other time he’d faced the broad shoulders of what many would call his nemesis. Maybe he would have been more prepared to receive the punch that left him blank for 10 seconds.
Harry couldn’t pinpoint it at the moment, but every kick and shove, came with a venomous tongue, like Jonathan had wanted to inflict so much more damage than ever before. Harry’s ears rang as he felt another blow to his head, and he stumbled back, books long forgotten and glasses surely broken at his side. Was this what getting the shit beat out of you was? Was this his death? He wondered, but thankfully a passerby turned out to be a friend, that rushed to his aid, and through a blurry view, he made the outline of a man that helped him back to his dorm.
Y/N almost about screamed at the sight.
“Oh my god!” she said letting her books drop to the ground and entering Harry’s room, grabbing his face in her hands and inspecting all the bruises. A purple eye, scrapes and scratches along his cheeks, a busted lip and dried blood all around his features. “What the fuck?!”
Harry winced stepping back from her and letting his body down on his mattress. He waved his hand at her, dismissing the issue like it was no big deal, saying it looked worse than it felt, which didn’t ease y/n’s mind in the least, as she dropped to her knees in front of Harry and took a closer look.
“Harry…” “‘M fine, S’just a purple eye and a scrape ‘ere and there” “This is not just a-” “I’m fine” he says taking a hold of her hand and giving her a comforting smile that does anything but comfort her, but she drops it for the time being, looking to his bedside table, where his spare glasses sat untouched next to the broken ones, and handing him back the bag of ice he apparently had pressed to his face before she arrived. Harry insisted on continuing his chemistry tutoring, claiming that if his memory didn’t fail him, her teacher was one for surprise quizzes.
“Harry…” y/n mumbled, poking at his side. He kept swaying and dozing off on her and her worry levels were at about 15 out of 10. “Hm” he groans, shaking his head as if coming back to life. “Harry, please, I’m worried” “S’ nothing. Jus’ a headache… feeling a bit woozy” “What if you have a concussion?” she presses on, biting her lip in fear. Harry needed a doctor ASAP and he was being so stubborn not letting her take him to one. Harry scoffed at her remark. “Christ, y/n, I don’t ‘ave a concussion” but his words were slurred and slower than usual, and the look on her face tugged at Harry’s heartstrings. She was fidgety and scared. He sighed “Fine… if it makes yeh feel any better, we’ll go to the emergency room” “Please!” y/n was on her feet and gathering her belongings in a flash, as Harry swayed to and fro, holding on to his throbbing head and taking slow steps towards her. Y/N tried her best to help the tall man leaning against her small frame on the way to her car, and in a rush towards a doctor before any of the very dark and horrible scenarios in her head could seep in.
Harry’s eye looked better and his wounds had been cleaned properly in a matter of minutes, by a nice nurse that kept reassuring y/n that her ‘boyfriend’ would be fine and she should stop worrying, but she couldn’t as she saw Harry, dead silent on a hospital bed and she sat by his side.
“No concussion miss, we’ve cleaned his wounds and gave him some medication for the pain, he might be a little dizzy and sleepy for a while. I’d recommend he sleeps it off” a doctor had told her with a soothing voice which relieved her greatly – at least the doctor had a voice that could calm her down, and the news she brought eased y/n visibly –
“Hmmm” Harry groaned, not bothering to open his eyes any wider than little slits, when y/n tried to get him back on his feet and towards her car after everything had been cleared up. Y/N took a deep breath in and out, trying her best not to worry anymore. He was fine. Nothing too bad had happened, and now he needed to rest. “C’mon you need to sleep” she gave him a soft smile as she helped him back into his dorm room and on the way to his bed and he groaned. “What time is it?” he whispered letting his body fall on the mattress. The headache was a lot less poignant and they had applied some ointment or whatever, on his eye that would help it miraculously heal faster. “Around 3:30, why?” “Ugh–” he grumbled – ”Have… a class soon”
Y/n’s hands pushed back at Harry’s chest immediately sensing that he’d want to get up and get on his way to a class that he clearly wasn’t in good enough state to attend to. “Jesus, no, Harry.” “I 'afta...” “You can’t attend a class this way. You need to sleep, and that’s final” she added with a stern voice anticipating his interruption. Harry let himself be tucked in by y/n’s delicate hands. “Can’t miss it… Exam soon” his words were cut short, his body ready to shut down, drunk with numbing drugs that he could no longer fight against. “I… I’ll go take notes for you, okay? But you need to sleep” “I have a… complicated note system” “Of course you do” y/n giggles. “I’ll try my best”
Any other moment Harry would refute, but just this one time he nodded to her words and allowed his eyes to close for a second, his bed had something like a magnetic pull suddenly, felt comfier than ever to his bruised body. “Just record it, yeah?” “I got it, no problem. Do call me if you need me, anything, I’ll be back after my class at 5, yeah?” and like a child being taken care of his mother when he was sick, Harry hummed an agreement and felt y/n’s lips drop a small kiss on his forehead. “Take… key” he says however he can, pointing to his keychain by the door so y/n can let herself back in afterwards, in case he was still knocked out from the medication, before settling into his covers with a groan of pain. And with that y/n left to try and make sense of a sociology class and Harry’s complex yet precise note taking system.
Even in a drug heavy nap, Harry can make the outline of y/n’s bare body in his dream, and it’s around two hours later when he wakes up alert, and much more relieved, that he decides he needs a cold shower for two reasons before y/n came back.
He takes a moment in his shower to think about how his life seems to be a dream itself. He still has a hard time accepting the fact that he’s been talking and hanging out with y/n more and more the last few days, and that he can now laugh and joke around her. His heart still beats the same erratic way and his blood rushes in his veins like it used to, and she still haunts his dreams most of the time, waking him up in a sweat and with an itch to press her down on his body, but now he gets to have the real y/n a lot closer than he used to and it’s messing with his head in ways he doesn’t know how to deal with yet.
He’s just stepping out of the shower and into his room, clad in a towel wrapped around his hips and with the cold air nipping at his shoulders, where droplets of water fall from the curly tips of his hair, when the door to his dorm is closed shut after y/n allows herself in. She’s confused at the sight of Harry’s bed being empty only to turn around and crash with his wet naked torso.
“Oh god!” she’s quick to jump back, mimicking his steps in the opposite direction. Cheeks tainted a deep red the same as his. She only gets a quick glance of his body that assures her he is in fact nude, before covering her eyes from the view of Harry with just a loosely tightened towel around his most important parts. “Sorry! Sorry, oh god!”
Y/N was frozen in her spot and so was Harry. He stuttered and scrambled his way around his room to get dressed, holding y/n by her shoulders to move her out of the way of his drawers, as she did her best to keep her eyes away from the image of harry’s tatted nakedness.
When it was clear to look, Harry let her know with a lump in his throat from how awkward the whole interaction was, and y/n made sure to peek through the cracks in her fingers to test the waters, spotting Harry fully clothed, she sighed and proceeded to apologise some more. “I’m s-sorry, I… I should have knocked, I just, god” “I-it’s ok. Uh, yeah…” his fingers came up to fidget his glasses around and scratch at the back of his neck in embarrassment. He tried to focus on the fact that the situation was uncomfortable, and not think of how in his dreams a situation like that would have a very different outcome.
Dropping his notebook on his desk, y/n told him all she remembered of his class, the notes she’d taken were messy but Harry was surprised and touched that she’d tried her best at copying his note-taking style. She had done it with pencil – so in case she made any mistakes, Harry could arrange them later on – and the scribbles on the edges had multiple arrows pointed to different notes and asterisks. He chuckled at the small ‘sorry!’ she had written at the end of the notes, probably when the class had ended. “Thank you, y/n, really.” “No problem, It’s so messy, but hopefully you can understand” she smiled at him, sitting herself at the edge of his bed. “It’s great, it really is. Yeh didn’t have to” he says with his dimples showing and cheeks blushing, sitting down next to her. “Which reminds me…” he says reaching back and pulling out a notebook that seems to be filled front to back “Right ‘ere… ’S my Chem 101 notebook. Figured it’d help yeh a bit t’have it” he hands her the book that is in perfect condition considering it’s been a year and a half since he last touched it or the book has seen the light. “Oh my! Thank you!” y/n’s smile is big and making Harry’s heart do a lot more flips than he thought was humanly possible or healthy.
Y/N couldn’t help but stare at his bruises, happy he seemed to be much more awake and no longer in as much pain, but still sour that he’d even had to go through it in the first place. Harry notices how she grows silent and places his hand on her shoulder trying to comfort her. “Hey, stop… I’m okay” “I feel so bad…” “Don’t… You’ve done nothing wrong and you’ve nothing t’worry about” he says giving her a comforting smile trying to cheer her up, but he’s immediately caught of guard by the shine in her eyes that looks like tears. Y/N surprises him by wrapping her arms around him, causing them to lay down on his mattress in a cuddle. Harry’s heart is beating rapidly, his palms sweaty, and his eyes open wide in shock as y/n lets out soft sighs and sobs on his chest. He rubs loving circles on her back, confused as to why this is making her so upset. “Hey…” he whispers in her ear, pulling her close to his frame “Don’t cry. ’S okay” “I’m so sorry Harry.” “Y/n, it’s not your fault, please…” he stresses, but she shakes her head and looks up at him through tears, placing a hand on his cheek. Her eyes are glossy and her sad expression makes Harry’s heart ache for her, he wants her to smile, always, no matter how taken aback he is when she says her next words. “It is, Harry. It is my fault…”
Thanks for reading! I’m working on part three so that it can be posted in a few days, a week tops. FEEDBACK IS GREATLY APPRECIATED PLEASE!!! I want to know what you think of this and why you think y/n swears it’s her fault? hmmm. Part three will be the last one of this little Marcel story but there are more Marcel ideas in my drafts and I’d love to write more about this specific Marcel if you’d like me to :)
Smooches Iv. XO.
Masterlist || My Ask