Still Sleeping Next To Me

eight

Harry stumbles into the bathroom when the sun's coming up. He's got pillow imprints on his face, sleep in his eyes, and his hair's a mess. "Fuck," he breathes, leaning against the door frame. His shoulders slouch. "Fuck, Lennon. I thought you left."

Lennon's knuckles go white on the edge of the sink. "I wouldn't leave, Harry. Jesus. I thought we'd established that."

"Yeah, I just." Harry is too many thoughts and words and emotions bottled up into one person, too many feelings and not enough time to explain them all. He's too much for even himself. "Yeah, I know. It's just early. Sorry."

"I'm not going to leave."

"Me either." She's not sure if it's a promise that either of them are going to keep, not sure if it's even a promise, but then his hands come to rest timidly on the curve of Lennon's waist. "I won't leave," he adds, softer, reassuring.

He runs the tip of his finger over the bumps of Lennon's spine, making her arch her back with a soft inhale of breath. She doesn't find her voice by the time Harry's brushing over the first knob of her spine, nor the second. Nor the third or fourth, but by the fifth she manages to choke out a little, "'s cold."

"Sorry," Harry mumbles, but he doesn't stop, just presses a bit closer. "Want me to braid your hair, lovely?"

She catches his eyes in the mirror, looks away. "Yes, please."

His fingers, nimble and practiced, rake through her pink locks carefully, massaging her scalp for just a second before separating the wet strands into three equal sections. In the mirror, Lennon can see him focused on the back of her head, a deep furrow in between his brows.

It's something he's done before occasionally, absentmindedly, when it was just the two of them with nothing better to do. It's something that's always toed the edge between friends and something more, something that's always relaxed Lennon as much as it kept her awake.

Because Harry gently braiding her hair is fine, normal, but Harry pressed close behind her while Lennon wears nothing but an old bra and boxers in the bathroom of their cheap hotel in Paris is anything but normal. Lennon isn't sure if anything will ever be normal again. If they've ever really been normal.

"You have something to tie it up with?" Harry asks suddenly. She holds a rubber band over her shoulder and he takes it, twists it gently into the end of the long braid, before letting her hair fall back between the curve of her bare shoulder blades. "All done."

They're too close together for just friends; Harry's curls are brushing against her cheek, his pale fingers bracketing the bones on her hips, like he doesn't want her to move away. Lennon blames his affection on his hangover and hopes that's a good enough excuse for herself as well.

Just friends. She catches his eye in the mirror again. "Can we go somewhere? I want to do something today. Please?"

"Like what?" he asks.

"I don't know. Anything." Her tone is verging on pleading, and she's not sure if it's because she wants to get out of the hotel room or get Harry out of the hotel room or just distract herself for just the tiniest bit, but Lennon is willing to plead for this. "Please, Harry. Let's just do something."

He nudges his nose against her temple. "Yeah, lovely. Let's do something."

* * * *

It's beautiful outside. The air is colder than it has been, a reminder that winter is coming, and in within a few minutes Harry's lips and cheeks and nose are bright pink. The colors, bright and childish, almost balance out the ashen shadows under his eyes and muted purple in his skin.