Painkiller - A Drarry Fanfiction

Part 012

As we slowly walk, feeling the chilled air drying the sweat from our skin, I stare into the giant window that is the end of the tunnel.

Inside the arched frame is so little, yet so much. The bottom half is the rich, vivid green of summer grass. It's calm and still in the thick before-rain air, soothing in their quiet rustles. The top half is a patchy swirl of grays and blues, filling the sky packed. The clouds look heavy, about to burst into tears which will shower London once again. Everything is ominously quiet as it is just before a storm, but it's also cozy in a way.

Harry stops at the end of the tunnel, before reaching the even thicker weeds that creep into the concrete from that side. He sits on the floor and leans against the curved walls, knees pulled into his chest. I sit, too, across from him, a cool eight feet between us.

Unwrapping his sandwich, Harry glances out the tunnel. "There's a fence in there somewhere." He takes a bite. "The grass just grew too much."

"You don't go further from here?" I say, sandwich also in hand.

He shakes his head. "I'm fine here."

Then we eat, for a while, until we finish. The whole time Harry just watched the stormy clouds flow and I couldn't ask a question, say something, pull him back to earth. So I just watched, too, not the sky but him.

"We should go back before it starts raining," Harry says, wiping his hands with the sandwich wrapper. His eyes flicker up to the clouds again.

"I think we could stay a bit longer," I say. "I'm already covered in dirt—I wouldn't mind getting a bit wet."

Harry scoffs. "I guess." Then he's back to the sky.

The thing is, I should ask a question, say something. I have a job, and I had a plan. As nice as it is to know where the post office is, to have lunch, to be in this abandoned tunnel, I can't lie about the fact that I did make plans for more than that. And I think—seeing him avoiding really talking to me, ignoring my reason for barging into his life, and so on—he knows my plans, too.

I'm sorry, but maybe I shouldn't be. After all, there's someone dying and it isn't me. "So," I say, my heart buzzing, "you said you needed some time?"

Harry's chest rises and falls. "I did."

"Do you need more?"

"...No."

I swallow. "Okay."

A pause, one I was almost convinced would never end. But it did. "I think I would like to die here," Harry says, simply, calmly.

Something drops inside. "What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean." He hasn't looked away from the sky once.

I haven't looked away from him once. "I don't leave until Saturday—I shouldn't have asked so soon. You still have time—"

"It would be nice, wouldn't it?" Harry cuts. "When I end up dying, it won't matter. It's always nice here."

My hands shake. I hold them into fists. "This place will be the same seventy, eighty years from now."

He scoffs. "The grass will grow, the concrete will fall apart," he says, "It won't be the same."

"The sky will be the same," I say, "the cracks on the walls, the fence in the grass—it will be the same."

There's a rumble of thunder. It's loud. It'll rain soon. "How long do I have?" Harry asks.

I sigh. "I don't— You can't predict it."

He brings his gaze down from the sky, but still doesn't bring it to me. He stands, brushing the dust off his trousers, eyes on the floor. "I'll make the most of every day, then," he says. "Like each is my last."