#a-sweeter-sin

Harry Lewis x Reader

In which: Harry has a thing for Simon’s little sister…

The flat is quiet for once.

Not the kind of quiet that feels peaceful, more like something missing. Like the walls are waiting for noise that hasn’t come back yet. No music leaking from JJ’s speakers, no shouting from Simon down the hall, no controllers hitting the floor or laughter cutting through everything else.

Just the low hum of the city outside the window, and the soft, repetitive scroll of her thumb across her phone screen.

She’s curled into her bed, half-distracted, not really reading anything. Just passing time.

When the knock comes, it cuts through the silence too sharply. Quick, impatient, wrong.

It’s not Simon, he doesn’t knock. Not JJ either, his rhythm is different, more deliberate, more annoying.

This is something else.

She pauses, listening for a second longer, like the sound might explain itself. It doesn’t.

So she gets up.

The hallway feels colder than her room, the floor quiet beneath her bare feet as she makes her way to the door. When she pulls it open, she’s not entirely surprised, but something in her still shifts slightly at the sight of him.

Harry.

Standing there like he belongs and doesn’t, all at once.

He looks the same as always, oversized Chelsea hoodie, grey joggers, hair a mess like he hasn’t bothered fixing it. Hands shoved deep into his pockets, shoulders relaxed in that careless way he wears so easily.

But his eyes...

they flick over her in a way that doesn’t feel accidental.

“Simon in?” he asks, like this is normal. Like this is nothing.

She shakes her head, brushing her hair back over her shoulder, suddenly aware of the way her clothes sit on her skin. “No. He’s out with JJ. Did you need something?”

He shifts slightly on the door mat, trainers scraping softly against the floor. For a second, it almost looks like he might leave.

Instead, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a USB.

“Just meant to drop this off,” he says, holding it between his fingers. “Edit from the last video. Forgot earlier.”

It’s a simple excuse, too simple.

Because he doesn’t hand it to her.

Doesn’t move to.

Just stands there, looking at her.

The hallway behind him is empty, quiet in that same strange way the flat is. No movement. No interruptions.

She steps back slightly, opening the door wider. “You can wait, if you want.”

There’s a pause, small, but deliberate. Like he’s deciding something, then he shrugs.

“Yeah. Alright.”

He moves past her easily, like he’s done it a hundred times before, and he has. Trainers off by the door without being asked. Familiar. Comfortable. Too comfortable.

The scent of his cologne lingers briefly as he passes, something clean, understated, but it sticks in the air longer than it should.

By the time she turns back, he’s already in the living room. Settling into the sofa like he belongs there. Like this isn’t new, the space feels different with him in it, smaller.

He stretches out, long legs taking up space, one arm thrown lazily along the back of the couch. The USB is dropped onto the table without a second thought. already forgotten.

His eyes drift around the room, taking things in, but they don’t stay there long. They come back to her. They always do.

“Comfy,” he says, nodding slightly toward her clothes, the corner of his mouth pulling into something that isn’t quite a smile. “Day off?”

There’s something in his tone, light, but not harmless.

She feels it anyway.

“I guess,” she mutters, a faint heat rising under her skin. “Do you want tea? I was just about to make some.”

His grin sharpens slightly, like he’s amused by something she hasn’t said.

“Yeah. Go on then.”

The kitchen gives her space to breathe, but not enough, because she can still feel him. Not physically, just the awareness of him, sitting in the next room, waiting, watching. Even when he’s not.

The kettle fills. Clicks. Starts to hum.

She doesn’t realise she’s fiddling with her rings until they catch against each other.

“Simon gonna be long?” his voice calls from the living room.

It’s quieter now, lower, more personal.

She glances back over her shoulder. “Probably an hour. Why? Got somewhere to be?”

There’s a pause.

Then,

“Nah.”

A beat.

“Just wondering if I’m drinking this alone.”

When she comes back with the tea, he hasn’t moved much, just enough to face her more directly, just enough to close the space without making it obvious.

She hands him the mug, and his fingers brush hers, it lingers. Not long enough to call out. Long enough to notice.

Conversation comes easier than it should, too easy.

He asks what she’s been doing, but not really listening for the answer. More like he’s filling the silence, keeping something alive between them.

He talks more.

About filming. About Simon. About nothing that actually matters.

And she listens, because it feels like something. Even if it isn’t.

The quiet stretches. Thickens.

Settles into something heavier than it should be.

He leans back, arm still stretched behind her now, not touching, but close enough that she can feel the heat of him there. Too close.

She doesn’t move away.

“So what’ve you actually been doing all day?” he asks, glancing at her again.

His voice has softened slightly, less teasing, more focused.

And then,

The door bursts open.

Noise floods the flat instantly.

Simon’s voice first, loud, complaining, filling every inch of space like it always does. JJ right behind him, laughing, keys jangling, energy spilling in through the doorway.

Everything shifts.

Harry straightens immediately.

The ease disappears.

Distance snaps back into place like it was never gone.

“Oh, sick, you’re here,” Simon says, spotting him instantly, already distracted, already moving on.

JJ lingers.

Of course he does.

His eyes flick between them once, quick but sharp.

And he sees it, whatever it was. He doesn’t say anything, but the look is there.

Harry stands too quickly, too casually.

“Yeah, just dropped the USB,” he mutters, already reaching for the door.

He doesn’t look at her, not properly.

“Cheers for the tea.”

And then he’s gone.

The flat is loud again, normal again. But something doesn’t sit right anymore.

Later, in her room, the quiet feels different. Not empty. Just… unfinished.

She tries to read, doesn’t take in a word.

Tries to watch something, doesn’t follow it.

Everything keeps slipping back to the same moment, his hand brushing hers, the way he looked at her, the way he didn’t leave straight away.

A knock comes at her door.

Softer this time.

JJ. He leans against the frame, phone in hand, something amused sitting behind his expression.

“Your boy’s asking if you’re alright.”

She stills slightly. “What?”

JJ tilts his phone toward her just enough to show the message.

Is she pissed at me?

There’s something almost embarrassing about it, something too honest.

JJ watches her reaction carefully, then exhales, shaking his head slightly.

“I’m not getting involved,” he mutters. “But… he’s been like this for months. It’s obvious.”

There’s a pause, then, quieter, “Just be careful, yeah?”

He leaves her with that.

And the silence comes back again.

The idea comes slowly, then all at once. JJ’s phone, left on the counter. Unlocked, it feels stupid, it feels reckless, it feels inevitable.

By the time she’s back in her room, the message is already sent.

Harry, text me - (her number)

The reply doesn’t take long.

didn’t think you’d actually text.

Another one follows.

jj playing wingman is mad though.

Something settles in her chest, not calm, something else.

The conversation builds quickly after that, maybe too quickly. Like it was already there, waiting.

He apologises for leaving, says it got awkward.

Mentions Simon. JJ.

Everything except the actual reason.

She tells him it’s fine, says maybe next time he could stay longer.

There’s a pause.

Then,

next time yeah. might hold you to that.

It shifts after that, subtly.

The messages get quieter, more personal, less guarded.

you hiding in your room too?

She smiles at that, even though she shouldn’t.

By the time JJ leaves for the shop, conveniently, deliberately, it doesn’t feel accidental anymore, nothing does.

The second message she sends is bolder, more dangerous.

You’re a pleasant distraction at least.

There’s a longer pause this time. Then,

distraction’s mutual.

And just like that, there’s no going back.

The message sits there longer than it should.

distraction’s mutual.

It’s not a big statement, not dramatic. But it lands heavier than anything else he’s said.

She stares at it for a while, thumb hovering over the screen, like there’s something more hidden inside the words if she looks long enough.

There isn’t. That’s the problem.

The flat is quieter now.

JJ still hasn’t come back, and Simon’s somewhere else entirely, out, distracted, living in a world that doesn’t include this.

Doesn’t include her, not really, not like this.

Her phone buzzes again.

what you doing?

She exhales slowly through her nose before replying.

Nothing.

A pause.

Then, before she can stop herself,

You?

The typing bubble appears almost instantly. Disappears. Comes back.

at mine.

Another pause.

Then,

quiet for once.

Something tightens slightly in her chest, the wording feels deliberate. Like an invitation that isn’t being called one.

She leans back against her pillows, staring at the ceiling now instead of the screen, like distance might help her think clearer.

It doesn’t.

Her phone buzzes again.

you could come round if you wanted.

There it is.

Not dressed up, not hidden.

Just… said.

Her stomach drops slightly, not in fear, something sharper, more electric.

She doesn’t answer straight away. She knows she shouldn’t.

Knows exactly where this goes if she does.

But then,

or don’t. probably better if you don’t.

That does it.

Her reply is quicker than she expects.

Send me your address.

The three dots don’t appear this time. No hesitation, no pause.

The message comes through immediately.

And just like that, it’s real.

The walk there feels longer than it should. Every step too loud, every thought too clear.

She notices everything, the chill in the air biting at her skin, the way her hands won’t stay still, the way her heart doesn’t quite settle into a steady rhythm. It doesn’t feel like excitement, not fully, not cleanly. It feels like stepping into something she already knows doesn’t end well and going anyway.

His building is quieter than she expects.

Dim lighting. Soft echoes in the stairwell. The kind of place where everything feels slightly removed from the outside world. Like it exists separately, she hesitates outside his door, only for a second, then she knocks.

It opens almost immediately.

Harry doesn’t look surprised, not even a little.

He’s wearing the same hoodie, a different shirt underneath.

Hair still a mess, like he’s run his hands through it one too many times.

His eyes flick over her once. Slow. Taking everything in.

“You actually came.”

It’s not disbelief, it’s something else, something closer to satisfaction.

She shrugs, like this is casual. Like this isn’t something she thought about for too long.

“You said it was quiet.”

His mouth pulls slightly at that. Not quite a smile.

“Yeah,” he says, stepping back to let her in. “It is.”

The door closes behind her with a soft click, and the sound feels final. His flat is different from Simon’s, less chaotic, everything in its place. But it doesn’t feel warmer.

She stands there for a second too long, taking it in, unsure what to do with her hands, where to look, he notices. Of course he does.

“Relax,” he says quietly, moving past her toward the kitchen. “You want a drink or something?”

She shakes her head. “I’m fine.”

He glances back at her, leaning lightly against the counter now.

Watching.

“You don’t look fine.”

There’s no accusation in it, just observation.

She exhales softly, crossing her arms like it might ground her slightly.

“I just, this is…”

She trails off.

“Yeah,” he finishes for her.

Not helping, not clarifying.

There’s a pause, long enough to feel.

Then he pushes himself off the counter, stepping closer, not all the way, barely toe-to-toe. Just enough.

“You didn’t have to come,” he says, voice lower now. “No one made you.”

“I know.”

“Simon definitely wouldn’t like it.”

“I know that too.”

Another step closer.

“Still here though.”

She looks at him properly now, really looks.

“I am.”

Something shifts in his expression at that, subtle, but real.

“Right, Fuck it” he mutters, almost to himself.

And then, he closes the distance.

his lips meeting hers in a kiss that starts soft, questioning, but deepens almost instantly. It's not hesitant anymore. One hand stays cupping her face, his thumb stroking her cheek, while his other hand found her waist, pulling her gently closer until she was pressed against the side of his body.

Harry breaks the kiss only for a breath, his forehead resting against hers, eyes still closed. “Been wanting to do that for ages.”

Before she could respond, he kissed her again, this time with more confidence, more hunger. It's slower, deeper, his hand sliding from her waist to the small of her back, holding her firmly against him. The distant sounds of the city faded away, leaving only the soft sound of her breathing and the feel of his mouth on hers.

A wave of confidence ran through her, she deepened the kiss, biting his lip softly, threading her fingers through his hair, tugging on it lightly.

A low groan rumbled in his chest, his hands grip her tighter, one gliding back to her waist. He responded by tilting his head, deepening the kiss further, his tongue sweeping against hers. The hand on her back slid lower, pulling her flush against him until she was practically in his lap, the warmth of his body seeping through her clothes.

Harry breathed heavily against her mouth, his voice husky, “You have no idea... how long I've thought about this.”

He broke the kiss to trail his mouth along her jaw, down the side of her neck, his stubble a rough, delicious friction against her skin. His free hand slid under the edge of her sweater, his thumb stroking the bare skin of her stomach.

Harry muttered into her neck, his breath hot against her skin. “You're so fucking fit, drives me mental.”

The faint sound of a door slamming shut made him freeze for a split second, his body tensing. But when no other sound followed, he relaxed again, nuzzling back into the curve of her neck, leaving a trail of kisses is his wake.

Harry pulled back just enough to look at her, his eyes dark and serious, “We should probably... talk about this. Or something. Before I completely lose my head.”

But he didn't move away, his gaze dropped to her lips again as if drawn there.

She lent forward, whispering against his lips, “Lose it then…”

The whispered challenge hung in the air between them, a final spark to the tinderbox. His eyes darken, the last vestige of restraint snapping. He doesn't say another word.

His mouth crashes back onto hers, this kiss hungry and desperate. His hands move from her back to her hair, one tangled in the curls at her nape to tilt her head back, the other slid down to grip at her hip, as he pulled her fully onto his lap.

She could feel the hard line of his body beneath her, the frantic beat of his heart against her chest. The kiss was all consuming, a build-up of tension exploding at once. He tasted of mint and something uniquely him.

Harry broke the kiss, breathing ragged, his forehead pressed against hers. “Fuck. Okay.” He shifted, his hands sliding under her thighs, and in one smooth motion, he stood, lifting her with him.

He carried her the short distance to his bedroom, without breaking contact, his mouth found hers again as he pushed the door open with his shoulder. The room was dim, the blinds down, a large, unmade bed sat against the right wall. Harry placed her down gently amidst the soft chaos of his duvet, he followed her down without hesitation, his body caging hers.

“You're sure? Last chance to... talk.”

His hands trembled slightly where they framed her face, his entire focus on you, waiting for her answer. The air was thick with the scent of his cologne and the charged silence.

She slid her cold hands beneath his hoodie, their eyes met as she whispered, “I’m sure, Harry…”

A shiver ran through him at the touch, followed by a sharp intake of breath, his muscles tensed under her palms. He looked down at her, his blue eyes wide, pupils blown, any last shred of hesitation now gone.

Harry’s voice was gravely, laced with a desperate kind of relief as he spoke, “Thank Fuck.”

He lowered his head, capturing her mouth in another deep, kiss that seared. His hands slide from her face, one moving to the hem of her tight black sweater, fingers slipping underneath to find the warm skin of your stomach. The other hand tangled in her hair, holding her steady as he kissed her like he was starving for it.

Harry muttered against her lips between kisses, “Wanted this, wanted you… for so long.”

His hoodie was the first thing to go, pulled over his head and discarded to the floor with a frustrated grunt. The room was warm, the air thick with the sound of ragged breathing and the soft rustle of fabric. He looked down at her, his chest rising and falling rapidly, his gaze hot and intent.

Harry’s hands slid up and down her sides before her tugged at the bottom of her sweater, “Let’s get this off, yeah?”

All it took was a slight nod, then he was pulling up the sweater, bringing it over her head, before dropping it to the floor. His gaze swept over her with an awes hunger. A low sound escaping his throat, something between a groan and a sigh. “Oh, Christ.”

He kisses her deeply, his body settled against hers, the heat of him a solid, comforting weight. She dragged her nails down his back, and he pressed closer instinctively, his hips beginning to rock against hers in a slow, deliberate grind.

His mouth trailed lower, leaving a path of hot, open-mouthed kisses down her chest. His hands slid up her sides, thumbs brushing the undersides of her breasts over her bra, his touch both hesitant and desperate.

Harry looked up at her, his face flushed, hair a complete mess, eyes dark with want. “Tell me to stop. If you want me to stop.”

But his hands were still moving, one cupping her breast, thumb stroking over the peak of her nipple through the lace of her bra, while the other hand slipped lower, fingers tracing the waistband of her pants. He was giving her an out, but every inch of his body was pleading for her not to take it.

“Don’t stop… please”

The soft plea was all the permission he needed. Any remaining tension in his body melted away, replaced by a single-minded focus. His gaze sharpened, last vestige of doubt vanishing from his blue eyes.

He kissed her again, deeper, more possessive now. His hands became more deliberate, one working at the clasp of her bra with a surprising deftness, the other slid down to the waistband of her pants. He hooked his fingers into the fabric, his knuckles brushing against the sensitive skin of her lower stomach.

Harry broke the kiss, his breath hot against her ear, “Lift your hips for me.”

As she lifted her hips, he slid the soft fabric down her legs in one smooth motion, tossing them aside. He filled the path with his mouth, pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses to the inside of her thighs, the scratch of his stubble a delicious contrast to the softness of his lips.

Harry stood at the end of his bed, kicking off his own joggers, along with his boxers, before covering her body with his own. He settled between her thighs, his weight a comfortable kind of pressure.

Harry braced himself on one elbow, his breath fanned across her face. His other hand trailed down, between her legs. She gasped in response, before he covered her mouth with his own.

He started light, circling her clit gently, teasing, before his fingers moved down to dip into her entrance, then back up again.

Eventually Harry stopped his teasing, sliding a finger in to test the waters, she gasped into his mouth, he swallowed her sounds with a groan of his own.

His long finger pumped in and out slowly to start, then he slid in another alongside it, picking up his pace.

Right before her release, Harry pulled his fingers out, She whined at the loss of his touch. Kneeling between her legs, Harry started running his dick along her slick folds, before lining himself up with her entrance. “Ready?”

He didn't wait for a verbal answer, seeing the confirmation in her eyes. He pushed inside her with a slow, deliberate thrust that made them both gasp. He stilled for a moment, his forehead dropping against hers, his breathing ragged. “Oh… fuck.”

Then he began to move, a slow, deep rhythm that quickly built in intensity. His hips set a punishing pace, each thrust drove her deeper into the softness of his mattress. The room filled with the sounds of their combined breathing, the soft creak of the bed, and the slick, wet sounds of their bodies moving together.

Harry spoke, his words broken, gasped against her skin between thrusts. “So good… you feel, so fucking good.”

One of his hands slid down to grip her hip, holding her steady, while the settled along her jaw. He captures her mouth in a messy, desperate kiss, his tongue sliding against her own. The pleasure built, coiling tight low in her stomach, amplified by the sheer intensity in his gaze, the raw need that was written all over his face.

The hand on her hip slipped down further, back between her legs. As his thrusts grew harder, and slightly faster, he applied pressure to her clit, circling it quicker until she was moaning loudly beneath him.

Harry groans, his voice ragged and strained. “I’m not… I’m not gonna last. Come for me. Please.”

His thrusts became faster, more frantic, losing their rhythm as he chased his own release. His entire body was tense, trembling with the effort of holding back. His eyes were screwed shut, his jaw clenched tight.

Chasing her own release, she arched up into him, meeting his thrusts, her head thrown back further between his pillows in pleasure. Her nails clawed at his back, pulling him closer, drawing him down till she could whisper in his ear, “Harry… please.”

The sound of his name on her pretty lips was the last straw. A broken sound tore from his throat, half-groan, half-wince, as he drove into her one last, deep time. His body went rigid above her, every muscle locking as his release crashed over him. He collapsed onto her, his full weight a heavy, welcomed warmth, his face buried in the crook of her neck.

He didn’t move for a long moment, just lied there, his heart hammered against her chest, slowly returning to a normal rhythm. Eventually, he shifted his weight to the side, pulling her with him so you were curled together amidst the tangled sheets. He brushed the hair back from her forehead, his touch surprisingly gentle.

Harry let out a long, shaky exhale, a slow grin spreading across his face. “Well. That was… fucking hell.”

He leant in and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to her lips, much softer than any that came before. It was tender, almost reverent. Outside, the distant sound of a siren wailed, a reminder of the world beyond the dim, warm cocoon of his bedroom.

Harry tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, his thumb stroking her cheek. “You alright?”

His phone buzzed violently on the floor where his joggers landed, the screen lighting up with a cascade of notifications from the Sidemen group chat. He glanced at it, then back at you, his expression shifting to something more cautious, more real.

Her soft smile drew his attention back, for a moment at least. “I’m more than alright… I mean… Jesus, Harry,” A laugh was laced between her words, and she flowed with a light sheen of sweat across her skin.

He let out a breathy laugh of his own, shaking his head as he looked down at her, his expression a mix of awe and sheer relief. The frantic buzzing of his phone continued, ignored.

Harry, brushed a thumb over her damp hairline, his grin widening. “Jesus, Harry, huh? I'll take that as a compliment.” He leant in, kissing her again, slow and deep, before pulling back just enough to speak, his voice still husky. “Fucking hell, that was...”

He didn’t finish the sentence, just shook his head again, his blue eyes crinkled at the corners. He shifted, pulling the duvet up over the both of you as a slight chill settled in the room. The phone on the floor finally falls silent.

Harry’s expression sobers slightly, though the soft smile remained. “We should probably... figure out what this means.” He gestured vaguely towards the door, towards the world outside. “With... you know. Everything.”

Before you could answer, his phone started buzzing again, this time with an insistent, repetitive pattern that signals a call. He sighed, rolling onto his back and running a hand through his already disheveled hair.

Harry Peered at the screen, It's Simon. He looked at her, a flicker of genuine worry in his eyes. “He's probably just complaining about the edit or something. Should I...?”

The phone continued to vibrate on the floor, a persistent, anxious hum in the quiet room.

He shifted, rolling onto his side to face you properly, his head propped up on one hand. The duvet slipped down to his waist, revealing the lean lines of his torso. His other hand came up to gently tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, his thumb stroking her cheekbone.

Her phone buzzed this time, somewhere from the living room.

Harry’s voice dropped , losing its usual playful edge, becoming more serious. “This... us... it's real, yeah? Not just...” He gestures vaguely at the rumpled bed. “This.”

His phone buzzed again, this time with a single text notification. He glanced at it but didn’t move to pick it up, his gaze fixed on her, waiting for her answer. The screen lit up briefly from the floor once more.

She shook her head, sighing with a smile, “Of course it’s real Harry, I don’t know what you think but I’m not one for… flings…”

The simple, direct answer seemed to hit him like a physical blow. His eyes softened, the last traces of uncertainty melting away into something warm and solid. He let out a breath he didn't seem to realize he was holding, his shoulders relaxing fully against the pillows.

“Good.” He said it quietly, firmly, “Me neither. Not with you, couldn’t if I tried.”

He leant in and kissed you, not with the desperate hunger from before, but with a deep, lingering tenderness that spoke volumes. It was slow and thorough, a silent promise. When he pulled back, his expression was open, vulnerable in a way you'd rarely seen.

-George Clarke x Reader

Brother’s best friend type of thing….

They used to call her “little liar.”

She could still hear it in George’s voice, sharp, smug, always louder when her brother was around. They were two years older, and she was too girlish, sensitive. Every holiday gathering, every family camping trip or neighbour’s garden do, she’d be lingering nearby, desperate to be included. George would look to her, eyes gleaming with mischief, and say something like:

“Oi, isn’t it past your bedtime?”

Or worse: “You’re not coming, this is proper stuff, not games for little girls.”

She was six when they convinced her to hide inside the wardrobe during a game of hide and seek, they then left her there for nearly an hour. She came out all tear-streaked and shaking, only to find the boys had ditched her to watch telly, totally unfazed, unaware.

She was seven the first time they locked her out of the treehouse. Her brother’s voice had laughed through the planks “go away, no babies allowed!” But it was George who stuck his head out of the hatch and poured the last of his juice all over her hair. She ran inside crying to the parents, this was how she earned the name ‘little liar’ as both boys claimed she was lying.

She was nine when they nicked her diary and read it aloud along the seating on the patio, her brother howling with laughter, George mocking every innocent line like it was the funniest thing he’d ever read.

And yet, somehow, she always waited for George to arrive.

He was loud, sarcastic, messy, and mean, but he was magnetic. There was something about him that made her stomach fizz, gave her butterflies, even when she hated him. Especially when she hated him. She listened out for the knock at the door, or clack of the football boots on the wood of the hallway floor.

~

By the time she was sixteen, the teasing had shifted.

Subtler now. Crueller in its own way.

He’d ruffle her hair when she walked past, even when it was curled or styled. He’d comment on her clothes, “You off to a wedding or something?” When she was trying out a new dress, or “That shade of lipstick’s a bit…. mad, right?” when she was already feeling self-conscious.

She told herself that she didn’t care, that he wasn’t special. She told herself George was just her brother’s mate.

She told herself that again the day he walked past her outside the common room, plucked a book from under her arm and started reading the most embarrassing paragraph aloud.

It was from a romance novel of her friends, she’d only just started it, his eyebrows were raised and his voice dripped with mockery:

“Her lips trembled as his hands smoothed over her waist, drifting lower, touching her in ways she’d never been touched before.” - “Bloody hell, didn’t know they stocked this at the library,” he’d laughed.

Most of her friends had giggled, half in shock, half in fear of saying the wrong thing.

She stood frozen, face burning, cheeks aflame, barely managing to whisper: “Give it back.”

“Relax,” he’d said, tossing it back at her like it was no big deal. “Didn’t peg you as the steamy sort.”

That night, she cried in the bath

But worse, worse than the humiliation, was the blunt ache that followed. Because even then, even when he made her feel pathetic, her stomach still flipped every time he said her name.

~

She saw him once at a house party in the summer holidays. She wasn’t supposed to be there, her brother had warned her not to come, but she turned up anyway, heart hammering in her chest, face all done up with her mate’s glittery eye shadow, skirt much too short.

George saw her straight away. Walked over to her with that lazy grin.

“Didn’t know they let little girls in.” he’d said, taking a swig of some cheap beer.

“Didn’t know you were the doorman,” she snapped

But this only made him laugh.

He smirked, his eyes flicking down to her legs. “You always dress like that for attention?”

She wanted to slap him. She wanted to kiss him.

Why did he have to make her feel so small.

Instead, she rolled her eyes and walked off. But her hands were shaking the rest of the night.

~

School had started back up again when things shifted again.

There were whispers going around the boys in her year, crude, disgusting things said in locker rooms and in stairwells. She heard her name thrown around like it meant nothing. Some guy in the year above, she barely knew told his mate she was “easy,” loud enough for her to hear.

She didn’t tell anyone. Just went quiet. Took longer routes between classes. Avoided eye contact during form.

Then, out of nowhere, she saw George waiting in the courtyard after school.

She was just coming out of history, when she spotted him leaning against the gate, arms crossed, face set, stern.

“What are you doing?” She asked, her stomach lurching.

He didn’t answer right away, jaw ticking. Just brushed passed her and muttered under his breath, “Sorted it.”

Later that night, she’d hear whispers from a friend, one of the boys had shown up with a bloodied nose and refused to say who’d given it to him.

She never asked George for details.

He never offered.

That was the first time she thought: Maybe he doesn’t hate me after all.

But nothing changed. Not really.

He still turned up at her house and called her “kiddo.” Still sat on the sofa, feet on the coffee table, joking with her brother like nothing in the world could rattle him. Still teased her, still acted like her feelings were nothing but background noise.

~

University didn’t help.

She saw less of him, but the few times they crossed paths, Christmas, birthdays, summer barbecues, it was always the same. A comment here. A smirk there. Lingering glances she wasn’t sure whether she imagined.

She remembered one birthday, her own, her nineteenth. George had turned up late, already a bit tipsy, wearing a stupid party hat someone had forced on him. He’d handed her a birthday card that just said “Don’t get emotional.” He only gave a lazed smile as she looked at him in confusion.

Then he’d whispered as he passed, “Nineteen. Bloody hell. Proper grown-up now, aren’t you?”

And the worst part? Her heart had leapt. Just from that.

~

The night it all came to a head was a sticky July evening. A friend of her brother’s, someone they both vaguely knew, was throwing a party in their back garden. One of those informal summer things, with fairy lights, sickly mixers, cheap beer. She wore a little lilac dress, and a glittery lipgloss that made her feel, confident, braver, even.

She’d laughed too loudly. Drank too quickly. Kept catching George’s eyes across the fire pit.

She should’ve ignored him. Should’ve stayed away.

But when her brother passed out, and she needed a lift home, George offered.

And she let him.

They didn’t speak much during the drive. The music was low and soft. The window was down.

And somewhere halfway home, she said it.

“I used to like you, you know.”

He glanced at her. Said nothing.

“I used to really like you.”

A pause. A beat. Then: “You’re still a kid.”

She didn’t say anything after that.

Just gave him a nod, turned her face to the window, tried to stop the tears from welling up in her eyes.

When he pulled up outside her place, she climbed out without a word.

And this time around, he was the one watching her walk away.

~

Four months passed

She met someone. Luke. He was sweet. He showed up at the right time, just when she’d stopped looking for fireworks and started craving some form of warmth. He texted her first. Made it on time. Held her hand in public like he was proud of her.

He didn’t make her heart race, or her stomach fill with butterflies. But he made her feel steady.

She blocked George’s number. Unfollowed him on every platform. Erased him from her life the best she could.

And still… her brother would say, “He’s been asking about you.”

She didn’t respond.

She didn’t care.

Or at least, she pretended she didn’t.

~

Then came a family function. Her cousin’s engagement party. Flower arrangements, lanterns strung up around the patio. Tables decked with finger food, and champagne loosing its bubbles.

And of course.

George.

He was wearing a short sleeved button up with jeans, a pint held in his hand, grinning like he hadn’t wrecked her with a few careless words.

“You look different,” he said when he spotted her.

“Grown-up.”

She gave him a tight lipped smile. “It’s only been a few months…”

He laughed under his breath, nodding. “I ‘spose so.”

Luke appeared at her side, as if on cue, wrapping an arm around her waist. The tension snapped into focus,

“This him then?” George asked, jaw clenched.

“Yeah, this is Luke,” she said coldly. “My boyfriend.”

Luke shook his hand politely, clueless to the undercurrent.

George’s jaw ticked, eyebrows slightly furrowed.

“Nice to meet you,” Luke said, smiling.

“Yeah, you too,” George responded, voice flat.

She turned away without another word. Luke followed.

~

Later that same evening, after the speeches and half-drunk toasts, she went to go find her coat.

She found George instead.

Standing in the hallway by the stairs, arms folded across his chest, watching her.

“You’re still mad,” He said.

“You’re still cocky,” She snapped.

He took a step closer. “You cut me off.”

“You deserved it.”

“I was trying to do the right thing,” he said, voice lower now. “Didn’t think you actually wanted someone like me.”

She rolled her eyes, laughing bitter. “That’s rich, coming from the guy who used to leave me stuck in closets for hours.”

“I was a knob. I know that.”

“You still are,” she huffed.

His eyes met hers, intense, everything felt quiet. “I miss you.”

She hated the way her chest ached at that.

“Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t do this.”

“Tell me you don’t think about me.”

“I don’t,” her voice cracked.

He stepped in, his voice a low rasp. “Liar.”

And then he kissed her.

All harsh and bruising.

And the worst part?

She kissed him back.

Until she didn’t.

Until she pushed at his chest, breaking away, heart racing, breath caught in her throat.

“I have a boyfriend.” Her voice wavered.

“I know.”

“Then what the hell are you doing?”

He didn’t answer.

She left.

~

Guilt consumed her, so much so, she broke up with Luke within the same week.

They were sitting in his car outside her house. It was raining, light and soft, tapping against the windscreen like the sky was trying to fill the silence between them.

Luke was saying something about his weekend, something normal, something safe, but she just couldn’t listen. Couldn’t even meet his eyes.

She stared at the condensation forming on the window and said, quietly, “I’m sorry.”

He stopped mid-sentence. “What?”

“I’m sorry, Luke. It’s just... I don’t think this is going to work.”

He blinked at her, confused. “Where’s this coming from?”

“I don’t know,” she lied. “I’ve just been feeling it for a while.”

His jaw tensed, he breathed out hard. “Yeah…. Right.”

He didn’t ask her for reasons, he had an idea, but didn’t even want to ask. He nodded, the way kind people do when they feel they need to protect their dignity.

“Okay,” he said slowly. “I hope he’s worth it.”

She didn’t answer. She felt ashamed, the guilt piling up so high it lodged itself in her throat.

George hadn’t called, hadn’t even messaged. Nothing.

And that should’ve told her everything she needed to know.

~

The next week felt quiet. The evenings felt drawn-out, longer. The ache in her chest grew strange and dauntingly familiar, like an old bruise blooming beneath the surface.

She knew it was wrong, but she missed the steady feeling Luke provided. The simplicity of being loved without question, no strings, complications.

But even more than that, she hated herself for the way she thought about George. The kiss replayed in her mind at any given moment, when brushing her teeth, walking home from work, folding her laundry. It wasn’t even the kiss itself, it was his voice. The look in his eyes. The way he’d said, “I miss you,” like he meant it.

And yet, he hadn’t done anything since.

She refused to be the one to chase him.

She’d spent years doing that in silence. That was well over now.

So, she got on with it, life in general.

Went to work. Messaged her friends. Drank wine in the bath and watched comfort shows she was paying half her attention to.

~

Two weeks later, her friends dragged her out.

“Wear something hot,” they’d said. “No moping about tonight.”

She wore a black lace dress and lipgloss that caught the light. Laughed too loudly at pre-drinks, let someone style her hair in some half-up do, and let herself feel good for the first time in ages.

They ended up at a rooftop bar, somewhere with edge, with fairy lights and loud music, packed full of people pretending they weren’t looking for someone to watch them, want them.

She was halfway through her second dirty martini when she saw him.

George.

Not just George. George with someone else.

She froze in her place.

He was leaning against the bar, pint in hand, head tilted slightly as he spoke to her. Her. A tall, leggy brunette with shiny dark hair and a posh laugh that floated above the music. She was the kind of girl who looked like she modelled for Zara and drank tequila straight. She was everything she wasn’t.

And George was smiling. Ear to ear at that.

Not in that cocky, teasing way he used to with her.

No. This was different.

Soft. Relaxed. Flirtatious.

And then, he looked up.

Their eyes met across the room. The crowd vanished. The noise dulled.

He just stared.

Didn’t smile. Didn’t wave. Didn’t say a word.

Just stared.

And for a moment, she forgot how to breathe.

Her friend tugged at her sleeve. “You alright?”

Her throat felt all tight, but she nodded. “Yeah, fine.”

But she wasn’t. Not even close.

Because she realised something right then,

She’d spent years wondering if George would ever want her the way she wanted him.

Then spent weeks wondering if she’d made the right decision.

And now, finally, she knew:

She was nothing more than a ghost in his rear-view mirror.

She turned away before he could look any longer.

Finished her drink in one go.

She saw it as she was leaving.

The flicker in his eyes.

Her stomach dropped as she rushed down the hall.

~

She turned away before she could cry. Before she could throw a drink or do something stupid like ask why. Why he kissed her. Why he said he missed her. Why he looked at her like she was everything one moment,

and like she was nothing in the next.

She took the lift down alone, pressing the button with shaky hands, her chest tight, heart throbbing somewhere in her throat. She hit the pavement outside and breathed in the cool night air like it might steady her.

It didn’t.

She was halfway down the street, heels clacking against wet concrete, when she heard him.

“Oi,”

Her spine tensed.

She didn’t stop.

“Hey, wait. Just stop.”

She didn’t.

Then a hand caught at her forearm, not rough, just enough to make her turn back.

George.

His curls were windswept, his cheeks flushed from drinking or running or both. He looked at her as if she’d just bolted from a burning building.

His eyebrows furrowed, he crowded into her, towering. “What’s wrong?” he asked, like it was a genuine question.

She laughed, a hollow, breathless sound that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“You’re joking.”

“What?”

She yanked her arm free from his grip. “Don’t do that. Don’t play dumb with me.”

“I’m not-”

“You always do this,” her voice was biting, louder than she meant for it to be. “Every time something actually matters, you suddenly forget how to speak like a real human.”

George blinked, clearly thrown. “I don’t know what you mean…”

“She looked perfect, by the way,” she cut him off. “That girl. She looked perfect. Tall. Posh. Shiny hair for days. Probably doesn’t have a single embarrassing story to her name.”

He didn’t say anything.

“And you just stood there. Like nothing ever happened between us. Like you didn’t kiss me. Like you didn’t look me in the eye and tell me you missed me.”

His mouth parted slightly. “That was…different.”

“No, no George. It was cruel.”

There was a beat of silence.

She stepped back from him. “I broke up with someone who actually wanted me. Someone who treated me like I mattered. And for what? For some version of you that only exists when we’re alone and you’re bored or drunk or nostalgic?”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he muttered.

“Yet somehow you always do!” She snapped. "You’ve been hurting me since I was seven years old. Since you poured juice all over my head and told me I was too childish to play with you. Since you read my diary, making a joke out of how I felt. Since you ruffled my hair like it was nothing when I put so much effort in just to be noticed.”

His face fell slightly, a flicker of guilt slipping through.

“You kissed me,” she whispered, voice wavering. “And then you disappeared. Again. Like I was something embarrassing you wanted to forget.”

George looked at her like he didn’t know how to respond. He sucked in a breath, flicked his eyes to his shoes. Like every word she said had peeled something raw open inside him. Exposed him.

“I don’t know what to say,” he murmured. “You scare the hell out of me, sometimes.”

“Good,” she said. “You should be scared. Because for the first time in my life, I’m not waiting for you to get your act together, waiting for you to suddenly want me.”

He stared at her. “I wasn’t with her. Not like that. I only just met her.”

She shook her head, sighing. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does.”

“No,” she said, voice cold, icy. “What matters is that you let me walk away thinking I’d imagined all of it. That I was stupid, or desperate, or childish. Again. And I’ve grown too much to keep letting you make me feel so small.”

He opened his mouth. Closed it again.

“I cared about you,” she said softly. “For years. And you didn’t even have the guts to tell me you didn’t want me, you could never just shut me down.”

“Did you enjoy it?” She got more heated now. “How I fawned over you, pined after your affection.”

He huffed, ran a hand down his face. “Come on, you can’t genuinely think that.” He was shaking his head now, as if he were in disbelief.

“You don’t take me seriously,” she pointed out. “Even now, I mean look at you.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Look, I’m just going to go,”

She turned away. He didn’t stop her.

As she walked off into the night, heart cracked open, but spine straight.

She let him stare.

Let him finally feel it

He was lying, to himself, to her.

After all, it was his turn after all this time.

Liar.

-George Clarke x reader

(A sequel to Liar, Liar :a-sweeter-sin/liar-liar)

-Sorry for the wait, and thank you for all the lovely support.

Brother’s best friend situation…

Six months had passed.

Six months of silence.

And yet, it didn’t feel clean.

It wasn’t the kind of silence that soothes or calms. It was the kind that wriggled its way under your skin, humming, low and unending, reminding you of what you’re trying hard not to remember.

She went about her days in a kind of haze, a half-awareness. Work. Commute. Chat. Sleep. Repeat. Sometimes, she’d catch herself in the middle of something, washing her hands, waiting for the kettle to boil, and realise she hadn’t actually been there. Her mind always somewhere else. Between memories. Memories of him.

George had a way of sticking in her head like a song she didn’t want to sing but couldn’t turn off.

Even when she wasn’t thinking of him, she was.

The way people do when something leaves a scar that never quite fades to that decadent white-silver.

Sometimes, in the middle of a dull afternoon, his voice would drift its way back into her mind. The mockery in it, the sarcasm, the offhand cruelty, the rare softness that always came too late. And a memory would flicker, uninvited.

~

She was eight, maybe nine.

A boy from her class, Eddy something, the one with gelled hair and muddied shoes, had called her names in the playground, something stupid and mean. Said something about her freckles, that she was “weird,” because sometimes she’d sit by herself at lunch and read.

She had flushed red, eyes pricking, hands shaking, but before she could say anything, George appeared out of nowhere. He was only a few years older, but taller, louder, already confident in the way older boys were. He shoved Eddy’s shoulder hard enough to make him stumble.

“Say that again,” George said, voice stiff with grit.

Eddy didn’t. He mumbled something, went a shade of scarlet, before bolting.

George smirked after him, then turned back to her. “You alright, then?”

She nodded, wordless.

“Good.” He said, ruffling her hair with a laugh. “Stop crying next time. Makes you look like a baby.”

And then he was gone.

Leaving her to stand there, torn between gratitude and humiliation.

That was how it always seemed to go.

A rescue.

Then a wound.

~

She was fourteen, almost fifteen, old enough to start caring what George thought, but still young enough to believe she could hide it.

It was her brother’s sixteenth, the house full of noise and rambunctious laughter, the garden thick with the smell of the smoky bonfire and barbecued meat. Balloons bounced in the evening breeze, fairy lights were strung up, flickering against the setting sun.

She’d been hovering around the edge of the group, dipping in and out of conversation with family, and the few she knew, when George made some teasing remark about how she “still followed him around like a lost puppy.”

She’d rolled her eyes and fired back something snappy, she couldn’t even remember what now, and that was all it took.

They were off, bickering like kids again. An argument out of nothing, swapping insults and annoyed glares. He’d shoved her shoulder, she’d shove him right back. Someone shouted, “Oi, George, she’s winning!” And that only made him toss his head back in laughter, his grin wide.

They play fought like petty children, pushing and shoving. He head locked her, messing up the curled style, she’d elbowed him in the ribs. He kicked, she scratched.

They ended up in the grass, the two of them breathless yet still laughing, and then suddenly it wasn’t funny anymore.

He’d caught her wrists with ease, pinning them to the ground, his knees hovered over either side of her hips. The grass was damp beneath her, her pulse thundered in her ears. He was so close she could see the different shades of blue in his eyes. Oh those eyes.

Then someone, she never remembered who, shouted,

“Oh my God, George, look, she’s blushing! She likes you!”

The laughter that followed was loud with sharp edges, scratching at her skin.

George froze, still holding her wrists. His expression faltered, a flicker of discomfort, or maybe guilt, before he scrambled off, offering her a hand she didn’t take right away.

When she did she couldn’t meet his eyes.

For the rest of the night, the jokes kept coming. Her brother laughed, George laughed too, but every now and then she caught him glancing her way, not mocking, uncertain yet almost pitying.

Her chest ached and she couldn’t figure out why she felt so ashamed.

She wished he’d stop looking at her like that.

She wished she could stop wanting him to.

~

By Christmas, she’d convinced herself she’d stopped missing him, even just having him around.

That was until the party invite arrived.

Her Mum had said it so casually: “George’s family are hosting this year. Should be nice to see everyone again.”

Her throat had tightened before she could stop it.

Right.

Nice.

~

George’s family home was bigger than she remembered. Warm and crowded, full of the sound of clinking glasses and distant laughter. George’s mum greeted her with that same kindly familiarity, hugging her tight. “Oh, love, it’s been too long! You look beautiful.”

She smiled politely, shrugged off her coat, tried not to look around too quickly, but of course, she felt him before she saw him. That low pull of awareness that always found her first.

George was in the kitchen. Hair slightly longer, curls messier in that boy-ish, charming way. He was wearing a dark red jumper and jeans. He looked older, broader. Still careless. Still himself.

When he turned, their eyes met. For a split second, neither of them moved.

Then he smiled. That same infuriating, lazy smile. “Didn’t think you’d come.”

“I wasn’t planning to,” she said flatly.

“Changed your mind then?”

She shrugged. “Didn’t really have much of a choice.”

He grinned. “That’s the spirit.”

The conversation wasn't much, a few clipped sentences, polite nods and smiles, yet it was enough to knock her off balance.

Through the night, she caught glimpses of him: across the room, leaning against the counter, laughing with her brother. Every time she looked away, she could still feel his gaze, like the warm memory of heat after a flame.

It was easy, at first. Pretend-easy. Until the drinks started flowing.

It was past midnight. Most of the women had gone home or migrated to the living room, leaving the kitchen full of half-drunk men, her brother, two cousins, and George. They were loud, joking, sloshing beer over the table.

She was perched on the arm of a sofa, chatting with a cousin’s girlfriend when she heard it, her name, spoken in that familiar mocking drawl.

“Remember when she used to follow us around?” George said, laughing. “Couldn’t get rid of her the little nuisance. Always hanging about like a little shadow.”

Her brother barked a laugh. “She fancied you rotten, mate.”

“Yeah, she did,” George said easily, not even looking at her. “Didn’t you, love?”

It was meant as a joke. But the words hit like a slap, leaving a residual sting.

The others laughed. She forced a smile, stood up, excused herself to get some air.

As she passed, George reached out, fingers brushing her wrist. “Oi, I’m joking. Don’t sulk.”

Her lips pressed to a firm line, her brow faltering. Maybe it was a joke, but he knew her by now, knew how words could leave marks on her like red hand prints on soft skin.

She looked up at him, eyes shining but hard. “You’ve got a talent for making people feel small, you know that?”

He blinked, smirk faltering, just slightly, before she turned and walked away.

No one followed her out.

~

When her phone rang, she almost didn’t answer. Unknown number.

But something, something stupid and instinctive, made her pick up.

“Hello?”

“Hey.” His voice. Low. Rough. Familiar.

She went still, heart beginning to pound. “George?”

“Yeah. Got a new phone.” A pause. “Listen… I wanted to say sorry. About the party. I was drunk. I was being a prick.”

“You usually are,” she said, but her voice was softer than she meant it to be.

He chuckled quietly. “Yeah. I deserve that.” Another pause. Then: “Let me make it up to you. Coffee?”

She almost said no. Almost. But the part of her that had waited years for him to apologise, the part that still believed he might mean it this time, spoke first.

“Alright,” she said. “Coffee.”

~

It was a small place near the park. Sunday morning, drizzle outside, the air thick with the smell of roasted coffee beans and buttery pastries.

He was already there when she arrived, two mugs on the table, phone face-down. He smiled when he saw her, genuinely this time. No teasing, no edge.

“Didn’t think you’d actually come.”

“I nearly didn’t.”

“Well, I’m glad you did.”

They talked for over an hour. About work. Family. Nothing deep. Nothing painful. But something about it felt dangerously normal, dangerously right.

She found herself laughing at his stupid jokes, the way she used to before she knew better.

When he walked her out, the rain had eased into a cool mist. He pulled up his hood, shoved his hands in his pockets.

“You free next weekend?”

She should’ve said no. But she didn’t.

~

It was loud, warm, familiar, the kind of pub where every table wobbled and the music was just a bit too old for the crowd. She hadn’t planned on going. Her brother had invited her for “a few drinks with the lot,” and she didn’t realise George would be there until he was already holding the door open for her.

"Didn't know you were coming," he said, that crooked grin pulling at his mouth.

"Same goes for you," she replied, shrugging off her coat.

He ordered a pint; she ordered an espresso martini. Predictably, he raised an eyebrow.

“You and your fancy cocktail nonsense,” he teased, voice all mock with warmth. “What’s wrong with a pint like the rest of us?”

She rolled her eyes, but there was something disarming about the way he said us, like they still belonged to the same world, ran in the same circles.

They ended up squeezed into a booth with too many people, knees knocking beneath the table. His laugh was a little too loud. He had that way of listening, of making you feel like you were the only one talking, even when you wished he wouldn’t look at you like that.

At one point, as he reached for his glass, his hand brushed hers. It wasn’t an accident. His thumb grazed her knuckle, a tiny, thoughtless thing, but she felt it everywhere, prickling beneath her skin, warmth flourishing in her veins.

The air shifted. She could feel it in her stomach, her chest, her throat.

She told herself to pull away, to remember the way he’d looked at her in that car, the night she’d confessed and he’d called her childish. But she didn’t. She just smiled, too quickly, and made some clumsy joke about how his pint looking as flat as his hair.

When she got home that night, she sat on her bed, coat still on, staring at her phone, heart hammering against her ribs. She hadn’t felt that alive in months.

And she hated herself for it.

~

They called it a walk, but it was really just an excuse to see him again. The weather had finally broken after weeks of rain, the park glittering with leftover puddles, grass glinting in the pale sunlight.

They walked slowly, hands tucked deep into their coat pockets, breath misting in front of them. George talked, about work, about his mates, old and new, about the new car he shouldn’t have bought. His voice rolled through the cold air, familiar in a way that made her stomach fizz.

She laughed at all the right moments. He still made her laugh, properly laugh, which annoyed her.

They stopped by the lake, watching a little boy chuck bread to ducks. A dog came bounding over, a muddy blur of energy, crashing into them both. Mud splattered their jeans. She squealed; George nearly dropped his coffee.

He laughed, properly belly-laughed. eyes creased at the corners, teeth bared in his smile.

“See? Even dogs like you.”

She shoved his shoulder. “You’re an idiot.”

He grinned, eyes glinting in the weak sun. “Takes one to know one.”

It was easy, too easy. For a fleeting moment, it felt like they’d slipped into some alternate version of life, where he’d never been cruel, where she’d never cried over him, where they’d just… fit.

But reality has a way of creeping back in.

nearing the end of the walk, when the path narrowed between the hedges, he turned to her as their hands brushed. “Can I-” he started slipping his hand into hers.

She pulled away, crossing her arms like a protective barrier.

Her action landed between them like a dropped stone.

His eyes flickered, something sharp, something unreadable. Then he nodded once.

They walked the rest of the way in silence, the sound of gravel crunching underfoot. She kept her eyes on the path, but she could feel him watching her. Like he was remembering something too.

~

It wasn’t meant to happen. She told herself that before she even knocked on his door.

He’d texted, Fancy a takeaway and a film? 

Casual, friendly, the kind of thing they’d done years ago when she was still the tag-along little sister. She’d said yes before she’d thought about it.

His flat was cosy and warm, the smell of Chinese food hanging in the air. They ate out of the takeaway boxes in their laps, watching some half-forgotten film. She made a joke about how he still hadn’t bought proper plates; he rolled his eyes and poured her another glass of wine.

It was nice. Too nice.

At one point, her knee brushed his. Neither of them moved. Then his hand found hers, fingers resting there, not quite holding, not quite letting go. The silence stretched, soft and daunting.

He turned to her slowly, eyes tracing her face like he was searching for permission.

And then his lips were on hers.

Gentler than last time. No teasing, no arrogance, just warmth, and that beautifully familiar ache.

And this time, she didn’t stop him.

She knew she should have, she knew it would ruin her again, but she didn’t.

Because for all the hurt, for all the ways he’d made her feel so small, he was still the only person who could make her feel truly seen.

Even if it was a lie.

~

It wasn’t official. It wasn’t anything, not really, not yet.

But it was something.

He’d text her late at night - You up?, You watching that show again?, Still can’t make toast without burning it?, and she’d reply every time, pretending not to notice how her heart picked up its pace. He’d pick her up after work, drive her home in his car that smelled faintly of aftershave and coffee. They’d sit in parked silence outside her flat, half-laughing, half-listening to songs she said she hated but secretly loved because they reminded her of him.

He was gentler now. Softer in the way he spoke, slower in the way he looked at her. He’d touch her hand absently, a brush of fingers over her thigh as he drove and she sat in his passenger seat, the warm pressure of his palm on her back when they crossed the road. He made her tea in the mornings sometimes, the way she liked it, two sugars, no questions asked.

And she told herself that meant something.

Her brother didn’t know. Neither did anyone else. It was their quiet, private thing, fragile and secret, like a bruise she didn’t want anyone to press on.

At first, it felt like the version of him she’d always wanted had finally arrived. The one who smiled instead of sneered, who listened instead of mocked or made fun. She found herself replaying the old memories, but softer this time, as if they’d been rewritten. The way he’d stood up for her in primary school, the time he’d carried her home after she fell off her bike, the look in his eyes on the night of her brothers sixteenth birthday party.

It almost convinced her. Almost.

~

A few months later, they were out with her brother and a few others, the first time she’d risked being in the same room as George and her brother together in months. The pub was loud, crowded, the smell of beer and heat thick in the air. She’d taken care getting ready that night, not too much makeup, just enough to feel steady. George had smiled when she walked into his living room, that lazy half-smile that never quite reached his eyes, and for a little while, she’d let herself believe they could exist like this. Almost normal. Almost in love.

They sat in a booth near the back, her brother across from them, George beside her. His thigh brushed hers every so often. A small thing, but enough to send her pulse skittering. He was relaxed, drinking, laughing, slipping so easily into the role he’d always played, the charming one, the one everyone looked at.

At one point, someone raised their pint and grinned. “Can’t believe you’ve got George tamed. Didn’t think anyone could do that.”

Laughter rippled around the table.

George smirked, his arm draped loosely behind her. “Tamed? Hardly. She just likes to think she’s got control.”

She forced a small smile, but something in his tone made her chest tighten.

Then her brother joined in, chuckling. “Careful, mate. She bites if you say the wrong thing.”

For a moment she felt like a child again. The two of them beginning to gang up on her.

George leaned in, his voice easy, careless, too careless. “Oh, I know. She’s all bark though. Always was.” He turned to her, grin sharp. “Remember when you used to follow me and your brother around? Couldn’t take a hint even back then.”

The table erupted. Her brother howled with laughter. “Christ, George, don’t tell me you’ve still got her chasing after you.”

Her cheeks burned. She laughed - or something that sounded like it -a beat too late, brittle as glass. George just took a sip of his drink, eyes glittering. “Old habits die hard, eh?”

The laughter faded. Conversation shifted. But she couldn’t unclench her fists under the table, couldn’t stop the slow, crawling shame that settled under her skin.

She felt all exposed and vulnerable, naked among a deep forest of harsh, judging eyes.

Later, in the car, the world felt quieter, like all the noise had been sucked out of it. She stared out the window as the lights blurred past, yellow, white, gone. Her throat felt rubbed raw, and ached with everything she hadn’t said.

He glanced over, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “You’ve gone quiet.”

“Just tired,” she said.

He let out a short, derisive laugh. “You’re always ‘just tired’ when you’re pissed off.”

She turned to him. “I’m not pissed off.” Yet her voice sounded shrill and the defense died at the tip of her tongue.

“Right.” He shook his head, a smirk tugging at his mouth. “You’ve gotta learn to take a joke, love.”

“It’s not a joke,” she said quietly.

His brows knit together. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You still talk to me like I’m...” She faltered. “Like I’m twelve. Like I’m still just the stupid little girl who used to follow you around.”

He exhaled sharply, eyes turning back to the road. “Jesus, you really know how to make something out of nothing, don’t you?”

“I just-”

“It was banter,” he cut in, voice sharper now. “You laughed. Everyone laughed. Don’t start rewriting it.”

“I laughed because I didn’t want to make a scene,” she said. Her voice shook. “Because you embarrassed me. Again.”

He didn’t look at her. “Maybe don’t make it that easy, then.”

The words hit like a slap.

She stared at him, at the line of his jaw, the way his eyes stayed fixed ahead like she wasn’t even there. The silence stretched until it was unbearable.

And then she looked away, pressing her forehead against the cold glass of the window.

Maybe she took everything too serious. Too literal.

Yet her gut twisted into a knot. It was the same ache she’d known all her life, the one he always managed to find and press on, like he couldn’t help himself.

And she hated that even now, even after that, a part of her still wanted him to reach for her hand. Make his way over the middle console. Pull the car over. Take her into his open arms.

~

After that, things began to fray.

Plans cancelled. Texts unanswered until morning. His tone turning clipped, then warm again, then clipped. The rhythm of it all, push, pull, repeat. Made her dizzy.

One night, she found herself outside his flat, coat half-zipped, rain in her hair. He opened the door, eyes surprised.

“You could’ve called,” he said.

“I did.”

He frowned. “Right. Must’ve been asleep.”

But she could see the glow of his telly behind him.

She wanted to shout, to accuse him of something specific, but there was nothing to name. Just that same quiet ache, the sense that he was slipping back into the man he’d always been, and she was standing still, waiting.

He reached for her hand, thumb tracing her knuckles. “What’s all this, then?” he murmured.

Her throat tightened. “I don’t know.”

He smiled faintly, the kind of smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “You think too much.”

Maybe she did.

He pulled her in by the waist, kissed her then, gentle, easy, the same kiss that used to make her heart stop. It still did. But afterward, when she lay awake beside him, still pliant in his grasp, molded to the shape of the body behind her, staring at the ceiling, she realised she couldn’t tell the difference anymore between comfort and damage.

~

A couple months had passed.

The strange sense of guilt lay dormant, yet it festered. The ache builded at times, reminding her body of his effect.

She knew relationships could be complicated, but she wondered if one day the feeling would just die. Maybe everything would just fall into place.

It was an unrealistic fantasy, yet she couldn't help but believe in the possibility.

~

It hit her one morning, over breakfast.

He was sitting at the table, talking about football, crumbs on his fingers, sunlight slanting across his face. He looked heavenly. She watched him, half-listening, tracing the lines she knew by heart, the scar on his brow, the way he laughed mid-sentence, the careless charm that could still undo her with ease.

And suddenly she realised: she loved him in the same way you love a wound you can’t stop touching.

She loved him because he’d been there her whole life. Because he’d broken her heart before she even knew what that meant. A constant ache pressed into the fabric of her life. Because he’d hurt her before she ever knew what hurt really was.

And he hadn’t changed.

Maybe he never would.

But what she didn’t expect, what twisted in her chest like something alive, like a thorn sliding through layers of skin before nestling in her heart, was the knowledge that she might never leave him either. Not really. He was stitched into her history, her blood, the spaces between who she was and who she might’ve been without him.

She’d been waiting for him, she realised. All her life. Waiting for the version of him that existed only in her mind, the kind-eyed boy who stood up for her in a schoolyard, the one who might’ve loved her if he’d only known how she longed to be.

But that version of him wasn’t real. It never had been. And yet, some traitorous part of her still waited, still hoped, that one morning, he’d look at her and become the boy she’d invented just to survive the man he’d become, the man he'd been.

And as she watched him now, the man across from her who would always be half a stranger, heat bloomed beneath her skin.

George was many things, cruel, malicious at times. Yet those qualities came hand in hand with every other, the ones she loved and treasured.

Still, she knew she couldn’t bring herself to leave. There was a quiet tragedy in that, in knowing the fire would burn her and leaning closer anyway, just to feel its warmth.

Yet it was inevitable, loving someone even if he'd left nasty scathes.

Maybe she wanted the guilt, the soothe of his lips over the very marks he'd left.

Maybe that was all they’d ever been. Liars.

Mistaking the ache for something holy, sacred and loving.

- George Clarke

You act like fucking mr bright side when you’re with all your friends, but I know what you’re like when the party ends…. -Lana Del Rey

College/high school George Clarke x reader

Summary: George finds himself always wanting to be around the quiet, more reserved girl. But he just can’t let go of the way other people see him, not yet at least…

George Clarke was well liked, he was friendly, confident and known for having this sarcastic humour. People liked him because he was tall and easygoing, because he was a part of the rugby team and never tried too hard to be liked, to seem popular. He didn’t talk much during his classes, but when he did, his voice carried like someone used to being listened to, other people’s murmurs would quiet down to hear what he had to say.

It was the second term of sixth form, lower sixth to be more specific, when George Clarke had started sitting by you in English. You weren’t really all that popular, yet not invisible either, quick witted and bambi-eyed, known for writing poems that made even their teacher uncomfortable. She had never really spoken to George. Never properly looked at him, not really.

Yet one day George turned to her during English, he asked her what she thought of the book they were reading, and instead of shrugging, dismissing him, she said, “I think it’s about someone pretending not to care as a form of self-preservation.”

George smiled, he smiled in that endearing way that made people think he was about to say something witty, but he didn’t. He just nodded. She went back to her own world, he liked that she didn’t wait for his approval.

Somehow they began to walk home together after school, they lived in opposite directions from one another. He said he liked the long way, she didn’t question it, no one at school mentioned it, not to him at least, though someone tagged him in a meme about artsy girls and rugby lads and he blocked the account almost instantly.

Around his teammates though, George acted as if she didn’t exist. If she passed them in the hallway, he’d glance at her quickly, before looking away, as if he were looking at something he wasn’t supposed to, like if he were caught it would matter. Once, she said “hi” to him in front of a few of the lads, and he didn’t say anything back, he just nodded slightly, like she was one of the many girls that would giggle and wave, saying flirtatious hello’s to him in the halls. He saw the furrow in her brow, the way her lip slightly quivered as she turned away. Later, he texted her a singular line: “Sorry, Didn’t mean to be weird.” She didn’t reply.

At school, he played into his friends’ ways, leaned into his easy charm, the jokes, the shoulder-punches when someone would say something crude, when someone would make a fool of themselves. He let people think he was uncomplicated, that he was, for the most part, like the rest of them. When the team was around, he laughed louder, talked faster, and said things he wouldn’t dare let her hear. She noticed, of course she did. But she never brought it up.

She didn’t ask him about his life much, straying away from questions that danced along the border of being ‘too personal’. He never told her about the pressure he was under from his dad to follow the same career path as him. He never told her how his mum has cried almost nightly since his sister left for London. She didn’t know that sometimes, on game days, he threw up in the locker room toilets before matches because being the kind of person people expected him to be made him sick.

But she saw him. That was the unsettling part.

One bleak afternoon, sitting on an old bench in the park, she looked at him and said, “You’re good at hiding.”

He laughed, thinking she was joking. But when he looked at her, her eyes were squinting from the sun, her face had softened with seriousness.

“I mean it,” she muttered. “You think people don’t notice your persona, how you can disappear into yourself, but I do.”

He looked down at his hands, they shook ever so slightly. “I don’t know how not to, people have this view of me.” His words clipped not knowing what else to say.

She didn’t answer. She just swung her legs, biting the inside of her cheek and scrunching her face up the way she always did when she wanted to cry but wouldn’t.

They spent the most of lower sixth form like this, having fleeting moments, feelings bubbling beneath the surface that neither of them mustered up the courage to mention. Something had passed between them within the remainder of the year, something genuine, something gentle and, maybe, doomed.

After end of year exams, the holidays came and he slowly stopped seeing her. She went off for a writing program over the break, and he stayed home, training for the next season with the boisterous rugby team, going into town with his ‘friend group’ the same friend group he felt he couldn’t really be himself around.

He never told anyone about her, how she made him feel, but sometimes, on long train rides, or after training when the adrenaline fades and his chest feels empty, he’d think about her, he’d think about the way she looked at him, how sometimes she’d look, and it would feel like she was reading a version of him no one else could see.

And his chest would tighten, it hurt, but not in a bad way. In the way that made him want to be the person he was when he was with her, the person he hid away from everyone else.

There was a pressure building within George, and he wondered how long it would take until it snapped, he wondered how long it would be until he could see her again.

-This is low-key based off of Normal People, also I’ve never written one of these before so this is not my usual thing….

P.s. I’m not a George super fan, this is just me projecting. I just didn’t know who to write this with, so sorry if this bothers anyone, he’s been all over my feed and luckily he played rugby. 🤞🕺

Harry Lewis x reader

-let the light in. At your back door yelling 'cause I wanna come in. Turn your light on. Look at us, you and I, back at it again…. -Lana del rey

-slightly toxic relationship over the space of a couple years….

~

She entered Harry’s life like a whirlwind during the winter. Easing, quickly into on and off stages, close to dating, yet there was never any classification.

Harry, a fair bit older. Wasn’t sure he was ready to settle down. She was younger, yet to explore all the world had to offer, this way of thinking may have doomed them from the start, fate, or an inability to push one’s insecurities, doubts to the side for a chance at something good, something pure, feelings that root their way inside, deep, and leave longing, pain in the heart at their absence.

They found themselves in this routine, both of them living different, busy lives. Whenever they were in London, or the same city, they would show up, sometimes out of the blue wherever the other was staying. Sometimes it was late, the city long asleep, a knock could be heard, feet shuffling to the door, whispered greetings, messy kisses, messier loving.

London is where most of this went down, Harry would show up at her apartment, no work for the following week, so he’d stay. It was like they could pretend for a while, pretend they were living a different life, one where their worlds revolved around each other.

But soon the act was up, the curtain would draw to a close, the crowd would leave. It was back to the real world, for the both of them. Harry had shoots to get to, places to travel, while she had her life to figure out, studies to complete, passions to find.

Yet they always found themselves back in the same place one way or another.

~

Summer came, and they spent most of it together. Trips to the beach, warm evening dinners. Their facade of a relationship felt prolonged this time around, both having time off from their usual routine, alternating between one another’s apartments, spending no more than a couple days apart.

She slipped away with the breeze on a Thursday night, the summer had begun to slip away, yet free spirited as she was, she chased the heat, chased it all the way across Europe with some close friends from school, before settling in the Italian countryside, working for a family who owned a large old farm house.

She left nothing but a note to Harry ‘see you soon - xoxo’ yet he found out what she was off doing from the pictures she’d post every once in a while.

Harry shrugged it off, she’s just some girl, besides she’s too young to settle down with, would I even want that? He became more indulged in his work, though without fail, every night, he’d leave the light on, just incase. Their own little code to say ‘I’m here, you’re welcome to come in.’

~

Months passed and they both lived their lives, Harry worked, yet the last he’d heard, she was modelling in Sweden, though she hadn’t updated her social media in a good month or so.

Knocking on his window like a storm that had remembered the way home. Snow clung to her eyelashes. She wore a red coat and smelled like warm vanilla.

“Let me in,” she whispered.

“I thought you were gone for good.”

“I was. But the light was on.”

He let her in.

They didn’t talk much that night, just curled around each other on the mattress, the hum of the radiator filling in the words they weren’t ready to say. In the dark, she reached for his hand.

“I dreamt you were driving, and I was in the back seat,” she murmured.

“What happened?”

“We crashed, I think. But I wasn’t scared. You were with me.”

Harry hummed in response, pulling her closer by her waist.

They fell back into it, yet only for a week.

Harry left, early in the morning before she awoke. His excuse, like usual, work. He left her a note on her kitchen counter reading: ‘Off for work, see you soon.’

She returned to university, busying herself with coursework, she’d taken up fashion design as a hobby during her travels, one of the Italian women she worked with taught her a thing or two about making clothes. She wanted her own brand, her clothing line, all unique, all her.

‘Soon’ the last word he left her with, felt longer than need be, she checked his socials though he wasn’t one for being active, she missed him, though she’d never tell him that.

~

Harry rapped against the door to her apartment, he was tipsy and couldn’t ignore the fact that his journey home had taken him by her apartment.

They sat, cosy in her living room, drinking wine, something red made in France. The conversation was easy, like they hadn’t spent any time apart, like this was their normal.

She turned to him saying, “You’re the kind of guy that calls women ‘complicated’ because they won’t kiss you.”

Harry said, “You’re the kind of girl who confuses cruelty with confidence.”

She laughed. He didn’t.

But he followed her into her bedroom anyway, like a moth does a flame.

They didn’t even kiss that night. Just talked for hours, between the rooms of her cluttered apartment until the sun came up. She told him about styling a shoot for a band that never paid her. He told her about the latest video he and the boys had made, and the time he spent with his family before returning to London. He left again in the morning.

~

Harry saw her again at a brand launch near a scenic Lake. He was there with the rest of the group, though he was much less social then the rest of them. She was there because she’d styled half the models, her clothing line becoming more and more successful. He wanted to tell her he’s proud, that everything she’s done is amazing, they weren’t like that though, they’re not together. Nevertheless, Her name was misspelled on the press board, but it didn’t matter, she was just happy to be there.

He caught her in his phone lens and didn’t post the photo.

“Delete that,” she said, brushing past him in leather boots, already sipping champagne she didn’t pay for.

“I didn’t take it,” he lied, but he couldn’t help the smile that graced his features.

“Yes, you did.” Though her serious exterior cracked and she smiled at him, her eyes crinkling.

He never realised how much he loved her smile.

~

And just like that, they fell back into place.

They were beautiful together in the way that got noticed. Like a perfume ad no one could afford: Harry thrown in whatever clothes he could find, while she dressed herself in patent leather, little skirts, and vintage pieces, now hard to find.

His fans caught them once, the picture going viral, the two of them, laughing at a rooftop bar, the sky burning gold behind them.

Someone tweeted: ‘Love looks like this.’

But they weren’t in love, not yet at least. They were intrigued. Lit up by each other like camera flashes in a dim room.

She liked how Harry always seemed like he was thinking of something better than the moment, she mistook that for mystery. He liked the way she quoted fashion editors like poets, that she was smart, always having a book on the go.

~

Eventually, they were dropping in and out of each other's lives so much that their friends got curious who they were spending so much time with. She bumped into him on a night out with her friends, he was seemingly doing the same, introductions were made, brief and awkward, nothing more really came of it by this point.

They were never good for each other. Everyone knew it. Maybe even they knew it too, but knowing something doesn’t always mean you do anything about it.

Sometimes, when the loneliness settled too deep in his chest, Harry would message her nothing more than a couple words like 'You up?' She’d leave him on read for days, sometimes weeks. And then, without warning, she’d reply.

A picture. Her legs in a hotel bed. Sunlight on her thighs. The caption: “Guess who just shot a campaign in Paris?”

He wouldn’t reply. But a few nights later, she’d show up in London again, asking if she could stay over.

He said yes. He always did.

~

They argued more now. Not over big things, over nothing, really. Spilled wine. Missed calls. Who looked at who for too long in the back of a cab, the kind of look that speaks louder than certain words. He’d call her childish, immature. She’d call him cold, cruel, emotionally constipated.

Still, they kissed and shared lingering touches, some nights he'd push her down into the mattress, 'loving' her like no one else could, like the world was ending and they were trying to drown it out with the sound of skin on skin.

~

“I think you only like me when you’re bored,” she said once, curled up in his bed wearing his old hoodie.

Harry looked at her and said nothing. His face remained blank, yet he looked to his hands.

“Say something,” she whispered.

“I think you only like me when no one else is looking.”

The silence was sharp enough to cut her. But she didn’t bleed. Not in front of him.

~

One weekend in November, he brought someone else to a party some of her recent designs were being displayed at.

He hadn’t known she was working it. But when he saw her across the room, clipboard in hand, lips painted a mauve-ish pink, it was too late.

She saw him too. She didn’t flinch. She just walked by, trailed her fingers across Harry's back, before coming to a stop beside him. She Smiled, slow and poisonous.

“You two are cute. But does she know you snore when you’re stressed?”

the girls mouth dropped open, Harry's jaw tightened, but just as he was going to say something, she was already gone, disappearing into the crowd like a mist of perfume.

~

They didn’t speak for six weeks after that. Until he came to her apartment drunk again, this time without knocking.

He used the spare key she forgot he had.

She found him asleep on her couch at 4 a.m., face buried in one of her coats.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she snapped.

“Missed you,” he mumbled, eyes barely open.

“You humiliated me.”

“I humiliated myself,” he said. “You just make it look prettier.”

She hated how good he was at saying the wrong thing beautifully. Hated how her heart still jumped whenever she heard his voice.

That night, she didn’t let him into her bed. But she gave him a blanket. In the morning, he was gone.

~

By spring, she’d started seeing someone else. A photographer. He was older, older than Harry. Calmer. Didn’t raise his voice, didn’t disappear.

Harry found out the usual way, through someone else’s tagged photos. She looked happy, radiant, posing with the man beside a river in Amsterdam.

He stared at the post for five full minutes before throwing his phone somewhere across the room. He wasn't angry, at least that's what he told himself.

Later that night, he texted her.

"Are you happy now?"

No response.

Two days later, she messaged back.

"Are you?"

He didn't know how to respond so he left it, pushed all thoughts of her away like he did his other problems.

~

They saw each other again in June. A gallery event in Soho. She wore all black, from her dress to her shoes, her hair was curled, full of volume in the way that made her most confident.

He didn’t expect her to walk over.

They spent most of the night by the open bar, making idle chat before she blurted out the kind of words they never really spoke aloud.

“You still leaving the light on for me?” she asked.

He didn’t answer.

“I don’t even check anymore.”

“Liar.”

She smiled bitterly. “Yeah. Maybe.”

That night they left together. Again.

But this time was different.

They fought in the Uber. A real fight. Brutal, sharp-edged.

"I can’t do this anymore," she said, voice cracked. "I want something solid, Harry. Someone that doesn’t disappear when the sun comes up, or when your job calls."

"You knew what this was," he shot back. "Don’t pretend you wanted a proper relationship with someone like me."

"That’s the thing," she said. "I did."

She got out before the car stopped at his place.

Harry didn’t follow after her. He went home. Left the light off.

~

They stayed away longer this time. Maybe out of pride. Maybe self-preservation. But time’s cruel. It doesn’t heal everything. Sometimes it just softens the edges enough to start again.

He ran into her in December, back in London, both of them dressed too well for people trying too hard not to care.

He said, "You look different."

She said, "Long time, no see."

He asked if she still made clothes. She asked if he was still filming with his group.

This time around seemed different, they settled in, stayed, yet still avoided the pressure of labels, the confirmation of feelings they shared.

~

He left the first time after six months, right before her birthday.

The boys were filming a video that would take him to New York. She asked him not to go.

“This is what I do, it's my job.”

“And what am I?”

He didn’t answer. Just zipped his bag and kissed her temple like a friend.

She posted a story: pink lips, colder eyes, captioned “Girls don’t cry in Margiela.”

He watched it alone, lying in a stranger’s hotel bed. Guilt seeping into his stomach and lingering.

~

They came back together like clothes after rain, damp, clinging, full of old scent. Like lost lovers, he apologized for his leaving, for his mistakes, and she, as per usual, forgave him, pulling him closer by the belt loops of his jeans.

That night he held her close, whispering in her ear as she clung to him, her nails digging into his arms, the muscles on his biceps. He loved making her this way, all shaky, teary-eyed. A mess.

He was gone again in the morning, no note, no message, like he never returned at all.

~

Each time he left, she made herself smaller. Each time he returned, she made herself colder.

When he knocked at her door the next time, she let him in.

“Why do you keep coming back?” she asked.

“Because it’s you.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one I’ve got.”

“Well it's not good enough, not this time at least.”

Yet she wasn't able to push him away, to rid her life of every experience and emotion he brought.

This time around was the longest they had ever been together, it felt more stable, more real. Harry still left for work, but never for long and he came back as soon as he was finished. Though she was uncertain. there were frays and splits in the curtain, and she often wondered what it would take for it to draw close like it had so many times before.

Obviously it wouldn’t take much.

~

The next time he left was quiet.

No fight. Just a text:

“They want me in Monaco for two weeks. Might extend.”

She replied "See you then. xxx"

Two weeks became six. He stopped watching her stories after the one where she was in bed with someone else.

He liked it less when she wasn’t waiting.

~

They met again at a dinner party, accidentally, intentionally.

“How’s Monaco?”

“Fast. Beautiful. Warm.”

“You always liked the heat.”

“Always more when you were around.”

“I miss you.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You leave before the light comes in, Harry. Every time.”

She left before dessert.

They never broke up cleanly.

But they were never together. But never not, not really.

~

He called from Berlin, a couple months later.

“I saw your shoot.”

“You always think I’m hurting.”

“You always are.”

She hung up.

~

He didn’t call for two months.

They both saw other people. But never really moved on.

Spring came late.

They made eye contact at a party in the countryside, they didn’t speak all night.

At 2:41 a.m., he messaged her:

“Want me to come over?”

She didn’t reply.

He came anyway. Knocking at the door to her B&B.

They kissed like war. Raging. Brutal. Harsh

He held her down on the bed, pulling at her hair so he could whisper in her ear. "You know you need me." All she could do was mumble in agreement, he smirked at this, not needing her conformation to know.

In the morning: coffee, silence.

“We’re disgusting.” She murmured.

He shook his head, smiling at her through her embarrassment.

“We’re inevitable.”

She didn’t know which was worse.

~

They tried again.

Dates that ended in slammed doors. Sex like an apology. Fights that circled back to nothing.

She once screamed, “Do you actually want me?” “Like could you ever see yourself in a relationship with me or have we been pretending this whole time?”

He deflected, questioning her, “Would you even want me if I stayed?”

They both lied.

He disappeared that summer. No goodbye.

She stopped eating for two days. Booked a job. Slept with a model who didn’t know her name.

Texted Harry: “Don’t come back.”

He replied three weeks later: “I never really leave.”

And he didn’t.

Not really.

They haunted each other.

In playlists. In tagged photos. In the necklace she left in his coat pocket. In the boots by his door.

~

One night, he showed up with her favorite flowers.

“You think this means anything?”

“No. But I couldn’t breathe till I saw you.”

She let him in.

Of course she did.

They undressed like punishment. Clung like a cure.

Then they didn’t speak for a month.

~

Their last reunion wasn’t soft. It was destruction.

He showed up drunk.

“Why do you keep doing this?” she cried. “Why do you come back when there’s nothing left to break?”

“I love you.”

“You love the idea of a relationship with me.”

He nodded.

She didn’t kiss him. He slept on the floor.

In the morning, he was gone.

She didn’t chase.

He didn’t call.

But they still haunted each other.

In photos. In strangers. In silence.

~

She saw him one last time across the street, hand-in-hand with someone new.

She looked away. Tears biting at the edge of her waterline.

He turned back, just as she vanished into the crowd, her long hair whipping behind her.

Then he knew.

Knew where his heart belonged, that his light would always stay on in the hopes of her return.

Though she had known long before, leaving for the last time was easier than she thought.

George Clarke x reader

The first time she met George was in the dim yellow hallway of her new building. Her boxes were stacked like walls around her, her arms full of a lamp with a cracked shade. He leaned against his doorframe like he’d been waiting, a grin already tugging at his mouth.

“New neighbour?” he asked, voice smooth, easy, practiced.

She nodded. His eyes crinkled in the corners as though the whole thing delighted him. He took the lamp from her before she could protest, ushering her inside, making the small effort of her move feel like a welcome ceremony.

George was magnetic. That was the word. He knew the right things to say, the right places to look. She could feel him pulling her in from that first day.

Soon, it became habit. Knocks on her door, invitations to grab drinks with him and his friends. They were loud, golden people, full of banter and private jokes she struggled to keep up with. But George always made room for her, drawing her into the circle with a hand to her arm, an introduction said with conviction.

Still, there were moments she couldn’t quite place. The quick, darting glances between his friends when he called her over. The way his phone would buzz and he’d slip outside, returning twenty minutes later with that same charming smile, as if nothing had happened. His apartment too, soft pink throw pillows on the couch, a perfume bottle on the bathroom sink, a scarf draped over a chair. She asked once, lightly, and he only smirked. “What, you don’t like a man with taste?”

She laughed with him. She always laughed with him.

When they finally kissed, it was late, the building silent except for the hum of the elevator shaft. His mouth was hot against hers, his hands certain. He pulled away only to murmur, “I don’t do commitment, you know. I like to keep things easy.”

Something twisted in her chest, dagger- sharp and gnawing, but she nodded. She told him that was fine. That she didn’t mind. And then she let him lead her into the kind of closeness that is almost love but hollowed out, a shadow of it. Friends, with blurred edges.

But it wasn’t fine. Not really. Every time she left his bed, guilt clung to her like smoke, hung around her body in a fog of shame. She couldn’t shake it. Something was wrong. She could feel it in the quiet aftermath, in the way his eyes sometimes slid past her like she was less real than the glass in his hand.

The night it broke was unremarkable at first. They were tangled on his couch, her shirt on the floor, his lips on her neck. She was just beginning to lose herself in it when the door clicked open.

At first she thought it was another friend. Until she saw her.

The woman froze in the doorway, keys still in her hand. Dark hair pulled back, tote bag on her shoulder. Her face, loving, open, warm, then suddenly shattered.

“George?” she whispered.

Everything in her turned to ice.

He stilled, his breath harsh against her skin. “Babe…”

Babe.

~

She had been complicit. She had seen the signs, and still, she let him reel her in, let herself be fed on until she was empty.

It was not a thing that lasted a week. It stretched, elastic and stubborn, across months. Nine, maybe ten even, marked by small rituals that felt, at first, like ownership. She would bring him coffee on Sunday mornings and they would sit on his balcony while the city crawled awake; he would mess with her hair, braid it, clumsy and laughing, as if he were making something of her; they watched terrible films with the subtitles off and pretended they were critics. He learned the particular cadence of the word she used when she was tired, the way she tucked her hair behind her ear without thinking. He collected the small evidence of her existence the way a dog collects bones: not thoughtful, simply habitual.

That habit was the cruelest camouflage. There were afternoons he would kiss the inside of her wrist and then, minutes later, answer a call and step out onto the landing with the kind of attention he reserved for other people. There were times she woke in the thin, terrible hours and padded, barefoot, down the hall to his door because something in the small spaces between them felt frayed, and he would open up and pull her in as though nothing was wrong. The warmth of those returns became a trap; she read them as constancy, even when they were mere excuses.

His friends were complicit in a softer way. They treated her like a fixture, an extension of George’s charm rather than a person. They laughed at her jokes, invited her to casual parties where she found herself making the rounds like some minor celebrity. Sometimes, when the air shifted and he took a call, one of them would stare at her from across the room with something unreadable under their gaze. She tried to tell herself it was protective, or competitive, or merely curiosity. She convinced herself of small mercies: that he had not said he loved her, that things had been consented to, that she had choices, that she had been honest with herself when she said she did not need anything else.

The day after the doorway, after the confused looks, the bags slamming against the wood floors, the tears. After she had slipped from his apartment, past the woman standing in his doorway, and down the hall to her own. After everything had fell into its place, The perfume bottles. The scarf. The pink pillows that adorned his sofa. The phone calls. The glances from his friends. Her own gut gnawing at her like a warning she refused to hear. After it all, she did not go to his apartment. He left a message she never listened to. His friends sent her texts that evaporated under scrutiny: Concern? Fury? Offers of coffee? She answered none. She wanted to be angry at him and she wanted him to be furious at her and most of all she wanted a script where she could be the injured party and not the accomplice. Reality refused to hand her that neatness.

~

When she finally saw him, it was in the building laundry room, fluorescent light humming above, the smell of detergent like hospital cleanliness. He was folding a towel with meticulous disinterest as if he had chosen the task to calm a heart he could not be accused of breaking. He looked up, the old smile rehearsed and soft.

“Can we talk?” he asked.

She watched his hands, the small, habitual movements that once soothed, and felt the answer coil. She could make him explain. She could make him name the other woman, apologize, unravel. She could demand a thing that would make her feel like a protagonist in a moral play. Instead she watched him like someone watching a measured experiment: interested, clinical, unwilling to intervene.

“We can,” she said. Her voice sounded like it belonged to someone else.

He leaned forward. “I never meant-” he started, and the sentence unspooled into the usual neat apologetics: that he was messy, that he had a past, that he’d been confused, that he didn’t want to hurt anyone. “I thought I could keep things simple,” he said. “I thought-”

She could have told him then that she had never demanded simplicity, that she had silently and foolishly hoped for more. She could have told him she had stayed because his easy warmth felt like home in a city that otherwise felt foreign. She could have said that she had noticed, from the beginning, the items that did not belong to him, two mugs in the kitchen with floral patterns, a cheap gilded frame with a photograph of a woman’s hand on his shoulder, the little pink throw pillows, the scarf draped on the coat rack, and had rationalized them into coincidence. She could have told him all of that, and watched him respond. Instead she folded her arms and watched his mouth as if the shape of the apology might prove him worthy.

“What do you want from me?” she asked finally.

George blinked. Nothing in his expression changed. “I want you,” he said with that same breathless ease he used when he wanted to make a thing feel true with charm alone. “I want…us. I’ll cut it off. I’ll…”

The list of promises was old and familiar, yet her stomach twisted. She watched his hands, folding the towel as if this were the only proof he needed to show he could be ordinary. She had seen ordinary before; she had watched it in him when he was being someone else for her benefit. She wanted to believe. She wanted the hollow space filled. But the hollow had teeth.

She left without further words. In the elevator her stomach swooped and she felt the ancient, physical need to throw up the memory of the woman in the doorway, to eject from her body the sensation of being part of someone’s easy ledger. She went home and did not sleep for the rest of the night, experimenting with ways to make herself feel entitled to attention, to losses, to the small rights she had never asked for.

~

Weeks passed and there were attempted reconciliations and the same old pattern, intimacy that felt actual, followed by his mental and emotional disappearances, followed by her rationalizations. Sometimes he would be radiant, attentive, tender, and she would taste the possibility of rescue. Other times he would be distant, and she would learn to shape her days around the certainty of his uncertainty.

She’d let him back into her life, yet guilt still sunk its claws deep into her gut. He had told her he and the other woman were over, that he should have done it ages ago, his words felt hollow yet she allowed herself to be fooled.

The heft of the betrayal was not a single blow but a series of small fractures. She catalogued them later, in the quiet, as if trying to make a tax return out of memories. Each little thing weighed down the ledger. There were mornings he returned with lipstick smudges at the corner of his mouth that he blamed on gnawing at a sandwich. There were presents that came with names she did not recognize. There was the time she discovered a photograph shoved behind a CD in his shelf, a picture of him with a different woman, laughing in the same way he did now, and the way he shrugged when she asked where it had come from.

Her shame grew not only from what he had done but from what she had allowed. finding excuses to be the person who fell asleep on his couch, exchanging keys to the other’s apartment, letting their situation stay non-committed. Each memory of acquiescence was a small self-betrayal she played and replayed until it hummed deep in her bones, reverberating beneath her skin.

~

When she finally confronted him, months later, it was not in the laundry room but at two in the morning on his balcony. Rain had made the city feel silver stained and small. He was on the phone, laughing, loud, casual, and she could hear a second voice under his words. It took a moment for him to see her reflected in the glass. For a second his face was that of a deer caught in headlights and then the charm was back, as if he had rehearsed for this. He ended the call. “Hey,” he said, his voice rasped.

She did not move. The rain collected on her eyelashes and she allowed herself to be soaked in the downpour. “How long?” she asked.

He said, “What?”

She repeated the question and the words came out all soft, the kind of small things that could not be unsaid. “How long, George? How long have you been-”

He couldn’t meet her eyes. He reached out and touched the railing as if stabilising himself. “Two years,” he said, and the number was both absurd and banal. Two years. The time they had known each other. The time she had allowed to gild his mistakes. His hands were suddenly smaller than she remembered.

She thought about all the times she had told herself she was not attached, that she had warned herself away from wanting more. She thought about the nights she had sat alone and imagined scenes in which he would leave his girlfriend and choose her; she felt like a foolish child for ever thinking he had been anything but prepared. Her stomach turned sour.

“What about me?” she asked. The question was not about hurt so much as the inventory of betrayal: not only that he had lied, but that his life could include her as a casual item while being anchored elsewhere. “Where does that put me?”

He reached for her as if to make the question dissolve. “You matter to me,” he said, which spun the room and left her dizzy because the words might have been true in some shallow, hungry way. He could care in pieces, she realised: for comfort, for entropy, for evening warmth.

She did not accept his hands. She stepped back and the balcony suddenly seemed impossibly narrow. Down below the city went on, bustling and indifferent.

She left. Not with a confrontation and not with a scene, but quietly, like a slow erasure. She packed while he slept, her hands shaking as she took in shallow breaths, the apartment around her a map of small compromises. She folded clothes she had once imagined he would see and treasure; she put away mugs they had used; she took one of his sweaters soft, slightly perfumed, and tucked it into a box. She could not tell whether she was saving it as proof that she had existed for him or because she could not stand the idea of removing the last thing that might tie her to him.

She left a note on his kitchen table. It was not an explanation; she did not want to give him the satisfaction of reading her rationales. It read: You said you didn’t do commitment. I did anyway. I hope you find what you’re looking for.

He read it when she was already rounding the corner of the street. He ran after her in slippers and a cardigan, breathless, indignation and pleading mixed into one incoherent performance. She kept walking. She listened to him call her name until it was just another sound the city swallowed.

~

Later, when she moved into a smaller apartment a few neighborhoods over, the days had a gentler edge. She began to schedule her life by necessity rather than by the rhythm of his moods. She returned the sweater to the box and then, months later, placed it in the bottom drawer of a cabinet she seldom opened. Sometimes at night she would lie awake and feel the phantom of his hand on her waist and a small gnawing of shame. Sometimes she would wake and remember the woman in the doorway and feel a hot, enraged sorrow for her gullible mind, her harmlessness.

- George Clarke

You roll like thunder, pouring all your drinks. The party’s lit and you, my friend, half-cut when it begins. You roll like thunder, you’re tryna catch that wind…. -Lana Del Rey

College/high school George Clarke x reader

-I’m still so new to this, I don’t know how to link parts one and two, but part one should be just under this on my page…

Summary: School starts again after the holidays, but this time things don’t feel quite right. There’s this unspoken tension between the two, and it feels as if it could break at any second, George can only handle it for so long…

Her writing program was coming to a close, and so were the holidays, meaning back to reality, or the quiet, mundane, bubble that was her home town.

This writing program had been like a retreat, she was surrounded by people much like her, that challenged her and made her think on things in different ways, much more so than she had ever experienced back in school.

She came back, with a week left before school started back up, before her last year. It didn’t really feel like she was coming back to anything, the trees were still bare from the winters harsh touch, the town itself still quiet. She dragged her hefty suitcase down the familiar footpath, past the same park, the same bus stop where people just stared, glued to their phones like they were scared of being present. She felt different, not in the physical sense, or any cliché way, just more at home within her own skin.

When school started back up, the other students were louder, brasher. One girl cried during History on the first day back and no one knew what to do. She didn’t cry once, not during school, but she wrote like her chest was splintering. It felt good. Like she could channel everything she was feeling, like being scraped clean.

Back home, she stayed in her room longer than she needed to. Her mum asked if she wanted to see her friends, she had to remind her she didn’t really have any close ones here, she had a small group to sit with at lunch, she had acquaintances, people she’d sit next to in class, people who sometimes liked to talk to her in passing, but never invited her to parties.

She hadn’t expected to think about George. But she did, more than she’d like to admit.

He’d stopped speaking to her after exams. No goodbye, no text. He just slowly vanished, like they’d imagined the whole thing. She tried not to romanticise it. She told herself he was just a boy who didn’t know how to hold a mirror to himself, and she was just a girl who made him nervous by doing exactly that.

Still. She found herself walking by the rugby pitches one evening just to see if he was there. He was, standing with a group, laughing too hard at something. His voice reached her before his eyes did. And he saw her.

For a moment there was nothing.

Then he looked away.

She stood there for a few seconds longer than she should have, before then walking on. Her face scrunched up, eyes watering like they did after these times.

Later that week, they bumped into each other in the same park, the one where they’d sat and talked about everything and nothing. He was on a run, she was walking with her headphones blasting. He said “Hey,” like it was just another day. She nodded. He shifted his weight, like he wanted to say more but he didn’t know if he was allowed.

“How was your writing program?” He asked, searching for her eyes.

“Interesting, good,” She responded. “I wrote a lot.”

“That’s great,” he said, and it sounded like he meant it.

She wanted to ask him why he had disappeared. She wanted to ask if it had mattered to him at all, the walks, the silence, the things they almost let happen, the things they felt, or at least she felt. But she didn’t. She didn’t want to give him the power to confirm what she already feared.

Instead, she just said, “You look the same.”

He blinked, his eyebrows furrowed. “Is that a good thing?”

She shrugged. “It’s just a thing.”

They stood there, a while, just two people pretending they were still the versions of themselves who once had a quiet understanding. But she could see it in his eyes, the guilt, or maybe the confusion. And all she felt was tired. Not angry. Just tired of being the only one who knew how keep hold of fragile things without dropping them.

She walked away first this time. She didn’t look back.

That night, she wrote a poem about absence. About a silent longing. She didn’t name him. She didn’t have to.

-

The year had droned on, term three rolled around and George welcomed the nearing end to his college years.

They hadn’t spoken since their last encounter in the park, yet George found himself looking for her, in the halls, during lunch breaks, and in any classes they shared. He never thought he could miss someone yet be in their presence almost every day.

George didn’t plan on going to her house. He didn’t even know for sure if she still lived in the same one. But his feet carried him there anyway, on instinct, not desire. Or maybe that was the same thing now.

It was raining in that indecisive, misty way that didn’t drench you all at once, just crept in slowly, soaking your clothes. He stood tentatively across the street from her place for a good minute before doing anything. His jumper was almost soaked through, his fists scrunched and jammed inside his pockets. He felt childish, putting off something after he’d come all this way.

Then he crossed the street.

Her mum answered. He remembered her vaguely, from the times they’d spent going between each other’s houses. She had soft eyes, and a warm smile, but she seemed like the kind of woman who always knew more than she let on. She didn’t look surprised to see him.

She called upstairs to you, no judgment, nor hesitation in her voice, before slinking away leaving him shivering in the doorway.

Then came a pause. Footsteps.

Then there she was.

She looked exactly how he pictured her, which annoyed him in a way he couldn’t explain. She was wearing cozy clothes, fitting for the weather, her sleeves reached past her wrists, she tugged on them in a nervous manner, her face formed in a frown when she saw me, not a smile in sight. She folded her arms up as if to protect herself, like a barrier, like she was already bracing herself for disappointment.

“What are you doing here?”

“I don’t know,” he answered her, and it was honest.

She stepped aside against the door, allowing him inside anyway.

He followed her into the kitchen. The light was low and warm, everything too quiet, the atmosphere awkward and cracking, bursting at the seems just waiting for something to be said. She made tea without asking if he wanted any. He watched her move about like he wasn’t even there.

When the tea was done, she headed upstairs, he followed after her, the two of them entering her room. She placed the tea down at her desk, not before finding an uncluttered space, then went to close the door behind him.

“You can’t just show up out of the blue,” she said finally, breaking the silence.

“I know.”

“You didn’t even say goodbye.”

“I know”

“You ignored me. Pretended you didn’t know me around your friends.”

“I know.” He paused. “I’m sorry.”

Her eyes were squinting slightly, her voice had begun to tremble but she held her head high. She looked at him hard then.

“You’re not sorry, George. You just feel bad now because I didn’t wait around for you, didn’t chase after you like I’m sure many other girls have.”

That stung, he could feel his chest tighten. Maybe because it was true. Maybe because he wasn’t sure what he had expected her to do, write about him? Stay quiet? Disappear politely?

He didn’t answer her yet, just shifted to reach for his tea, hoping the mug might help him think of what to say, might offer him a script.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he said.

“What, be decent?” She shot back. “Not just disappear from my life for months, then expect me to welcome you back in after you show up at my door.”

He flinched, just slightly.

She sighed, and for the first time that day he saw her properly, she looked tired, not just of him, but of the whole thing, of being the one who had to say the hard part, of being the one who won’t just give in when given some form of apology.

“I liked you,” she murmured quietly. “I really did. But you made me feel like I should be embarrassed for it, or that you would be embarrassed of it.”

“I liked you too,” “I like you too,” he said, but it came out too fast, and overall, too late.

She laughed, but not in the way he loved, she laughed, bitter. “You have a funny way of showing it.”

“I was scared.”

“Of what? Your reputation, harm coming to your image?”

“Of you,” he said.

That stopped her. She blinked once, then twice, taken aback. Then she laughed again, but it wasn’t bitter this time. Just surprised.

“Of me?”

He nodded. “You saw things, I mean really saw. I’m not used to that.”

She looked down at the floor, then back up at him. For the first time in months, she wasn’t wearing armour, her wall had fallen before him.

“I could say the same, you’ve seen more of me than anyone, you know more of me.”

And maybe that was the last bit of permission he needed, or maybe it was something else entirely, something he couldn’t name but had been building inside him since that first walk home, since their first proper conversation.

He kissed her. Soft, and a little hesitant, like testing something out that you’ve only ever imagined. She kissed him back. Her hands gripped the damp fabric of his jumper like she didn’t trust him not to vanish again, and maybe she was right to.

When they eventually pulled apart, they just stood there, foreheads close, noses touching, breathing unevenly, like they’d finally surfaced something that came from deep down.

He didn’t say anything straight away.

And neither did she.

But this time, the silence felt different, like something beginning, not something breaking.