standing knee deep in your love
A TTCOFM Hat Story
Word Count: 1032 Catch Up Here
Natalie liked for things to be in neatly labeled and organized boxes. This was how she kept her classroom from being cluttered. This was how she organized her closet and all her holiday decorations. It was how she kept up with all of her important papers and memories she wanted to cherish forever. It was also how she compartmentalized nearly every aspect of her life.
Her family was in a box. Kit had a box all her own, because she was so much more than just a friend, but wasn’t blood. Niall, Mack, and even Louis and Liam were in a box. She was never quite sure where to put Harry, and it never failed that whatever box she placed him in, he somehow escaped.
She thought that might be why she felt so hostile towards him. Her life was easy and simple and organized, but then during her third year of college he came prancing in like Bambi when he first got his damn antlers. And he never left.
She knew that he’s not bad. He’s in fact quite a good person. She saw it in the way he took care of Niall or when he took care of Kit when Niall wasn’t around. She even saw it when he took care of her, on the rare occurrence she allowed this to happen. But he had a smile that made you forget why you were mad just five seconds ago. He had hands that made you wish he would hold onto you and never let go. And his voice was one she could listen to without ever growing restless. And all of those things were what made him so dangerous. Unpredictable. Her own personal archnemesis.
They began their friendship, if you can call it that, with bickering. Snarking and snapping at each other with ease, and it never once transformed to anything more or less than that. Even five years later, they could barely be in a room together without one of them – usually her – starting an argument.
She didn't think it was her fault, though. It was his, because his love was the ocean. Beautiful and calming from a distance, but the unknown was scary the deeper you go. And when a storm came, the waves and current didn’t have favorites. They destroyed anything in their path. She didn’t want to be destroyed. She quite liked being whole all on her own without the storms of the unknown.
And then somehow they became a team when their two best friends made the most idiotic decision of their lives. Harry and her knew that they needed to step up, put aside their differences if only for a while, and be the anchors their friends needed. She never expected for Harry to somehow become her anchor, too. And when they started getting along, started talking more than bickering, Nat began to rebuild her walls. But no matter how quickly she laid the bricks, Harry came and dismantled them twice as fast. It wasn’t long before her chest was laid bare, and the ocean was lapping at the foot of her heart.
She was afraid the tide of his love would be too strong and pull her away, but he calmed the storms and lulled her into contentment. She felt safe sitting on his shores and letting his love wash her clean. The waves never threatened to pull her under, but instead gently prodded her to be brave one tiny step at a time.
When he took her hand in his, she was reminded how he grounded her in a way no one else ever could. She remembered how easily he can set a wildfire ablaze in her chest, but never allowed it to burn her to ash. When she looked and saw his green eyes already looking at her, the fire started in her toes and spread across her skin, up her stomach, threatening to envelop her whole, but then he smiled and it made itself at home in her chest.
He’s the wind that threatened to drift her soul away, and the earth that softly caught her when she inevitably fell.
He spun her out, only to pull her back against his chest. His dimples were clear as day when she looked up at him.
“You said you loved me today.”
She expected his smile to falter and the dimples to hide, but they stayed ever present. “I did.”
She untangled their fingers only to wrap her arms around him, “It was quite out of the blue.”
His eyes danced over her face, “You think? It was a little past due for me.”
She rested her head against his chest and breathed him in.
“I meant it, you know. I couldn’t love you more if I tried.”
She pressed a kiss against his chest, over his heart. “You weren’t mad that I haven’t said it back.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a fact. She saw it in the way he still continued to look at her after he said that four letter word she had dreaded most of her life. She saw it in the way he took her to the park afterward, bought her a hotdog, and never let go of her hand.
“Of course not.”
She stayed quiet, listening to the steady beat of his heart, and thinking of the way he calmed the ever growing restlessness underneath her skin. She thought about the way he never pushed her, never made her feel unworthy or beneath him. He lifted her up. He encouraged her. He was patient with her. He loved her. He loved her. He loved her.
“Harry?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
She felt his arms tighten around her and his chuckle reverberating in his chest. Happiness swelled up in her and threatened to spill over.
“You’re something else, Natalie Thompson.”
She thought that maybe Harry never stayed in one box because he had too much love, too much life to fit into just one. And somehow, along the way, she found him in every crevice, every corner of every box.
Later, when he hunched over to kiss her goodnight, she smiled against his lips.
A/N: I promised this yesterday, but Tumblr had other ideas. It somehow deleted the entire thing save for the title after it posted it from the queue, and I was out of town visiting a friend for my birthday so... long story short. life happened and i’m just now getting around to posting it. sorry, guys.
i hope yall enjoyed this little insight to Nat and Harry. I certainly enjoyed writing it. And, remember, one more chapter and then TTCOFM will officially be complete. So bittersweet.
comments / concerns / cries of outrage
