I was laying on the bottom part of Harry's stomach doing my best to distract him with a game I had made up called, "Between Two Ferns."

It basically consisted of me going over all his tattoos and telling him why I thought they were stupid.

It started when we had first gotten to South America. The hours in my bed at home had been frenzied and apparently noisy, but the lights were off and I missed a few additions to Harry' s body.

It should have been a game for me. Surely, I could play those memory cards that little kids do and try to write down all of the 50+ tattoos the gorgeous idiot had on his body. I had postulated their meaning one night, using my deep thinking wanna be a writer and have read too many classics brain to give full meaning to many of the pieces of art he had chosen. I had then come to find out many of them were just completely stupid.
"Oh, I wanted to try my gun."
"Zayn likes Pink Floyd, well that album, I think."
"Oh, do you not like 'Pingu', love?"

These were the deep well of meaning for his forever etchings I'd run into. When we had a whole hotel room with a big white bed to sleep in one night in Rio, I'd been loose lipped from caipirinhas and loose limbed from Harry and told him that my Favorite tattoo had been the 'might as well' tattoo he had covered up with the giant ferns.

I'd been emboldened by the alcohol I was slowly learning to enjoy in his presence. He'd been imbibing it liberally and I'd pulled him off Ben Winston to take him to our room. Some part of me meant this very innocently, but the newer, louder part meant every filthy implication of putting him to bed.

I also wanted to try something new. The elevator had been empty, and for once it was handsy Melly.

"Baby." He'd snorted, "that tickles!" He'd sneezed while I wiggled my fingers over his newly obscured v lines.

"Good, now you know how it feels!" I'd giggled like I was the receiver of the tickles and the door had opened and he made a run for the door of our room. He'd swiped himself in and tried to close me out. My first instinct was to fight my way in, like I would with my brother, but instead I used a tactic I had recently discovered. I stuck out my bottom lip a little and looked up at him through my lashes, "Baby," I added a touch of whine to my voice. It really made me want to roll my eyes at myself, but Harry turned to custard when I combined these moves.

He pulled the door back open and linked our fingers, pulling. The momentum of the move propelled me into his body and the closing door meant magnetized lips. Harry walked backwards through the living area making the most direct line possible without eyes and while physically connected to someone by teeth and tongue.

It felt sexy, but Harry was undeniably clumsy and drunk. I had thought about his flailing limbs and falling habits one day and remembered when Michael sprouted up during puberty. It was like he was unaware of where his body began and ended suddenly. My brother had grown out of this growth induced bumbling. Harry had not.

I wonder if from the outside looked like a pinball game as we ricocheted off of sofas and walls to make it to the bedroom. From the inside, the focus was on one another and getting to the room with the softest horizontal surface.

The back of Harry's knees hit the mattress and I'd pushed him down. His hat popped off his head and the light from the window hit the sweat on his cheekbones making them glow. The light also caught the points of his collarbones and the ridges of his ribs and even the tips of his hipbones. These points of interest caught my eye too, in wonderfully frustrating ways. I realized then that he was drunk, but I was definitely tipsy.

I pinched his right fern. I really wanted to pinch his v lines, but I couldn't see them so well anymore.

"Why the fuck did you get these, mate?" I soothed my finger over the now hidden words. I missed them. He shivered at the contact, but frowned at my words.

"You don't like them, angel?" He grabbed at my hands and started to sit up. I stopped his motion and pushed him back down.

"Are they supposed to be arrows pointing to your dick?" I ticked up an eyebrow. "Because everybody knows where that is. Can't miss it." I cupped him through the damp cloth of his boxers and found him more than half hard.

He swallowed and tried to find something to say. I decided to continue to leave him speechless. "Do you just like to keep the accounts that keep track of your stupid tattoos—"

"Heeey!"

"Busy?" His skin was on fire beneath my fingertips, running a few degrees above the usual and I wanted to be brave. I bit my lip and decided to go with the bold spirit I was feeling. Teasing him with words was familiar and made me more comfortable teasing him with other tools. I'd just hooked my fingers under his swim trunks when he found his voice.

"You really don't like them?" The little people pleaser pouted.

"Well," I pulled his trunks down watching his glans pop free of his waistband and hit between the two fern leaves. "I miss the less obscured view of your v lines." I leaned down and licked one, until my face was right next to his bobbing dick. I licked down the other way and stopped just above his waiting shaft. It flexed towards me and he whined. "But if it's a map telling me where I should go..." And I licked his tip and he made a new sound I wanted to hear on repeat.

My boldness started to flag when I realized I wasn't sure what to do, so I stroked him in a way that had become familiar and looked at him beseechingly.

"Just," he sucked in a breath. "Just put it in your mouth. You'll be amazing, Melody. Just," he bucked into my hands and I wrapped my lips around the tip.
His head popped up to watch, "watch the teeth."

So I opened my mouth wider and pursed my open lips and went down until it was uncomfortable and came back up. A natural suction was created and Harry's neck got weak. "That's it, Angel!"

So I repeated the motion, and he reached a hand down to where I was holding his base. He moved my hand with his, up and down while I sucked his tip shallowly. Out of curiosity I pulled off to watch him and I stroke over his cock. The foreskin would come up and swallow his flared head and go back down again. I licked his glans and then again when the jacket covered it. His hand was speeding up and he was panting with anticipation. I jerked my hand to get him to let me take back over and chased his prepuce up and down until his hand buried itself into my hair and he quietly humped my mouth.

"Angel, Melody, you gotta..."

I opened my eyes wide. He sounded like he was really close, stumbling over his words.

"I'm gonna cum!" He pulled my mouth off by my hair and I loved the yank. He covered the ferns with thick white spurts and I was transfixed.  Condoms had kept me from coming into contact with his ejaculate. I ran my fingers through and lay my head on the top of his thigh before bringing some gathered fluid to my mouth. It was bitter, but not unpleasant.

He whined watching me.

"Next time, don't stop me?" I asked, I was pretty sure boys liked that from being unwillingly adjacent to a lot of male voices for years.

"Melody," he prayed a hallelujah and linked our fingers again over a fern.

"Still not sure I like these, but they seem to work!" I pinched his right fern and he yelped out a laugh.

After that, I'd lay on his lower stomach sometimes before during and/or after and give him my opinions on things like the word big-stupid, sparrows-love, and padlocks-did a five year old do that?

I also liked to do it when he was feeling stressed. It distracted both of us from the unforgiving pace we were going at. It was crazy to be on this beast of a tour. The crowds, the dates-one right after another, with no breaks, the constant promo, and now the 1D boys were also recording an album. Most nights Harry did not make it back to our room until 4 am. He'd fall into bed and lack enough interest to fade into me.

The Take Me Home tour had been constant and strained and even crazier than the current circuit we were making around world with the film crew and writing and recording and adding dates upon dates.

It did not seem to be as thoroughly exhausting though. It may have been that those were incremental changes. The boys weren't faced with nearly a year of traveling to start with. Also, they had been fresher then. Fresher faced and had not already made three back to back albums and two circumnavigation of the globe in three years. The excitement of their new lives, fame, and money could have staved off the exhaustion.

It wasn't so new now. But the pace remained. And it remained relentless.

I could see it on the face of all of the boys. Niall weathered it best, you could bottle his energy. Louis got snarkier, Liam alternated between drinking and exercising, and Zayn withdrew. But I saw the changes in Harry more.

To be fair, we essentially lived together, like a roving band of gypsies and Harry and I shared our caravan. When he came in and literally timbered into bed, with few words and no cuddles, I worried a little. One night was worrisome, night after night was problematic.

"Fuck!" Harry roared walking in one evening. It wasn't the emotion I missed from him, but any show of personality not on stage was appreciated. However, this was accompanied by a slung bottle of water I had to jump over.

"Ahh!" I found myself stumbling and tripping over my own feet.

"Shit, sorry Melly! Didn't see you." Ouch.

I let the fact that he saw me rarely go. He came over and pulled me up. I thought he'd hug me, but the waves of emotion radiating off of him were of the don't touch me variety. I took a step back from him and crossed my arms.

"What's up Harry?" I gave him a glance over.

"They fucking added a video shoot during our off time!" He ranted and started to pace. "Off time, which we don't fucking get, ever, and I had plans, in LA for meetings, about, like, after. Dammit, I'm gonna look like a stupid kid or uninterested! Fucking managements gonna milk us dry and then let us fade to oblivion. Give us no time to get another career or make other connections."

All of his thoughts made sense, I knew they were all frustrated with the scheduling and pace and were continually pushing for more creative control. I had never heard these specific frustrations from Harry though and wondered where they were coming from. I knew in our time apart he had had a whole life I was unaware of and that he met and became close to some important people. There was a time when I'm sure I would have known all about his new plans and hopes, but a lot of the time that we used to spend talking was now spent doing other things, and lately, with recording, even that wasn't happening.

At least I got to hold him while he slept.

Harry gave a big sniff and coughed before running out of steam and deflating onto the couch below him.

The coughs intensified and I thought about that too, worried about that too. He was sick, a lot. He had nearly not made it to me last tour because of his weakened immune system. He needed a break, they all needed a break, but they were just over half way through and I had already heard there would be another tour on the heels of this one.

I worried.

Mostly for Harry, and the other boys, their health and life and careers.

But I also worried about Harry and I. There were things I didn't know, that I should. We weren't talking enough, and our other modes of connection where being belayed by late nights, the need for sleep, and snotty noses.

I made my way over to the couch and fitted myself behind his body. I tried to tell him everything with that move. Harry nuzzled into me and found his way to my lap like he'd loved since our first movie date that wasn't a date.

My hand was going to his hair as he reached to bring it there.

"I'm sorry, H. I know you are tired—"

"Honestly Melly, at this point I miss tired. Um, i'm so far beyond it that.." he shook his head and I petted him.

"If...." I wasn't sure how to tell him I'd take the cup from him. "Is it weird to tell you I'd be you for any length of time to give you rest?" He rolled onto his back then to look up at my face and his lips turned down and his eyes filled. 

He caressed my face while he let his frustration leak from his eyes. "No, because then, um, then you would feel like this. And I'd never want that for you."

I leaned down to kiss his sweet lips and scoffed when he turned his face. "Harry..."

"No, like, you'll get sick, like last time, Angel, and I won't be able to take care of you. Because I'll be fucking gone, like always."

"Baby, is there anybody you can talk to about this? To fix it?" I was scared to ask.

He looked at me in a way I'd never seen. Harry usually looked at me like I was magic, or brilliant, or his. In this moment, he looked at me like I was simple, and not in a good way. "Melody, they don't care. They only want to milk the cash cow. If I am burned out or washed up at 23, they don't care. Only I care, or you, or my mom. Maybe close friends, or Jeff?' There was a question there.

"Who's Jeff?" I'd heard the name mentioned and seen him pop up in the google alert I'd set for Harry.

"Azoff." he said, like it meant something. I was going to ask the other questions, I was. I knew that they were important and that there were things that we should say-puzzle pieces missing, but Harry had blown out a breath and settled himself into my lap. "Angel?"

I pulled my attention from where I was staring at his hand, he'd started to wear rings. It was laying on his thigh. "Yeah?"

"Thank you." His hand cupped my chin.

"For what?" I placed my fingers over his to tangle them together.

"For just..." he closed his eyes. "For being here, for....listening, I guess."

"Always, H." I promised and squeezed his hand. "I'm still your best friend."

His eyes were closed, and I could tell he was nodding off.

The next day, i went shopping with the girl's, and they all giggled when I bought Harry a ring. Lottie doubted he would even wear it. But Lou, Lou seemed to know him almost as well as me.

"He'll love it," she inspected the square lettering-PEACE- "he could use it." and I nodded along with her.

Harry held me against him when I gave it to him that night. "It's perfect, Angel." He slipped it on immediately and we both admired the way it looked against his skin, and then my own.

At the time, it was a sweet moment between us. My wish for him and a promise to be his resting place. I think it still means something to him, he still wears my ring.

I still wear a matching one.

It mattered. It matters, but now I think maybe it was a volley into no man's land, a lost cause. I was a little child trying to stop a flood by sticking my finger in a dyke.

Because the only way to save us, was to sacrifice me.