#made a very delighted noise about what looked like an HQ version of the old trailer too

[notenoughdragons]

the opening credits for absolution are already online and they fuck

[aggresivelyfriendly]

~Who Names The Colors~

Chapter 29-Willa and the Magic Hour

Hi Lovely People! I broke my laptop yesterday(I swear I’m clumsier than Mr. Styles, yikes) so today’s chapter is late! I hope it’s worth the long wait....

I am so grateful to @dirtystyles for lots of things, the beautiful banners and this week especially the youtube playlist of a live Harry Styles by Harry Styles in HQ.

@nocontrolforlouis makes these bitches comprehensible!

And last, but never least @bleedinglove4h is today’s kween-she knows why(WHO THE FUCK IS KAREN)!

Also-thanks @gucci

"Harry!" She stage whispered. Jo needed enough volume to get him to look up, but was afraid to disturb his visitor.

He was seated on the steps of a country estate that had been converted to some sort of museum. They were both such dorks, that the thought of living out some Austen fantasy appealed to them. Must be why they worked so well. It was why they had chosen to make their way there on day three of Lake Country life.

Zoe had had different ideas. When she had zoomed through the art hall, the official gallery, like a Tasmanian devil, or at least, like a child whose mother had never taken her to a museum, Jo decided they had better try out of doors until she was a little more tuckered out; and that they should take Zoe to a museum. She was a bloody artist for fuck's sake, as was her boyfriend, and her daughter had never been into a museum, gallery, or even her studio very often. Zoe was only 3, but it still seemed a huge oversight. One to be remedied. Once they let her run wild they could try the gallery again. Hopefully she would let Harry carry her.

Outside, Harry had encouraged Zoe to play a game of tag with him, which had turned into hide and seek. From the smoothness of the transition, Jo suspected their outings to the park went similarly. She was behind a pillar when she heard an excited high-pitched squeal.

"Look at the tiny piggies mummy!" The noise might have been the animal, but Jo suspected it was her kid. Not the goats nearby. Zoe was beside herself and had no concept of her own volume. So the piggies in question had quickly scuttled off to their unhappy, grunting mother.

It was funny, or it seemed to be to the man accompanying them, who was bent over at the waist cracking up at Zoe chasing the piglets and then being chased by the mother pig. Zoe found it funny too, and had giggled then about faced and chased down the pig who squealed and ran away. It looked like an innocent version of Benny Hill, without all the misogyny. Jo's smile was unsinkable.

Zoe had set off to find the scuttling pig and babies and Harry had gone the other direction. Since her boyfriend was ostensibly an adult, Jo want after Zoe.

The duo had subsequently found the lambs and spent a good deal of time watching them. Jo then found out how to get Zoe to calm. Holding little ewes on her lap. She held still and whispered. It seemed to have a compounding effect. As Zoe sat with the lamb on her lap trying to be calm for it, she got calmer and calmer.

That seemed to be the effect this little escape to the Lake Country was having on all of them.

Harry certainly looked calm.

He was lounging in baggy trousers on some steps near a fountain. The day was sunny with that cool warmth of early summer, hinting at heat, but only flirting with discomfort. Harry looked like the daydream he was. His head was cast back and his eyes were closed, sun woshipping. This was probably why he didn't seem to notice the kid, the literal baby goat at his elbow. The sun on his face and the kid at his elbow was too bucolic to miss.

Jo had snapped a picture and then immediately tried to quietly get his attention. She imagined the picture would be cute, but that Harry would actually like to experience the magic moment for himself.

He needed it, he had been off since Jo got home on Sunday evening.

When she and Zoe got back from Bath almost a week ago, Jo'd texted Harry to let him know they were nearly home and safe.

He'd been in the kitchen when they got in. The kettle was bubbling and he had a piece of toast out for Zoe. Jo tried not to give her fruit this late in the evening due to the sugar and had recently had to slow down her cheese consumption. Otherwise, her Stilton bill would be ridiculous. Toast it was lately. Harry had adopted the new rule, because he used to have strawberries out for her. Zoe's favorite.

"Hey baby. Tea?" Harry had greeted her with the question. She expected him to hoist the kettle and grin, but instead he walked over to her and wrapped a hand around her and buried his face in her neck.

He breathed her in and held on. "Miss me?" was what she asked. Jo figured she'd get the actual reason for his affection soon. Once they were ready for bed, and wrapped around each other and the few fetters he kept on his tongue were loosed. He loved to whisper in the dark.

He just nodded into her neck and held her tighter. Her arms came up around him in response. Shoe would wait him out. That night though, he hadn't been chatty. The love he'd made to her had been slow, reverent and almost nostalgic, which troubled her. Harry'd insisted they lay on their side, and he'd held her hands the whole time. He'd spoke I love you's against her skin until she couldn't keep her eyes open.

The next day, Harry and Jo hurried about to get the car packed and ready for their trip. The night before, cuddles and a movie on the couch had seemed a wonderful idea, until the morning presented all the things left to do. The small tent, one of Zoe's very own, for the second half of the trip, after Jo had her fill of room service, was easy to pack. Getting the two-person she had stashed in the attic, was not the same. She'd fought the spiders and won though.

It was still one in the afternoon before they got on the road, and stopping for lunch and later, ice cream, meant they had an hour to get in their hotel room, get dressed and deliver Zoe to the in-house babysitters the inn had, to make their reservations. Jo was nervous, but Harry reminded her of all the reviews she'd read. Plus, it was her idea, a date, out in the world, for his graduation.

Harry loved to have her on his arm, and the black dress she'd surprised him with was cut lower than usual, and his eyes lingered and loved the extra inches all night. He'd been more interested in visually devouring her than the French food on his plate.

The lucky thing was that Zoe was asleep when they went to pick her up. And she'd stayed like that on Harry's shoulder up the stairs. The little girl had stirred when she was laid down, "Mummy!" had been called and feet kicked, but Jo only had to lay with her for ten minutes to get her back to dreamland.

His touches had lingered that night too, she was wondering if he should take a picture of her collarbone for all the studying of it he'd done.

"Are you going to paint it?" She'd asked when she couldn't stand his pace any more, was rubbing her thighs together and pulling his hair at the roots.

"I might, but I think I've just decided it's my favorite part of you.

Jo was still deciding her favorite parts of him when they settled in at the lake. It had taken hours to make camp and Zoe was invigorated by the air. She may as well have wings.

It was really late by the time the three year old fell asleep. The moon was full and brilliant overhead, so bright it kept her up. Zoe had been riled beyond belief. Harry had spent much of the day bear hunting with her and Jo found that she just had to sit back and laugh as they re-enacted the song several times over. Zoe delighted in the tunnels they found and that Harry would slither under fallen trees with her, no matter how dirty he got.

They were such a sight, and the facilities so far away, Jo was at a loss.

"You're such messes! How will we ever get you clean?" She picked through Zoe's ever growing hair. It was thick and growing in waves, her baby curls cut, but the texture still gorgeous and thickly wavy. The color has changed too, darkening. It would lighten with the summer sun though. Jo recalled Harry's baby picture from his senior year of college slideshow. He'd once been a blonde too. Jo sighed wistfully at the similarity and then laughed at herself for even considering such a thing.

If they found a surrogate, in a few years, what would their children look like? How long would they stay blonde? Or would genetics surprise them both. Her wandering mind was called back to Harry answering her question.

Harry laughed at her, "That's easy enough to fix!" And he shucked off his t-shirt and Zoe's dress and carried her down to the water. They splashed and Harry threw her over and over.

Zoe's giggles were fitful and loud and carried. They sailed on the air straight to Jo's heart.

Before she could help herself, She took of her own cover up and ran down to meet them.

Zoe swam back and forth between them until Harry declared her proficient in freestyle, backstroke, and improving on her breath stroke.

Then they had had foil packed potatoes and roast. The energy Zoe took out of the s'mores Harry made them had her bouncing for several hours. "Mummy dance with me!" She'd called as she flitted like a nymph around the fire and Jo had got up and ran to her.

They fire danced like lost boys.

Zoe had dropped 20 minutes ago. Talking a mile a minute then not at all. Jo was sure she was just as tired, and she was laying in the sleeping bags Harry had zipped together when she heard him calling her.

"Jo, c'mere, I want to show you something." He sounded like he was near the water, his voice echoed off and bounced like waves.

She realized why when she got outside- he was exactly as she expected him to be, his feet being lapped at by the gentle lake waves. Jo was just in hi cuts and a plaid, so she followed suit and came to him on the shore, she needed his body heat anyway.

"What did you want to show me?"

"The moon, my Eve." He circled behind her, hooking his chin over her shoulder and pointing to it. "Do you feel the pull?" He looked at her sideways.

Jo looked from the alabaster orb in the sky to the pearls of his teeth. "Yes, but not to the moon." Harry was her little bit of Eden.

"Good." He smiled and walked her to where her knees were just covered before sitting at her feet.

He mouthed over the cotton of her underpants until she squirmed before pulling them to the side. It was almost better through the fabric, almost.

"Harry," her neck was already rolling back from the licks he was giving her lingual crease, he'd switched between the two. And despite her words, her feet had widened to accommodate him and her swelling center's attraction.

"What if Zoe comes out?" She found the power to say. Protest was too big a word.

"Let's turn around. You can tell her you were bathing. But she'll sleep."

And he gripped her ass and bathed her with his tongue, and she was baptized by the moon and his love more than the water.

She still bit her palms to stem her cries, even if the woods and water would be the only ones to hear them. He dove deep into her and drew out her happiness. When he told her she gave him a taste of Eden too, she believed it. This was paradise. And it might be where she got to stay. She'd sacrifice to do so. The cost wasn't counted yet.

It was the most carefree he had been since they arrived. The weight he wore cast off into the lake like a net.

The next morning, she woke up to chirping birds and Harry awake and smoothing hair off her forehead. She'd nodded off the night long before she heard the scruff of his feet together. Jo was tired from camping and romancing. From a family vacation; the first she'd ever had like it.

Times were lean when she and Ethan had been alone against the world. They had mostly only gone to London or to the sea if she could scrimp together the funds. Then, she took him to Spain once. To Barcelona and Madrid and finally Mallorca the first summer she was at the university. His eyes liked to bug out of his head at the girls on Spanish beaches. He was in his first flush of manhood.

He was a real man now. Or so she told herself when she had moments of concern about her relationship with Harry. It scared her still that being with her was giving something up. For both of them.  We're you o my doing something right if in love if you were scared out of your wits sometimes?

He looked like he thought so too this morning. His tender brow was creased and he had weights on his tongue. But love filled his eyes.

"What's it, lover?" She scrapped together her courage and asked for the first time. She'd been hoping to stay in Nirvana, but avoiding a thing didn't make it go away. The morning light was soft, light and he was beautiful. It wasn't harsh or abrasive. That would have been more fitting.

Jo had been letting herself believe. The fall for him had been undeniable. She hadn't so much let that happened as been unable to stop it, like stemming a tide. Believing in their future though, against all of their obstacles, that she had let happen. As each dominos stacked against them had fallen away instead of on top of them and he had thrust more options into her hands, made more promises, shared more hope, she'd decided they may be able to do it. That people would accept them, even Ethan, if they saw them together. They were at their best when loving each other. Jo liked herself better with him.

Even as she opened herself up and ran into possibility, she'd always been waiting for a stone to fall the other way though, on top of them, or between them to divide.

Harry's face looked like he had the stone to drop. It was especially cruel today. After the week in the Lake District. She knew something was wrong when he had come to her after she got back from Ethan's, but she hadn't pushed and was excited about the trip she had planned for his graduation celebration. She wanted to have the escape with him.

But pretend time looked over.

He waited a long beat to answer and traced her face with his eyes.

"I got into a fight with my mum." He swallowed, "A few hours before you came home on Sunday."

"What about?" Jo asked, though she knew the answer.

He swallowed.

"About me?" She supplied and he nodded.

He sat up and pinched his lip. Jo took it as a good sign that he didn't turn completely away from her. "She asked me flat out. I'd gotten into it with Gemma and was talking about her boyfriend being a wanker when they left. I don't like him. He's not good enough for her. That is so clear to me. It's also why she missed my graduation." He swallowed.

"It hurt your feelings?" She put her hand on his arm.

"Yeah, she didn't want to come without him. So she missed my graduation. And I told her I was disappointed and she told me I was spoilt and didn't know what it was like to be in a relationship, so I couldn't know why she wanted him to come with her. And that she came later." He sighed. "I told her I did know what it was like. And that it would have meant a lot to me." Harry picked up her hand. "They left when I said I didn't like him, in front of him. My mum looked so frustrated at me."

"I'm sorry you fought with your sister, but you said you fought with your mum?" She was a little confused.

He bit his lip. "I was ranting a bit, about Gemma and Kip, stupid name, and how Gemma made horrible choices in men. And my mum said something, under her breath like, about me not having the right to criticize someone's love life." He breathed loud. "So I asked her what that meant, and she point blank asked me if I was sleeping with you."

Jo's breath caught. She knew Anne knew. The way she was, so guarded and watchful, it was clear-plus, mum's intuition.

"And I, well, I'm." He tried to get out.

"You're a terrible liar." Jo admitted.

"I tried, a bit, but she didn't believe me. I didn't want to lie anyway. And then she, well she started in on you. And how she couldn't believe that you'd be so predatory. And I...." he hung his head. "I told her it wasn't like that. That we weren't sleeping together, but in love and that I chased you and you tried really hard to leave the attraction be. Ran like the wind, but that we were like magnets, or the moon and tide or something and she scoffed."

Jo felt miserable for him and her. "How'd you leave it then?" She was wondering how long until he chose his relationship with his mum. Like he should. They were so foolish to think they had a chance if anybody knew about them.

Harry was nothing if not a surprise.

"I told her I didn't want to fight. And that she didn't know about us, but that I was serious about you." He looked at Jo then. "I kissed her head and told her I loved her and respected her but that you were my choice, and she could accept it, or not, but I'd appreciate the chance. And I left."

Jo rubbed his shoulders. He loved his mum. Was a mumma's boy. "Have you, have you spoken to her?"

"No, I wanted to talk to you." He turned to her. "I'm not sure you are ready, but can we please," he blew out a breath. "Can we please go talk to her when we get back?"

"How long have you been waiting to ask me about this?" She squeezed his shoulder. "All week? Love, we're supposed to share things that are heavy, the load is lighter across two backs."

"I, I know, I just thought." He looked down then up. "You had these plans, for us, for me." He bit his lips into his mouth like he was trying to button the truth in. "And you're always so scared, of just this, and it's like you thought. Not like I did. I thought my mum would trust me."

"She does Harry." Jo put her head on his collarbone. "She doesn't trust me."

"She will, when she sees us together. I know it." He was hurt, but always so certain. "On the way home, I'll text to ask if we can have a meal together." He rubbed his hands up and down her back to comfort them both. "Where would be best love? Our place, a restaurant? Neutral ground?"

Jo thought about it, "I want to say in public, so emotions won't get too strong. But, maybe we should give her home pitch?" Jo bit her lip. Harry must have been able to feel it, because he pulled back and looked at her and used a thumb to release the tortured flesh.

"She just needs to see that you're what makes my world spin round and round." Jo gulped. Yeah, he made her twirl madly.

"For how long?" Jo croaked. This was the part that made her heart sink to her belly and beat fast at the same time. When, where, what would be too much?

"What do you mean?" He smoothed her hair back.

"How long until people staring at us, and your mom being mad, or not having a relationship with her, or me wrinkling up, how long until I fall off your axis?" Jo, well, she'd recovered before, but wasn't sure she could this time. Just 17 days felt like torture.

"Jo!" He breathed and wrapped his thumbs around her ears, lifted her head to him. "I love my mother, but you are my choice. And she loves me, and we want a relationship, so she will have to learn to respect us, our future." He looked frustrated but cracked a grin, "and has anybody looked sideways at us this week?"

"No, I guess not." She cocked a glance at him. "Harry, I don't want to ruin your relationship with your mother." Jo shook her head. "I don't want to even change it!"

"Change is..." he rubbed his forehead against hers. "Like time, it's not going away. She and I will be ok. I will be ok if we are." He sighed. "And you act like this is temporary for me, but I've told you. Right, I want your tomorrows. Stop waiting for me to leave and be with me!" It was one of the most brutal tones he had ever taken with her. "Do you want me?"

"Yes, you know I do." Jo closed her eyes and sealed her promise with a breathy kiss.

"Then let's enjoy this day in the sun." They both looked at the muted light through the tent. "Or the mist, and go home."

"Ok. When will you talk to your mum?" Jo untangled herself from him and stood. Zoe was quiet in her tiny tent, but Jo wanted to see her face.

"When we get home. I'll call her." He sighed and then found a well of happiness she supposed. "I'd really like to spend a day with you ladies here, where it's beautiful and not worry about anything." He dimpled at Jo and she loved all of his parts, even the ones he didn't like so much, the ones that needed attention and validation frequently.

"I think that sounds lovely. How do you want to start, graduate?" She scrunched her nose at their inside joke.

"Well, Mrs. Robinson," they both laughed under their breath at the joke she'd started the day they got to the country. "Since there is no pool for me to lounge in, I think I'd like to just lay here with you and stay warm until the nymph comes to find us."

"Done." She lay down and opened her arms to him. His hair lay in curls on her chest and the color was similar enough to her own that could see herself as lady Godiva, hair to cover her revelations. That would be a funny picture, maybe she'd pitch it to Harry when he was stuck next time. The joke painting prompts usually led to something amazing.

"One more serious question?" It was easier with his face buried in her armpit. "How long will you be able to go without talking to your mum?" She wondered how Ethan would fair in this scenario.

"Not long, and she probably won't cut off communication, it's not her style. But she will be quietly disapproving and you'll be uncomfortable when we see her, maybe always." He nuzzled in. "So I'm hoping we win her over. You're charming." It tickled when he talked there. "See, I've got you giggling!" He looked at her and smoothed her hair back while she smiled at him. He just kissed her sweet and lay back on her chest and wrapped his arms around her. They stayed like that until the light brightened.

Jo looked out across the field to where Harry and Zoe were playing tag and finished setting up the drinks they'd gotten from the only grocery store seemingly for 20 miles. She was amazed that Zoe was in such a mood. She'd woken up grumpy, harrumphing into their tent complaining about being hungry and cold. Jo had pulled her into her arms and used her hands to create friction on her miniature biceps.

Then they had gotten up and around and made a store run. Zoe was not excited about hanging nearby her mother and kept taking off for the end of the aisle, the next aisle, the meat counter. Thankfully, the store was small, a collection of seven aisles and Zoe was loud, plus there were two of them to keep track of her. She was constantly afraid of the looks she and Hary may garner. In such a public place, but both here and at the restaurant the first two nights, when they'd stayed in town, there had been none. Harry's 'I told you so' smile could only be kissed off his face.

In any case, she and Harry were able to keep Zoe in eyeline, and get the picnic shopping. Jo had been sad it was their last day, well sad about reality intruding, mostly.

It felt like time though, when Zoe had a fit in the middle of the tiny grocery store because there was no Tesco brand juice. It wasn't Tesco, so of course there wasn't, but that was not a sufficient reason for Zoe. Jo loved her tenacity, but somethings were simply not possible right in the moment. When she was like this, there was no comforting her. In a few minutes, she would pick herself up, fold into Jo and in an hour she'd say sorry. But right now her emotions were too big for her little body and surely her vocabulary.

Her fits had gotten better as she got older once they had rounded the six month mark on three. That stopped Jo cold. Then so had she and Harry. Six months. That was both a tiny amount of time, and a life changing chunk.

She walked over to Harry then. He was a few feet away, and Zoe was not quite finished Jo could tell by the tenor of her cries. He rose his eyebrows at her.

"We've been together six months." Jo looked up at him, in a day old t-shirt because he hadn't packed adequately and his skinny jeans, hair scraped up in a bun.

"I know." Harry looked confused by her outburst, and she glanced round. People were probably staring, the five people in the general store. Maybe at Zoe, maybe at her, usually at Harry.

She didn't care.

Jo planted her mouth against him and kissed him for god and Cumbria to see.

His smiles for the rest of the day shone like a mega watt bulb, Like the ones the photography students used for over exposure. Made sense, that's what he wanted and what they would get, exposure, openness. It was a desire he alluded to or named often. The first dinner they went to her held her hand conspicuously and sat next to her. Mine.

The food was ready, and she was just about to call them to eat the picnic, but when Jo looked up, Harry was looking back at her. The hills around him were bright green, and his eyes were glowing kelly at her. The food would wait.

Jo got her legs under her and the feeling of the wind rushing passed her face, Zoe's fleece slipping through her fingers, and Harry catching her when she thought she'd gotten away was like freedom. Being let out of a gilded cage. One she had put herself in.

It would be alright. They'd make it, she told herself, while she watched him drive them home. Home he called it. She wasn't ready to move him in, but, "Will you keep your place while you're abroad?"

"Haven't 100% decided I'm going abroad." He glanced at her before checking Zoe in the backseat where she colored, and then back to the road.

"What percent are you at?" Jo missed him already, and they had six weeks to fill if he went. He had to go.

"Odds are 85 in favor."

What's the other 15?" She knew the answer.

"The other 15 will miss the creases on your face in the morning so much that I'll get kicked out for painting only them." He reached for her hand. "But I was going to move my stuff to mum's. Figure it out later, might as well save the money, or use it to see Canada, ya know."

"What if you moved it into my place? And we figured it out when you got back, if it and you should stay there." Jo lurched forward. "What are you doing?"

The car pulled onto the slim shoulder and he put the car in park and liked to pull her over the gear shift with his hands on her face.

"Are you asking me to move in with you?" He spoke against her mouth.

"Sort of. In 8 months time." She tried to shrug, but he kissed her again. Fill of emotion, but no tongue until Zoe laughed and a car honked.

"Then yes, I'll shack up with you." He was giddy.

"After Montreal!" She said

"Or Venice."

They were both so excited they were vibrating. The hours until Zoe went down felt long and Jo put lavender oil in the bath and on the soles of her feet to gentle her to sleep.

Harry was waiting at the foot of the stairs. "Harr-" he cut her off with a lip lock that felt like he'd thrown away the key and jumped her onto his hips. He was full of desire, but not the kind she was used to, the charge that made it nearly impossible to stay away from him, or not kiss him, or stop watching him work his hand over his cock.

This felt like a brimming, an effervescence, where champagne spills over the lip of a beautiful piece of glass because someone was too excited to pour carefully.

Her bedding wrapped around her and she sighed at the soft landing. His naked chest rolled her t-shirt against her stomach and his hands pulled it over her head. She'd quit her bra when they got home and he quit working her neck when he got her breasts free. He was moving fast and she expected him to keep at it. But then, he stopped. His hurry evaporated in the warm room and he inched up the temperature by slowing his pace to a snail's crawl. Not an inch of her bust or belly or pelvis went untouched. The soft trials of his fingertips, the touch that made her gasp every time, was enough to set her skin on edge and her pores to open. She was sweaty by the time she was begging.

He started to move lower, pulled her plaid pants from her hips and mouth descending into the v her legs made.

"No, need you inside, Harry!" She'd reached between their damp skins and clutched his velvety cock. Too ansty to please, she stroked once and collected the precum, before notching him into the seam of her body.

"Fuck!" They both gasped and her hand slicked the cum onto his bottom lip to lick off with him a moment later.

The rock and rock roll of him into her was giving her a fever. "I'm burning up, lover." She swore repeatedly.

"I'll cool you down, baby. Just hold on." Harry trailed a hand up her hip to grasp her shoulder underneath. The round roll of his hips had her reeling like a topspun ball.

Jo cast her head back, the first time she had broken eye contact with him since they began it seemed and called his name. "Har-Harry!" He groaned in response and when she opened her eyes again, his green didn't catch her focus, not like it did always, but the yellow light near her door.

There stood her son. And his body was backlit, like he was a ghost.

"Ethan!" Jo startled.

Harry must not have heard her where his head was buried in her neck.

'You're fucking my mum?' she expected Ethan to yell, but instead his voice was wet and thin, it amazed her she could hear it over Harry's groan of completion.

"Har-Harry," his voice hit a familiar hitch, "how could you do this to me?"