Rating: PG-13 for idk cursing, drinking, that kinda stuff idk this isn't too rough :)
Summary: You and Harry have been rivals for as long as you can both remember. Last week, the two of you fucked and you can’t get him out of your head. Now, the two of you are at the same, crazy party, and you just can’t seem to avoid each other. (Inspired by ‘Therapy’ by Khalid).
A/N: ‘Y/L/N’ stands for ‘your last name’ just for clarification.
Happy reading!
“Something that you’re doing has me falling all the way”
Harry had been staring at you all night. He’d been staring at you since seventh fucking grade, actually. His staring had been what initiated your feud. He had been caught off guard by the pretty, smart, witty girl who sat three seats down from him in his seventh grade English class with the droning teacher. One day you’d caught him looking at you for what had felt like the billionth time, so you had leaned forward so the two of your eyes locked, unobstructed by the people sitting in desks between you. “Maybe you should take a picture, it would last a while longer,” you had questioned, the words had flown straight from your lips and bitten into him, he had recoiled as if he had been punched. The only way he could think to respond was more violently than he’d intended.
“Of you? In your dreams, YLN.”
He had spat the words with a tone much more harsh than the one you’d employed and he still remembered how you’d frowned slightly before making sure the teacher wasn't paying attention before spitting out the words, “then fuck off, Holland.” Ever since, the two of you had a rivalry the entire school knew about, that neither of you made any effort to hide.
But then last week had happened. Last week with a club meeting that had ended up in a way so unexpected that you could barely convince yourself it had happened. But you knew it had, of course, as after it’d happened, Harry had grown only colder towards you, his comments carrying more of a sting than usual. You couldn’t tell if you were just extra sensitive, or if something had changed, or both.
But now, it had been exactly a week, and you were both at the school football game. Both of you there to photograph the student section and the game. You and Harry had shared your usual un-pleasantries as you worked, both of you in the school photography club, and the best photographers for the yearbook staff. Harry had bumped into you as you were in the middle of taking a photo and you reprimanded him sharply for blurring the picture you had been so excited to take.
“God, Holland, there’s an entire stadium around here and you decided to walk right where I am?” you’d rolled your eyes and brought up the blurred photograph on your camera screen, doing your best not to show your surprise that the picture actually looked good, as though it had been blurred on purpose.
“Get a grip, YLN, like I would want to get any closer to you than I have to,” he had scoffed. “I probably made the picture, better, anyhow, y’should be thanking me,” he had then turned and walked away, leaving you alone beneath the bright lights of the field to take your pictures.
You tried to convince yourself that you didn't miss the company. You tried even harder to convince yourself that you even remembered why you and Harry hated each other so much.
Your school team won the game, the student section had gone ballistic and shortly after, everyone had piled into cars and headed to a party to celebrate your team’s win. Your friends had convinced you to go, and before you knew it, you found yourself with a red plastic cup in your hands and your bones shaking from the volume of the music that pounded like a pulse in the house.
You were a light-weight, you knew that from the first sip you’d taken that night, not used to the burn and buzz of the alcohol everyone else around you seemed to be tolerating so well. You were so drunk that you saw two Harry’s instead of one staring t you from the other side of the dim room.
“I’m tripping off your love and all the other drugs we’re taking”
At this point, you had injested just the right amount of Jello-shots to make your away across the crowded basement, rolling up your sweater sleeves and walking right up to harry, so close that your chests nearly touched. His friends noticed you immediately and didn't wait to begin giving the two of you some space. Harry smirked at you, crossing his arms, smirking at you. You could tell your face was flushed slightly, partially from the alcohol and partially from the heat of being in a crowded room in your thick sweater
You didn’t really process the image before you, you didn’t notice that Harry’s eyes were red, or that he slightly swayed on his feet unintentionally.
“I don't mean to come off aggressive”
“Why do ya keep starin’ at me, Holland? Hm?” you inquired, poking your finger into his chest in an accusatory fashion. He said nothing, only continued to smirk. “You’ve been mean t’ me all week,” The alcohol that had settled deep in your veins now pushed you on, causing you to step even closer, Harry didn’t back away in the slightest and now your chests were touching, not a measurable space between the two of you.
“Have’nt been this close since they made us dance for gym in eight grade,” Harry teased. “Sure you savored that moment,” you quipped back.
“Why d’ya hate, me, Holland?” you questioned more quietly now, your mood swinging wildly with the alcohol in your veins. Harry’s smirk faltered as you continued. “’S there somethin’ wrong with me? Why are ya always starin’?” now you were pushing slightly on his chest with both hands.
“You fuckin’ had sex with me, like, a week ago, and you’re actin’ like it never happened, was it that bad? Do you despise me, or somethin’? What did I do-” Your voice was hushed but growing louder with emotion.
Before you could continue, Harry’s hands rested on your forearms, holding you steady and silencing you at the same time. You wished that you could self-regulate your actions, but at the moment you didn’t mind because Harry’s touch was a nice kind of warm.
“No, ‘f course there’s nothin’ wrong with ya, YN, you’re the most goddamn perfect person I know,” he admitted quietly, his hands dropping to his sides before he made the bold decision to grab one of your hands in his own. “Let’s go out there,” he said, weakly pointing towards the door that led to a patio. His hands were clammy and slightly shaky in your own, you hadn’t stopped to consider that he was nervous. You hadn’t thought until now that Harry was just as gone as you were, his eyes were pink and so were his cheeks.
The two of you found your way to the empty patio that sat above the large backyard of the house, lots of your classmates mingling around below where you sat, walking around the lawn on legs that made them look as stable as new-born deer.
Harry found a chair around an empty patio table and you sat in a chair across from him, trying to get comfortable as you felt yourself growing more and more sober, the buzz you’d felt earlier beginning to ebb away now that you’d realized what you had done. You’d just made it very clear that you cared more than you’d previously let on to Harry, just as your friends had told you to do for years now. You’d always told them you never would, but you supposed that was now a lie.
“I’m just here to pass off the message”
“So,” Harry began, trying to think of what he wanted to say and how he could possibly say it sounding more put together than he really was.
“So,” you repeated quietly, playing with the sleeves of your sweater, thankful for the light breeze that whispered throughout the backyard, the music in the house seeming more like background noise now through the closed patio doors.
“Why is it so hard to talk to you when I’ve seen you naked- I’ve fucked you, for fucks sake, and I can’t even talk to you,” Harry sighed, running a hand through his hair in frustration, and leaning heavily back in his chair. His feet slid forward just enough to tap against yours at the movement and you winced as though the slight contact could somehow do you harm.
Harry cringed internally at the fact that the unexpected touch made you recoil so obviously. “I don’t hate you,” he spoke out loud, looking up from his hands that were sat in his lap, his fingers tangling and untangling themselves.
You nodded. “I don’t hate you either, don't even know why we have this whole rivalry thing goin’ on, if I'm honest,” you spoke, a quiet laugh slipping past your lips as you looked up to meet Harry’s eyes.
He wished he could express how wild you drove him. Not wild in a way that made him want to beat you at everything the two of you competed at, not the kind of wild that had the two of you shooting comebacks at each other constantly.
No, something about you- everything about you, drove him the kind of wild that made him search up your social media pages and tiptoe around the ‘like’ buttons to fawn over you. The kind of wild that made him want to bring you up at every possible moment, the kind of wild that made his friends sick of hearing about what you were up to. Everyone assumed that it was the rivalry, that his actions were driven by spite but they were wrong, his actions involving you were, and always had, (even since that day in seventh grade) been driven by his feelings for you. Harry Holland had a crush on you. He had since he met you in middle school and some- if not most days, he was convinced he always would.
So when you looked up at him with those pretty doe eyes, and your smile that made him think of stars. Your mannerisms that had made him look up your compatibility according to astrology websites more than he would ever admit.
It had been worse since the two of you had found yourselves kissing in a back hallway after photography club, with nobody around to see. That had ended up with you on top of him in the back seat of his car in what he was sure was the best moment of his life. The two of you had dressed and acted as though nothing had happened. He couldn't get your face, your touch, your taste from his head. He couldn’t stop thinking of how your voice had sounded calling his name as your head was thrown back in his car.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” was all he said.
“Then it’s probably good that we’re talking,” you replied with a small smile.
“I need your therapy”
Harry nodded, he had never needed to talk to somebody so bad in his life, he wondered if this was what having a shrink was like. Probably not, he decided quickly.
“I think I have a crush on you.” You blurted out, you clapped your hand over your mouth for a second before dropping it helplessly at your side, shutting your eyes in disbelief that your self control had dwindled down so much that you had allowed yourself to become so vulnerable.
Harry, on the other hand, had never felt so relieved, so light, so elated in his life. He felt like the sparks that shot out of a dying star, he felt like the rays of sun that warmed the earth, like a firework, he felt like the human embodiment of a lightbulb, a hot air balloon, a candle, a lightning bug, a fireplace,the first rainbow. Harry felt like love poetry and the like the music that pounded in the house. He couldn’t hold back the smile that spread from one side of his face to the other.
“Great, now you’re never goin’ t’ let that one go, might as well start to transfer out of our school now, you’ll probably spread that around like wildfire-” You sighed, pulling one of your legs close to your chest. Harry had never shook his head faster in his life.
“I hope I made the impression that I was always interested, all the feelings I kept in”
“No, listen, I like you too, have for like, forever,”
“couldn’t have liked me for forever, Holland, only ‘ve known ya since year seven,” you quipped, wishing you could suck the words back into your mouth. “Sorry,” you spoke quickly. “old habits die hard, I guess,” you spoke quietly, kicking yourself internally for ruining the mood. Harry laughed a little bit, his eyes crinkling.
“No, ‘s okay, I think you’re funny, ‘s been hard not to laugh at the funny things you say all this time,” he admitted slightly sheepishly. You couldn’t hide your disbelief. “Really?” You inquired, your brows furrowing. Harry nodded his head to indicate ‘yes’.
“said I liked ya, didn’t I?” He grinned, his lips falling slightly as he continued to talk. “I’m sorry, I know I’ve been a real ass t’ you, especially this week. I tried to tell you one time, several times actually, but I could never get it out. Been tryin’ since like, fucking year seven,” He laughed at himself and you tried to process what he told you, taking the adorable sentiment to heart and letting it warm you from the inside out for a moment before returning sharply to the reality of the situation.
“So what should we do? Whatever you want to”
“So what do we do with this? Like, where do we go from here?” You questioned, finally giving voice to your uncertainty. Harry shrugged. Without thinking, you ascended from your seat, rarely letting your eyes leave Harry’s.
You realized, now that you allowed yourself to freely think about Harry, that after the last 5 years of constantly competing, the two of you had learned quite a bit about each other. You knew the face he made when your jokes were no longer funny and he could no longer continue banter, you knew the music and movies and books and classes he liked, you’d learned what he wanted to do for a living nd what his family was like, you realized that you and Harry were more well-acquainted than anyone, even the two of you, would give yourselves credit for.
You walked around the table and within a few quick steps you were upon him again, the two of you connecting as though you had been lovers for years, and not a few days.
You had managed to get one leg on either side of his lap, similar to how the two of you had been in his car, but Harry broke from the kiss long enough to slow you down. “Wait, wait, don’t want t’ have you like this, want to be able to remember every moment in the morning, don't want to take advantage of ya, as bad as I want ya right now, believe me I do,” He spoke quickly, pressing kisses to the side of your face lightly and your neck in between his words. You leaned forward into him, your tiredness catching up to you unexpectedly. The shots you’d taken earlier working against whatever energy you had left.
“I’m not the type for relationships, it’s overrated”
“Are we just going to keep doing this? Just keep this, whatever it is a secret, and not put any labels on it?” You asked, trying to keep your expectations as low as possible to avoid getting hurt tonight by the boy who had come to mean so much to you. You’d heard him say in passing before more than once that he didn't see himself as “a relationship kind of guy.” That was part of what made you leave his car so quickly after you’d finished, pulling your clothes back on and pulling your hair up as quickly as you could, grabbing your backpack from his floor-mats and trying to look normal walking away on slightly shaky legs, forcing yourself not to look back.
“We could still be lovers, that’s all I’m saying”
“Do you want more?” He asked, his hand running encouragingly up and down your spine, the fabric of your sweater making him feel even more at home with you pressed close to him.
“I just know you’ve said you aren’t a relationship kind of guy, so we could still be like, lovers, or something-” your words came out slow but quickly sped up as your nerves increased, worried about saying the wrong combination of words that could send Harry flying away from any form of commitment that was too much in his eyes.
“Whoa, whoa, love, I’m not goin’ anywhere, don’t worry,” he said, and you could hear the slight smile in his voice. You nodded slightly, your face against his chest.
“What do you want?” You questioned, letting on of your hands play with his hair, he hummed quietly at your touch. “I want you,” he finally replied and this made you perk your head up and change your position slightly so the two of you were face to face again. “Meaning what?” You asked, your noses almost touching.
“Meaning,” he paused for a second to think. “I would be a relationship kind of guy with the right person, and I like you, and tell me if I’m wrong, but I think you might like me a bit,” his voice sincere, only carrying the familiar teasing tome towards the end.
“ You’re not wrong,” you assured with a smile, resting your forehead against his lightly, Harry’s hands around your waist.
“Well, YN,” His lips turning up into a smile. “Think that we’re ready to call a truce?”
Heute morgen bin ich, auf ein, wie ich finde, ganz wundervolles (und schön anzusehendes) Projekt gestoßen und dadurch auch auf ein ganz wundervolles Lied.
Das Projekt nennt sich "North" und ist auf Behance zu bewundern. Es handelt sich dabei um eine App, die einem hilft ein passendes Stückchen Natur zu finden, wenn man sich in eben diese begeben möchte. Man kann die Entfernung auswählen (ob zB per Fuß/Auto erreichbar), ob es romantisch oder kinderfreundlich sein soll, doch ein bisschen urbaner (Stadtpark) oder doch so richtig Natur etc.
Schön aufgemacht ist das ganze auch noch und laut Webseite soll es bald kommen. Leider handelt es sich um kein deutsches Projekt und entsprechend ist es konzipiert, aber dann müssen wir hier halt noch selber auf Expedition gehen.
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