#also ignore that I literally based this off hsmtmts

[lyssismagical]

just for a moment in love

Parkner {And minor Thompsborn} Febufluff Day 23-26 - Secret Admirer, Love Triangle, Confessions, and Forbidden

Read on AO3

*

It’s a month into the school year when all the drama of the summer finally catches up to him.

Peter sighs loudly like he’s purposefully trying to get May’s attention for his sullen behaviour. He even collapses onto the couch dramatically, arm tossed over his eyes, and sighs again.

May laughs, soft and gentle as she moves around the kitchen behind him. “Not that I’m laughing at you, honey, but what’s up with you? Something happen? Does it have anything to do with why I haven’t seen Harley around here for weeks?”

Sighing again, Peter tries his best not to let the heartache return. “Yeah… We broke up last month. Before I left.”

There’s a gasp in the kitchen followed by a crash as she drops a pan on the counter, and then she’s sitting down on the couch by his feet.

“You broke up? Oh, honey, what happened?”

“I told him I loved him,” Peter explains quietly, huffing out a third sigh. “And he said okay and then he left. And then I had to leave and I didn’t have Wi-Fi at the camp, so I couldn’t even try to figure out what happened.”

Peter had this fancy Nerd Camp over the summer, Tony signed him up for. It was incredible and Peter had a lot of fun, he learned a lot, but it was hard to focus with Harley weighing on his mind.

Not to mention Flash had been there.

“He just left?”

“Yeah. He didn’t even tell me why. If he didn’t love me or if something was up or if I did something… I don’t know. He just walked out, said it would be better if we called it quits before I left for three weeks.”

May offers a sympathetic smile, rubbing his ankle. “I’m guessing there’s more to this story?”

Sighing again, Peter finally lifts his arm from over his eyes, looking over at May. “Yes… I may or may not have started seeing somebody new.”

May’s head tips to the side, eyes hardening. “You’re seeing somebody new? One month after your three-year-relationship ended?”

“Flash was at camp with me and he was, you know, nice. He made sure I was doing alright, and he was being a good guy, so I kinda just jumped on new opportunities.”

“And, what? You’re regretting it? You still miss Harley? You realized it was impossible to throw a three-year relationship down the drain for a new guy who’s been kinda mean to you for years?”

Peter rolls his eyes, knowing she’s right. More right than he’d like to admit, but he doesn’t want to want Harley anymore. Harley broke his heart.

He laid everything out on the line with the big L-word and Harley broke up with him for it. Peter would’ve been fine had Harley just explained.

“I like him,” Peter argues. “Flash is a good guy.”

May doesn’t make the obvious statement of but not as good as Harley. Instead, she says, “Good for you, but don’t throw away a twelve-year friendship over this, alright? You were best friends before you ever started dating. Try to sort this out, okay?”

Peter reaches for his phone, prepared to text Harley already, see if he wants to talk, but his pockets are empty, phone missing.

He assumes he left it in his bedroom or maybe in his bag, and instead curls up against May’s side and letting her pick the movie.

In the morning, he’d have to try to put himself together for another day of school, being Flash’s boyfriend, ignoring Cassie’s glares, trying not to dwell on Harley’s red-rimmed eyes, and focusing on schoolwork.

For now, he could pretend like everything was fine and dandy, curled up with May on their old couch, and forget that Harley was missing from their family movie nights.

* Betty’s the one who clues him in at lunch the next day when he still can’t find his phone.

“Listen, I wasn’t supposed to tell you, Brad made me swear I’d keep it a secret for just one more day, and you know how much I hate going against stuff that he says, but I saw Flash with your phone,” she says when Peter complains that he can’t find it.

“What?”

“Yours is the one with the sparkly Iron Man case, right?” Betty asks, tapping her fork against her plate incessantly. “Yeah, I saw Flash with it in second period. He’s in the gym with Brad, if you wanna go talk to him.”

Peter gets up and heads to the gym, ignoring MJ and Ned asking if he wants them to go with him or to not do anything stupid.

“Hey, babe!” Flash calls out, jogging over. He leans to kiss Peter, but Peter ducks out of the way, glaring at Flash.

“No, not happening. You stole my phone?”

The reaction is instant, face falling and shoulders slumping. “You found out?”

“Yeah, I found out! What was so important that you had to steal my phone instead of talking to me about it?”  

“Let’s not do this here,” Flash murmurs, glancing over his shoulder at Brad.

“No, I’m not going to let you pretend this all okay. What’s going on?”

Flash sighs and scrubs a hand harshly over his face. “I had to delete a voicemail.”

“Who was the voicemail from? Why was it so important that I didn’t see it?”

Flash sighs angrily and grabs Peter’s elbow. “It was from Harley, whining about how much he misses you or some bullshit. You didn’t need to hear it.”

“Are you really that insecure that you think I’m just going to up and leave you because Harley asks for me back?”

“No, I’m just upset that he thinks that it’s okay to try anything while you’re mine.”

“I’m not yours, you asshole!” Peter jerks his arm away from Flash. “I’m not anybody’s property! And definitely not yours after all this bullshit.”

Flash’s jaw clenches. “You’re seriously breaking up with me? Over a stupid voicemail?”

“I’m breaking up with you because you’re being an asshole, Flash!” Peter exclaims, glaring at his ex. “If you really cared, you would trust me enough not to take my fucking phone.”

Flash pulls the phone out of his pocket, Iron Man phone case sparkling insultingly. “Then take it. Go running back to Harley. See if I give a shit.”

Peter takes his phone back, doesn’t bother arguing any further, and turns out of the gym. He makes it all the way to his locker before he breaks down in tears, angrily wiping them away even as they continue to fall.

It’s just his luck, isn’t it?

* He’s at home, listening to May bustle about the apartment from his bed, trying to bring up the courage to call Harley or maybe Ned or even MJ, just to try to think things through, when there’s a knock on the door.

May opens it and he hears her talking quietly to somebody.

Peter listens as the door shuts again, and then there’s a knock on his bedroom door.

“It’s open!” he calls out, sitting up.

And then Harley walks in.

“Oh my god,” Peter says stupidly. Because holy shit Harley’s got the worst black eye Peter’s ever seen and he’s crying.

“I know- I know we’re not together anymore. I know I fucked this up and I’m sorry, but I just- I needed a place to stay and I- I didn’t know where else to go.”

Peter scrambles to his feet. “Are you okay? What happened? Cassie said you were going through a rough time, but I- I don’t know.”

“My dad’s back,” Harley breathes, sitting down on Peter’s bed, shoulders slumping miserably. “And my mom just wants to forgive him. After everything he did to us. How fast he just left, all those years ago.”

“Did he….” Peter doesn’t know if he’s allowed to ask that kind of question, but Harley laughs coldly.

“Nah,” he says, fingers running over the bruise. “That was Flash. My fault, really. I went after him, calling him some nasty names after I saw you crying in the hallway. I provoked him and he snapped. Don’t really blame him.”

Peter’s eyes widen and he freezes in confusion, silent.

Harley shrugs. “Know I shouldn’t have. Know you’re not mine anymore, but you’re still my best friend and he hurt you.”

There’s obvious hesitation in his movements as he sits down on his bed beside Harley, but at the end of the day, they’re still best friends. And his best friend is hurting.

“Is there anything I can do?” Peter offers.

Harley’s face falls a bit, wiping at his eyes again. He sniffles and glances over at Peter, red-rimmed blue eyes filled with some sort of unexplainable emotion. “I could really go for some hot chocolate? Maybe a movie? I just- I know we’re not what we used to be, but if you could just… hold me?”

Something inside Peter cracks at the quiet question, irreparably broken. “Yeah, of course. You get comfy, and I’ll be right back.”

That night, tucked together in Peter’s bed, blankets pulled tight around their shoulders, they both think about what used to be. A three-year relationship ended. Peter regrets saying the L-word that day. Harley regrets not saying it. Neither of them says a word.

* They walk to school together when morning eventually rolls around, carefully making sure their hands don’t brush.

“So, your dad’s back, huh?” Peter starts, needing to start somewhere. The silence had gotten tense. Awkward. Which hadn’t ever happened between them in their long friendship.

“Yeah. It’s been over ten years since we’ve seen the guy, fucking gas station line and all, but he showed up two weeks ago, totally out of the blue, wanting to fix things. And, I mean, I get it, I do. He realized he fucked up. He realized he left his two kids and wife out of the blue, no explanation, but ten fucking years, and he thinks he can just waltz back into our life?”

Peter purposefully lets their elbows brush on the next step. “How’s Abbie taking it?”

“Better than I am,” Harley admits, shrugging. “She doesn’t remember him. Doesn’t remember the hell he put Mom through. She just knows that he’s sorry and that Mom’s already forgiven him. It’s like Mom’s forgotten the years after he left where we could barely get a meal on the table every night.”

“I’m sorry,” Peter says because he isn’t quite sure what else to say.

Harley shrugs again, holding his chin high. It makes the sun sparkle wonderfully through his hair and in his eyes. “Yeah, I know I should give the guy a chance, but I can’t let him hurt us again. I can’t let him ruin Mom again. I’m just- I’m really fucking angry, and I couldn’t stand another dinner at home where everybody pretends things are how they were when we were little.”

“You can always stay with me. Door’s always open.”

And Harley smiles, openly and genuine for the first time in a long time.

“Hey!” somebody calls out, jogging towards them, effectively cutting them off.

Harley takes a protective step in front of Peter like he’s the one with the superpowers.

“What do you want, Flash?” Harley demands, voice low and cold. “I think Peter made it clear yesterday to leave him alone.”

“I just want to talk,” Flash says, lifting his hands in surrender. “Listen, I know I made a mistake, and I’m not asking for you back, I think we’re both aware what we had was a rebound, at best, but I wanted to make things right. Give you an explanation.”

“Yeah?” Peter asks, forever the forgiving, kind person. He moves to stand beside Harley, offering a reassuring smile. Flash’s lip is split, healing, knuckles bruised.

Flash nods, fiddling with the hem of his sweater. “I’ve had this huge crush on a guy for as long as I can remember, but his parents know my parents, and there’s a lot of bad blood. I was being stupid, thinking I could ever be with him, but I would leave him letters in his locker every day.”

“Romeo and Juliet style bad blood?”  

“Yeah, but hopefully it doesn’t end the same for us,” Flash says, laughing nervously. “I really like him, but our parents would kill us if anything ever happened between us, so I tried to pretend I was into dating you, even if I like somebody else.”

Peter goes to call him out, that it’s not fair, but it’s pretty obvious that Peter did the same if Harley, standing next to Peter, wearing Peter’s sweater, smelling like Peter’s home, says anything.

“So?” Harley asks.

“So, I’m sorry,” Flash says, frowning. “I’m sorry I hurt both of you because my head’s so messed up right now, but I want to be friends with you both. I want to make things right.”

Peter offers a smile. “Yeah, of course. I just wish there was something I could do to help with you and Harry.”

“Harry? How’d you know?” Flash’s eyes widen, jaw-dropping. “Is it that obvious?”

“I mean we all kinda thought you were already a thing for a while,” Harley admits, lifting an eyebrow. “You both stare at each other all day, and I heard Harry reading out a love letter sent to him by you.”

“I signed them anonymously.”

“And somehow, Harry still knew it was you,” Peter says. “I think, fuck what your parents think, fuck what his parents think, do what you want. It’s your happiness that matters.”

Flash nods, smiling at them. “Even if it’s cursed? Like tragic Romeo and Juliet, forbidden love story?”

Harley shrugs, pushing Flash’s shoulder encouragingly. “Of course. Go get your man, Thompson.”

Grinning, Flash takes off towards the school, obvious excitement in his steps. It’s the start of a friendship, a strange one at that, but a friendship nonetheless.

“You think they’ll get their happy ending?” Harley asks, leaning into Peter as they start walking again, it feels more right to walk shoulder-to-shoulder not awkwardly spaced out like they didn’t know how to walk together anymore.

Peter shrugs. “I think they deserve it, Mister Stark’s mentioned things about the Osborns and the Thompsons, if anything, they deserve each other.”

Nodding, Harley looks over at Peter, head tipping to the side. “Do you think we will ever get our happy ending?”

It brings unwanted feelings back. How Peter felt alone in his room after Harley disappeared on him, mumbling about taking a break and leaving Peter’s L-word unanswered.

Peter swallows thickly, not ready to let go of what they had, what he still wants, but not prepared to dive straight in like the past two months hasn’t happened.

“I hope so.” * Harley stays over again that night, saying that he’s not ready to see his family yet.

Peter missed Harley, missed the way Harley offers to cook for May and teases Peter relentlessly in the kitchen for inheriting May’s awful cooking, missed the way Harley slings his arm over the back of Peter’s chair in the dining room, making easy conversation with May. He missed the way Harley always finds an excuse to be close to Peter, missed how Harley looks right sitting on his couch, socked feet up on the old coffee table, grinning from ear to ear and making stupid teasing comments.

He missed Harley.

And it’s obvious May had been missing Harley’s presence around the apartment, something that had been a constant since Harley’s family moved in a few blocks away and they met at the park between their apartments, best friends since then.

Later that night, after May excuses herself to bed for an early shift the next morning, after the TV’s muted and conversation picks up just how it’s meant to after Peter gets a call from Flash shouting about how Harry said yes to a date, and after Peter gets a call from Harry reiterating the same thing, the conversation turns to the big question: Why.

“You know I didn’t want to break up with you,” Harley says like it’s meant to be obvious, but he catches Peter’s eyebrows creasing and his mouth dropping into a confused frown. “You didn’t know that?”

“No. I thought- I don’t know what I thought. I didn’t know why you left that night because you wouldn’t talk to me,” Peter says, sitting up properly on the couch.

Harley frowns, shoulders slumping. “I didn’t want to leave like that.”

“Then why? Why’d you leave like that?” Peter’s voice comes out wobbly and quiet, and Harley’s face falls, guilt immediately shining in his eyes.

“You have to understand that words like that don’t mean anything to me anymore,” Harley starts, hands fiddling with his shirt. “When my dad left, he said he loved my mom and that he’d be back in an hour, and only showed up now, ten years later. The kind of I Love You’s I know are the kind tossed around when you feel guilty or when you want something from someone, not because you love them.”

Peter freezes because that’s the opposite of how he grew up. He grew up with Richard and Mary keeping I Love You’s for the moments that mattered most like they had to keep the meaning there, so they saved it for moments of pure Love.

May and Ben were different. They shared I Love You’s like it was the only words in the dictionary. Good Morning, I Love You. Good Night, I Love You. Goodbye, I Love You. The words still meant everything, but they didn’t think that they’d ever run out of chances to say it.

“When you said that, I panicked.” Harley looks over at Peter like he’s desperate for him to understand. “Because I don’t know what that means. I don’t- I don’t get words. They don’t mean the same thing to me as they do to you.”

But it’s obvious that Harley does love Peter. Maybe not in spoken words, but in actions, in meaning. He walks three blocks out of his way just to walk Peter to and from school every day. He has protein bars under his bed and in his locker and in his backpack, just in case Peter needs an extra snack. He looks at Peter like he hung the stars. He remembers everything there is to know about Peter, his favourite colour, his favourite animals, all of his fears, every story Peter’s ever told.

“Oh,” Peter says because his brain is caught in a loop of big words and bigger actions.

“Oh,” Harley echoes, a smile touching his mouth in a way that crinkles the corners of his eyes and shows off the dimples in his freckled skin.

Peter nods and takes Harley’s hand, intertwining their fingers. “I think I get it.”

“You think?”

“Is it okay that I love you?”

And Harley’s smile widens, lifting Peter’s hand to press a kiss to his knuckles. “Yeah, it’s good, it’s nice. I like hearing it and I do love you, but I’m not good at saying it.”

“So you show it,” Peter finishes, leaning forward to press a kiss to Harley’s cheek. “That’s okay too, I don’t need to hear it to know it.”

“Does that mean we’re okay? We can go back to how we were? Because, I’ll admit, I missed you and I missed this.”

Peter nods, kissing the corner of Harley’s mouth. “We’re okay.”

* Tony hosts a dinner at the Tower a few weeks later, after Harley talks to him about the problems he’s having trusting his dad and after Peter mentions how bad he feels that Flash and Harry’s relationship has to be kept a secret, that all of their dates consist of sneaking out in the middle of the night.

May and Peter, the four Keener’s, Flash and Harry, Tony and Pepper, all gather for some sort of strange family dinner.

Flash and Harry are allowed to be affectionate without worrying about being caught, Harley’s allowed to express his concerns without fear of breaking up his newly reformed family, Harley’s dad is able to apologize properly.

“The important thing is,” Tony says, smiling around at them. “Family is more than just blood, it’s who you choose to surround yourselves with, and I’d say, we make a pretty happy family.”

[ayankun]

notes and mission statement on my current concept of how to write (zombies fanfiction) good

So I watched Cloud 9 last night and my instant critique included "why should I care about this/these characters? we didn't learn anything important about their hopes and dreams the second we met them."

So I'll totally say that there's no one right way to Do A Thing, but I am trying to learn about/prioritize Things That Are Effective, and right now on my mind is Abbie Emmons' description of the "Five-Minute Rule" as demonstrated in particularly Disney/Pixar movies. In short, the structure of these stories are designed for easy access into the main character's Thing, their wants/fears/misbeliefs -- their internal conflict -- dropped right at the top so the audience always knows what the stakes are and why they should care about whether the character succeeds or not.

I'm also super big on stylization, and it's definitely one of the major appeals (for me) of the ZOMBIES franchise. So I gotta do the work and pay the respects. I'M ALSO still intrigued by the stage/screen/soliloquy/talking head situation that appears in both this and HSMTMTS. I want (and need) to make sure that all the Styles of the movie are represented in my derivative work.

This means I want soliloquies! I want characters talking to the camera ("camera") and then talking to other characters without missing a beat. I want camp and fun and heart (not a literal heart) and the mental image of innocent pastels side by side with viscerally saturated reds and greens. I want to say something worth saying but have a good time doing it.

Got a wee bit off track there, but the point is, my initial outline had some of the "let's do an opening narration by Zed and Addison, but prose style." "maybe we can find a way to sufficiently describe diegetic and non-diegetic conversations???" "the opening scene is also in media res, which is always an efficient thing to do, so we've got stylistically appropriate exposition that is also narratively load-bearing, A++ me."

What that concept of the opening scene was missing, though, was anything at all relating to Zed's internal conflict, which is the main point I'm writing the damn thing.

His thing was going to be introduced at the end of Act I.

Like, Addison's story was going to be introduced up front, always was, and hers was going to be narrative A-Plot that carries along Zed's emotional B-Plot and they smash together like freight trains in Act III. But if Zed's conflict is the heart of the story that will eventually be the main payoff to anything that's happened, shouldn't we get introduced to that as early as possible?

I mean, the source I'm basing all this on does it in LITERALLY THE FIRST SECONDS:

Seconds 0-8 are dedicated to describing the status quo, from the characters' perspectives, and the next five or so minutes are all about setting up the specific obstacles that will have to be overcome before to these characters' beliefs in their world are actually validated.

Zed's obstacle is his belief that he has to pursue "blending in" in order to belong. In five minute we learn that he's championed tearing down a symbol of his Zombie heritage (much to the dismay of Eliza, the Zombie Pride voice of conscience he's studiously ignoring in this scene) in the name of Zombie integration. He wants to go to Prawn. He wants to be accepted, not necessarily as himself, just accepted, and any step -- no matter the cost -- towards being seen as "normal" is worth it:

Meanwhile, at cheer camp, Addison is facing the facts about her "tight-knit community" still being sharply divided. Bucky is still segregating the Zombies, and the Aceys are still harassing Addison specifically based on her looks. Her story is about overcoming these societal prejudices to achieve a literal Diversity Win. She's fighting for the right to be accepted as her authentic herself, whoever that may turn out to be:

So, yeah. MY story ALSO has to set the stakes up front, for BOTH characters, in narrated-soliloquy mode (however that can be achieved in prose).

And this morning I figured out how to do it. :33333