Burn

“Go on mate,” Sean urged Harry, smiling at him and leaning across the table, handing him a bottle. Harry was already riddled with alcohol, but he took the bottle anyways, looking at it with disinterest before bringing it to his lips anyways. “That’s a good lad. Lady troubles are the worst sort. Better off without them.”

Harry nodded, raising his hand to that before setting the bottle on the table. All around them, people milled around. It was a grungy place, somewhere Harry didn’t typically go anymore. He had come here with Leon ages ago. It was a club in the rougher parts of town, where all the drugs came through.

Sean whistled at a girl, gesturing for him to come over. She did languid, casting a flirty smile at Harry but he stared at her. She was no where near the caliber of Rae. None of the girls in the club were, though they were good enough for Sean to leer at seductively. He whispered something to her before shooing her off.

At first, Harry had gone to Sean because he thought Sean would put him out of his misery and kill him. After all, he was Leon’s brother. He had every reason to screw Harry over. But Sean had waved it off. It was clear he was enjoying life as the king of Leon’s kingdom. He ruled everything in his brothers stead.

“It seems you have everything running swell,” Harry slurred, looking down at the wooden table and tapping it lightly. He was trying not to think of her face, the way she had looked at him. She had been so scared of him. “You’re a good business man.”

Harry had never liked Sean much. Though Leon was always the head of the two, being the oldest, Sean was the smart one. Sean was the one who could knife you from behind without you ever expecting it. He was calculated and did things with cold, dark intentions.

Leon was too obnoxious and proud to ever catch someone off guard. Sean was the opposite. He would never be a play by play, and Harry hated that about him. And yet he sought him out, knowing somehow that Sean would not turn him away. Sean could give Harry distraction from the pain.

It had taken two days of Harry crying in his room, ignoring all calls and attempts to speak to him. When Louis had dragged him out of her house, Harry had run from him. He could not bare to know what he had done. Even Louis had looked at him with those eyes, that horror.

A monster, is what Harry was. He saw that now. Rae was the only thing in the entire world that could heal him, that could bring out the best in him. But he had ruined that, and he would never get that again. He would never know what it felt like to have someone love him.

Love.

It was strange. Harry had known all along that he was in love with Rae. He was absolutely, chest deep, enthralled with Rae. She was light, she was goodness, he was everything he had ever wanted a more. She was the best thing that had ever been created, and he loved every fiber of her being, ever heartbeat that made her up. And he had thrown it away.

That was what hurt him most, knowing that for the first and only time in his life, he had been in love. And he would never have it again. He had been give his deepest, darkest, most desperate wish, his prayer had been answered, and then he gave it up, took it for granted. He never would have imagined doing that.

So there he sat, picking up the bottle again and taking a swig. It tasted like water to him now, perhaps because alcohol is all he had been drinking. It had been a week now, and he was ready to drown himself in it, to turn his blood into alcohol, to submerge in it.

“I’m having a special party later,” Sean informed Harry, his dark, obsidian eyes glittering with something only he could possess. Harry looked at him, mildly interested, if it could be called interest. “At Shade. You should come, bring the boys.”

A snort escaped Harry. The boys. The boys who had known Sean once, but had abandoned his friendship along with Leon’s early on. They had all seen what they were, the two brothers. And they had wanted nothing to do with him. The lot of them always told Harry to stay away. But those were Harry’s darker days, when he turned back on everyone. Funny how history repeated itself.

“You know they won’t come,” Harry answered, tapping the table again. He tried to keep his hand busy. Otherwise they shook, sometimes because he was drinking to much, other times because he was so filled with grief. “They hate you.”

Sean smiled at Harry’s bluntness. “I know. But it’s fun to pretend, isn’t it?”

Pretend. That’s what Harry had been doing all along, pretending that it was Rae that was trying to fix Harry. He knew all along that she just wanted him, all of him. And to justify the way he felt, to justify that he thought he was worth nothing, he had accused her of wanting to change him. Because who wouldn’t want to change him?

Rae didn’t. Somehow, like Leah, Rae had seen something worth wanting in Harry. She had peeled him back, layer by layer, and saw whoever he was inside, even though he wasn’t sure who that boy was. She had seen someone worth loving, even though he couldn’t.

And she was gone. He had scared her away.

Drinking from the bottle, he finished what was left, not that there was much to start with anyways. Sean had an aversion to anything but liquor, so it had been halfway consumed already. “Sure,” Harry answered after a long time. “Pretend. Just like you’re pretending you enjoy me.”

“Oh I’m not pretending,” Sean assured, leaning back and running a hand through his blonde hair. His dark eyes were focused on Harry, glittering in amusement. Harry absently got the feeling that Sean was amused. “I do rather enjoy your company, despite what you think. You’re a turmoil of emotion, and it’s quite interesting to watch play out.”

Harry clenched his fist. A turmoil of emotion. “Excuse me?”

“Oh? Have I offended you? I thought we were having a moment of honesty here. My mistake.”

Green eyes glared at black one’s. Sean’s lips curled into a horrid smile before he sighed, standing. Harry joined him in standing, swaying slightly from drinking so much. Sean steadied him and Harry pulled away from him. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“That’s a good lad. I’ll have that fix you need to get that bird off your mind, yeah?”

Looking at him for a moment, Harry nodded once before walking away from Sean sluggishly, running a hand over his face. He had hardly slept or ate anything. He hoped to god that Sean, no matter how awful and evil he was, could do what no one else could. He prayed Sean could give Harry whatever he needed to make the hurt go away. Because Rae couldn’t keep away the hurt anymore. She was the hurt.

Love had cut Harry to the quick, and he would do anything to heal himself. Anything/