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beautifulletdownfics · 4 years ago

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The Nearness of You - A Harry Styles One Shot

A friends to lovers one shot feat. birthdays, pining and stolen purses.

Hello, please enjoy this fever dream fic that came to me a week ago and is now somehow 13.5k and gracing your eyeballs. I’ve never written a one-shot of this nature before and it was quite a refreshing distraction from my usual, long-form fics. Thank you to Anne @oh-honey-styles for the encouragement (bullying) and for posting the pic that inspired it all. To everyone else, read on x katey *Because this is quite lengthy, I’d recommend opening in a browser because the Tumblr app can be glitchy*

My masterlist Chat to me here

“When you're in my arms And I feel you so close to me All my wildest dreams came true” The Nearness of You, Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong

You love the cold.

London in February isn't everybody's cup of tea, but you feel positively giddy walking down the icy Soho street in your new & Other Stories snow boots. The hard, black leather is already making your toes ache, and they're rubbing against the heel of your left foot, but they'll stretch to size, and you can tell these are going to be Your Signature Boots. The wind whips against your cheeks, red flushing them as you cross the laneway and push open the door to the chic little restaurant you've followed on Instagram for years but never had an excuse to try. Figures Harry chose it for tonight. Sometimes you wondered if the coincidences were a little too … Coincidental.

"Hi," you smile brightly to the maître d', "I'm uh … I'm here for the birthday? For Harry?"

Do I need to say his surname? You think to yourself.

"Can I have your name, please?" The suited man pulls a piece of paper out of the reservations book and waits for you to identify yourself. Your chest is rattling from the cold and the flurry of nerves you're all too familiar with ignoring.

"Y/N," you say your full name, taking in the dark floor of the restaurant, the flickering candles on the tables and lining the bar that takes up the entire left side of the room. The whole place is beautiful, just like you've double-tapped online; all deep reds and burgundies, vintage posters, and mismatched, dark wooden furniture. A jazz record plays just loudly enough to fuse the conversations at all the tables into one comfortable sound. It would make for a sexy place for a date, you decide, stolen touches under the table would feel thrilling and seductive.

The maître d' nods, you're on the list, "Back in the private dining room," he says, "Follow me this way."

You push your evening bag further up your shoulder and walk half the length of the bar, your eyes adjusting to the darkness. You catch the bartender watching you as you go, he's cute, and you give him an awkward little wave before calling out ahead of you.

"Sorry, excuse me," you get the attention of the man leading you through, "Can you point me to where I need to go? I'm going to get a drink to take in first if that's okay?"

"Just there," he points to the doorway at the back, next to the kitchen pass, "The curtain on the right."

Thanking him, you watch as he walks back to his station by the front door. You turn to the bar and rest your hands on the cool wood. They've stuck the pages together of old Little Golden Books for the drink menus, but you'll be ordering what you always get on birthdays, so don't take in the beverage options as you flip through The Tawny Scrawny Lion. You remember it from when you were a kid.

The bartender moves to stand in front of you, a gleam in his eyes and flirtatious smirk on his face, "Pretty good read, that one. You have to order a drink though, this isn't a library."

You laugh, he's laying it on a bit thick but probably just after the tip, "I was more a The Poky Little Puppy sort of girl."

He gives you a grin of approval, flipping a napkin up onto the bar in front of you, "What can I make for you?"

"I'll have two Old Fashioneds, please," you lean forward onto your elbows to give your feet a rest as he pulls up a second napkin and then two crystal, lowball glasses. "They're pretty," you comment without thinking.

"It's all about the glass," he confirms quickly, dropping brown sugar cubes into each one and then shaking bitters on top. Your eyes focus on the way the squares dissolve and fall in on themselves as he speaks again, "I'm Jack."

"Y/N," you give your name for the second time, throwing a brief smile his way, "I've never actually watched someone make these before."

Jack pauses and gives you a teasing look, "Do you want me to stop so you can get something to write this all down?"

You laugh and roll your eyes at him as he goes back to making the drinks. You're stalling. You know when you go through the curtain in the back there'll be a dozen people who're all dressed nicer than you, with more impressive jobs than you, who have funnier, more outrageous stories about the birthday boy than you. You'll need to stand awkwardly in the doorway for a few moments too long before Harry notices you, and then your greeting will be watched by all his cool, London friends.

You know better than to let any of that dull your shine—you really do—but you've had a rough few months, and if you're honest, you'd like your first time seeing Harry since the summer to be a little more low-key than this. So that's why you're wearing the new boots that hurt and might not suit the dress code because they're new and you feel good wearing them with this outfit. It feels a little special to be out celebrating Harry's (belated) birthday in a semi-new ensemble. You managed to fluke getting your hair and makeup just right, and yes, your legs do look pretty fantastic in these tights with the short, roll neck, knit dress, thank you very much.

"Here you go," Jack brings your attention back to him, you can smell the citrus twist in front of you, and the crystal glass deflects the light from the candles, "Can I put this on a tab for you? You're with the birthday?"

"I'll pay," you tell him, already digging for your card and holding it out to him.

"Oi!" You hear a very familiar voice call out from the far end of the bar, the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and you shiver, "What're you payin' for? What's she—don't take her money!"

You keep your arm out steadily to Jack and raise your eyebrows at him, "Take it," you urge him quickly, feeling him pluck it from your fingers just as you turn towards the voice you know so well.

That familiar Tom Ford cologne hits your nose just as Harry hurries up and deposits himself heavily against the bar, right up in your personal space. His broad frame blocks out the room to you, and he's lit softly in the dim light and looking radiant from within, as per usual. He's got his crazy eyes out—accusing you—and his eyebrows are pinched together slightly, but he looks good. Happy. Rested. Pleased to see you.

Harry's always pleased to see everyone, you tell yourself, Hold it together.

He pulls you into his chest for a hug. Your cheek presses just below his pecs, and you feel the way he's grown more defined since you last saw him. The material of his t-shirt is soft and smells clean. It's a tight squeeze he gives you, one that you resist reading into. Was it healthy for there to be so much comfort in a simple hug? Was your whole body allowed to tingle and fizz from the embrace of a friend? Was it pathetic to have been carrying around in your ribcage the same crush from when you were thirteen?

Affirmative. Without a doubt. Yes.

You haven't seen Harry since mid-September, the last time he was in London. Well, the last time he was in London and had time to see you. You're sure there were probably business trips, Christmas definitely. And going off Instagram, you think he might've flown into Manchester and spent a long weekend with Anne back in October, but if it was any of your business, it would've been your business. You needed to be grateful simply for what you got; intermittent texts about books he'd read or maybe a happy drunk voicemail if he thought of you at the right time. He sent an email at Christmas with a charitable contribution in your name instead of a gift.

"It's so good to see you," Harry says as he pulls away, all crinkled eyes and broad smiles. You don't know your grin has launched his heart into space and that despite having just gone to the bathroom, Harry feels due for a nervous wee. He thinks you look fucking gorgeous tonight. Knowing you've done your hair, and eyeliner, and picked that dress to come out and celebrate his birthday … It sends a jolt of desire straight to his groin—beauty blooms in front of his eyes in you.

Tell her, you idiot. Twenty-seven could be the year.

"Hi," you chirp at him happily and pick up one of the glasses in front of you, "I got you a drink."

Harry watches you fondly and then dramatically looks off to the side, lets out a little huff, "Typical Y/N, buying her own drink … You really think I wouldn't have one here for you?"

Nevertheless, he says a quiet thank you, takes the glass from you and deliberately sniffs it as if he's not sure what's inside or if he'll like it. You smack his arm lightly at the show and pick up your own glass, chinking it to the side of his and watching him over the rim as you both take your first sips. The familiar taste and view fill your tummy with gurgling happiness that sits high in your chest. He's dressed almost exactly how you expected him to be—smart, high-waisted dress pants and a printed t-shirt. You're glad you didn't go too formal, the restaurant is nice, but it's not Hatted or anything, not like the place he took you in LA that time, where you felt like the biggest idiot in the world for not realising beforehand, was properly fancy.

"Fuckin' delicious," he rumbles slowly, bringing you back to the cocktail, "A classic."

"Happy birthday," you tell Harry sweetly, thankful for what's likely to be your only quiet moment with him all night, "Sorry I couldn't make it to the LA party."

"Ah," Harry waves you off, "Your job's much too important here."

He means it. Harry's beyond proud of you. He's always telling people you work for the NHS, saving lives and keeping the country going. The party in LA was thrown together by some people at the last minute, and even though most of the friends he left in the backroom when he went to find the bathrooms a few moments ago were able to fly across for it, Harry's not the least bit put out by you not being able to. Would've been a big trip for you to do on your own and he knew there's no way you'd miss his London celebration. And you sent over a gift, which shouldn't have surprised him. His actual birthday was spent in LA, and that morning a parcel arrived from you—two new notebooks and a novel Harry read the back of and instantly knew he would love. It's what he read on the flight home to the UK.

Trust you to want him to have the gift on his birthday—go to all that trouble of packaging it and sending it over—when you were going to see him in London ten days later anyway. Harry could do worse than a friend like you.

"I just need a bit more notice than four da—

—Please," Harry's shaking his head at you, hating watching you apologise for something he really doesn't care about. "I'm glad you're here tonight," he tells you genuinely, fingers reaching out to brush your bangs away from your eyebrow briefly and—did the room just spin around you?—get a glimpse of the bronze sheen over your eyelids, "I haven't seen your new hair in person, looks lovely."

Lovely? he scolds himself, Lovely is a nice jam scone, lovely is a hug from mum …

"Oh," you coo, automatically sending your own fingers up to where Harry's had just been to reposition your newish bangs, "Thanks, still getting used to it, wanted to do it forever but wasn't brave enough to I guess."

"I like your natural hair colour, too," he continues slowly, eyes running over your whole head, "I mean, I loved how it used to be … But I like this a lot."

Shit, Harry's already failing to adhere to the strict series of pep talks he's given himself over the last couple of days. He's babbling, and he's probably just made you think he's not liked how you've had your hair for the previous twelve years. Is he buzzed from the cocktail or from the way your cheeks have gone a little pink since he touched you? His compliment made you squirm, and Harry wants to do it again and again until what he's feeling makes sense.

"Just, you know, feels like a throwback to the old days," he mumbles through another sip of the cocktail you both love, a glint appears in his eyes as he continues, "When you had Barbie overalls and would spend half a day plaiting your whole head in those tiny little rat tails."

Your mouth opens into a horrified O, and you let out a single laugh, "Rat tails? They were cool. And I was eleven when we met, I'd definitely already outgrown the Barbie overalls."

"Whatever you say," Harry smirks at you, signature dimples appearing on his cheeks, "I just remember those little beads from the ends of them ending up all over the bottom of the pool."

You smile at the memory. You remember duck diving with Gemma to collect all the beads so they could be put back into your hair the next day. Nearly drowning from laughing so hard at Harry and the other boys trying to stand on your backs in the water. Summers with Harry were always spent laughing. The local pool and skate park saw all your adventures. When Harry's dad moved in next door to your family after his parent's divorce, you and your brother hung off the fence, peering into the backyard to see if any toys or a trampoline might appear signally new kids next door. They didn't, and it wasn't until the summer when Harry and Gemma arrived for their holidays that you jumped the fence with ice lollies and offered yourself up as a new friend.

"Simpler times," you muse to yourself, looking up and catching the perplexed look Harry was giving you, "Spaced out a bit, sorry."

"I've missed my little weirdo," he grins at you affectionately, angling a little closer and levelling his head down to yours as he bit his lip and frowned, "Are you doing alright though?"

You let out a little sigh and avert your eyes to where Jack, the bartender, is busy making trays of drinks for different tables. Harry observes you carefully, a twinge of guilt forms for causing the sad look that's come over your face, but also for not having asked the question weeks ago. Gemma told him at Christmas, an off-handed comment about you being newly single. When he heard the evil gremlin in him was fucking relieved, just like he always was.

"I'm fine," you try a smile out and pull your lips up higher when you don't think Harry buys it, "Better. Had my crisis haircut and drank myself to tears with my work friends. Just a normal break up, really. M'getting used to them at this point."

A small, white lie.

Each breakup bruises you deeply. Talking about it afterwards fills you with a shame that makes you feel naked, like everyone else can see what's wrong with you but you. As though it's obvious why nobody's picked you yet. You don't ever want to talk about it afterwards, (especially not with Harry) don't want to draw attention to it. Prefer to let the disappointment and loneliness pool in your tummy and sit there heavily, weighing you down, waiting for the One Day someone spectacular might come along and be buoyant enough to float away with you.

You're looking for your forever. You want the cheesy romance, and the love, and marriage, and kids, and the whole stupid thing. You want to be wanted and loved and cherished. That's what you're ready for. You just can't find anyone who's ready for that with you. So, you date, have mediocre boyfriends who rarely make it to the first anniversary, then pick up the pieces and try again.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

"Well," Harry swallows, reaches out for your arm to make sure you look at him, "You look beautiful tonight. And it's his loss, he's clearly a monumental idiot."

You give Harry a noncommittal hum in response. Just as you're about to say something you shouldn't—get into details you bet Harry really isn't that interested in knowing—you catch the movement of someone appearing from the doorway behind Harry and then approaching you both.

"Harry, mate," you don't know the guy who's recognised Harry's back and is calling out for his attention now, "Thought you might've fallen in."

Harry snaps around quickly to the voice, blocking your view. You take another sip of your drink and pull in a deep breath. Not fitting into any of Harry' groups socially has its downfalls. If his sister wasn't around, you tended to have to make friends at anything Harry invites you to. You're not part of his Holmes Chapel crew or his LA friends, and you definitely don't fit into the London group. Over the years there have been faces you've come to find familiar, but you're still the singular, hanger-on friend from Harry's second childhood home.

Peering around Harry's shoulder, you catch the end of a look between the two guys you think alludes to this new friend gauging whether Harry needs rescuing from you. You briefly wish the ground would open and swallow you whole. You know that look well.

"Aiden, this is Y/N," Harry raises his arm and angles to pull you around in front of him.

You hold up your drink, awkwardly, "Hi."

Aiden gives you a hesitant smile, "Hello," then he raises his eyebrows at Harry, "Harry, you coming back in, mate?"

Harry bites his lip and chuckles, reading the look on his friend's face, "You're a prick, I don't need saving. Known Y/N since I was twelve, we were just catching up."

You feel yourself go bright red, and you're thankful for the forgiving lighting. This isn't the first time this exact scenario has happened to you. You've been on the receiving end of that uneasy look before—his friends checking if the girl who isn't there with anyone else is supposed to be there at all. Backstage at the O2, a member of Harry's security once hauled you to the tour manager's office to check your VIP credentials were legitimate. You'll take that story with you to the grave.

Aiden deflates slightly and waves a hand your way, "Shit, sorry, thought he'd been cornered by a fan again … I mean, a pretty fan to say the least but …" he coughs into his hand when Harry gives him a glare you don't see, "Great to meet you."

"No worries," you wave it off like it's nothing. The truth is your brain has short-circuited at Harry's palm resting on the small of your back, he's not moved it from when he first brought you forward. Friendly touches weren't strange between you, but this lingering, comforting hand is burning a hole in you tonight. You haven't been out and had anyone touch you since your breakup, and Harry is setting off all you nerve endings. You tilt your weight onto your other foot to pull back from him slightly, but Harry's hand travels with you. "We should go back, I might use the loo first though, is it that way?"

Harry watches you point in the direction of the bathroom, you're flustered and he really wishes he could tell Aiden to buzz off so he could just take another few minutes with you. Brief you on who was in the room you were about to go into. You wouldn't know any of them, and Harry always appreciated that you came to things on your own, particularly when you wouldn't know anyone aside from him once you got there. He should have invited his sister so you'd have a buddy. Or told you to bring a friend. Not a boyfriend, though.

He watches you take the final drag from your drink and put the glass down on top of the bar, "Thanks Jack, t' was dee-lish," you catch the attention of the bartender, throwing him a beaming grin. And Harry watches the way the guy's features light up at being called on by you. Envy rumbles in Harry's gut, he recognises the dumb smile and dopey nod of Barman Jack's head. Has felt it a hundred times himself when he's been on the receiving end of your quirky humour.

You walk away, and Harry feels Aiden watching him, "She's fit," he comments, trying to get a rise out of Harry, reading the room perfectly.

"Fuck you," Harry grunts at him.

Harry sits opposite you at the long table in the private dining room.

You nurse a glass of rosé and eat the food slowly, savouring it. You deliberated over the menu for a long time before settling on what to order, you've seen photos of most of the dishes online, but there were several new ones too. Harry goes off your recommendations but spends a lot of the dinner talking to the people sitting beside him. He knows if he tried talking to you right now, he'd just get lost in you, which is both rude for a birthday party and bound to be too conspicuous.

You insert yourself into a conversation with the girls sitting next to you and pretend you're good at making friends. They spend most of the meal talking about something that was on the telly the night before. You were on shift so missed it, but pretend to be interested or like you might've seen it—anything to not stick out like a sore thumb.

Harry watches you out the corner of his eye the whole time. You've shrugged off your jacket, and he recognises the gold necklace you've got around the collar of your dress, sitting over the black fabric on your chest. He's pretty sure it was a gift from Gemma a few years ago, you wear it all the time. Harry makes a note to get you something that compliments it for your birthday coming up. You're chatting to one of his mate's girlfriends and Lisa who's been on his publicity team for years. Those would've been the two he'd have introduced you to first as well. He can't stop watching the way your lips turn up every time something funny is said, or one of the girls makes eye contact with you. Watching you try with his other friends always makes Harry feel warm and giddy for some reason.

Fuck, he's missed you. And he berates himself for the fact he never seems to remember that until he sees you again. (It's strategic usually, his heart doesn't take your company well when he knows you're going home to someone else) You're so engaging and kind and unintentionally charming, and you always have time for him. Harry knows he's not an easy human to be friends with; he constantly ducks in and out and is never around for the big things, let alone being available to call on a random day to just hang out with. The friendship is always on his terms, and he knows it makes him a selfish prick. You definitely could've done with a call a couple of months back when you had your heart broken. Like always, he missed it, and by the time he was sending you a message about an episode of Midsomer Murders, he felt as though the moment to console you had passed, and Harry didn't want to draw attention to the fact he wasn't around for it.

"Harry?"

"Hmm?" His head snaps back around to the person next to him, thoughts still on you across the table. He agrees with whatever was said and does his best to catch up.

Harry's got to stop thinking about how you're single at the moment. He really does.

A few hours later, it's the girl sitting to your left, Lisa, who first mentions the idea of kicking on.

It's after dessert—after everyone sang happy birthday to Harry over a round of espresso martinis—and you're starting to think that if you leave now, you'll be home before midnight, which means the tube won't be too deserted to feel safe. You're also at a comfortable place to wake up without a hangover in the morning. Two cocktails and a glass of wine over dinner, because any more and you're scared you could say something stupid to the wrong (right) person.

Harry's face lights up, and he looks around the room, eager at the idea of going to a bar or two for more drinks. He's not been out in London for the longest time, and he's happily buzzed enough to not be too worried about running into people. Feels like this group of friends have gelled well together. How often does he get to have a night like this in London? Hardly ever.

"Yeah, let me sort out the tab and then we're good to go," Harry says, pushing his seat back from the table and standing up, his hands hunting his pockets for his wallet and phone, "I'll be right back."

When he goes, you decide now's as good a time as any to split. You pull your coat on and say goodbye to the friends you made over the meal. Lisa gives you her business cards as if speaking to you had been part of her job, you slip it straight into your coat pocket and can already picture it at the bottom of the garbage in your kitchen. You revisit the bathrooms, and when you come back out into the main restaurant area, Harry's still leaning against the front desk, chatting to the maître d' from earlier.

He feels your small hand land on his back and jolts upright at the contact, your gentle voice calling his name softly, "Harry, I'm going to head home."

He spins around, and you catch the fall of his face, "What? No … No. You're the one I want to hang out with the most," his bottom lip juts out and his brows furrow. "Y/N."

"Thanks a fuckin' lot, mate," you hear a male voice laugh at your back, they slip behind you and out into the chilly air, and Harry flips them the bird. You were pushed closer into his chest as they jostled past and he steadied you with his arms latched onto your forearms. Still watching outside, you see a cigarette lighter flare-up on the footpath and the end of an orange butt glow spectacularly in the night. When you glance back at Harry, he's not looking happy.

"Don't pout," you tell him lightly, you reach up and press the skin taut between his eyes smooth again, "Can't wrinkle that rockstar face of yours."

His face lights up, and his skin heats where you made contact, "You can't go yet."

"Harry," your features tangle into something like a grimace, "You'll have a better time without me. Everyone seems to be pretty tight—"

—Y/N," he gives you a final, pleading look, "Please come."

You make out like you're stomping your foot in defiance, "Fine."

"Score!" Harry cheers under his breath, shrugging his jacket up over his shoulders and saying a final round of thank yous to the staff. When you're out on the street at Harry's side somebody mentions the name of the next place and points the direction of it, Harry places a hand on your shoulder as you start to walk and leans down to your ear, "I just have one condition for you coming."

You pull back and look at him, "I don't think you get conditions when you've begged me to be here."

"A birthday condition then," he edits, pressing his lips together and smiling at you with his eyes, "You have to promise to do what I say before I ask it."

You narrow your eyes at him, "I suppose you only turn twenty-seven once. You can have a single wish from me."

Harry laughs and slips his fingers under the strap of your evening bag, "Give me this."

You think briefly he means to carry it for you, which is a strange thing for Harry to request. But then he unzips it in front of you and starts rifling around inside it, slipping your phone under his arm so he can move around the lipstick and tissues and emergency Galaxy bar to eventually pull out your small purse.

"Harry! What are you—

—Ah, ah!" He holds it all away from you and reminds you of the promise. "This is mine for the night," he says, slipping your purse into his coat pocket. "Otherwise you'll end up buying too many rounds."

You try to sneak your hand into the pocket after your wallet, "Don't be stupid. It's your birthday, I'll buy every round if I need to."

"Exactly my point," he steps away from you down the street, and you skip to be back at his side. He's stolen your money and your chocolate bar.

"Harry, give it back."

"Nope," he pops the 'p' and hands you back the bag, the Galaxy bar hanging from between his teeth, still in the packet, "You promised. Now hurry up and walk, and I might give you a bite of this. 'm freezing my balls off, we are not in LA anymore."

So that's how you end up in the next bar, your handbag a little lighter, squished into Harry's side with a pleasantly sour cocktail he paid for between your fingers. The booth is so far into the back wall you're not even really sure which direction the front door is anymore. Somehow, you've managed to sit ten people around a booth probably designed for six, but nobody seems to be bothered.

Your whole right side is on fire, though.

You can feel Harry from the top of your shoulder all the way to your ankle. His hip sits neatly next to yours, Harry's left elbow rests just above your right thigh, and your knees press together every time he gets excited when he speaks and unintentionally opens his legs up. If Harry's bothered by it there's no way you'd know, he's hardly looked at you since you all sat down, much less uttered a word of discomfort about the seating arrangements. Makes no sense really, when he seemed so desperate for you to stay out with them.

(Next to you Harry's felt like he was high most of the time, he's flashing in and out of the conversations around him. Because he can smell your perfume—Stella by Stella McCartney, he'd know that fragrance anywhere, you've been wearing it since you were seventeen—and you're warm and snug beside him. He feels completely insane. But he also feels inflated with a heart-crushing joy at having you so close. He's trying his best not to draw attention to it or to you because what he's always liked most about your friendship is that you're just his. God, he needs to do better at seeing you more often, talking more, being more. Each breath as he's touching you is like a crack of electricity through his chest that aches beautifully. Nobody else feels like this. Even when he's dated, what he's felt with them can't hold a candle to his boyhood crush on you.)

You sip your drink and laugh at the embarrassing story that's being told about Harry, oblivious to his torment. Oblivious to how Harry feels your forearm brush his leg and has the overwhelming desire to deposit his palm on your thigh and keep it there, probably forever.

It strikes you that the last time you saw Harry was before the current anecdote about him in Italy happened, and at the table, it's being spoken about as though it was ancient history. You wonder what historic classification your memory of thirteen-year-old Harry would get, that time he attempted to bleach his hair with lemon juice. He ended up with second-degree burns on his forehead from the acid reacting with the sun.

Or the time Gemma stayed in Holmes Chapel for the summer because she had her first boyfriend, and so you spent six weeks learning that maybe you'd been wrong about who your favourite Styles child was. Maybe the boy who, when you were eleven, didn't impress you much, suddenly at thirteen, demanded all your attention. Made that summer become the first where you considered your outfits and whether your mum sending you next door with homemade snacks made you look lame.

"… And of course, Harry can't walk away from a dance floor when he's on the tequila …" everyone around the table laughs. Harry peeks at you to make sure you are too, but he's not very good at it because you notice, a smile flares on your lips.

You're used to long periods of not seeing each other, it's how it's always been. Harry and Gemma spent the summers with their dad and then returned to Holmes Chapel for real life. Sometimes that's what it still felt like, as though each time you saw either of them you were acutely aware there was a foreign Real Life they would go back to without you.

Harry in particular. You were used to not seeing him for months on end, usually the whole school year. Just a few messages over MySpace and birthday cards, and then, when you were out of school, invites to parties Harry couldn't come to anymore—'I'm in Australia, how insane is that? Sorry, I'll miss your 18th …' or 'I can only stay until the 8th, could you maybe graduate a week earlier? ;)'—and emails every other month with a new mobile number for you to overwrite his contact in your phone with. You're not saying you feel hard done by in your friendship, you don't. It's just always very take-what-you-can-get with Harry.

"You've got your thinky eyes on," he's pivoted his whole body towards you, hips twisted in an entirely uncomfortable looking position. Harry's got his resting elbow on the table right next to where your hand holds your drink, and he's looking down at you with careful eyes, "Where are you?"

"The pool a dozen summers ago," you answer easily, pursing your lips together and running a knuckle along your hairline, "Thinking about your ah, burn incident."

Harry's face explodes in a grin, and his eyes roll up to the ceiling and then capture yours again, "For fuck's sake, you're never going to stop bringing that up, are you?"

"You were a horrible blonde," you remark quickly, "If you ever so much as blink in the direction of a packet of bleach you have to call me, okay? I'll have no issue telling you, categorically, you should never dye your hair."

"Categorically," Harry mimics you childishly, "Alright, I get it, you went to uni. No need to use words with fifty syllables to make me feel stupid."

You bring your glass up to your lips, "Come off it, Harry, you're ten times smarter than me."

His forehead raises, "You're the cleverest person I know. Don't make me call Gem to confirm it."

"Don't bring your sister into this, Harry," you deadpan.

He goes to reply but holds back, something unnamable travelling across his eyes as he watches you lick your lips after taking another sip of your drink. Harry's leaning a little closer than he might usually, and despite the fact he's a few drinks in he still smells only of Tom Ford and clean clothes. He's just about to ask you what you're doing the next day when he gets hit in the side of the head with a coaster.

"Hey," he cries out, pulling back from you and frowning around at the group trying to figure out who the culprit is," 'M the fucking birthday boy, watch it."

Lisa is the girl directly across from Harry and yourself, and she's is the one who threw it. She's giving Harry a coy smile and holds up her empty glass to him, a not so subtle request makes the drink in your hand feel like a concrete brick. Something dirty you don't like having. She's got captivating blue eyes and straight blonde hair—exactly Harry's usual type. Your heart sinks as he slides out of the booth next to you, laughing at her flirtatious request and taking a tally of who else wants a new drink.

"Y/N?" Your name is delicate on his lips, and it makes you want to cry. Why is it so easy for you to make things feel like they mean more with him?

You direct your smile his way, "I'm good, thanks."

His head tilts to one side, "You sure?"

"Positive," you nod, feeling your cheeks burn as everyone watches the exchange.

"Okay," Harry taps the table with the corner of his phone, "I'll be right back."

After a few moments, you sneak off to the bathroom, happy to see Harry's beaten you back from the bar when you return. He's sitting in your spot, deep in conversation with the person beside him who you recognise from the radio. Tentatively, you slip in next to him, careful not to touch him this time. Harry's got his hand casually resting on the table, turning your glass forty-five degrees one way and then back the other way as he speaks. You think about reaching over and pulling it out of his hand gently (you're losing your buzz, and Little Miss Bombshell across the table has made you feel silly and juvenile) but it looks to be an almost serious conversation, so you don't. With a smile plastered on your face, you look around the table, resisting the urge to pull out your phone to check if either of your flatmates has text you to meet up with them somewhere.

It's a delicious whiff of your perfume behind him that turns Harry's head. You're back from the bathroom, although nobody was able to confirm that's where you went when he got back from the bar and asked after you. Harry pushes your drink over and gives you a smile, taking note of the fresh layer of lipstick and messy oomph to your hair that perfectly shows off the new style and bangs.

Golden, he thinks, As always,

"Your new hair really does look beautiful," Harry tells you, the bar stilling around you as his face becomes all the world is for you at that moment, "Next time, don't wait for a dickhead to break your heart before doing something to make yourself feel good."

You swallow down the thickness in your throat, "Thanks, Harry."

Walking to the next bar, Harry can't stop himself from asking.

"What happened?"

You kick your foot out as you wait at a set of traffic lights, half the group ran to cross, but you, Harry and a couple of others were too slow, "What happened with what?"

Harry watches his breath fan out in front of his face, "With your ex, with …"

"Tim."

"Tim, yeah," he turns to look down at you, hands tucked into his coat pockets, "What happened with Tim?"

"Nothing really," you start strong, then shrug one shoulder as you think about it. It's safe to cross so you wait until you're stepping up over the gutter and onto the opposite footpath before you continue, "Probably a lot of little things but … Always felt like he thought I was asking for a bit too much. I guess in the end he just didn't like me all that much."

The way your voice drops kills Harry, he's not detecting self-deprecation but something far worse. He's detecting acceptance or acknowledgement or like you're confessing some truth that should have been obvious.

"Y/N," he stops walking and halts you as well, lets Adrian and Lisa walk around and out in front of you, "If he didn't like you very much then he's got some kind of chemical imbalance. I mean it, this guy's not worth a second of your heartache."

It's not like Harry's a dickhead about it, not like he thinks you should date people with more money or status or who are more impressive. A person isn't their job or what car they drive, he knows that. Harry's not about judging anyone, but you really do seem to date guys not worthy of you. He hasn't met many of them, but Harry knows this to be true because if they were worthy, you simply wouldn't be single right now. If you dated someone half-decent, there wouldn't be a chance in hell they'd let you go. You're beautiful and thoughtful and intelligent and funny—so funny—which means Harry knows without a doubt that this Tim guy was an absolute fuckwit.

"It's not necessarily about the guy," you start and Harry can hear the thick emotion in your voice, "Is it? It's about the idea. The disappointment is more about not getting the fairytale, not finding my person. Not getting the whole package everyone else seems to have found. I know Tim wasn't right—truth be told I didn't end up liking him very much either—doesn't stop me from being sad that I still haven't found it."

"'It'… That's what you're looking for?" Harry asks, eyes out front where the rest of the group are all stopped waiting at another set of traffic lights.

They're laughing and chatting loudly to other people on nights out, and hanging off street poles to get funny pictures. He doesn't want to catch up to them, not when the two of you are in the middle of this conversation that's making his heart race and his hands sweat. He starts taking smaller steps.

"Yeah," you breathe out, almost sounding ashamed of yourself, "Don't seem to be looking in the right places."

Look over here, Harry thinks.

"But I mean, each breakup I end up getting something out of it," you've flicked your positivity switch, "This time I got these boots and bangs," you kick out your foot and watch Harry take note of your footwear, "Last break up I got four houseplants and a new watch … It's not all bad. What about you?" you turn it back on Harry, "Are you seeing anyone at the moment?"

It's hard to tell with Harry. You either find out from his sister or sometimes, social media. Although that's all usually trash. Generally, when Harry's seeing someone, you'll hear it confirmed from Gemma, and the next time you see Harry, it'll be something you're assumed to know. You haven't seen Gemma since Christmas time though, for your annual festive get together, and she didn't mention anything. Tim had ended things with you a few days before, so that was the main topic of conversation.

"No," Harry confirms what you'd already deduced—and hoped—in your head, "Not for a while now."

"Got your eye on anyone?" You quiz faux cheekily, your smile a little too wide.

Yes, you, he says to himself as he looks at the side of your face.

You hope he's not got some girl in LA he's into. Just like you'd hoped his answer to the previous question. But the hope was silly, something that bloomed in your chest each time you saw him and died again before you were home in your bed, alone.

"I'll let you know," he says aloud.

You think you see something else there in his expression, but you know you can't have. Your mind is swirling, and you're feeling a tingling sensation all over that you know you shouldn't. It'll only leave you disappointed when you part ways tonight and don't see him for another few months. The tiny bits of maybe mores and perhaps are dangerous to things to cling on to now, they'll all turn into Nothings very quickly.

Someone steals his attention away from you when you get to the next street corner. Most of the group are gathered there, and you're not sure whether to believe it when Lisa says they missed the green man to cross the road because they were talking. She sides up to Harry and starts waving her hands around in an animated story about something or other. Harry crosses the street with her, and you give him up for the night.

But he's acutely aware of what's happened. Harry's not stupid—he's emotionally intelligent, and spent enough time with Lisa on nights out before—and he can see that she's deliberately pulled him aside. He likes her, quite a bit, but she doesn't make his insides flip, or his toes curl. She's firmly Just A Friend. Harry hasn't spent countless hours over the years thinking about her, lying to himself about how he's completely fine when she starts dating someone new. He's never thought about an alternative life, one where he stayed at school and went to uni and got a regular job and maybe (definitely) ended up with her.

He's imagined that life with you—more than once. More than a dozen times, if he's honest. For years now, Harry's bitten his tongue and smiled through the pain of not being able to have you. And sure, most of the time it's a dull ache, deep in the recess of his mind, that needs to be called on or conjured to really be felt, but it's always been there. He's always had an (Astronomical) Soft Spot For You. Ever since that summer you broke your arm falling off the back of the ramp at the skate park, and he first saw you cry. At fifteen he didn't know what the hollow but sharp pain through his heart was as he rushed to your side, but now he knows that was the first sign he didn't see you as just a mate. Would never again see you as just a mate.

And now, hearing you use the word 'it'. You say you're out there dating idiots trying to find it and Harry's just unwaveringly sure he that could be him. He wants to be it for you.

You've pulled out your phone and fallen behind, face pulled down as you type away furiously. Harry watches you out of the corner of his eye, half just to watch you and half to make sure you don't get separated entirely from the safety of the group.

"Y/N," he calls out, unable to keep up with Lisa's story and unwilling to try to tune back into it. She stops short, and annoyance flits across her face, but Harry still turns to you, still crosses his arms over his chest and gives you his best scolding look, "It's the oldest trick in the book," he goads you. Lisa sighs behind him, and he ignores it.

Your head slowly comes up and takes in Harry (and Lisa sulking behind him), "What is?"

"Fallin' behind so you can peek at my bum."

You point at the long coat Harry's wearing that goes to his knees, "Can't see half of you under that thing."

"Ah, ha!" He calls out, his pointer finger floating in the air right in front of your face, "So you've tried."

You shove his shoulder and step around him, trying like anything to act neutrally. You're aware Lisa is still watching on, and you're not used to your friendship with Harry being quite so carefully observed. You know your face has gone red and you're really not going to involve yourself in a pissing contest with her. It's not classy and certainly not your vibe.

As you walk away, boots clip up behind you, and Harry heavily drapes his arm right across your shoulders, pulls you into his side, "Was just teasin', love."

"I know," you respond quietly, not upset, not really.

"Though I might've made you sad," Harry continues solemnly, "Know you get embarrassed in front of people."

Your face cracks into a smile, "Opposite of you, hey, you're practically an exhibitionist."

He should flirt because you've led him to a pretty easy window into a dirty joke, but something has Harry hanging onto his regret, "I mean it, shouldn't tease you …Should be old enough to use my words, tell you what I think."

You've got no idea what he's on about, "Harry, the teasing was fine. Where's this bloody bar though?"

Up ahead, everyone's standing on the footpath in a clump. Harry can feel the next words on his lips but has to hold them in when his mates turn and see he's finally caught up. They're waiting a few minutes for a table, someone explains, then they'll be able to go in. Harry thinks how little he feels like another drink at another bar. A few people walk away from the group to share cigarettes. You're standing a little bit away, under the sign for the butcher next-door and kick your foot back against the wall like the slight movement might warm you up.

As he steps up to you, Harry watches you get distracted by the group of people spilling out of the bar you're all about to go into. He doesn't want to take advantage of knowing you're newly single also doesn't want to let this opportunity pass. You're always dating someone, or he is, or there's some other reason not to. There's always a reason to hold back from you and Harry refuses to believe it's the drinks he's had nudging him into this. Neither of you is drunk, he wouldn't even say he's tipsy anymore. Just warm and contemplative and less inhibited than usual.

"C' mere," he calls softly, the tips of his boots landing right in front of yours, your bodies a hands' width apart. He wants you closer.

"Harry—

He opens up his coat to you and when you don't move—your brain is busy short-circuiting—he acts for you and winds his arm around your shoulder to encase you in the warmth, "Get in," Harry says, "You're shivering."

You're shocked by the contact, at him being so close and inviting you in and then just taking you in his jacket. He's wrapped the lapels around both your bodies and forced you against his chest. He hums against you, but you're feeling incredibly awkward with your arms hitched up against your chest and pressed rigidly into his shoulders. You've not been in a hold like this before and certainly not with Harry.

He pulls back and digs around for your wrists, "You've gotta put them around me," he stretches his arms behind his back, taking yours with them and instructing you to really settle against him. "There, that's better," he wraps the jacket back around you, and the two of you stand like that—hearts pressed together, scents converging and your whole frame shaking against his—for what seems like far too long for it mean nothing. Right? Your thoughts ricocheted around inside his jacket and go nowhere, solve nothing in your mind.

Over your shoulder, he sees the rest of the group have gone into the bar. He's not surprised none of them called out, Harry's angled you both away from the door and with his head ducked down against yours they probably (hopefully) missed you both there.

It's Harry's twenty-seventh birthday, and maybe that's made him sullen or introspective. Made him think about the passage of time and how another year has passed him by, yet here he stands in the same place as ever—wanting you. Wishing for more, or waiting for a moment that feels right, or hoping something will happen. With growing older comes a sense of regret and an acceptance that twenty-six has happened and anything he wanted to achieve by that age but didn't he never will. There's only the future. Only the things he can do. And the mix of all that with the cocktails has Harry feeling as though he has to act on this. Every birthday he thinks maybe by the next one the Somethings or the Maybes might have happened, and you won't be standing in front of him as just his friend.

"Always had a thing for you," Harry says, his chin resting against the crown of your head while his arms link around low on your back, holding you against him, "I've always liked you more than I should."

Oh god, you think, your chest freezing in place, I'm hallucinating.

"What?" Now your heart is really racing. Or maybe it's completely stopped, seized up and fallen out of your chest onto the salt-covered footpath.

His voice comes out evenly as he repeats himself, "Feels bigger than a crush, but I guess that's what it is … Since we were kids."

(Oh, how those words have been his best-kept secret for all these years but now, in less than two seconds, he's let go of them more easily than almost anything else he's ever done)

"Y/N?"

Harry thought he'd be scared. Thought this would be a moment of panic. Every time he's imagined this he's thought 'and I'd be absolutely shitting myself because what if she doesn't feel the same way?' but now that he's said it he's almost completely calm. The only reason he's worried is that he can feel how hard your heart is beating—even through the layers of clothing—and surely that quickly can't be good for your health.

You're speechless, and he leans back so he can see your face and, oh your eyes. Why on earth didn't he say it to your face, so he could be looking in your eyes? Watch his words project across your expression and settle into your mind.

You look worried, and Harry's transported back to that time he had you on FaceTime when he was somewhere on tour with One Direction. He was telling you about how management was going to let them fly friends out on tour, bring a little bit of home along and give the boys some needed space from each other. You were nodding along and so excited for him but sure Harry was talking about someone else, that this was just news and he'd called up to tell you how he was inviting the boys he went to school with in Cheshire or people he met through X-Factor. Of course I'm bringing out you and Gem, you idiot, he'd told you when you were surprised to get an invite, Who else did you think I was talking about?

He kind of loves watching the look on your face right now, the cogs turning in your head and wheels spinning, furiously trying to figure out what Harry means.

Why isn't he terrified of what you're about to say?

"Why … but you've… and I've…"

Your hands have moved to his hips so you can see him properly, and Harry's encouraged by the fact you haven't pulled away or pushed him off you. You're watching him with a puzzled look on your face and a burning heat across your cheeks.

He brings his forearms up to rest on your shoulders and smiles at you, "I wasn't brave enough to act on it … Guess I didn't want to fuck it up. Didn't want it to not work out. Couldn't stand you becoming an ex."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Right." You don't seem capable of more than one word at a time.

"You feel bad for yelling at me about the chocolate bar now, don't you?" Harry's narrowed his eyes playfully.

That does it.

Your eyes snap back up to his face from being fixated on staring at his neck, "Chocolate bar … No, what the fuck, Harry."

He laughs. A real laugh that comes from the base of his tummy and squeezes his eyes shut and crinkles his nose. His head falls back, and it's a deep, uninhibited laugh, "Don't stomp your new boots at me," he eventually says, crooking his head down to be almost pressing his forehead against yours. "You've been my favourite girl for years, I've always been a pansy idiot who didn't want to wreck the friendship."

"Oh, and now you don't mind wrecking it?" You bark back sarcastically, unsure why you're angry at him but you are.

"No," Harry says softly, moving through your emotional responses seamlessly, "I don't think it's going to wreck it, do you? Think twenty-seven has finally given me the balls to pursue it. To tell you how I feel. How I've always felt."

Your eyes instantly ball with hot tears you weren't prepared for, "You're an idiot."

"I am," he agrees readily, fingers playing with the ends of your hair.

"Why have you told me this now," your voice is small, unsure.

Harry frowns, now he's starting to panic, "Do you … Do you not feel the same? Or do you not think maybe you could?"

Oh, if only he could have been in your head every time you saw him these last few years. Heard you talk yourself down and away from anything more than platonic, from any thoughts that might elevate you in his eyes. You've spent all this time trying to convince yourself to believe you were nothing more than a friend to him, and now this.

"Harry, are you sure you—

—I'm sure," he insists quickly.

"I just—

—I'm sure."

You're suddenly very embarrassed by the conversation the two of you had earlier about your ex. The conversation where you basically told Harry you're incredibly desperate to settle down and find The One. He's so achingly cool, and you feel like a little tinned tomato, thin-skinned and persistently flustered.

Tinned tomato? Really? You berate yourself, Case in bloody point.

"Y/N"

You scratch roughly at your forehead and grimace at whatever thoughts are going through your mind, "I'm just …"

Harry brings one hand up to fix your bangs, carefully sweeping the hair back across your forehead evenly, letting the pads of his fingers dust over your skin, "I think if you didn't feel the same you'd have said No by now."

His words steal the air from your lungs, "Harry, you've just always …"

"I've always?"

"I never thought …"

The smile comes up over his face gently, "It's me, Y/N, please finish a sentence. I'd really like to kiss you, but you haven't yet said anything to imply you'd be open to that …"

You pull your lips together like a reflex you can't help, you've rarely let yourself fall that deep into imaging things with Harry, but your body reacts to his words in an instant, "Promise you're not kidding …"

"I promise I'm not kidding," Harry said sincerely. "I'd never kid around about this, Y/N."

You believe him, and ten seconds of bravery comes over you, "I was thirteen."

His eyes narrow slightly, trying to figure out what you mean, "Thirteen?"

"My thing for you," you continue quietly, heart racing as adrenaline swamps your legs, "Started the summer I turned thirteen."

Harry hears the slight shaking to your voice and almost misses what you've said. Then it hits him.

"Oh yeah?" He squints at you and pulls up his nose with a smile, a secret little smile that will never belong to anyone but the two of you. The Smile that happened just before Harry leant down and kissed you for the first time, pressed his warm lips against your cold ones and really breathed you in.

He holds it like that for a moment, your lips touching but not moving. Then his hands come up to cup your face, and Harry moves his mouth to one side, just a touch. You open up to him, and he has the brief thought that this is probably the Most Important Kiss Of His Life. His insides curl in on themselves as he gets completely lost in you. Completely lost in how perfect this moment feels and how much finally kissing you feels like a relief.

You can't believe this is happening. You're still tucked into Harry's coat—warm and safe—but now you're joined at the mouth, and Harry's a really really good kisser. He's got his thumbs pressed into your cheeks and his fingers laced through the hair around your ears. When his tongue first licks your bottom lip and then goes searching for yours, you don't think you've felt yourself flicker On so quickly. A soft moan escapes your lips, and Harry's kiss somehow becomes harder, his nose bumping yours where he'd been good at keeping things smooth until then. As quickly as it intensifies, Harry takes a slight step back and drags his mouth away from yours.

"Y/N," he breaths out your name, sealing your lips with one of his thumbs as he pulls back. Harry's taking stock of your face (hopefully) getting used to being this close to you. Noting the way your eyelashes kink out at an odd angle right at the corner of your eye, and the freckle that's so close to the edge of your mouth he's never noticed it before. Harry's can feel your heart has slowed down, and the expression on your face right now is content, but curious. He's also sure he can see fear under it all.

"Well," your voice shakes, because Harry's looking at you like you've only dreamed and now that you're here you're not really sure what happens next. You kissed Harry.

He clears his throat lightly and his hands both fall to hold either side of your neck, "There's no way I'm going back to not being able to do that whenever I want."

Then, he kisses you again. You feel yourself melt against him as Harry's chest presses back against yours. You link your arms around his waist, clutching the back of his shirt between your fingers as Harry leads the kiss with a hand on your neck and the other holding your chin carefully. You've picked up right where the last one let off, hungry and exploring and a little bit desperate (perhaps a lot desperate) to have more of each other.

But then his phone rings in his trousers pocket, right against your hip, and you jump away in surprise.

"Shit," Harry mutters, pulling the stupid machine out, cursing the universe, "Sorry … It's Aiden," he tells you with an eye-roll.

And then you're back to reality. Your drinks have all worn off, your feet ache, your ears are freezing, and you've just made out with one of your oldest, best friends. Shit.

"Oh," you take a hearty step back, hands slipping out from Harry's coat and your body bracing the full brunt of the cold night, "Yeah … That's—

—Aiden," Harry barks the name of his mate down the phone while at the same time hooking his free arm around the back of your neck and pulling you close again. He's not giving up touching you that easily, and he doesn't care, quite frankly, about giving you any room to start internalising or retreating from him, "No, we've gone to get some food … I'll see you during the week sometime. Tell everyone thanks for—Yes, I'm serious … I don't care, saw all you lot last week … I'm hanging up now. Bye."

You listened in on the conversation because it was really all you could do. Aiden was obviously inside the bar, and they were all wondering where Harry got to. We've gone to get some food, Harry told him, so they'd know he was with you. (You supposed he was hardly going to say, 'oh yeah we've been out the front making out') Bits and pieces of the other end of the conversation, you were able to pick up on, but not enough to truly know what was said. By the end of the call, Harry was smiling though, you could hear it in his voice.

His nose found the shell of your ear and Harry leant into you, "Come back to mine, or we can go to yours … Watch a movie, play Scrabble, anything … Just wanna be with you."

"It's two o'clock in the morning, Harry," you murmur, your mind struggling to make sense of what's just happened. You're outside a club in Soho held against Harry's chest with lips that know what he tastes like and a body that's on fire.

"I'm not tired," he shoots back, "Are you?"

"Well, no but—

—Great," Harry turns towards the road, takes a few steps to the curb (you trot along with him under his arm), as he flags down a black cab. "Mine or yours?"

His question is simple, he prompts you to answer by calling your name as he opens the door for you and gestures for you to hurry up and get in.

"Yours," you say.

Harry doesn't speak much in the cab, you figure it's about privacy. You hope it's about privacy. The thirty-minute drive out of the city and to his place feels much longer. Halfway through he reaches over for your hand and gives you a reassuring smile across the back seat. You thought the journey might make you sleepy, the sitting down in a warm car would bring the haze over your eyes and bring the long day to a close in your mind. But you could never feel sleepy with Harry's fingers playing with yours, or when he leans over and kisses your cheek for no reason at all.

At his house, Harry tells you to make yourself at home while he turns on the kettle for a cuppa. You kick your boots off in the hallway, and your feet start throbbing in relief as you follow his retreating form. It's certainly not the lusty, hurried entry you imagined you might have. Which only plants doubts in your mind about what's actually going on between the two of you.

"I'm just going to use the bathroom," you call out ahead of you, turning back to the stairs and taking yourself up to Harry's second storey.

Upstairs you don't take long. You're looking a little worse for wear—who wouldn't at 3am—but you're not really in the mood to try to fix yourself. Even if you did Harry would notice, and that felt like something you wanted to avoid. As you walk back to the landing, you wriggle your toes in your socks and happen to look back down the upstairs hallway. You've been in this house dozens of times before but this time feels different. It feels quiet and intimate somehow. Just as you're about to go down the first step, you see Harry's bedroom door is open on the opposite side of the stairs to the bathroom, and you notice something that makes you stop.

The book you got him for Christmas is sitting on his bedside table.

You're standing over it before you realise that your legs have started moving, looking at a picture of Anne, Gemma and Harry, a bottle of water and the book. You pick it up, the cover a little bent and the spine cracked to where he's read. Harry's using the birthday card you send along with the gift as a bookmark. The top of the familiar design sticking out the top of the pages, you can't even really remember what you wrote inside. Something generic probably. Platonic.

Happy birthday, old man! Have a wonderful day, sorry I can't be there in person. Love, Y/N.

The floorboard at the top of the stairs creaks and you turn around to Harry looking surprised to see you standing over his bed. He's got two cups of tea and a family-sized Dairy Milk bar under his arm. Something churns inside you, this was Harry as you'd always known him. Except now you looked at his lips and wondered why the hell you weren't kissing him.

"Oh, yeah, I've been reading that," Harry sees the book in your hands and walks towards you, "It's excellent, unsurprisingly."

A smile starts on your face, "You doubted my selection ability?"

"Never," he returns quickly and then raises his eyebrows at you, "Looking for anything else?"

You feel your cheeks heat and you drop the book back into its place, "No, sorry, I was coming down the stairs and saw … I'm sorry."

Harry passes you a tea, "It was really kind of you to send something over. Was fun having something to unwrap on the day."

"I'm glad," you smile and take a sip of the tea. It's sweet, and you screw up your face, "This is yours."

Harry watches you with a strange expression on his face as the two of you swap mugs. He's worrying his bottom lip, obviously weighing something up in his mind. You see it when he decides what he' going to do about it.

"I've got something I want to show you," he tells you finally, tilting his head back to the door. "Wanna come see?"

"What is it?" You ask automatically, but Harry's already walking out the door, and you have to hurry to catch up.

He leads you into his study, and you hover in the doorway as Harry sets his tea and the chocolate down on the desk. He pulls Bananagrams out of the draw and places it next to the mug.

"We're actually going to play Bananagrams?" You ask.

He looks back at you, "You'd prefer actual Scrabble?"

"I didn't know what you meant by—I guess I …"

Realisation dawns on his face, and he widens his eyes, "Oh, you thought it was a euphemism."

"No!" You snap back quickly, feeling the heat rising to your cheeks (for the record, yes, you thought 'a movie or Scrabble' was a thinly veiled way of Harry suggesting … something else), "No, I just … I just don't think I'll be able to spell words right now."

"I didn't think you were still tipsy" Harry states, shit-stirring.

"I'm not!" You squawk at him. "I'm… I' m—You kissed me!"

He grins, loving the fact he's driven you a little crazy, "Yeah. Want me to do it again?"

Harry's playing with you. He's teasing. And you know it but what you don't know is how he's so confidently jumped to it. Not when you feel like you've been left on the street outside the bar trying to figure out what the hell this means, and what's going to happen tomorrow when he stops looking at you like that. You don't like to think this whole night could've been him playing with you, you don't know Harry to be that cruel. But there's a tripwire in your mind you keep getting snared on.

It's Harry.

"C' mere," he reaches his hand down across the room between you both, "C' mere and kiss me again. You don't seem to be getting it."

"Getting it?" You're cut off by Harry taking two big steps toward you and then planting his lips on yours again.

His palms find your hips, and you hold him in the same spot. It takes a moment for the two of you to find a rhythm, and even then, you're too in your head. You're struggling to remember what little Harry's said about this whole thing. You know he said he had a crush on you and you've gotten the distinct impression he wasn't too fond of your ex. But for all you know Harry's been kissing his mates like this for years but just never gotten around to kissing you. You might've been next on the list. He's a friendly guy. Maybe a crush isn't what it used to be. Or maybe—

He pulls back from your lips with a huffy expression on his face, "Y/N," he says quietly, "I'm a man with an incredibly fragile ego, whatever you're worrying about is really getting in the way of kissing you."

"I'm just—

—Let me show you what I brought you in here for," he interrupts you, takes your hand and tugs you towards the window. Then, he puts a hand on each of your shoulders and directs your attention to the wall.

It's lined with record sale plaques for singles and albums over the years—double Platinums and Gold-Somethings. Harry watches you eyes run over them all, a proud but unsure look in your eye. You're not sure why he's showing them to you, he knows that. He hopes you're not intimidated by them, he's certainly not showing you to try to score any points. There's a sweeter gesture behind it. He points to one leaning against the wall, not hanging. He's got it resting on the bubble wrap it was sent over in.

Stepping up closer behind you, Harry rests his chin on your shoulder, "That one's for you."

"What?"

"I want you to have it, been saving it for you … If I ever got brave enough."

The question falls from your lips before you really think about it, "Why would you want me to have it …"

Harry waits to see if you'll let on you've figured it out, he thought it was pretty obvious really, but you've never been one to elevate yourself or assume, and Harry knows that about you. So, when you don't keep talking, he confirms it for you, "That song is about you."

You just blink, eyes on the framed plaque taking in the name of the song and hearing it in your head.

It's about me? You think you want to hear it, you need to Google the lyrics and make sure you have them right in your head. Harry wrote a song about you. Harry wrote that song about you.

"When … When did you write it?"

"You mean why?" Harry raises his head and steps to stand next to you, he observes your face carefully.

"No, I mean when." You're starring at it like the plaque might answer the question, "When did you write it?"

Harry runs a hand over his head as he thinks, "A few years back, after that time you came out to LA … Didn't record it until this year though …"

Harry watches your face expand in surprise and then crumple back down to confusion. You really don't get it. He's not sure how to make you in one night. He supposes he can't. So he trails his hand up the back of your arm and then around your back, tilting his head down and waiting to see if you'll pull away. When you don't, he kisses the corner of your mouth and then opens his wider to take you lips in his properly.

It's different to the kisses outside the bar, now that you're both out of your outer layers Harry can feel your body against his in ways he's only dreamed, and it's sending everything straight between his legs. Harry's hands explore your back and the curve of your hips, thumbs almost reaching the underside of your breasts but not quite. It's a little awkward when he senses you've felt him hardening between you. Usually, lust clouds that moment, and Harry doesn't mind intimate partners being acutely aware of how they're affecting him. But with you he's a little hesitant, he senses the awkwardness on your side. Friends don't feel those body parts on each other, friends don't… He almost groans when your mouth leaves his without warning.

You think he'll probably change his mind about all this.

"Have you changed your mind?" You ask, not able to stop it.

Confusion colours his features, and his lips smack together, like he's savouring tasting you, "Wha—

"About wanting to be kissing me," you clarify.

"What? No." Harry's eyebrows have shot up, and he's shaking his head, "I barely even started! Didn't I just say I wrote that song about you—why the hell would I—want to do more than just kiss you—You think I'm gonna change my mind?"

You shrug, "Maybe. I don't know."

"Well," he stands up straighter and pins you with his stare, "I'm not. I promise I'm not going to change my mind. And I promise I'll never make you feel like you're asking for too much. Ever."

"Now you're trying to make me cry," you say, hearing him repeat back to you the insecurity leftover from your conversation about your ex. You're half kidding with your words but also not. You believe him. You trust him.

Harry grimaces, sways your bodies together gently, "I really hate seeing you cry, could you not? I had other plans."

You sniff through a laugh as Harry wraps his arms around your middle tighter," What plans are those?"

"Well, I literally thought Scrabble," he tells you through a smile, trying his best to make you laugh, "But I'm open to whatever dirty things you were thinking as well."

"You'll win Scrabble."

So, Harry instructs you to bring your tea and your sore feet back into his bedroom. He gets you a fluffy pair of hiking socks and tells you to take yours off, and your tights, and get comfortable on the bed with him and the block of chocolate. You've polished off a family size together before, the sugar going straight to your heads and always leading to a giggly night of reminiscing and Almosts.

This time though, you only get halfway through the tea and Harry pushes the chocolate off the bed onto the floor in favour of you straddling his hips. It started with a stolen kiss against your temple, and then another on your cheek, and one close to your lips, and then you captured his face in your hands and really kissed him. Within a few moments, Harry was dragging you over to him. His hands settle on the swell of your backside as it sits against his thighs and your lips trace the line of his jaw. This was really happening. You'd really let him peel off your dress and flick off your bra. His shirt was somewhere with the forgotten snacks, and you seemed extremely eager to keep feeling his hardness pressed between your legs.

"I swear to god, I never dreamed this would happen," he murmurs, hissing when your hips pressed into his at a different angle, "Was sure I'd be going to your wedding one day, completely miserable and probably end up drunk and causing a scene. Embarrass you so badly you'd never want to see me again, and you'd just run away with your stupid husband."

You pull back and watch Harry ramble, your bare chest rising and falling against his, "You're a real glass half full kinda guy, aren't you?" you smile at him.

"I just," his eyes drop to your chest, nipples puckered for him, and he scrunches them shut then drops his forehead onto your sternum with a big sigh, "This is fucking unreal, and my brain is just struggling to comprehend—you're breathtaking, and I feel like my chest is gonna explode."

"It's also 4am, so there's always the potential your brain is just plain tired," your index finger is drawing circles on the back of his shoulder as Harry leans against you, you pause and run your hand over the back of his head, "Maybe we should sleep for a little … I'll be here when you wake up," you say in response to Harry squeezing his arms around your waist tightly as if you were going to disappear. Or worse, leave.

His indescribable green eyes find yours in the light from the bedroom lamps, "Will you let me hold you while you sleep?"

"Yeah," you nod, although somehow that question seems more intimate than the lack of clothes between you at the moment. You're distinctly less dressed than Harry, who's still got his trousers on, you're only covered by your underwear.

"We don't have to rush this, right? Got all the time in the world now," still, as he speaks his palms trail up your back and then down again, skimming the sides of your breasts, "Just don't wanna miss anything is all."

"I promise I'm incredibly boring in my sleep, won't miss anything," you tease, "Might be the only time you get any peace."

Harry tightens his forearms around your back and finds the soft skin below your ear with his lips—once, twice, three little kisses—"I feel pretty at peace right now, just having you here. Feels like I'm living a dream."

You don't reply for a moment, but you let your body rest against Harry's in a comfortable hug, your voice is quiet, "You really wrote me a song?"

"I did."

"I've always loved that song."

“Well, it's been yours all along."

"Nobody's ever written a song about me."

"I should hope not."

"Are you going to write another one?"

"Without a doubt."

Chat to me here

#OOOO SHIT what have i done #well #1dff #harry styles fic #harry styles fanfic #harry styles X reader #harry styles stories #harry styles imagines #harry fic

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davids-cartoon-corkboard · 4 years ago

Text

I have said a Lot about the “Raph is a system” theory over the past several months, so this is something of a compilation post. It’s got some new stuff, it’s got some old stuff. (You’re reading Part 1) (Part 2 is here) (Part 3 is here)

---

Firstly, “system” is the term for someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder, or DID. (The term can also apply to some folks with OSDD.) Someone might develop DID after experiencing long-term trauma at an early age- roughly five or six years old. To paraphrase the DSM-V:

1. We’ve seen three (possibly four) distinct personality states who speak, act, and perceive others differently.

2. The personality states, or “alters”, don’t necessarily share memory, and Donnie insinuated in “The Clothes Don’t Make the Turtle” that Raph has a bad memory in general.

3. Problems arise when alters don’t get along or aren’t on the same page. That none of them seem to be quite aware they’re a system doesn’t help either; it’s hard to work on communication and cooperation when you don’t know they need to be worked on!

4. This whole situation isn’t a normal part of a broadly accepted cultural or religious practice, or just Raph playing make-believe. (Though I wonder if he had “imaginary friends” when he was younger...)

5. It’s also not because Raph’s been smoking the devil’s lettuce or whatever. “Pizza Puffs” was one long weed joke and he was the only one “sober” (not poisoned) throughout! We don’t see this happen to other mutants, so it’s not a bizarre side effect of mutagen either.

(I’ve seen a few people joke that Mikey has “multiple personalities”, but that’s a tad yikesy and also just plain incorrect. His “doctor” personas are something he does deliberately, and youngest siblings are just Like That.)

So yeah, Raph is pretty heavily DID-coded. We’ve seen four alters so far:

“Host” Raph (HR): He’s our everyday Raph. A “host” is an alter who fronts most of the time and takes care of “business as usual” situations. They are often unaware of past traumatic events, such that they can appear “normal”. (Ex: the host of a child who lives with an abusive parent could be unaware of the abuse. Otherwise, they might cry or be uncooperative whenever the parent is near, further invoking their wrath. This unawareness allows them to be a “good child”, and stay under the parent’s radar sometimes.) Some systems have more than one host, but that the others have shown up so rarely in this story suggests HR is the only host (for now?).

Savage Raph (SR): Debuting in “Man vs. Sewer”, he’s a survival-oriented alter. HR probably could have defeated the Sando Brothers on his own under normal circumstances, but being in the middle of a breakdown doesn’t do much for your fighting skills. SR got pulled to the front to deal with them instead.

“Red” Raph (RR): “Red” is just a placeholder since we don’t actually know his name yet (or even if he has one, not all alters do), though I’ve also heard folks call him “Angel”. He’s got a “tough love” approach to problem-solving, which was probably a helpful thing in the past. LDM were no doubt rowdy children! We were (officially) introduced to him in “Pizza Puffs”.

Mind Raph (MR): MR could just be a manifestation of HR's thought process via Cartoon Goofery, but that possibility doesn’t give me anything to work with so I’m ignoring it. He’s pretty similar to HR, maybe a tad more upbeat. We (officially) met him in “Raph’s Ride-Along”.

When “Pizza Puffs” first aired, I was like “ah yes, this is the alter who has the cranky edgelord tendencies we’ve seen in previous iterations of Raph. He probably broods on rooftops in the rain when he’s in a bad mood.” Combining that with the whole “Red Angel” thing gives off some Batman vibes. And, of course, SR is similar to the Hulk. Those two heroes are pretty different, but they do have one major thing in common...

A sudden, violent loss. Given how prevalent rushing water is throughout “Man vs. Sewer”, I’m thinking a flood came through and separated Raph from his family. (You could probably argue that turbulent water symbolizes a turbulent subconscious? 🤷) Again, DID stems from long-term trauma, so Raph must have been gone for... a while. A couple of months, maybe more? It’s hard to say exactly; we have a little wiggle room when applying human developmental psychology to a human/turtle mutant. Since Splinter still needed to care for the other three, he wouldn’t have been able to devote much time to searching for Raph, and the New York City sewers go on for miles and miles. The longer Raph was alone, the more convinced he would have been that the others had drowned and he was the only survivor.

How old would he have been? I know the turtles are “different ages”, but they were all mutated at the same time so I’m pretty sure Splinter was just like “the littlest one is the youngest, the biggest one is the oldest, and the medium-sized ones are the middle children.” They’re all probably fourteenish by “Finale”. Back in “MvS”, Leo said, “You know how savage Raph gets when he’s alone”. He didn’t say anything like, “You know how savage Raph gets when he’s alone ever since such-and-such an incident happened”. This suggests that LDM straight-up don’t know something traumatic happened to Raph; they were too little to retain concrete memories of that time. In their minds, Raph has always been like this. Draxum isn’t known for his patience, so even though he wasn’t able to immerse the hatchlings in mutagen for long, they probably mature a bit faster than humans. And since humans usually can’t remember anything from before four years of age, three sounds about right for the turtles, though they would have been stronger and steadier on their feet than any human toddler. I doubt Raph would have survived otherwise.

I think he’s sort of... “stuck” back in that trauma. Catching food, building a fire, making a weapon, and getting camouflage aren’t the behaviors of someone who’s only been gone for a few minutes.

When SR called for help, I don’t think he was expecting anyone to answer.

But Raph did manage to hang onto something as he was swept away! It wasn’t much, but that little ragdoll gave him comfort while he was scared and alone.

(The rabbit design on Bruce’s pajamas is probably a coincidence, but...)

Raph seems the type to have sympathy for odd-looking toys. His knockoff Mrs. Cuddles plushie was the emotional crutch he needed back then.

And then he was separated from that as well. Lowkey associating Mrs. Cuddles with this traumatic event would explain why HR was so scared of her. That he doesn’t remember the trauma means he has no context for this fear, making it seem silly and baseless to him (and to the rest of his family), which is why he denied being scared at all in the first part of the “Mrs. Cuddles” episode. It would also explain why he collects teddy bears instead these days, they are a “safe” toy. (The moral of the story is to not make fun of triggers that seem silly.)

(I wonder what would happen if Mrs. Cuddles encountered Savage Raph? Perhaps he’d be quite sympathetic towards such a lonely little raggedy thing! Timestuck as he is, he probably wouldn’t question why a stuffed animal can talk... and it wouldn't be hard for her to persuade her “new bestest fwiend” to get rid of some “mean ol’ nasty sewew monstews” for her.)

That whole “sewer monsters” thing suggests Raph ran into... something while he was wandering alone. Y’all have heard those rumors about alligators living in the New York City sewers, right? Encountering Leatherhead could trigger a flashback.

It would be pretty easy to introduce Leatherhead into the narrative. One of the episodes the Rise crew had planned was titled “The Island of Dr. Noe”, and alligators have very impressive teeth. The Mirage comics had a story where Leatherhead and several cryptids were brought to an island to be hunted for sport.

Noe seems to have quite a few cronies/friends/rivals he could entertain this way. Since he’s got that obsession with Raph, Noe captures him as well, knocking him out with those darts so he can’t waste his energy trying to escape too soon. (Let’s just assume everyone’s powers are glitchy because they all hit another wave of puberty, meaning they can’t just curbstomp the lower-level villains lol.)

HR wakes up on the island and, of course, starts to panic because he’s lost and alone. While wandering, he runs into Leatherhead, which would trigger a flashback to getting attacked by that alligator all those years ago. But Leatherhead doesn’t want to fight! He’s just as scared and confused as HR is, and could really use a partner to help him survive this island.

HR and SR come into conflict because Leatherhead is/isn’t/is/isn’t/is/isn’t a threat. HR eventually wins out, reasoning that even if Leatherhead is that alligator, it wouldn’t be fair to judge him for what he did back when he was an animal.

But time and dissociation can make memories unclear. That our first look at Leatherhead was in Draxum’s “bluh bluh I’m gonna mutate all the humans” bit in “Bug Busters” means he’s a human-base mutant. He wasn’t the alligator back then, but the hunter tracking it. Leatherhead isn’t one of Noe’s targets, he is one of Noe’s guests! And he wants no one to interfere with his quarry, so he’ll play nice long enough for him and the snapper to take out the rest of the hunters and the freaks. Then the two of them will have the island all to themselves...

Years and years ago, Jack Marlin was a big game hunter prowling the New York City sewers in search of an alligator. He did manage to find and kill one, only to realize it had also been hunting! He had inadvertently saved the strangest little turtle creature.

Marlin had become too skilled at this point, the hunt held no challenge for him. This turtle sounded very young, and he was quite big and strong already. An adult could be tough and intelligent enough to entertain him. Marlin tried to get Raph to lead him back to “the others”. But Raph had been lost for some time, and as far as he knew, his family was dead. Hearing that put Marlin in quite the sour mood. A little mutant snapper is a better catch than none at all, so Marlin tried to haul Raph off. Raph fought back and bit off Marlin’s hand. He escaped, but lost his rabbit in the scuffle. Marlin retreated as well, taking some time to recover, scheme, and hunt other game. (And to pocket that rabbit. The blood loss had made him woozy, and he wanted to have some kind of proof he hadn’t just hallucinated the snapper.) Perhaps he turned that alligator’s hide into a vest, which provided the genetic material for his mutation when he eventually got bit by an oozesquito. Like his Mirage counterpart, Marlin didn’t take losing a limb as a sign he should retire, and instead got a tricked-out prosthetic. Who knows what he could do with it in such a mystic setting as Rise.

Raph eventually reunited with his family, but those distrustful, high-strung survivalist traits he had picked up weren’t helpful anymore. He once again had to be the good and patient big brother who didn’t bite when someone play-tackled him or shook him awake at three in the morning because they’d had a nightmare. Those two states gradually got partitioned off more and more, and now they know little, if anything, about each other.

So Leatherhead and HR are chasing away some mothmen or whatever, and things are going pretty well... until one of them knocks Leatherhead over and a familiar ragdoll rabbit falls out of his pocket. SR realizes that Leatherhead is Marlin and switches in to fight him off again. They’re evenly matched, or perhaps SR is even in danger of losing, when LDM arrive to provide support. Leatherhead is enough of a tactician to know that he should retreat. Donnie and Mikey pursue him while Leo stays behind, placing the rabbit in his stunned brother’s hands. “Remember when Pops made this for you? You were always really gentle with it, ‘cause he wasn’t good at sewing back then...”

(This thing really needs patching up, he’s got sewing stuff for whenever he needs to fix his bears/Blue isn’t a threat on his own/Wasn’t he just back at the lair?/Blue gave back the rabbit/Why does he feel like he got hit by a train?/Blue doesn’t want to fight?/ ...Leo?) And that’s enough for HR to switch back in. He’s probably missing memory from his whole time on the island, so while Leo does his best to tell him what happened, they don’t have enough puzzle pieces between them to truly figure out what's going on.

They defeat the bad guys, release the cryptids, save the day, etc. (Leatherhead managed to lose Donnie and Mikey in the woods. A battle for another day.) Once they return to the lair, HR gets help from Draxum to modify the memory spell from “E-Turtle Sunshine” so he can try to fill in the gaps. Surely he wouldn’t get rejected by his own subconscious... right?

Cue part three in the saga of Raph Punches Himself In The Face. SR isn’t happy that HR is essentially trying to poke at an improperly-healed wound, and attempts to chase him off. HR assumes that SR is just a psychic white blood cell like the Lou Jitsu constructs in Splinter’s mind, and retaliates.

But, of course, fighting is not the answer here. All that accomplishes is giving the body bruises. Eventually HR realizes “stay away” and “back off” are a little different than “get out”, and that SR is just scared. So HR tries another tactic. Over the following days and weeks, he tunes in to calmer memories and just sort of... talks. About what happened yesterday, about his teddy bear collection, about how he finally managed to get a good picture of that pizza pigeon. It takes a while to establish a connection, and even then, it’s spotty at best. Using the spell too much can cause headaches and nightmares. There are days when SR is nearby, and days when he’s not there at all. But he shows up when he can.

And then there’s awkward, stilted conversation and questions neither of them know how to answer and questions neither of them want to answer and more scrapes and bruises and strained silences and apologies, but they finally, finally reach a compromise. SR still doesn’t let HR near those memories, but he tells HR what happened as best he can. (The audience would see those memories, with SR as a voiceover.) Afterwards, HR still visits the mindscape that’s starting to become more solid. They talk some more, they watch light and shadow flow around them, they listen to half-forgotten lullabies on scratchy old cassette tapes. Eventually, HR doesn’t even need to use the memory spell, meditation is enough.

They’ll never get along all the time. But it’s a start.

(SR is going to be so clingy when it finally clicks for him when he finally lets himself believe that his family is alive.)

---

This took eight million years lmao. Parts 2 and 3 will come out eventually, they’ll focus more on MR and RR. Let me know if I need to tag this stuff as anything.

The usual disclaimer applies, I am not a system or a mental health professional so if you’re one or both of those things then feel free to give me some of that good good constructive criticism.

#you called for help... but nobody came.#rottmnt #rottmnt theory #the 'raph is a system' theory #rottmnt raph #savage raph #mrs. cuddles #leatherhead #jack marlin #plot bunnies free to a good home lmao #long post

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waukrife · 4 years ago

Text

@tvpeongsstuff also asked:

well....depends on where he goes?

It’s interesting to think about what he would do in the past, whether he would change anything, and if he did, would he keep his cards close or tell the council everything (I lean towards the former), would he make sure they avoided the fight on Naboo or would he kill the Sith and survive. Would he knight Obi-Wan and train Anakin himself (yes because he’s stubborn and doesn’t realise Obi-Wan deserves better)? What knock on effects would this have, up to and including Obi-Wan keeping his head down and being a perfect (-ly miserable) Jedi Knight, Dooku potentially staying with the Jedi, etc? However, in terms of scenario, I got a bit stuck on the future rather than the past, and also rambled about how Tim-Travel Is Real and Here’s How in maybe too much incoherent detail.

Not to ramble about Jedi theology on main or anything, but I think that the Force exists beyond time, as in the Force is everywhere, and the Force yesterday is the same as today and tomorrow. It’s how Jedi have visions of the future, because that future already exists within the Force. So, when a Jedi ‘becomes one with the force’, constructs like time don’t exist. Neither do objectives like ‘this universe’ or ‘the universe where Anakin did save Padmé’ or even less prophetic twists like ‘the universe where Obi-Wan DID take the deathsticks’.

In my headcanon, Force Ghosts absolutely could figure this out and manifest in the past. They don’t do this because they are boring and small-minded. Jedi these days...I guess when you’re working for the Republic there’s no time to sit down and ask why Jedi can see the future but not reach in and change it, or why some Jedi can teleport but not time-travel? It’s all just space and the force, isn’t it? So say the last time Qui-Gon hit a bong and decided to study the living force enough to become a ghost when he died, he got MORE esoteric with the meditations and figured out Force Ghost time-travel too.

All this to say, when he dies and pops back as a ghost, his first thought is probably hmmm better check on Anakin. His next thought is probably oh shit, and Obi-Wan, my student of 12 years. I also think it’s quite easy to get lulled into just merging into the Force or getting lost, rather than concentrating enough to go somewhere, let alone chose where you end up. Maybe for a laugh he’d accidentally get stuck in some artefact in the temple for a bit, like...just him and some echo of a long-dead darksider chilling in the force attached to a cursed robe in the depths of temple storage or something. Or maybe he’d accidentally tune into a couple of people’s force dyad space-time calls ("Can you see my surroundings?""You're gonna pay for what you did!" oh dear, wrong number) before actually going anywhere deliberately or getting stuck somewhere.

In canon, Qui-Gon is too boring and traditional to actually risk doing anything more than occasionally whispering vague encouragement into a couple of Jedi’s ears. So I don’t think he’d choose to actually explore time, or change the past. But that sucks and also so does studying really hard for your entire life and then in death maintaining the concentration to exist visibly using the force only to then look like a glitchy blue hologram. So, I think it would be cool for him to accidentally focus too hard and and accidentally properly re-embody himself somewhere in the gffa. Qui-Gon’s characterisation, as most Star Wars characters, is made very difficult by the breadth of material available, and the relative lack of actual screentime in the canon films, but he seems to be both a traditionalist, and also a bit of a renegade. Like, libertarian uncle energy. So it would be very interesting to see him confronted with the changes that overtook the Jedi in the near future, rather than the past.

I think it would be most fun if he could accidentally get stuck in the clone wars.

A clone scuba unit on some random planet in the middle of nowhere, doing underwater recon suddenly fish out some guy claiming to be a Jedi, look, I have a lightsaber- wow ok the blade is invisible, it didn't used to do that, oh wait yeah I'm actually made purely from the force and so are my clothes and accessories, don’t make me lose concentration or I might turn back into a blue ghost or just vanish or explode or something. Or more likely, he wouldn’t say anything, even when he figures out he’s not going to vanish any time soon and actually he doesn't need to concentrate that hard to keep the body, he can just use the force very powerfully to explode some droids- wait, why are there droids now? He'd probably just say some vague jedi catchphrases until someone comms their Captain who comms their Commander who comms the General who comes to check it out, who goes white and very bravely doesn’t pass out, who comms the Council who verify, this is dead Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn only somehow alive, and decide that “actually we can’t recall General Kenobi from undercover, and the 92nd just lost their general....” and put this possible ghost-creature that just emerged from the depths like the world’s lankiest space-shark (if sharks wore dripping beige robes and had kind of eldritch force powers even if they were reluctant to use them or speak in a way that made sense to people who don’t read Jedi philosophy treatises for fun).

The 92nd aren’t really in the thick of it, anyway. They need the Jedi manpower and they need to keep Jinn out of trouble until they figure out whatever the hell the madman’s done this time. Hey, at least he’s not Pong Krell or some shiny knight who’s never been anywhere without their master, let alone had a command of an entire battalion. There’s no way this could go wrong.

#thank u for asking this scenario will be living rent free for the forseeable #sorry again for rambling this is insane #the potential....#scroll to like...the last 2 paragraphs if u want the actual scenario rather than #me going on about the force and qui-gon for....too long #is it not enough to like time-travel fix-its and be incredibly sexy #which is surprisingly a tag I already had...interesting #wait a minute I have to check for this on ao3...it has to be out there somewhere #ask game #tvpeongsstuff #star wars

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blazehedgehog · 4 years ago

Note

What was the honest reaction to Sonic 06 back in 2006?

It was a long time ago, so I can only really speak to my own perspective.

Sonic 2006 was the time that Sega’s marketing department really started cranking the hype train really, really hard. Sonic 2006 was announced as a fresh start. A soft reboot. Sonic Team said they were treating it like “the first Sonic game on the Sega Genesis.” You still had Tails, and Knuckles, and Shadow, but it was the start of a new era. A new type of Sonic the Hedgehog. More serious, more realistic, more “epic.”

At this point, there was no reason to necessarily distrust any of that. Yes, Sonic games had been slipping in quality, and yes, Sega was still more or less pretending that everything was “okay.” But that was always in the typical, “we’re trying to sell a video game and not go bankrupt” sense. This felt like a tacit acknowledgement that things weren’t so great and they were going to start over and refocus. Set things right.

Early gameplay footage looked rough. I distinctly remember a Gametrailers hands-on where they were demoing the Mach Speed Zone in Kingdom Valley, and the Sega representative was very clear and upfront that the game wasn’t done yet, and all of the empty space Sonic was running through would be filled in later. (It wasn’t.) There was also the typical debate over the TGS 2006 “Bringing it Home” playable demo, where people argued then, too, that the game wasn’t done yet, and not to judge things too harshly. The final version will be better.

The final version also wasn’t done yet. So, y’know.

I had effectively bought an Xbox 360 for this game. I was broke as per usual, but I’d gotten lucky and won a Gametrailers video competition, which landed me $1000 in Gamestop gift cards. I bought a PS2, a Nintendo DS, and an Xbox 360, plus more than a dozen games between the three platforms. I knew there would be more Xbox 360 games besides Sonic 2006, and I’d even originally wanted a 360 primarily for Elder Scrolls Oblivion, but the simple fact is that once the money was in my hands and I spent it, Sonic 2006 was the only actual Xbox 360 game I owned.

Or was going to own, anyway. I think I’d won the contest in September or October of 2006, when Sonic came out in November. So I bought the 360 a few weeks early with some original Xbox games, and spent the interim with Spider-man 2, Ninja Gaiden Black, and the copy of Halo 2 I borrowed from my cousin.

Sonic 2006 was the first game I’d ever pre-ordered. The second game, pre-ordered on the same day, was The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for the Gamecube. I still have the tiny pre-order statue that came with Sonic. His gloves and socks, once white, have begun to yellow with age, and the skin tone on his face and body is turning an ashy gray.

Even 72 hours before launch, there was not a clear picture what Sonic 2006 actually was. Sega was deliberately obfuscating certain features; early in development they’d sworn up and down that there were only three playable characters in the game, something that blatantly wasn’t true. Perhaps it was miscommunication from Japan, but it meant they were now going out of their way to hide how many other playable characters were actually in the game. I naively distrusted most (if not all) professional reviewers back then, and the earliest scores for Sonic 2006 were all over the map.

As a Sonic fan, you kind of had to know how to read between the lines on the more negative reviews, because we were definitely in the era where it felt like critics were starting to dogpile on the Sonic franchise now that Sega was a third party developer. There weren’t a lot of professional reviews you could trust regarding Sonic games, or at least, that’s what it felt like. This was the rise of the podcast, and snarky hosts were taking whatever low hanging fruit they could get.

I remember waking up on launch day -- friends had gotten up early and picked theirs up in the morning, when I’d rolled out of bed somewhere closer to noon (or maybe even afternoon). I had plans to pick up my copy later that evening, after sunset. My friends did not sound happy, but again, there was always this vibe of “Wait and see.” They had only just started the game. First impressions were still too fresh to really call.

But I had this moment, this cold spot in the pit of my stomach, where I thought “Maybe I can cancel the pre-order and get Gears of War instead?” Reviews for Gears seemed pretty good. I’d probably be happy with it instead of Sonic.

I couldn’t let myself do that. I was a Sonic fan. This was the first big Sonic game of a new generation. A new start. I bought the console for this. First game I ever pre-ordered. The second Sonic game in the history of the franchise I’d bought on launch day. This was it. This was the event. No backing down. Besides, Sonic 2006 was a big 15th Anniversary celebration game. They wouldn’t make such a big deal about the anniversary without just cause, right? Sonic 2006 was going to be great. I just needed to calm down.

So we drove out to Gamestop -- and it was the sort of thing where I think we couldn’t do the pre-order at my local Gamestop for some reason, so this one was a town or two over. It was a journey. I was nervous the whole way there. Something told me I was making a mistake. But I had to do this.

I think it may have been starting to rain as we rolled up on the store. It was around 8pm, and people were starting to camp out on the sidewalk. Literally camp out, tents and all, because of the rain. Today was the launch date for Sonic 2006, but tomorrow was the launch of the Playstation 3. These guys were here for Gamestop’s “Midnight Madness” launch event. They were going to be some of the first to get a PS3. I was probably the last person to pick up a Sonic 2006 pre-order.

Sonic 2006 might have been the first Sonic game to ever make me angry. I’d had a lot of internet debates on how I felt about Sonic Adventure 2, but most of those amounted to splitting hairs about things that felt disappointing when compared to the original Sonic Adventure. I was not angry then, I was simply let down. I was similarly let down when I finally got a chance to play Sonic Heroes. But again, not angry. Baffled, maybe. A little sad. But not angry.

With Sonic 2006, I slammed head first in to all of my excitement and uncertainty at 200mph. This was a Sonic game unlike anything I’d ever played before, and in all of the worst possible ways. Enough has been said about the quality of the game that I don’t need to describe anything that’s wrong with it -- also because literally everything was wrong with it. Perhaps the first video game I’d ever played, ever, on any platform, that actually fought back against your efforts to play it. A disaster in every sense of the word. A broken nightmare. After finishing Sonic’s story, I was mad. How could they let this happen? What was wrong with them?

I was less angry after having finished Shadow’s story. Shadow had even buggier gameplay than Sonic, but it also felt more complex, more action-oriented. His story was better, too -- instead of the sappy Princess love story, Shadow’s story was about how the world was against him, and the crossroads that brought him to: rise above his past and strive to be a better person, or give in to the temptations of evil? It was still dumb as heck, but it was less dumb than Sonic’s story.

By the time the credits rolled, I had accepted the fact that this game was a mess. More of a mess than any Sonic game ever had been before. It was clearly a deeply unfinished game. Friends theorized maybe they could patch the game, because that was a thing games could get now. Sonic 2006 could still be saved. The PS3 version wouldn’t be out for another month, surely that means they’re working on a fix, right? Some were even theorizing over an achievement called “Nights of Kronos” -- it mentioned a “complete ending to the last hidden story.” Perhaps that meant there was going to be more? Maybe we got the bad ending, and a better, more finished ending was waiting for us on the disc somewhere?

There wasn’t. And no patch ever fixed the game. That was Sonic 2006 -- the kiss, the loading screens, the strange mannequin NPCs, the stiff controls, the glitchy physics, the empty overworlds, the bizarre dialog, the plotholes and time paradoxes, that’s just what the game was, and was always going to be, forever.

Before Sonic 2006, you could say that 3D Sonic games were bad, but there was always a place to defend them from. They had problems, but they were never irredeemable. Sonic Heroes may have had frustrating controls and repetitive level design, but it had great art direction, nice music, and fun concepts. They were always trying, dang it, and it was obvious to see that.

Sonic 2006 felt irredeemable. Offensively terrible. A failure on such a level that it was hard to comprehend. Beyond simply “a new low” for the franchise. This felt like rock bottom. It was the kind of bad that spread like a virus. Even good games, like Sonic 2 on the Sega Genesis, felt notably tarnished by the existence of Sonic 2006. It threatened to ruin the entire franchise by proximity alone. For some, it probably did. I definitely had a moment where I wondered if I would ever enjoy a Sonic game in the same way ever again. They were all tainted now. Infected by memories of Sonic 2006, the game that was supposed to save the franchise, but condemned it to the lowest pits of hell.

In isolation, that might have been the end for me. I might have continued to drift away, bit by bit, until I found greener hills outside of the Sonic franchise.

I’ve said this before, but what saved me was getting hired to write for TSSZ News. Now, suddenly, I was paid to play and write about Sonic games. It was a duty. And it helped that the first Sonic game I reviewed for TSSZ ended up being Sonic Unleashed, a game I continue to openly gush about to this day, more than a decade after its release.

But never forget that Sonic 2006 was such a disaster that it nearly made me give up Sonic the Hedgehog. It really was that bad.

#questions #sonic the hedgehog #sega #sonic 2006 #tssz news #Anonymous

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sleepyfan-blog · 6 years ago

Note

How about Carved Mark for DS Dream x Ink? (Only if you want to though o.o)

Carved Mark

Fandom: Dreamswap by @onebizarrekai

Characters, and pairing: DS Ink, DS Dream, DS Drink

Warning: forced marking

Word count: 1,146

Summary: Ink is approached by a furious Dream and things go downhill from there.

“Ink.” Dream growled, his eye lights flashing dangerously as he stalked closer to the soulless skeleton “Where is your JR pin?”

“Oh… I… Uhhh… Must have lost it during the last mission that you sent me on?” Ink lied. He hadn’t particularly wanted to put the stupid thing on today - and it wasn’t as if he was going to be going anywhere outside of the castle… So why wear it?

“Oh really. It’s not where you usually keep it in your room?” The feathered guardian responded, his wings shifting irritably behind him.

There was a strange intensity to the other’s gaze that Ink was… Mildly concerned about. The other’s aura felt really weird as well. “Err… I can go check if you like, boss? There’s… No reason to be so mad about it, right? I mean it’s just a pin, right?”

“That pin is a symbol that represents that you work for me, Ink. It hasn’t escaped my notice that you… Haven’t been guarding my idiot brother or his destructive companions as well as you should have, the past couple of times that we have captured them.” Dream pressed, suddenly looming over the shorter skeleton, his gold eye lights bright “You wouldn’t happen to be deliberately letting them go would you, Ink?”

“I.. N-no. Of course not boss!” Ink responded, his eye lights shifting colors and shapes as he tried to figure out where the hell this was coming from. Yes, he’d been part of the group of beings in charge of trying to keep Nightmare in one place, but the squirrely bastard was hard to hold. Yeah, he’d been in charge of it, but Error had ripped through their protections again and yanked the negative bastard, vanishing before any of them could even try to stop them. “Error-”

“Yes. I know. I’ve read the report. Error appeared out of nowhere and whisked Nightmare away. But you should have at least been able to react to this. You have better reflexes than to stare dumbfounded as that glitchy outcode makes off with my brother.” Dream hisses, grabbing the other by the wrists and slamming him against a wall “Which either means you’re slipping… Or you’re working with them, and a traitor. I don’t take kindly to traitors Ink.”

“Boss… I’m not a traitor. I need you in ways that the others don’t. I wouldn’t go against you on purpose or willingly.” Ink answered, trying to go for soothing. Was this how one soothed another? He had no idea “… Nightmare’s aura was throwing me off… Both of you affect me more than most beings do. I should have been more present, and I apologize. Is… Is there any way that I can make it up to you?”

The strange gleam in Dream’s eye lights was back. “Yes there is. I would like you to prove your loyalty to me. A… Personal reminder that you are, and will always be mine, Ink.”

“I… Err… Okay…? What… What do you want me to do?” Ink responded, unsure as to where this was going. Boss didn’t strike him as the type to take liberties with others, but he certainly wouldn’t mind being close to boss like that.

“Good. All I want is for you to stay still and quiet.” Dream responded, manifesting his claymore. “Hold out one of your arms.”

Ink nodded, his eye lights wide, one violet the other blue “Of c-course, boss.” He held out one of his arms and realize that he was holding his breath.

The CEO of JR proceeded to carve his name into the inner portion of Ink’s radius with the tip of his claymore, pushing hard enough to ensure that the markings cut deeply, but not so deep that it cut into his marrow. As Dream carved his name into the other’s arm, he growled “You’re mine, and this will remind you of that, no matter how far you go.”

He’d endured far worse pain in the past, but somehow… Ink felt lightheaded and faint, blinking once as darkness claimed his vision and he fell forwards into his boss, feeling rather betrayed by the other. Dream was… He could be intense, but he didn’t think the other would cross such a line.

When Ink next woke, he was in Dream’s office, sitting down in the comfortable chair close to the other’s desk, startling as the taller skeleton hovered by one of his shoulders, a concerned frown appearing on his face, one hand stretched out, as if the other’s about to touch him.

“B-Boss?” Ink stuttered, his eye lights changing colors rapidly as he tried not to cringe a little in the chair, feeling incredibly trapped.

Dream sighed a little, shaking his head and murmuring “Do I need to remind you that you don’t have to call me that when we’re alone, Ink? I sensed your distress and came over to wake you up from your nightmare. Do you want to talk about it?”

Ink glanced at the arm that had been carved, finding it to be perfectly smooth. It still twinged faintly, painfully. But it wasn’t there. He blinked a little and felt himself blush a little “I… Sorry Dream.. I had… I had a nightmare. I’d recently been unable to prevent him from escaping due to Error and you… Punished me. Painfully.” He hunched forwards, looking away from the other, feeling vaguely ill. His bos… Boyfriend wouldn’t do something like that to him, would he?

Dream frowned a little, taking a couple of small steps back and kneeling, so that the both of them were eye level with one another. “Ink, would you please look at me for a moment? I would never hurt you, not willingly. I love you.”

Ink relaxed a little as the other backed off, feeling less crowded and sending the other an uneasy smile “I… I know. And your brother and his friends have been staying with us for years. I don’t know why my mind decided to torment me with that now. Everything’s been going so well.”

“Minds are strange things, and I still can’t predict what’s going through yours at any given moment, love.” Dream murmured lovingly, golden eye lights soft and warm, his aura projecting his love and care.

The soulless skeleton felt himself relaxed, and he gave the other a shaky smile “I… I know that, Dream. Thanks for checking up on me.”

The winged guardian nodded, smiling kindly at the other, asking quietly “Do you want me to back off further, or would you rather I give you a hug?”

“I… I think I’ll go for a walk. I’ll be back.” Ink responded after a moment, getting up and pressing a light kiss to one of the other’s cheekbones. “You’re the best babe.”

“Very well. I’ll miss you.” The powerful CEO responded, voice soft and loving as he watched the other leave.

#bad things happen bingo #dreamswap #ds ink #ds dream #ds drink #forced marking tw

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scattered-irises · 5 years ago

Text

Why Tron, V, IV and III are Actually Figments of the Arclights’ Imaginations (Part 1, Background Information)

Y’all ready for some wild philosophy??? This was a 4-hour long discussion I had with my buddy Phosphorous on Discord. (You may skip this part if you are already well-versed in the events of Zexal. I am merely getting them up to date.)

(Read in a style similar to “The Republic” (Surely, you have read the text, have you not, you uncultured swine?). An exchange between two people, Iris and Phosphorous. Phosphorous has not seen Zexal in a long time. Iris paces the cliffside, the wind billowing through their philosopher robes. The crimson sea crashes against the crystal cliffs they are standing on. The sky is a blood red and the two of them are surrounded by pillars and pillars of crystal. Out of all the places they choose to have a philosophical conversation, it’s by the Barian Sea of Ill Intent because why not.)

And so, I said, envision a family. Of vaguely western European heritage. The show never specifies, but methinks old money Brits because why not. And say that their last name is Arclight (Some people spell it as Arkwright which is much much more realistic but I saw Arclight before Arkwright so that's what I'm sticking with).

I see, Phosphorous said.

And in that family, we have four people. A father, the eldest son, the middle son and the youngest son. The mother is never mentioned. Most likely because the female role would add no role to the plot whatsoever. I shake my fist in anger. Yoshida...

Most likely, agrees Phosphorous.

Unballing my fist, I continue. The eldest son’s name is Christopher. He is cold and stoic but has not always been that way. He was once a kind and loving brother.

Then we have the middle brother, Thomas. He is rebellious and emotionally driven to destructive levels. He masks his personality under layers and layers of masks. But once, he was a happy and mischievous boy, much like the ones you and I know.

The youngest brother is Michael. He's caring, sweet but also internalizes his pain. This is most likely because he and Thomas were abandoned by Christopher when they were 12 and 10 after their father supposedly died. Out of the three brothers, he is the one that appears to be the most unaffected. But appearances can be fooling.

Children are oft known for their resilience.

Perhaps you are right in that aspect. Then we have their father, Byron. He seemed to be a decent person but we don't get to know much about him except that he loved his kids and seemed like a good scientist. I measured both of his chin angles once and both turned out to be exactly 120 degrees. It was amazing. You should try it sometime.

No thank you, says Phosphorous, a tad concerned.

Anyways, Byron and Christopher used to work for Christopher's best friend's dad, Dr. Faker. They researched dimensions together and it was fun. Byron never knows exactly why Faker is looking for a door to another dimension but he trusts Faker because they are friends. Personally, I found that quite foolish. Either he had matters of the heart as his main motivation or he was just plain stupid.

We could very well go off on a tangent about the inherent goodness of humans, couldn’t we?

No. Shut up. We’re going to talk about a gay alien card game anime. Well, Byron's trust was misplaced and Faker ends up throwing him down a cliff a la the Lion King. Yeetus the bff-iss.

Yes, I remember that part, recalls Phosphorous.

Yes, that's the only episode that Byron has spoken lines. He is shown in his original form only in 2-5 second flashbacks afterwards. And every single moment is blessed.

Is it, though?

Thou has such little faith in mine tastes. Back on topic, the young Christopher is only 15 years old and is forced to give up his younger siblings to foster care and continues to work for Faker, not knowing that he was the one who killed his father.

One day, Faker requests Christopher’s help to teach his son how to play duel monsters. Enter the Tenjo brothers, Kaito and Haruto. A perfect replacement for Thomas and Michael. So that happens for a few years and Christopher is never implied to go back to the siblings he abandoned, instead mooching off Dr. Faker's two sons. Until Byron returns.

Look what you made him do. As a mutated child.

My memories of that event are foggy, but I do recall a sinister child in a mask.

Yes, that is the villain known as Tron. No longer able to recognize his father, Christopher still doubts what is said until Tron tells him the truth; he and Kazuma were forcibly sacrificed by Dr. Faker in order to achieve his lifelong dream of opening up the portal to another world. Filled with anger, Christopher immediately abandons Dr. Faker's son in the rain. Before that, there was a brief scene of him looking over Haruto whilst he was sleeping.

That’s not creepy at all.

Not to mention he was in a long black trench coat, a blue cravat and black gloves. Like a Victorian drug dealer. But, back to the excellently composed rain abandonment scene. It was one heck of a melodramatic scene deserving of an Emmy Award.

Did it really deserve an Emmy award?

Yes. And so this sets up the family feud. Byron gathers up his sons and tells them that from now on, they will abandon their old names for new ones:

He will be Tron (Don't ask why)

Christopher will be V

Thomas will be IV

And Michael will be III

The years going up to the main events of Zexal, Tron is laying out an elaborate web of schemes, especially for Thomas. “IV” rises up in the ranks of duelists and becomes a celebrity. His rival, Ryoga, ends up getting caught in the crossfire. Tron deliberately sets up a crime for Ryoga to be framed with and he gets disqualified from the dueling world. Not only that, Tron gives IV a glitchy card and has him duel Ryoga's sister, Rio. The card gets activated in the middle of the duel and sets real fire to everything, including Rio. IV didn't know this at all and ends up rescuing her, getting a scar in the process. Tron continues to ruin Ryoga's life in order to prepare him to be his backup plan. He wants to drive Ryoga to the point of desperate despair so Tron can appear in front of him and have him work for him.

Byron’s scientific mind still remains with him, despite his lack of sanity. How interesting.

A sharp insight, my friend. Throughout all of these events, Tron is abusing all of his sons, yet they still loyally follow him, with the promise that their father will come back. There's a scene where he announces that he doesn't trust any of his sons in exacting his revenge and a scene where he directly tells IV that he doesn't matter. Along with that, he watches Haruto get tortured while laughing gleefully at his pain and also does a similar torture thing to III in the name of strengthening him.

So he forced Christopher to abandon his adopted family, Thomas to sabotage and maim two twins and his youngest to go through immense pain in the name of family honor?

Exactly. He doesn't manipulate Christopher much because Christopher has spent the most time with him throughout his life. He blindly follows his father and it's honestly kind of scary. Now, my friend. I believe we are sufficiently ready to discuss my theory.

#zexal #christopher arclight #Michael Arclight #Thomas Arclight #Tron Zexal #Byron Arclight #Long text post #Iris thinks hard

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jurakan · 6 years ago

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Assassin’s Creed: Unity Review

Did I ever post my Unity review? No? Well here’s my Unity review.

The game is bad.

I think that Assassin’s Creed: Unity is quite frankly the most infuriating game I’ve played in years.

When I’d gotten a PS4 I decided I was going to get one of the AC games that was on PS4 that wasn’t Odyssey (because I already had obtained it and loved it). And I got Unity because I’d heard the free-running was better, and that when played well it was quite good. And while traversing Paris is fun, this game also sometimes plays as garbage and I’m kind of baffled about some of the decisions they’ve made designing it.

You see, this is my experience in playing just about every Assassin’s Creed game: try to be sneaky around the guards, but when that inevitably fails I kill them all. I was starting down this path in Unity when the game stopped me.

“Hang on a sec, you can’t do that,” the game said. “Why not?” I asked. “Because we’ve designed the combat to be utter garbage!” the game joyously exclaimed, laughing maniacally. And it wasn’t lying. The combat is utter garbage and I got killed pretty quickly. The parry is too clumsy for the careful timing it sometimes requires, you’re practically defenseless against guns, and counter kills have been removed. I get the point, of course: the game wants you to try more stealthy approaches, and so if you get detected you’ve got to retreat and rework your approach. But it was just completely at odds with how I played these games. I felt as if the previous games went out of their way to make you feel like a badass warrior and then Unity goes out of its way to make you feel as weak as possible. And for a game that makes you want to avoid combat like the plague, it keeps putting you in it. “But stealth!” the game and its fans reply. Which doesn’t work for me, because the Batman: Arkham games had amazing stealth sections that rely on not getting caught, but the combat isn’t utter crap. If there’s a part of the game you’re hoping people will avoid, maybe you should realize that it’s because that part of the game is terrible and need reworking, not that you’re clever for designing it so. “I actually really liked the combat,” says Unity fanboy #463 on Reddit. Alright, but you do know you are admitting to enjoying something deliberately designed to be unpleasant? It’s a bit like telling everyone you enjoy the smell in gas station restrooms. It isn’t something you should really brag about. Unity fanboy #149 scoffs haughtily. “Well I want my games to be challenging, unlike a casual gamer,” he says. Good for you. But that defense doesn’t work with this game because I’m not just being challenged by the game’s combat difficulty, which is aggravating by design, I’m being challenged by the fact that the game doesn’t work. What makes the stealth and combat so aggravating is how glitchy the game is. At one point in a story-scripted fight Arno wouldn’t attack, block, dodge or shoot, and the only actions he could perform were walking around and dropping smoke bombs. Sometimes Arno refuses to shoot when prompted, as if the targeted enemy was just too cool to die. Sometimes enemies aren’t hurt by being shot. Once Arno refused to start sneaking. I accidentally got into conflicts because I shot guards in the back of the head and instead of dying they turned around and saw me. Every so often, a civilian will walk in front of the barrel of your gun because he or she is suicidal I guess. I bumped into a guard on the other side of a wall. Guards spawned from nowhere to fight me and then when I hid they went back across the street on the other side of a wall. A guard with his back turned saw me on top of a rooftop. Sometimes when you’re detected you have to fight the one guy who saw you, and sometimes you have to fight all of his buddies who also apparently know where you are as they run from all over the block. And on some occasions the guards on the first floor won’t notice if you fire a gun on the second. At some points smoke bombs work to make your enemies lose track of you; at others they won’t. Frequently I’d aim to air assassinate a guard only for the game to switch which guard I was targeting as I’m pressing the button. In short, even if the stealth and combat were fun, the fact is that when you begin either you never know what exactly you’re signing up for because it doesn’t work. And not in a good way, like the game surprising you with extra fun; it’s exactly the wrong sort of way, where you think your mission is to defend an army officer against royalists and because you make too much noise fighting the royalists then the army soldiers decide to kill you too. [Also, you’re encouraged to use smoke bombs a lot. Which doesn’t really sound that stealthy, if you think about it, because a giant cloud of smoking spontaneously erupting around a group of guards is the exact opposite of stealthy.] I’m sure some fanboy will try to assure me it’s my fault that the game doesn’t play well, and that it’s actually pretty well designed. To that, I answer: Cherry Bombs. See, the game gives you this stealth tool called the ‘Cherry Bomb’ which is essentially a firecracker that acts as a noisemaker--you throw it somewhere, it’ll make sparks and noise, and the guards will be distracted and go investigate. This replaces the ‘whistle’ function the past two games had to draw guards over to where you are. What the game doesn’t tell you is that the Cherry Bomb has to be within a guard’s line of sight. Which means if you’re hiding in a hallway and are trying to lure a guard from an adjacent room into the hallway, then the Cherry Bomb won’t work unless the guard can turn around and see it from his position. Otherwise, they may turn around in the direction of the noise, but won’t move towards it. It doesn’t matter if it’s right behind them, or right around the corner; if they can’t see the Cherry Bomb, it won’t work. Essentially, one of the key stealth tools you start out with is a noisemaker that only works if enemies can see it. A noisemaker that works by line of sight! No one can tell me that a competently-designed game would include that! What makes stealth and combat even more difficult is that the game has what it calls “Crowd Events,” which are things that happen in the streets of Paris that you can interfere with, like someone getting robbed, or mugged, or bullied, or whatever. But in crowded areas this happens every minute or so, and even if you don’t interfere in the Crowd Event then the surrounding guards might take notice of someone in the street getting run through, and then a fight will break out and your stealth will be ruined because if you go anywhere near it the guards will detect you and the game will act like it’s your fault for not being sneaky enough. During one stealth mission three or four Crowd Events occurred within seconds of each other, with two spawning at once. They’re optional yes, but call me a moron because I always try to help when someone’s getting gutted on the pavement, which often leads to me being gutted on the pavement. There are times when the game doesn’t tell you what to do in specific situations and then acts like you should have known it all along. In Assassin’s Creed III it gives you specific instructions on what to do in combat when someone points a gun at you. Unity gives you no such help. I didn’t learn until I looked up combat tips for the game that you’re supposed to hit the dodge button at just the right second. Sometimes the game doesn’t give you enough time to realize that someone is shooting at you. If Arno is not in combat mode and someone’s aiming at you, you’re just out of luck, as the dodge button isn’t an option there. There’s an eye that appears next to the minimap, I think to tell you that you’re in a guard’s line of sight, but the game never tells me, so that’s just a guess on my part. The boss fight with Bellec has him disappear with a smoke bomb, and then he will try to jump on you and stab you, which the game doesn’t give any hint as to what you’re supposed to do about and it sucks because if he hits you then you die in one hit. There are skills and abilities that you have to unlock that you really shouldn’t. Double assassination is an ability that takes much too long to unlock; wisely the following game made this unlockable in the tutorial section. Guns have to be unlocked with skill points, which is downright weird; no other game in the series gives that limit, except as being a point of story progression. That you have to spend skill points to use one of the game’s basic weapons is downright offensive. The most infuriating thing is the admittedly rare occasion when the game punishes you for being smart. When you go to assassinate Marie Levesque, for instance, it took me a couple of tries, but I managed to sneak into the palace and take out key guards, noting the escape routes as I went. Only when I actually performed the assassination, all the open windows had been closed and all the guards I took out had respawned. Essentially, I had carefully planned an escape route and the game slammed that door in my face, saying, “Nope! For all our talk of doing it your own way, you have to get out of this situation the way we say you do, okay?” What kind of game punishes you for doing your homework? What is that supposed to teach me?

Customization is cool, in theory, but it’s also a major hassle. Because I just wanted to look cool, but instead I’m constantly juggling a bunch of statistics on how to be stealthy but also carry enough ammunition and supplies. It’s not helpful that if you want to be stealthy, the way the game wants you to play, the outfit most suited to that is the stupidest-looking one of the bunch. I didn’t experience any of the horrifying glitches of people missing faces, the way a lot of people did at the game’s launch. However, NPC bystanders would often walk through cutscenes, including duels and chase scenes, leisurely waltzing right through running characters or in front of enemies as they’re getting shot. There were a couple of scenes where the camera is at an extremely odd angle of someone’s face, with the corner of someone else’s character model in the way. Traversal is far better than previous games; at least, in theory. Most of the time it works, but when it doesn’t, it does so in the most rage-inducing way possible. Often Arno will climb up when you tell him to climb down. It’s not uncommon for Arno to refuse to climb up for no reason at all. If you’re running and you happen to dash past something that would realistically bump him in the shoulder, Arno will start climbing up it and refuse to get down, hopping from table to barrel to chair, including chairs that there are already people sitting in. More than once I was perched on a ledge and then Arno would just fall, arms flailing as he descended into a horde of angry enemies. When sneaking sometimes he just refused to take cover where I tell him to, and will instead just sort of rock back and forth on his heels like a moron or stick to a surface further away from him than the one I told him to take cover behind. “Just wait ‘til you see what we did with Eagle Vision!” the game says, clapping like a madman. I am very tired at this point. “How did you screw up Eagle Vision, that one button that makes it easier to see enemies and detect important elements around you?” I ask. “It’s on a short timer!” Unity is cackling now as it practically explodes with malicious glee. “And it has a cooldown period!” Yes, that staple of the series, Eagle Vision, is now only meant to last a few seconds. Certain types of gear will enable it to last longer and give it more range (WHY WOULD CHANGING YOUR CLOTHES ENHANCE YOUR SIXTH SENSE?!?), but it’s still on a timer, so in order to know where everyone is, you have to keep switching it on. You can see enemies through walls though, which is new and actually good. Optional objectives are back, and aren’t quite as bad as they were in previous games; they don’t have ridiculous conditions in order to get full credit, usually just things like “Do two double assassinations” or “Stun three enemies.” They’re still not great, because again, any idea of freedom is limited in that you won’t get 100% on a mission unless you do it a certain way. The worse is always “Don’t get detected” because this is always followed by throwing you into large spaces filled with half a dozen guards and no cover. You’re better off ignoring them. Hey, did I mention that the game never shuts up? Notifications float up in your face on the right side of the screen, and there is no way to dismiss them; you must wait for them to go away. Black Flag had this too, but those were always small enough that they didn’t get in the way of gameplay, and you could check the past few messages in the pause menu. In this game they’re constantly popping up to tell you tips, location, and useless information, along with a quick sound that pings every time to make sure you stay pissed off. They’ll often pop up on top of each other, so if you’re working on one of the Murder Mysteries and you look at a clue, a notification will pop up on top of the clue information to tell you information you already know and you just have to wait for it to fade away. And when you break a lock in the lockpicking minigame, the popup will helpfully tell you that if you don’t want to break locks, press the button at the correct time. Or, in short, if you don’t want to mess up, then don’t mess up. Thanks, Unity. Speaking of lockpicking, who’s bright idea was it to make it so that of the treasure chests littered across the map, two-thirds of them are locked? I get that in theory it means that there are collectables that you can’t unlock until you’ve progressed, but what it means is that not only do you have to wait to a certain part of the game where you can buy that skill, you have to do an annoying little minigame every time you just want some treasure. It turns the task of collecting into even more of a chore. There are also collectables called “artifacts” which are coats of arms on the walls in random places. They’re not so bad, except in the Helix Rift sections, in which whether or not they show up in their place depends on the alignment of the stars or something. It makes it difficult to even care about trying to collect them all if the game sometimes refuses to let you do so. “So you hated this game?” you, the reader, asks me. That’s the thing though--I wanted very much to like it! There were parts I liked very much, in fact. When the game worked (and I must emphasize it wasn’t often), it was incredibly cool to feel like a stealth Assassin, taking out enemies and disappearing without a trace. This was utilized well in the missions that the game called Black Box missions. Basically, the developers realized that the assassination missions of the past games were too scripted, so they put in situations where you’re given a target and a location and you’re given much more freedom on how to take them out. The Murder Mysteries were, for the most part, excellent and allowed you to use your deduction skillz to put together the clues you’d been given and point out which person was the murderer. They were stressful, but not in a ‘wow-this-sux’ kind of way, more like the rewarding sort of way when you got it right. I liked them a lot. But they were frustrating when popups kept getting in the way of the clues. The Nostradamus Riddles were similarly excellent! They involved solving riddles by finding glyphs all over Paris, given clues that refer to the history of the places. The only criticism I had was that it would have been better if the in-game database had a search engine, sort of like the one in Carmen Sandiego: Treasure of Knowledge to make it easier to find what you’re looking for instead of scrolling through dozens of location entries. But yes, I think I hated it, at least a lot of the time I was playing it. I never thought I’d say that about an Assassin’s Creed game, but I cannot in good conscience tell someone that I liked this game or recommend it to anyone. It was not fun to play. The more time I spent with the game the less I liked it. Often enough I’d have fun, but that would soon be dashed by something stupid like being spotted by a guard through a building or Arno falling off a ledge. This should have been one of the greatest games in the series, and instead it’s undeniably the worst. Do not play this game, do not spend money on this game; every other game in the series is a more rewarding experience than Assassin’s Creed: Unity. Maybe some morbid curiosity is driving you to picking it up, but I urge you: do not listen! I had this whole section planned to talk about the story too! I had a thesis that Assassin’s Creed: Unity is trying to tell the story of France! I was going to talk about character models and history and all! But it doesn’t matter because nothing I say will change the simple fact that this game is not fun to play. Not even in a ‘If you like a challenge’ sort of way. This game is a broken mess that doesn’t work as intended. No. Don’t play it.

#Assassin's Creed: Unity #AC #Arno Dorian #Elise de la Serre #reviews #video games #Jurakan Writes

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theshapeshifter100 · 7 years ago

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A Superhero’s Choice Part 3

Summary- Summary-After the incident with Chase Brody, Jackieboy Man, Marvin the Magician and Angus the Survival Hunter have been trying track down what caused it. When things start kicking into gear months later, will Jackieboy Man be able to save his friends?

Word Count-1,411

Short one today, just because it fits for what’s coming next chapter

“Angus, I think I’m going insane,” Jay confided down the phone about a week later.

“Oh yeah? Why’s that? Oh yeah, yer bowler hat guy.”

“It’s not funny! I keep seein’ him.”

“Well, Chase has been fine this end, ‘ave ya talked to yer doctor friend?”

“The whole thing freaked him out last time, I don’t want to tell him in case he flips.”

Angus let out a long sigh down the phone. “Look, I can’t help ya on this bro. Wish I could, but this glitch, demon thing... I can’t do anything about it unless he pops up in front of me, ya know?”

“Yeah, I know,” Jay rubbed his eyes. “Maybe it’s nothing, maybe the lack of sleep from hero work is getting to me,”

“Yeah,” Angus sounded as convinced as Jay felt. “Take it easy bro.”

“No comment about sleep being for the weak?” Jay joked.

“I thought you wanted me to take this seriously?”

“I do, but, never mind. Talk to ya tomorrow.”

“Alright, see ya mate,” Angus hung up and Jay put the phone back in the dock. He didn’t have work today, but he couldn’t sleep any longer. He was starting to get nightmares, about Chase and Anti.

He went back to the kitchen and poured himself another mug of coffee. This whole thing was insane, and he had tried going to Marvin about it, but it hadn’t been helpful. The magician had nothing either.

“This case is going to be the death of me,” Jay mumbled pessimistically before taking a swig. He looked in his coffee and jumped back, dropping the mug on the tiled floor. It landed with a crash and sent scalding coffee and jagged ceramic everywhere as Jay tried to calm down.

The bowler hat bastard was showing up in his coffee now!

“I’m going mad, going absolutely insane,” he muttered before getting something clean up the mess with. He was going to go insane if he stayed in the house, so once he was ready, he went for a walk.

He passed the library and paused for a second. He hadn’t tried researching Anti, he’s left that to Marvin really, but since the magician wasn’t coming up with anything, what was the harm?

The city’s library was an impressive, ancient looking building, with an interior to match. Great, sweeping arcs of stone graced the tall ceiling and columns stood proud and tall until about eye level, where they were covered in posters for events and books.

Jay nodded to the librarian on duty before scanning the genres posted on signs above the book shelves. Being a glitch and therefore possible digital in nature, Jay didn’t want to search online, so good old bound paper would have to do.

After a few moments of deliberation he went for the myths section, since Anti definitely seemed like something that belonged in a creepy myth. On the way he passed the history section, where a group of students were doing some kind of project.

Jay passed them, then froze, and turned to face them. Out of a newspaper clipping the boys were pouring over, a familiar face grinned at him.

Jay blinked rapidly, then looked away and back, which usually got the image to fade, but this time the bowler hat guy stubbornly remained in reality.

“Are you okay?”

Jay blinked and looked at one of the students, who must have noticed him staring.

“Uh, yeah,” Jay looked at the picture again, realising that it was just a normal photo. “Who’s that guy?”

The student looked at where he gestured and shrugged. “Some small time actor from the silent movie period. Only claim to fame is that he disappeared.”

“Anything else?”

The student looked confused at Jay’s sudden interest, but indulged him. “Er, his name was James, something, and one of his co-stars died a year later. That’s all we got.”

Th-thanks guys, good luck with your project or whatever,” Jay quickly walked off, leaving a confused set of students behind as he tried to make sense of this new piece of the puzzle.

Was he being stalked by a ghost? Made about as much sense as a glitchy possessing demon.

It was dark by the time Jay got home, and he was not looking forward to going on patrol tonight. His eyes itched and his brain hurt from going through the library. Turns out there might be a reason Marvin hadn’t found anything, there might not be anything to find.

There were creatures that could possess you, creatures that make you hallucinate, but nothing that glitched.

He ran a hand under his glasses as he unlocked the door and stepped in. It was dark as he hadn’t left the light on, but his hand quickly found it from memory.

When he flicked it on and looked in front of him, he almost let shrill shriek of shock.

In front of him, standing large as life in his hallway, was the bowler hat man.

Jay immediately went into a defensive stance, without even thinking about it.

“What are ya-?” he paused as instead of a defiant and angry demand, the words came out as a high pitched squeak, so he tried again. “What are ya doing here? What do ya want with me?!”

The bowler hat man waved his hands in a ‘shushing’ manner and looked around, panicked. He put his finger to his lip’s to emphasise the point and cautiously touched his index finger and thumb together to make an ‘okay’ sign with a questioning expression on his face.

Jay relaxed his stance but didn’t leave it. “Ya didn’t answer the question.”

The bowler hat guy wrung his hands and pointed to his throat before miming speaking and shaking his head.

“Okay, ya can’t talk,” Jay started, and the bowler hat man nodded, before his hands began to move at a lightening pace, making all sorts of different movements.

“Whoah whoah, I have no idea what you’re trying to say,” Jay had completely relaxed out of his stance by this point.

The bowler hat man made a dramatic sighing motion before gesturing to a notepad and pen next to the hallway landline. Jay passed it to him and the bowler hat man began scribbling frantically.

As he wrote Jay got a proper look at him. He was dressed in a waistcoat and slacks with a chain of a monocle hanging from his collar. His dress sense was in the past and yet, he seemed here. There was nothing to suggest that he was a ghost.

He finished writing and passed the pad to Jay, who took it and read it, looking up every now and again to keep an eye on his unexpected houseguest. The message was short and the hand writing was impeccable neat print, so it didn’t take too long to read.

‘I do not have long, and have been trying to reach you for days. Anti knows your location JackieboyMan, he knows about your friends. You must warn them.

Jameson Jackson’

Jay swallowed the chill he was suddenly feeling and looked back at Jameson. “How do you know this?”

Jameson tapped his throat and shook his head, then place a hand over his mouth to emphasise his point.

“Ya can’t say, great,” Jay sighed. “Even if I were to believe you, why would you tell me?”

He handed the pad back to Jameson to answer, and the response was quick.

‘I have lost a lot to Anti, no more need suffer.’

“So ya know him?”

Jameson nodded grimly, then suddenly stiffened cocking his head. He plucked the pad out of Jay’s hands began to write before shoving it back to him and sprinting out of the door.

Jay looked at the new note, the writing significantly less legible.

‘I need to go. Warn them.’

Jay looked at the note, swallowing the lump in his throat and flicked his gaze to the phone. It was a landline, that was the point, Anti shouldn’t be able to do anything with it because it wasn’t computers. It would be safe to call them, unless the number he had was for their mobile.

It would have to be quick, and Jameson seemed really freaked out, even if he didn’t explain himself properly.

Jay gazed harder at the phone. If anything happened and he didn’t warn them, he’d never be able to live with himself.

That in mind, he picked up, and started dialling.

A/N So yes, I have confirmed what you guys reading might have suspected, the bowler hat man is indeed, Jameson Jackson/Dapper Jack.

#A Superhero's Choice #A Superhero's Choice Part 3 #Angus the Survival Hunter #JackieboyMan #Jackieboyman civilian #Chase Brody #Dapper Jack #Jameson Jackson #Antisepticeye #Anti #Jacksepticeye #jacksepticeye ego fanfic

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oathkeeper-of-tarth · 7 years ago

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Keep

For the @pearlroseweek prompt Forbidden Romance, I give you... a fic.

This is a followup to Steal and @dr-jekyl’s followup to that, Give. Reading those two definitely enriches the experience. You might also want to check out this.

Still very early days Homeworld-era secret Pearlrose shenanigans, some angst, some swords, some Pearl-as-White-Diamond’s-Pearl thoughts. Pearl/Rose, with mentions of Yellow and White Diamond, and Yellow Pearls (I’m so, so sorry). The usual warnings for Homeworld hierarchy-related content apply, as Homeworld continues to be the worst. ~4000 words.

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Keep

Yellow Diamond is getting a new pearl.

“I heard from the carnelians the old one got glitchy,” the barracks’ most promising jasper lieutenant and biggest gossip shares proudly. “Scratched her gem somehow, so She got rid of her.”

A murmur about the well-known softness of pearls goes around the gathered Gems, and Rose can’t help a cringe.

“Must be nice,” her cubby neighbour elbows Rose, snapping her back to alertness, “being able to do that. Break your toy when you’re bored of it and get a new one just like that.”

Another murmur, this one much quieter and far more careful, about the well-known harshness of Yellow Diamond’s temper.

“Just like that,” Rose agrees, and lags behind deliberately, pretending to busy herself with sorting out a half-empty weapons rack as the chatter dies down and the others leave.

As soon as she is convinced she is alone, she slips away using by now well-worn routes. The forgotten storage room at the end of a shadowy service corridor has become something of a sanctuary for both her and her unusual companion. And Rose, who has never been one for subtlety or subterfuge, has all of a sudden become an expert - it’s more than her own existence at stake, after all. Secrets are suddenly of paramount importance and worth keeping in a way they never have been before.

She makes sure her patrols are covered, takes great care to ensure nobody misses her at her guard post, and that, in all that, she herself never misses a chance to spend time with Pearl. Oh, there is still a joke now and then in the barracks, about the way her head got turned by a fancy little pearl, but for the most part the gossip has moved on - though today’s Rose really could have done without.

Pearl, for her part, never misses a single one of their meetings - her training sessions - either. Witnessing her open up and grow and come into her own in the pretend-safety of their dusty little empire has been one of the most rewarding things so far in Rose’s brief life and service. Similarly, few things have torn at her the way it does to watch Pearl carefully fold into herself and fold herself away somewhere deep within, every time they have to leave to resume their regular duties and roles. There is such a sad, sad lessening about it, about the way her shoulders slip into… not exactly a hunch, for her posture is always perfect, of course, but the way sheer palpable obedience seems to drape over them is always jarring to behold. Moreso after long, forbidden hours of surprisingly exhilarating swordfighting drills, something Rose herself can’t remember ever taking delight in before now.

Skulking around rarely used service access corridors is the perfect time to muddle through utterly untenable thoughts like What if it didn’t have to be that way? and What if we could just go use one of the training arenas when they’re empty? and, loudest and unlikeliest of all, What if we didn’t have to sneak around and fear and hide at all?

Her destination sneaks up on Rose just as she is concocting a plan of getting them both in and out of an arena unnoticed, careful consideration of the possible obstacles quickly giving way to imagining the delighted look on Pearl’s face. She couldn’t exactly give her the arena like she did the sword, of course, but she could do the next best thing. It would be dangerous, yes, but everything they do is, and Rose could always take full responsibility if it came to that- and Pearl would be so happy, she would do that thing she does with her hands, and give an impromptu lecture on the different terrain simulation options, and her eyes would all but glow-

Pearl isn’t there.

Rose sets the training sword she brought for herself against the wall and waits for a while, somewhat disappointed but not too surprised. Pearl is rarely late if she can help it, always eager to take a stab at a new technique or work on an old one, but Diamonds are Diamonds and their affairs, of course, take priority - and, on occasion, run late. There is nothing either of them can do about that but indulge in wild fantasies of their time being their own, with no need to steal. So Rose does, with some fervour.

But moments creep by and the time draws perilously close to when she has to report back in for duty, and there is still no sign of Pearl at all. Rose’s thoughts skew darker, then - what if she’s been discovered? Caught while trying to sneak away? Maybe she couldn’t resist and took her sword - her sword - out of her gem to indulge for a moment, and whoever happened to see her do it refused to believe she was simply carrying it for her owner? In the mounting tension, anything seemed not only possible, but increasingly likely. And the chilling echo permeating it all: Yellow Diamond is getting a new pearl.

It is then, with her feet scuffing the stone tile in ghosts of the footwork drills they had planned for today, that Rose is struck with the full reality of their situation - and the sheer unfairness of it. She has no real way of contacting Pearl, or knowing if she is safe, or alive at all. If something were to happen to Pearl, Rose would certainly not be the first to know - who knows if she would ever know the whole truth. So much hinges on their meetings staying secret, and the secrecy robs them of so much.

She hates the sudden, unpleasant realisation that one day she could easily find herself looking at another, completely unknown white pearl across the hall from her post, with full knowledge of what that meant, no knowledge of the details save for what gossip she managed to scrounge up afterwards, and the awareness that she was under no circumstances supposed to or permitted to react as the barracks chatter moved on, washing over her without a care for what she might have lost.

She waits, fear mounting, until the very last moment, earns a tardiness mark from her Agate and a ribbing from her fellow guards on duty, goes through her (completely useless) rounds in a haze, and runs back to her and Pearl’s meeting place.

Pearl isn’t there.

She isn’t there the day after that, or the day after that, either. The absence, Rose keeps telling herself, doesn’t have to mean anything particularly sinister - a meeting could have simply run very, very long. Or perhaps White Diamond went to visit one of her colonies on very short notice and Pearl had no time to let Rose know. Not an entirely happy thought, as there is never any way of knowing how long a Diamond visit would last, but certainly better than many of the alternatives Rose keeps unwittingly coming up with. Maybe she could get access to a comms terminal-

Or maybe she could simply go check.

It isn’t all that hard, in the end, to visit the other barracks and trade some trinkets for useful information. Yellow Diamond’s newest citrines are both very forthcoming and eager to add to their incipient collections, and Rose comes away from the exchange with a detailed schedule of all elite, council, and Diamond meetings for the next five rotations. Yellow Diamond’s court is always so highly organised, the contrast to what she herself is used to is quite jarring for Rose. It’s easy to find and single out the ones which White Diamond - clearly not absent or on an intergalactic tour of any kind - is supposed to attend. Easier still to pick out the closest one, only a few hours from now. And of course, if White Diamond is going to be there, then so is Pearl.

Unless-

Rose shakes her head and shakes away the creeping, unwanted thoughts. Going to the council chambers in time for the meeting would mean skipping out on some of her duties, but she can’t find it in herself to care. She would know, and she would, stars willing, see Pearl, and no threats of punishment from an uptight agate could ever rival that.

She strolls over to the correct sector, confidently and purposefully, like it’s exactly where she is supposed to be. Nobody questions her presence. Even so, she has her excuses prepared - she is on duty, yes, of course this is the patrol route she’s been assigned, her Agate certainly wouldn’t make a mistake like that.

And - there, finally. The sight of Pearl, whole and apparently well enough, standing in her usual spot by the door seems to lift an astounding weight off Rose’s shoulders. It also fills her with a near-intolerable desire to run over and grasp her hands, cup her face, just to make sure. But she restrains herself and keeps to her spot.

She has, through lots of arduous and painstaking practice, become skilled enough in interpreting Pearl’s tiny, carefully subdued cues. Proficient enough to be able to read the discomfort radiating off her in the presence of the new yellow pearl standing perfectly still next to her. Rose feels a burst of thankfulness that Pearl does not belong to Yellow Diamond and is safe, at least, from that temper. A sting of guilt for harbouring this thought follows immediately. Yellow Diamond’s pearl can’t have deserved her fate. Nobody could.

The shock on Pearl’s face as she catches sight of Rose lurking around the corner of the corridor is far from hard to read, however quickly she tries to school her features back into blankness. She tries to wave Rose away with the tiniest of gestures, shaking her head near-imperceptibly when Rose gestures back and stays put exactly where she is. Pearl’s posture is still perfect, but she’s shifting her weight from foot to foot and shooting nervous glances to Rose, to the other pearl, to the door of the council chamber, back to Rose-

Then she stops fidgeting, and seems to have made up her mind about something. A moment later she is calmly walking over, and Rose ducks a bit further back into the corridor.

The calm façade drops as soon as she makes the corner.

“What are you doing here?” Pearl hisses, quietly but angrily, and Rose is taken aback.

“You didn’t come to train, and I thought- I don’t know what I thought. I heard about Yellow Diamond’s pearl.” Pearl visibly cringes and draws into herself at that, and Rose gives in, at least slightly, to her earlier impulses, gently and carefully taking one of her clenched hands in both of hers. “I just… I wanted to see you. I had to know you were... fine.”

Pearl heaves a sigh and some of the tension and anger seems to drain out of her, even as she keeps shooting nervous glances around. She opens her hand and returns the hold, and Rose is overcome with the conflicting feelings of her visit being worthwhile, and like she is the dullest, most unthinking and rash Gem in the universe.

“I’m sorry. Is… is this alright? Just for a little while? I don’t want to get you in trouble. And the pearl over there-”

Pearl’s smile is small, twisted, and bitter. “She’s new, and terrified, and has enough to deal with already. I suppose you could say you got lucky.”

“Will you come train again?” Rose blurts out. “I mean, when it’s safe for you again, of course. I don’t want you to...”

“It’s never safe.”

Rose bows her head - it is so… very matter-of-fact, the way Pearl said it. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Well, it’s not your fault, either.”

Pearl frowns and doesn’t reply, but tightens her hold on Rose’s hand and throws another anxious glance over her shoulder.

“I should go,” Rose whispers, and Pearl gives a tiny nod. “But I’ll see you soon. And you can show me those parry sequences you talked about.”

That earns her a full, genuine smile, one that is enough to subsist on until they meet again. The if turned into a mere when helps, as well, and Rose feels lighter on her feet than she’s ever been as she makes her way back to the barracks.

The punishment she receives rolls off her shoulders and barely seems to touch her at all. She plays suitably contrite and attends to her duties like the very model of a perfect quartz, until it is once again time to slink away.

Her giddiness is only marred by the sight of Pearl - an odd, contradictory situation, when the promise of seeing her again has been like a buoy to Rose. But Pearl looks so… small, and sad, and tired, sitting against the wall, hugging her sword to herself.

“Pearl?” Rose calls, and she looks up, but doesn’t reply save for a half-hearted nod of acknowledgement. “What happened?”

Pearl curls into herself some more, a tremble running through her entire form, and finally grinds out. “Please. Can we please just… do the work. The training.”

“Okay,” Rose replies quietly, then adds, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“It’s fine,” Pearl insists, even though it’s quite clearly anything but. “I would just like to be away from it, at least here. At least for a little while. I have better things to do right now than worry about Her.”

“That’s right!” Rose takes up with all the enthusiasm she can muster, raking her mind for ways to lift Pearl’s spirits. “We can go over the distance drills again, and work on balance and reaction time later.”

Pearl is remarkably quick on her feet and her balance is flawless, of course, her weaknesses - and what she would realistically need to work on - in entirely different areas. But that is not Rose’s primary concern just now, not when Pearl is so- not when her shoulders are drooping like that, when the weight seems to have settled on her entire slight being, including the ruffles of her outfit and the ends of her hair.

Pearl sighs. “You really don’t need to do that.”

“Don’t need to do what?” Rose asks, all innocence, earning herself another sigh.

“Your intentions are good, but… You’re trying to give me easy victories, a few cheap successes, a sense of accomplishment that would be completely false-”

She is right, of course.

“No, no, that’s not it at all, I- I just wanted to...” Rose stammers, grasping around for an excuse, and finding none readily available, until her gaze catches on the sword in her own hand. “I want to work on balance. My balance. I’ve been lagging behind during training and my Agate was furious. I’m sorry to be so… selfish.”

Pearl raises an utterly unbelieving eyebrow, but she doesn’t argue. “Alright. We can do balance,” she acquiesces with the smallest of smiles, and Rose beams back.

They take their places facing each other, a few paces apart, just enough for their swords to lightly touch, when Pearl speaks up again, hesitantly, but with that clear want straining in her voice.

“But perhaps… perhaps after that, we could try to have...an actual bout of sparring?”

“I-” Rose wisely cuts herself off before the I don’t want to hurt you can make it out of her mouth. She wanted to make Pearl happy, didn’t she? She still wants it like she wants few things, but-

They would be careful. She would be careful. Nothing bad would happen. Just a friendly spar. No better way to truly put to use and put to the test what you’ve been learning, after all - barring an actual battle, which Pearl is highly unlikely to ever face. But again, and Rose focuses on this most of all, it would make Pearl happy.

“Would you like to spar now?” Rose asks, then laughs at the clear delight dawning on Pearl’s face. “I’ll take that as a yes. Alright, let’s start from a bit further away, then.”

“Don’t hold back - I won’t!” Pearl announces as she springs backwards lightly and falls back into stance, the beginnings of an excited and slightly wicked grin on her face, and Rose feels a warmth flood her form.

“Ready when you are,” Rose calls back. As soon as the words are out of her mouth, Pearl is upon her with the first attack.

She beats the sword away easily enough, then again, and again, and again as Pearl continues to shower her with quick, light strikes, just enough to test her guard and try to find an opening. Her technique is perfect and her form and footwork flawless, and she strings together without hesitation the various movements Rose has seen her do in drills. Almost like a dance.

Rose knows she is far stronger, and has the clear advantage of size and reach. But she allows herself a few purely defensive moments of observation and, frankly, admiration. Then, finally, Pearl dances away far enough for Rose to rush in and take over the attack in turn - all but inviting her to do it, in fact.

Pearl is as quick here as she was on the offensive, and, as she dodges swing after swing, Rose begins to doubt she will manage to land even a glancing blow. But then something of a pattern begins to emerge in Pearl’s defense, and a window of opportunity presents itself that Rose decides to take. She darts around to Pearl’s right, makes a quick feint to the left, and knocks Pearl’s slightly delayed parry attempt away with ease. Then she stops, triumphant, sword pointing at Pearl’s chest.

She is the most lively Rose has ever seen her as she drops her sword and raises her arms in casual surrender, hair messy and pretty outfit in disarray, splashes of bright blue on her cheeks marring the usually smothering pristine white of her appearance. Rose feels herself mirror Pearl’s exhilarated grin and she lowers her sword and offers her a hand instead. Pearl laughs, and wraps both her arms around Rose’s own, and Rose gives in, reaches over with her free hand, and playfully ruffles Pearl’s hair some more. It is, she is convinced, the softest thing she has ever felt.

“Well!” Pearl exclaims after another bout of giggles.

“Well?”

“That was delightful. Thank you! But now...”

“A rematch?” Rose nudges her with her shoulder, and Pearl clings on.

“Huh? Oh, yes, of course, eventually, but not right now. I need a bit of time to analyse this outcome first,” she draws away slightly, and Rose fights to keep down her disappointment. “How did you do it? Was I being too obvious with my intentions? There was a strike there at the end that you pre-empted really well, I thought.”

Rose forces herself to focus and recall the details of the bout, and thinks back to the opening she found. “I think you keep too much to your left - like you’re constantly anticipating something from there. It’s nothing too bad, but it might end up giving you a blind spot if you don’t take care.”

“I do?” Pearl pauses and Rose can almost see, in the focused little furrow of her brow and the narrowing of her eyes and the thin fingers thoughtfully tapping against thin lips, the way she’s carefully retracing and analysing each of her recent steps and movements in her mind. “I do. I hadn’t noticed I was doing that. Well, that’s- I’ll work on it. Thank you. For- for noticing. For telling me.”

Rose smiles her most cheerful, benign smile. “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?” Isn’t it? She still wonders about that sometimes - what, exactly, it was that brought her here, and what it is that is keeping her here still. But she saves that for another time, and chooses to focus on more important and more immediate matters. “Come on, I’ll stand over here and move at you from a few different angles, how does that sound?”

She’s helped with suggestions and brief demonstrations before - practical suggestions born from experience, where Pearl has only theory and her strange technical, mechanical approach to things that Rose has always just known. She can harness that now, certainly, and Pearl will be delighted to have improved, to have learned, in that particular way that Rose can’t quite understand but loves seeing.

Pearl moves away and picks her sword back up, awash with fresh determination. “Let’s do it.”

Rose attacks her as agreed, slowly at first, then gradually picking up the pace. But the same pattern emerges soon enough, and Pearl finds herself staring at a sword tip again. Then again, and again.

“You’re still doing it!” Rose exclaims, matching Pearl’s visible frustration. “I know you can do better. Come on, Pearl, there’s nothing there. What’s going on?”

“I-” Pearl freezes in sudden realisation, and lets her sword droop, carefully-kept pristine tip scraping carelessly against the stone floor. “She always has me stand to the right of her seat.”

And you anticipate and hop to indulge her every whim before she’s even had the chance to voice it.

“Pearl,” Rose reaches out to her, trying to think of a way to offer comfort, and feeling quite out of her depth.

But Pearl growls in the most frustrated and un-pearl-like fashion imaginable, and cuts at the air in wild, merciless arcs. “Really? Really? Well of course this would get ruined for me, too, just like everything always is! Why would I get to have anything at all-”

“Pearl!” Rose tries to interrupt the spiral she’s seen before - even though the hints of raw fury feel very new. Would not be unwelcome, perhaps, in some other scenario. “Pearl, it’s fine, we’ll just- we’ll do some training with that in mind and it’ll be gone in no time at all. You’ll see. I’ll help you.”

“I don’t want you to!” Pearl snaps, face blue and vividly, vibrantly angry. Then she draws back into herself, the anger drained away somewhere, packed away in some hidden, overused and discontent corner of herself that has to be overflowing by now. “Or- well, I do. I just... I don’t want you to need to.”

Rose sighs, and puts what she hopes is a comforting hand on Pearl’s shoulder. Pearl immediately covers the hand with her own, and Rose thinks she may just have been right. “It’s fine, I promise, and you don’t have to feel ashamed about it. Everyone needs help sometimes, everyone has trouble with some technique or other - and sparring is always done in pairs.”

Basic quartz philosophy. Pack mentality, she’s heard it called not at all kindly, by Gems who liked having fine, broad quartzes to hide behind, but who didn’t like to be reminded of their existence too much outside of that, primitive but useful.

“I’m not a quartz. I mean, obviously-”

“Obviously,” Rose confirms with mock seriousness, and Pearl lets out a little huff of almost-laughter.

But then Pearl brings both her hands up to her chin again, and her fingers begin to tap out a familiar rhythm that lets Rose know she is considering matters. “I do suppose certain… methods could be adapted...”

“Yes! You’ll see,” Rose picks up eagerly. “We can start tomorrow, and we’ll make it work, together. And you will be absolutely unstoppable.”

Pearl ducks her head and blushes that charming blue. “You really think so?” She asks in a small voice that can’t help but sound both worried and hopeful. “You’re not making fun?”

“I,” Rose proclaims, putting an arm around Pearl’s slight shoulders and pushing all thoughts of Diamonds and their whims aside, “have never been more serious about anything in my life.”

Much later, when she finds herself on the ground, disarmed and staring up at a glowingly triumphant Pearl for the third time that day, Rose Quartz thinks she has never been more right about anything in her life.

#pearl #rose quartz #steven universe #pearlrose #fanfiction #my fic #oathkeeper writes things #pearlrose week 2017 #la vie en rose #smitten rose 4 life #i've had this wip for forever and a day and i have never been so called out as when i opened it recently and saw the #'last edited on 11 February' gee thanks gdocs

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