#anyway back to our regularly scheduled apocalypse.

[aristotle-darcy]

I haven’t been on fb in years. I logged on today and within minutes, I found out how much the wife of a queer poly British man I met on a business trip in St. Louis 10 years ago is selling her house in Tennessee for. Getting that kind of information that quickly is terrifying. But also oh my god Kelsey you’re killing it!!!

[go-to-the-mirror]

chains? wtf is this? a dungeon??

do they have chains in modern day prisons? i really don't think they have chains in modern day prisons. did elias just get the chains for show?

anyway, welcome to your regularly scheduled rambling! I have thoughts about this episode, so, be prepared for good words :D!

@a-mag-a-day

CWs for suicide/self-sacrifice (discussed, canon-typical)

ELIAS Come on, Martin, it’s been so long since I’ve seen you; let’s not start with lies.

For some reason, the "let's not start with lies" part of this sounds a lot like Zolf Smith from RQG. Yes, I know Ben Meredith voices both of them, but this sounds a lot like Zolf, more than Elias usually.

ELIAS My relationship to the apocalypse is more… complicated.

Bastard.

ELIAS In my case, while Peter has talked of it before, it is only very recently that I’ve been forced to admit The Extinction is real. And as for our dear Archivist, I’m afraid I no longer have any real control over what he does or does not know. Unlike yourself.

HE SAYS, HIDING IN PRISON BECAUSE OTHERWISE JON'LL KNOW ABOUT HIS *tim voice* SPOOKY EVIL PLANS.

MARTIN Yeah well, I’m still not sure I really believe it. A-And I don’t— I’m… ELIAS Worried he might charge off into another coffin?

Like, alright, whatever, it's a valid fear, I'd understand why Martin would be worried about that, I'd be worried about that in Martin's position. But, well, I'm not in Martin's position, not with this. I've been on the other side of that, and... I mean he's not talking to Jon but this line in MAG 199:

MARTIN And you can’t just arbitrarily decide it isn’t, because you want a better reason to martyr yourself! ARCHIVIST That’s not what’s happening! MARTIN Isn’t it?

It just feels similar to me, people throwing that you did something stupid once back in your face, it stings, it hurts. It feels like they don't trust you anymore, to me... it feels like they're... using it as... like a way to hurt you, and I understand that Martin's worried here, and yeah Jon's not exactly the fondest of living in this episode or 199, but... I don't know... I just think that hearing that Martin's motivation -- at least partially -- for dealing with the extinction on his own was worrying about Jon charging off into another coffin would probably make him feel guilty, and ashamed, and hurt, and feel the urge to jump into another coffin because it's awkward and it's private.

MARTIN (Incredulous) What? That’s it? No, no monologue? No mind games? You love manipulating people. ELIAS That makes two of us. But no, this too important for me to jeopardise with cheap “mind games”. I simply have to trust that when the time comes, you’ll make the right choice.

Oh really? Oh, really, mate? Bloody hell, I want to punch him.

What we built at Millbank should be left well enough alone, resigned to the nightmares of the reprobates and brigands contained within its walls.

Literally, must I point it out?

Did I ever tell you about the dreams? I’m sure I must have. I would dream about them, you see, as a young man. Long before I devised my taxonomy. I would find myself in nightmares of strange far-off places: a field of graves, a grasping tunnel, an abattoir knee deep in pigs’ blood. I believed then, as I still believe now, that these places I saw were the Powers themselves, expressed in their truest form, far more entirely than any secret book can claim. And if, as I came to believe, the Dread Powers were themselves places of a sort, then surely with the right space, the right architecture, they could be contained. Channelled. Harnessed.

Mass ritual? With the dreams, I still hear the song in my dreams, the different fears, the looking up and the sky blinks like??? Was the reform club an unknowing attempt at a mass ritual -- or no, not unknowing, without understanding. He intended to channel all of them for "balance," presumably, but instead he channelled all of them for... not a lovely time in spooky tunnels. These are wild theories I'm throwing out here but... it's not that far fetched.

Apocalypse. Apotheosis.

Look, I just like this line. I quote it so much.

I wonder, did my work bring about these dreadful things, or did I simply develop the means by which they can be known?

Actually... both, sort of? I mean, I'm not sure about the rituals, but the powers themselves... I'm not saying that he was right or whatever, but I am saying that his classification system was so popular that it shaped the fears themselves, you know as a mag a day said before, dreams are shaped by the dreamers.

Fictionalized Robert Smirke learn about spectrums challenge.

I have been dreaming again, Jonah. The same every night for months now. I imagine myself a boy again at Aspley. I awake, cold and alone, in the dormitory. The sky outside is dark and I see no stars. I light a candle to better see my way and step down the silent corridor. The masters’ rooms are empty, the fire in the kitchen is dead. Eventually my steps lead out into the courtyard. It is so quiet that the sound of my feet upon the grass is painful to my ears. I stop and look up at the sky, that empty black nothing and I see the edges of the horizon becoming a dull white. I cannot understand what I am looking at. And then the sky blinks. And I awake.

(MAG 138)

And at last, the Archivist looks up. At last he looks into the eye that sees all and knows all and clutches at the secret terrors of your heart. The ceaseless watcher of all that is and all that was. The voracious infinite hunger that tears at his soul, invoking him to discover, to observe, to experience all and everything and forever. It stares into him and it stares out of him and he is falling into the devouring eternity of its pupil. He wants to cry out in horror, but he cannot. He is whole.

(MAG 120)

ARCHIVIST Look at the sky, Martin. Look at the sky. It’s looking back.

(MAG 160)

Well. Looking up, the sky looks back, ooooh foreshadowing, sort of. I just, I just love it! Like dreaming, and then the eyepocolypse is dream logic and all and it's I don't know just look at these quotes I took.

Last night I was awoken by a noise from the drawing room. [...] It was then I began composing this letter.

This section is pretty spooky! I like it :3

Uh, a-apparently Robert Smirke was found collapsed in his study that evening, dead of, uh, “apoplexy”.

Used to refer to a stroke.

Good luck, Jon, I— Stay safe.

HE WAS ABOUT TO SAY I LOVE YOU D:

stop pining and just gouge your eyes out and make out, I beg.

Anyway, fun episode! Pretty spooky! Oversharing on tumblr dot com, sorry lol. can't wait till chosen tomorrow :3

[teddybasmanov]

Let's ignore his majesty for a while and get back to our regularly scheduled:

D(a)emons and humanborns of the world unite!

In other words, I want to talk about Damien and the end of the world.

Firstly, I think that the new coordinator (Starlight?) is in Damien's party.

Secondly, I don't know if I want one of the d(a)emons to tell Damien about The Meridian Problem OR most of them not knowing/not believing/actually wanting the world to end and the coordinator informing him.

Anyway, somehow Damien does find out about it.

It's obviously, awful news because, you know, the world is ending and because now their rebellion is now working against time - they need to overthrow (or at least affect enough) the government as soon as possible to start restricting usage of magic.

On the other hand, however, the apocalypse has its own advantages - it can be used as a great lever of pressure on the masses - the world is ending and the government, despite having a clear solution, does nothing just to keep their power.

At first, he hates Avior - that bloody separatist and collaborator - not just betraying his own people and luring them into this hell trap (pun intended) but also semi-withholding such crucial information and trying to still work with corrupted and uncaring government.

Then the coordinator spends more time with Avior and the more they report to their leader about their new boss the more Damien thinks that the inchoate might also be useful. At some point they decide to organise a meeting and Avior is immediately hooked - a whole organisation of both humans and d(a)emons working against the Imperium and, what's more important, believing him and wanting to do something about the problem he was trying to reach out about to someone for so long.

Avior is welcome in the resistance and work in the 'haven' doubles and triples.

Damien and Avior are definitely worth each other in the attitude department and their shouting/sarcasm matches are something the rest of the group watches in awe and a little terror.

Don't let these fool you though, despite regular disagreements they're great comrades and each others biggest supporters.

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 115

Extra special thanks for this chapter go out to @baelpenrose and @charlylimph-blog. Besides being regular beta-readers for me, Bael really really wanted a chapter with more Charly/Coffey, and Charly happily obliged by joining my and Bael’s regularly scheduled live-write of the chapter. We. Had. A. Blast.  It was  a shining beacon of love and laughter in my life, let me tell you.

I walked from the kitchen to the entry just as the notification went off that someone was standing outside. Still laughing from the comment Tyche made about the chicken breasts we were currently stuffing, my smile didn’t drop an inch as I saw Charly and Coffey standing there. “Hey, you two! About time!”

Charly held her head high and ignored my comment, while Coffey grinned back. “Best for last, you know,” he tossed with a wink as he handed over a bottle of red wine. “I know it doesn’t go with chicken but…”

“Stomachs are colorblind,” I finished, in sync with Charly and Tyche like we had rehearsed it. Conor and Maverick burst into laughter while Arthur just shook his head at our antics.

Charly stretched her neck to look over Tyche’s shoulder. “Those looks like…”

“We know,” Arthur groaned, eliciting another chuckle from everyone. “Tyche just mentioned that.”

“The - feta? - cheese is not helping your case, I’m just saying.”

Tyche tried her hardest to scowl and made a shooing gesture. “Please don’t ruin dinner before it’s even cooked please?”

“If I promise it won’t make dinner sound obscene, can I ask a question?” Charly ventured. All eyes turned toward her, since it was probably the first time she had ever asked permission to ask a question. Once I slowly nodded, she took a deep breath. “Have you ever tried rabbit?” The next part was rushed. “ImeanIhavearecipeforrabbitstewthat’stodiefor, andI’mprettysureAntoinewouldlikerabbitragout-”

“Charly,” Coffey intoned softly, reaching out to gently scritch the back of her neck.

She stopped talking and bit her lips. “I just mean - “

“It’s okay,” I assured them before anyone else in the room exploded from the laughter they were trying to hold back for her sake. “I really would love that recipe, Charly. I actually have a recipe for lapine ragout that Antoine adores, but the only other recipe I have is for coney pie.”

Charly nodded enthusiastically while practically collapsing on Coffey’s lap. Still nodding, she pulled a file up on her datapad and flicked it towards me. “Can I ask about the rabbits?” she asked softly, head twitching when Coffey scowled and - I assume - gently tugged the hair above where he was still scratching her neck. “Doesn’t hurt to ask!” she complained.

“I swear, it’s fine,” Arthur stated firmly. “You would be shocked at how hilarious she finds this story.”

Tyche rolled her eyes hard enough to move her neck. “And it puts some things into perspective…” she sighed.

Conor, on the other hand, gave me a hard look when I opened my mouth. “You know the rule.”

Dropping my head back in defeat, I took a deep breath. “Yes, I will make coney pie tomorrow for dinner.” Antoine, Charly, and Coffey all looked at me in confusion. “Conor hates hearing about my near-death experiences, so when I tell this story I have to make him rabbit pie for dinner.”

“So he can eat your enemies,” Charly nodded sagely.

“Pretty much,” I shrugged.

“Wait- “ she sputtered, realizing the rest of what I explained. “You had a near death experience? With a bunny!?”

All I could do was giggle. “Yes. I have a deathly fear of bunnies because one almost killed me once.”

“Twas no ordinary rabbit - it had a vicious streak a mile wide….” Arthur added, funny accent and all.

“May I ask that no one interrupt Sophia until she explains how she managed a real-life reenactment of a Monty Python sketch?” Coffey asked, leaning forward so far that Charly had to twist to stay on his lap.

“The truth is stranger than fiction,” Arthur nodded, tapping his glass gently against the other man’s. “Sophia, take it away.”

Shaking my head with a grin, I obliged. “You have to know, Tyche and I grew up in a very backwater, uneducated family, and also in hereditary poverty.   So, it was perfectly normal - to us, anyway - to have pets like chickens, or goats… or rabbits… Food animals.  Well, when I was eight, my uncle decided I was old enough for my first pet rabbit.  A good, big one.” Tyche shook her head with a smirk, and I just shot her a glance as I kept speaking. “Well, Snickers wasn’t quite hand-tamed. And the only way to hand-tame a wild rabbit is to…. Well, hold it, honestly.  So I would sit in the yard, with Snickers in my lap, and hold him while he ate grass.”

Maverick opened his mouth to ask the question he always loved to ask, but Charly gently put her hand on his wrist and shook her head. 

I still answered the question I knew would have come. “I know, it sounds like the most harmless thing in the world, right? Pet rabbit, in my lap, chilling out and eating fresh grass.  The thing is… Rabbits are burrowers. And they have these wicked claws on their back feet just for that.  So, when you hold them, you have to hold their back feet together, or they kick to get away.”

Charly gasped softly as she realized what was coming, quickly clamping a hand over her mouth.

I nodded. “Yep. One day, Snickers got started, and I didn’t have his back feet as tightly as I should have, and… well, he opened my arm up from wrist to elbow before I could let him go.  I screamed, my mother came out, took me to the emergency room.  I’ve been terrified of rabbits ever since.”

“That’s awful!” Charly cried out, jumping up to come hug me.

As I patted her on the back, Coffey sat up straighter and shook his head. “Poppy, she’s okay now. And besides, didn’t you hear her mention how ‘backwater’ her family was?” He arched an eyebrow at me, eye gleaming. “I bet that rabbit was dinner that same night.”

“Bunny dumplings,” Tyche confirmed with a wink. “If we didn’t know what else to do with it, it was dumplings.”

Arthur shook his head with a chuckle. “I would have thought you would be upset that she ate her pet, Miss Harper.”

She made a rude noise in return. “Are you kidding!? The first thing I killed with a bow was a rabbit.” Head high, she flexed her biceps. “Do you know how fast those things are!?”

“Nice and fat one, too,” Coffey added. “And she found rosemary to roast it with.”

“And lemon balm,” she added. “And mint, but that stuff grows everywhere.”

I nearly groaned at the memory of spit-roasted wild game.

“So, you two have been through the whole After together?” Conor asked as dinner hit the table.

Charly nodded enthusiastically as she took a bite. “Yeah, we were friends Before - oh my gosh, this balsamic reduction is perfect, Tyche - and found each other not long after the End.  After a while…” she trailed off, waving between them as much as she could, considering she was still sitting on Coffey’s lap.

We all nodded.  I was, honestly, happy to see two people who knew each other that long survive the end of the world together.  “So, I knew Charly did archery - she’s shown me a few times, but I’m terrible at it, turns out. What about you, Coffey?” I paused before realizing how intrusive that might be. “And if you don’t want to answer, it’s okay,” I rushed to clarify.

He smiled in reassurance. “I was security, Before, and… security After, in a way.” Chewing thoughtfully on a bite of bread, he glanced at something none of us could see. “I had a gun, at first - being a black man who grew up in NorthAm before it was NorthAm, it was more prudent than it was deviant at the time.”

“I don’t blame you,” I grumbled, while Tyche nodded and scowled furiously. We were horrifically embarrassed to be related to some of the reasons he needed a gun in the Before.

He tilted his head in a conciliatory fashion, as though he could tell what I was thinking. “In the After, bullets were hard to come by and… not very prudent, it turned out. They drew a lot of attention. Whereas our sneaky Charly…”

“Probably made traps,” Arthur finished nonchalantly.  When a few of us glanced at him, he rolled his eyes. “Oh come on! No one can tell me the queen of pranks and engineering over here did not booby-trap anywhere she was living within an inch of her life and the lives around her.”

Charly beamed, while Coffey just chuckled. “I honestly don’t believe the margin of error was quite that wide, to be frank. But it was safe enough that, before long, we accidentally had an enclave.”

I snorted in an attempt not to choke on my drink, while Conor and Maverick were both glancing at Arthur - the resident warlord.

Arthur just blinked in an almost placid manner. “I’m actually impressed. You started rebuilding by accident.”

“Do I look like someone who decides to take over the world?” Charly pointed out. After a chorus of Yes all around the table, she rolled her eyes. “It’s not my fault that hobbit holes are a strategically sound idea.”

“Apocalyptic Tolkien,” Tyche whistled. “I like it.”

“Sophia would have loved the library,” Coffey laughed.

My head shot up hard enough to make my neck hurt. “Library?”

He nodded. “Charly had the idea to go rescue every book we could find on camping, how-tos, engineering, historical infrastructure…”

“You just passed every class you are ever in, with flying colors,” Arthur nodded. “I had to make most of my people read - though we did end up with a library and decent bathing infrastructure.”

“Siege engines, Mr. Farro. We were building siege engines.”

He muttered something that sounded like “I will make up classes for you to pass,” but I was willing to bet that he would never admit it. Out loud, he just added “The fact that you not only read voluntarily but got other people to read without being forced has earned you extra credit.” She opened her mouth to object, but he held up a hand. “I’m being entirely serious, and no I won’t take it back.”

“I wasn’t going to try to survive an apocalypse without baths,” she scowled, stabbing a potato. “We may have ended the world, but we weren’t heathens.” Chewing so fast I thought she was going to choke, she immediately started asking Arthur about how he organized plumbing for his group.

“Trenches, aqueducts, and basically I got lucky because someone had a construction background.  We had some records of how Romans built their sewers with something close enough to the materials we had to work with so… it worked out.

With that, the conversation took off in the direction of infrastructure for post-apocalypse settlements, with Conor adding his opinion everywhere possible.  I knew there was no changing the topic, so I just shook my head and tried to keep up.

<< Prev   Masterlist  Next >>

[bewaretheidesofmarchyall]

Camping Trip Headcanons

Ever wondered what the sides would be like while camping?

One of the plot points on this was inspired by a post by @aidensm8

So. Camping trip (I’m just going to assume this is a human AU). Roceit and Logicality just kind of became a thing.

-For starters, they get extremely lost.

-They were planning on camping in an actual designated camping spot. However, it all went downhill when the map was lost.

-There had been bickering throughout the entire car ride as to who got to hold the map. Eventually, a rotating schedule was decided on.

-By the time they’d been walking in the wrong direction for three hours, everyone had a different opinion on who actually lost the map.

-Roman blamed Janus, Janus blamed Virgil, Virgil blamed Logan, Logan blamed Remus, and Remus blamed Patton (who had never once touched the map. Remus knew this, and was only accusing him for the sake of chaos).

-After being lost in the woods for a while, they decide to pitch the tent. There were quite a few attempts, but in the end the monstrosity they assembled looked vaguely like a tent.

-A few things about the cast of characters

-Roman: Still the dramatic dude we know and love. Everyone’s around sixteen or so in this AU, and he’s got all of the Getting Out Of This Small Town dreams. One day, he’ll be famous, just try to stop him.

Currently having a bit of a rivals-to-lovers thing with Janus.

-Janus: This dorky snek. Wants similar things to Roman, but with a vein of cynicism that is leading him far from theater and towards law.

He and Roman have been competing for parts in various school plays since freshmen year. 

-Logan: Logan knows so very much about space and so very little about dealing with pining after a friend. But he’s planned this camping trip to perfection and he’s going to have a “totally unplanned” chat with Patton under the stars.

-Patton: Patton is oblivious as to why Logan is so excited about camping and the planning process, since he normally hates the outdoors.

Anyway, he’s really excited to go on a trip with all of his friends and eat marshmallows! 

One thing to note about Patton is that he has a small mark on his forearm the approximate size of a bug bite. This will be important later.

-Remus: Remus has a plan to make this camping trip...memorable. By which he means ✨Disturbing for all parties✨! Yes, he’s got a prank planned, which is why his backpack contains a live screech owl.

-Virgil: Virgil has a reputation at being the best at telling horror stories. Some kids can whistle with a blade of grass, some kids can curl their tongues, but Virgil’s talent is scaring people out of their minds. And he’s proud of it!

-Okay, back to your regularly scheduled programming

-Even though they’re lost, everything’s fine! They were able to build a fire (Remus brought a blowtorch), and when sunset came everyone was set up.

-Patton has found a variety of cool rocks, which he shows off to everyone.

-Logan looks up exactly what kind of rocks they are in his guide.

He brought a guide for this.

-Roman has been singing a veritable jukebox of musical numbers while setting everything up.

-Janus is trying to outsing him. 

-Virgil is trying get either Remus or Logan to bet with him as to when exactly they’ll become a couple.

-Remus tends to his screech owl.

-Soon, it’s dark, and marshmallows are consumed. Remus declines to stick his over the fire, instead lighting it with the blowtorch and placing the entire thing into his mouth, stick and all. 

-Then, it’s that much awaited time. Horror story time.

-Janus tells the first story. Very gothic horror Edgar Allen Poe stuff, better in terms of world building than actual scare factor.

-Roman goes next. His story isn’t that impressive (witchcraft and such), but his acting more than makes up for it.

-Remus tells a tale of the zombie apocalypse. There is cannibalism. However, he seems a little distracted, almost like he’s worried that a live animal in his bag will make a noise at the wrong time.

-Logan goes next. He’s not the best at horror stories, given his tendency to a) take things too literally and b) give all of his characters basic common sense.

So he tells some non-fiction instead.

He lists unsolved cases, tales of UFO’s, mysterious disappearances with no explanation. He declines to mention the likely scientific reasons for these events.

It works.

-And then, it’s Virgil’s turn. 

Damn.

He’s very good at it.

He somehow managed to make “tHeRe’S a MuRdErEr iN tHeSe WoOdS” actually nerve-wracking again.

Janus and Roman end up holding onto each other in fear by the end of the story. There’s indeed awkward springing apart and throat clearing, thank you for asking.

-They’re all ready to go back to the tent when Patton reminds them he hasn’t told a story yet.

-They sit down, somewhat relieved that they’ll have a less scary tale to finish the night off. After all, it’s Patton.

-Pat takes the flashlight, fiddles with the switch, and smiles innocently. He then proceeds to tell his friends exactly why he’s scared of spiders.

-When the flashlight dies at the end, there are screams, and not just from Roman. Everyone is terrified. Patton’s just eating the extra marshmallows like nothing is wrong as his friends have an existential crisis.

-Later that night...

-Virgil is questioning everything now that he is no longer the best at telling horror stories. So, when he sees Remus sneak off, he doesn’t stop him.

-Instead, he offers to join him in whatever spooky mischief he’s conducting. 

-Remus reveals Señor Scoodly-Scream, the screech owl. He plans to release the live bird into the tent at 3am in the morning and just kind of see what happens.

-Virgil agrees that this plan is a good one, but thinks that there a few things they can do to improve it.

-One of the factors of a good scare, he explains in an almost scientific voice, is that the participants are already on edge. If a live owl is released, sure, they’ll be shocked. But if they already have a feeling something is going on, and the imagination is allowed to linger, and THEN something is released?

Pandemonium.

-See! He still knows how to spook people!

-He suggests that they get long, spindly sticks that looks like brittle fingers to scrape against the walls of the tent. And the two of them head off together into the woods, hushing each other’s laughter and Señor Scoodly-Scream’s squawking. 

-As subtle as they tried to be, Logan had been keeping an ear open for when Remus would try to do something. So, after a few minutes, he follows them. 

-On his way out the door, Patton wakes up and joins him. The two of them try to follow Remus and Virgil.

-They go in the exact opposite direction as the devious pranksters, leaving Janus and Roman alone.

-Logan is jumpy for many reasons. He’s alone with his crush, it’s the middle of the night, he’s alone with his crush, many spooky stories were told, he’s alone with his crush-Our guy has a lot going on. Is it any wonder that he isn’t paying much attention to where exactly he and Patton are going?

-Roman is the fifth to wake up, only to realize that everyone except for Janus is just GONE.

-THEY’VE CLEARLY ALL BEEN MURDERED BY SPIDERS, OR THE MURDERER IN THE WOODS, OR ABDUCTED BY ALIENS

-Janus is the last person to wake up. It hard to not wake up when someone is screaming two feet from your ear.

-But upon finding that everyone else is gone, he’s almost tempted to join in the shrieks. One person leaving is one thing, but four people?? No, they’re clearly going to die in the middle of the woods.

-The two of them freak out. Roman suggests going to search for the others, and Janus point out that every horror movie suggests not! Doing! That!

-But Roman is adamant, and Janus isn’t going to be alone right now, so the pair of them sneak into the woods.

-Meanwhile, Remus and Virgil return with sticks. They scrape the walls of the tent. No reaction. They scrape louder. No reaction. They rattle the tent itself. Nope.

-They even release Scoodly-Scream into the tent! NOTHING.

-When they check, they realize that no one’s there (except the owl). PANIC ENSUES.

-Remus and Virgil come to the conclusions that everyone in the tent was eaten by spiders and they were lucky that they got out when they could. Remus decides that they should try to run back to town and out of the woods ASAP. 

-Which is what they try to do! However, they forgot one crucial detail: They’d been lost at the beginning of this camping trip.

-So, everyone’s kind of going in circles. Logan and Patton are having a stroll in the night air while everyone else runs like electrified hamsters.

-Roman and Janus have been holding onto each other for a solid fifteen minutes before even noticing. They both pretend that they didn’t notice, reasoning that it’s due to the cold, or the alien abductions.

-Suddenly, they hear a stick break. They freeze, seeing an outline of something of around human size in the distance. It moves again, and Roman and Janus rush at it, yelling and tackling the figure to the ground.

-It’s Remus. They don’t have time to apologize before Virgil comes out of nowhere and tries to fight them off with a stick.

-Once faces are spotted and no-one’s attacking anyone anymore, the four of them decide to head back to the tent.

-Then, they remember Logan and Patton.

-Logan and Patton are lost. You think everyone else in this fic is lost? These two are so lost you wouldn’t believe it.

-Eventually, their flashlight dies. The two of them are lost in the woods, in the middle of the night, with no flashlight.

-But without the flashlight, it’s easier to see the stars.

-Logan and Patton stop to rest under a tree. Logan points out the constellations. Patton points out that he has feelings for Logan. Logan.exe short circuits.

-The sweet moment is broken when they hear screaming. The two exchange a quick glance and run in the screaming’s direction.

-Meanwhile, Janus covers his ears as Virgil and Remus have a spontaneous screaming contest. The mood is light-hearted until they discover a dead flashlight on the ground under a tree.

-This freaks out the Everyone, and they scatter in fear accordingly.

-Roman trips over a rock and rolls down a hill as the others escape. The bulb of his flashlight breaks, and he is alone in the dark. He hates it, and panics, and is convinced that whatever evil force is in this woods is going to kill him.

-Janus notices that Roman isn’t with the group any more. All of his instincts tell him to run and save himself, and that’s what he does! For five seconds.

-Then, he runs back toward Roman (and potentially axe-murder). The two of them find each other at the bottom of the hill, and a thought enters both of their minds.

Oh.

OH.

Oh no.

-It’s pitch black now. Every flashlight has been taken out of commission. 

-All three groups run smack into each other at the top of the hill. After some more shrieking and stick-fighting, it’s established who everyone is. A collective sigh of relief is breathed that no one is dead.

-Slowly, carefully, they make their way back to the tent. It takes a while, but for once someone pays attention to where they’re going, and they get there eventually. 

-Everyone’s tired, and ready to catch what little sleep they can during this hell-night. Logan unzips the tent.

-And Señor Scoodly-Scream flies into his face.

So, there it is! Camping! Romance! An owl full of rage!

I hope you enjoyed this mini-fic :)

[sepiadice]

DiceJar 0 END: what could have been...

Being completed ghosted for a scheduled session once again, I suppose I should finally face the facts and call the campaign. Which is, of course, very disappointing.

-

Let’s review the experiments I attempted in this campaign.

Experiment 1: Using a published module/adventure.[1]

I thought I might gain some valuable insight by analyzing a ‘professional’ product. By using an adventure I’d previously played myself, I’d hoped my experiences would smooth out my figuring out how to run it. Eventually, I learned the value of bullet pointed action plans, because the formatting of Crypt of the Everflame was not good for skimming, as vital information was hidden in the middle of information texts so I’d miss it during the game if I didn’t make sure to call, say, dice roll mechanics for going down a slippery hillside. It also meant I could look ahead and edit out rooms and mechanics that didn’t move the story of dungeon.

So, this experiment was technically a success, even if the lesson I took away was ‘modules don’t work well with my improv style, but provides inspiration sometimes.’ More on that later.

Experiment 2: Get a group to meet regularly.

So I’ve been wanting to do an actual play show since… well, before Critical Role and The Adventure Zone made it cool. For that, I need players willing to collaborate and also respect call time. As you can easily conclude from the time stamps, I couldn’t manage that, even when a freaking pandemic swept in and made being home for online sessions theoretically easier![2] Admittedly, my work schedule is not exactly ideal, as my Saturdays are permanently called for, and my Sundays are a wild ride of inconsistency, while my peers are moving to more conventional work life.

So, the experiment failed, and to a degree that I doubt a career or just schedule change would help. I did learn that a biweekly schedule works well for me, since I can spend the off week on planning, and still have time for my pre- and post-performance need to separate thoroughly and enter a neutral state.[3]

Experiment 3: Finish a dang narrative arc.

Ha ha. This also failed! Couldn’t get to the end of the dungeon. Welp.

Other lessons learned

I don’t online play well! Just get distracted by other internet tabs. It’s not as bad when I GM, since the stress of running the game keeps me more focused, but both the Curse of Strahd campaign I quietly quit[4] and IndigoDie’s Troika session[5] showed that I’m a garbage player online. Possibly an adoption of webcams and faces would assist, but I can’t ask for that.

People still hard! Still haven’t figured out how to get anyone invested. Can’t really be upset at the silent cancellations because I’m technically doing that with Curse of Strahd, and thus would be a hypocrite.

-

What was planned!

It’s only fair I give some amount of closure.

Session three ended with Bean dying, and there wasn’t a narratively consistent way to introduce a new party member…

Well, I guess if NavyDie consented to playing a bandit, or rewriting the scared dungeon prepper the party skipped…

What I decided was thus:

Bean's eyes open. The sharp pain of the punctures and tears, and the slow ache of liquid passing through those openings are gone, as is much of the world's color. The torches and other sources of light shine blue.

His companions are gathered around him, their mouths moving as if speaking, but Bean hears nothing.

For some reason, Bean feels at peace with this. This is correct.

Footsteps echo from the stairs, growing louder. A figure emerges from the floor below. When it enters the light, at first it is blurry, like many images projected upon the same space. Within the time that Bean's now still heart would have beat, the many silhouettes fade, leaving one form: Bean's father, though not the frail man Bean saw before he left Kassen, nor how bean's father looked before he was ravaged by illness, but the impossibly tall, strong, noble figure that Bean remembers his father being.

Though this man's smile has none of the warmth, and his eyes glow with an eldritch light.

"Seems you've come to some misfortune, Bernard Dipp," says this Mr. Dipp-who-is-not-Bean's-father. "Would you like some help with that?"

This mysterious fiend would become Bean’s patron for a level of Warlock, and ride around his head for the foreseeable future, threatening death if Bean didn’t do as ordered. You know, an excuse for Bean to continue adventuring instead of taking over the family farm.

As for where this fiend came from… well, I easily adapted that into the dungeon’s lore.

Kassen, whose visage is all over the crypt, is not the only one entombed within. There are also those who perished alongside him during his final battle, as well as those who perished facing him in the final battle. This includes Asar, who once adventured with Kassen until the two became bitter enemies or whatever, ending when Asar lead the charge against Kassen.

Anyways, an amount of time ago, bandits stumbled upon Kassen’s Crypt and started looting, and disturbed the coffins, looting a pair of medallions.

Here’s my adjustment: the medallions are now artifacts sealing away a fiend, and reuniting them freed him, whose presence radiated enough necromantic energies and roused Asar, who was deeply offended to be interred in a shrine to his enemy. Stupid, egotistical Kassen. Let’s channel this necromantic magic laying away and get some skeletal minions and kill those who bother me.

Which wasn’t great for the bandits, then later the advance party from Kassen, sent to make the trial safe for the youths. Blood was spilled. It wasn’t great.

Then our heroes arrived, and (hypothetically) resolved matters. Kassen’s ghost would then appear, thank the party, probably convey embarrassment at how the place is decorated, and grant boons to the party[6] before sending them on their way with a lit lantern.

Back in town, a grand celebration would turn somber as word of what happened in the tomb occurred, by it would be mixed and a feast would still be held.

The module ends with someone inviting the party to join the Pathfinder Society, but I’d cut that.

As for the fiend? Well, he’s transferred his tether from the amulets to Bean, so now he can ride the boy to wherever.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have anything particularly exciting planned for the others, as Bean was the only one who I got the opportunity to saddle with a commitment.

IndigoDie quit anyways.

Delilah I could motivate with eagerness to be free of her parents.

Yot… is a mercenary, so maybe Delilah could’ve paid him.

I could’ve figured something out if the players insisted on continuing with their characters. That would’ve been a discussion for after the module was completed.[7]

-

Moving forward!

So DiceJar waits evermore. I don’t want to admit that it’s an implausible goal, but I’m not in a great headspace about it. I still crave role-playing, but I think I’ll wait for someone to start their own campaign, or I guess see if I get a turn-over of my friend group.

NavyDie mentioned wanting to try a Powered by the Apocalypse system, and it’s only fair I actually try the mechanics before completely writing the rule set off.[8]

The next experiments I want to run when I return to behind the GM screen relates to system: Savage Worlds (once the most recent edition is back in print) as I search for a generic system that fits my needs, and Ryuutama, because Ryuutama just looks fun.

But… I don’t know what to do from here.

Until next time, may your dice (and whatever dice governs me) make things interesting.

-

[1] The correct terminology isa matter of pointless debate. [2] Charisma and Constitution are obviously my dumb stats. [3] Not sure my meaning is conveyed correctly. I’ll probably nail it down in a future write-up. [4] The group was too large, and after IndigoDie quit there were insufficient participants I knew and was comfortable performing with. [5] Which didn’t get a write-up because I didn’t have anything of substance to say. [6] Which, in the original Pathfinder, was something the each player can evoke for a temporary stat bonus, but in 5e I was going to change to a free Inspiration recharge. [7] Though I would not send them to Last Wall. It would’ve been time for me to spin off to my own stuff, and Last Wall… is not something that needs to be repeated. [8] I’ve never heard an Actual Play where Powered by the Apocalypse wasn’t either a hindrance or irrelevant.

[chicassht]

A Letter to Myself

BLOG POST 4

Growing up, I didn’t come from a family where everything we did had a life lesson. Thank god. (Although there were a lot of educational vacations. That’s a whole other post though.) And while I was raised Jewish, we were not a religious family by any stretch of the imagination.That being said, one of the books I remember most vividly from my childhood, was a classic Jewish parable called It Could Always Be Worse! At the time I don’t think I quite grasped how quintessentially Jewish the title is. I can literally hear my Grandma Clara saying it in her Yiddish accent while she mushed my tush. But I digress.

The story is about a man who lived in a small house with his wife and several children. He felt paralyzed and overcrowded by his circumstances and finally went to the Rabbi for advice. The Rabbi told him to go home and bring a farm animal into the house. A week goes by and the man returns to the Rabbi, saying he feels even more cramped now. The rabbi tells him to add yet another animal. This goes on and on for weeks with more and more animals loaded into the house. Eventually the Rabbi says to remove all of the animals from the house. Once they are out, the man is ecstatic. He feels like he has a whole new home and now sees his situation in a new light. He is appreciative for all he has. It could always be worse.

I’m sure the relevance of this story’s message to our current situation is not lost on you. So, in keeping with remembering that things could always be worse, I have tried to write an honest letter to my future self, post corona apocalypse. So I can remind myself of what I’ve learned and what I already have in my life. 

April 13, 2020

Dear Post Corona Gwen,

Well, you did it! And you look AMAZING. I’m so glad you decided to start doing online dance classes, and running. Or at least running to online dance classes.

I wonder what it’s like on the other side. I wonder what you’re like on the other side. I would imagine, knowing you the way I do, that you haven’t changed all that much. I think you will appreciate your friends and family a bit more. You might shop a little less (Just a little though. Don’t forget about that super cute Juliet Dunn dress in your Matches shopping bag.)

But the one thing I’d like you to reflect on, is your perspective on having it all. I know it’s something you think about a lot. And everyone has a different definition of what ‘having it all’ means. To you it’s about balancing a successful full time job and the time you spend with your family and friends. But on top of that you look for praise and acknowledgement that you also somehow find time to cook (sometimes), entertain, manage schedules, work out regularly, have a side hustle and still keep up with ALL the Netflix and even some of the books and podcasts too.

I have no doubt that you will still want all of that now as life returns to normal. But, instead of always rushing to the office for an important meeting, remember it often works just as well to do it from home. And if that makes things easier for you, don’t sweat it. Because if you hadn’t been at home all those months, you might not know that Otis really needs to practice his cello. And that he’s an amazing football/soccer goalie! Not to mention, you’re actually pretty good at football yourself, even in jeans. Chic.

And Izzy is so confident and natural on his skateboard. So next time he asks to ride it to school, just cool your jets and let him, instead of stressing out about it making you late. Remember that having it all, isn’t just about you. To have it all, is for you to have a happy family. And when you’re stressed or putting too much pressure on yourself, they feel that.

Having it all is also not just a list of things to check off. Spending time with your family is more than being in the same place at the same time. You have so many friends that live all over the world. A lot of whom it’s taken a pandemic to reconnect with. Don’t just talk about your friends. Talk to them.

And Adam. I know his chewing is super loud and annoying. We’ll never truly understand what goes on inside of there.  But yes, I think at some point in the last ten years he had a mini megaphone installed in his mouth just to irritate you. That said, remember that you never felt closer than when you were forced to spend every single second of the day together in unprecedented circumstances. It was no longer a competition over who had done more or who hadn’t done enough. You just shared the load and got on with things. Appreciating each other. Except that time when you cleaned all the toilets in your house of three pee and poop stain blind boys. You keep that one in your back pocket for a rainy day. 

You loved having every meal together as a family. And Higgins loved it the most. That dog eats so much more when he’s not starving himself with separation anxiety.

Anyway, you get the idea. I really hope you continue some of the thing you were forced into, now as life adjusts back to normal. That you remember what you’ve learned about yourself and what you’ve learned to appreciate. But, Gwen, if you remember one thing, please let it be this. Pandemic or no pandemic, drinking alcohol and eating carbs every day makes your face fat. Knock it off.

Love Always,

Corona Gwen

P.S. I almost forgot. When you’re hormonal, maybe take a break from the old Insta. It doesn’t matter what anybody else is achieving (or saying they’re achieving). You’re doing great and I love you. And maybe that is having it all!

[beingheldby-you]

one million invisible lines

He’s eleven.

His uniform is pristine, his nails are clean, and his head full of hair curls upon itself, sticking to him like an unwelcome shadow.

He’s been enrolled in four schools in three different countries by the time he’s in Year 7 but this time, this time, Harry Styles is promised will be the last.

He doesn’t believe it.

Because both his parents are in love with a thrill. The thrill of discovering an idea and starting over. The thrill of building a company from scratch and then selling it and moving on to the next idea, the next country, the next market, the next big thing.

He can’t complain, really. He’s a byproduct of two wanderers who made their fortune by constantly starting over. The incessant stop and start’s have given him a sense of independence. It drilled into him a long form of adaptability. A passion for adventure. A burning desire to paint the sky whatever colour he feels like, whenever he feels like.

But the insurmountable need to regularly start over does eventually exhaust the psyche. He develops what his therapist calls “abandonment issues,” mourning his own exit every time his parents pack them up to the next big venture. It’s not classically the leave-ee who bemoans the separation, but there he is, at the age of eleven, sure that he will never find a place to call home.

But this time is different, they promise.

“This time we’re building something that’s just ours.”

He smiles and nods and doesn’t protest as he waves goodbye to his parents at a six digit per term tuition fee preparatory boarding school.

Alone in his room, he listens to the silence he’s left in.

He never wishes for friends when he starts a new term in a new school. Not since he’s learned that it only serves to make things more difficult when the inevitable happens. But he gets one anyway, in a form of a roommate; a boy with warm brown eyes and untamed hair not unlike his.

Like the sullen quiet of fog in winter, Liam stares at him as if waiting for permission.

He shrugs after a long minute, as though saying to himself that this new specimen will just have to do.

During their first day of classes, Liam points of the kids who are school royalty, because all schools have hierarchies, and the ones who rumour has it are actual royalty.

“The inbreeding makes it particularly easy to spot them,” he says. Harry laughs at his new companion’s subtle sarcasm, soft like the skin above the collarbone. Jagged but beautiful, like stained glass.

They go to their classes and read in their room. Occasionally Harry climbs to the roof and just lays in the meek England sun, counting the new ground secrets he’s discovered.

They will eventually prove useful; he knows it deep in his bones.

Life in conservative schooling establishments goes by in a blur, as they always do. But Harry notices him his first week, during breakfast, surrounded by a mish mash trio who all carry themselves with a same quiet grace.

His bright eyes and sheepish smile doesn’t reveal anything about him at all, and neither does the silent tempest in the eyes of those he surrounds himself with.

There’s something inexplicable about the boy.

They’re the old money people, Liam tells him. Coming from a long line of aristocrats and nobles who practically shit gold. And it’s perhaps the most accurate way to describe him since he’s the son of an oil tycoon; the new gold.

They get partnered during English by some odd coincidence and he learns that the boy with skin golden like the sun is all bravado and bullshit while Harry is all adrift and aerial, head in the clouds and barely present.

It's a cosmically fated connection; both different but just the same enough. Armed with a desperate frustrated attempt to prove themselves smart, whole periods of English became dedicated in debating Twain and Homer.

Zayn likes being the most obscure guy at the party, Harry realises, dropping random bits of dubious facts from books and passages that aren’t even part of the syllabus.

Their conversation soon shift to an array of subjects; from the latest Batman movies to whether or not they are in actual fact facing the possibility of an apocalypse. Zayn Malik, as Harry he learns with each passing English period, is as inexplicable as he is bizarre. Full of snark when you’re not looking and smoothed over by just enough charm when you are.

He never seems to take anything seriously either, each assignment and coursework an opportunity to prove just how smart he is.

As the year moves along, they rack up a number of detentions each, one upping each other with juvenile pranks. For their finals, he dares Harry to insert as many sex puns as possible into his verbal presentation on Shakespeare.

Harry takes him up on that in a gusto.

He’s not even sure if any of his puns and innuendo really mean anything to anyone at that point, but the entire class sits in their silent astonishment when he’s done.

And then, the one known as Louis laughs so hard he falls right out of his chair.

The substitute teacher, twitchy and crimson-faced, dismisses the class in a hurry before the period is even over and Harry moves towards the door with a triumphant glow on his face, while Zayn is waiting on his friends who are waiting on Louis, still laughing.

Harry could spot that recognisable smirk on his lips and amusement in his eyes from a mile away.

He walks out of that final English class sure that he would have to move to another school the coming year. Purely because it’s what he does; he leaves.

And he shuts off the world a little more everytime he does.

But at eleven, Harry Styles is realising that when you leave someone, they can leave you even more.

He’s twelve.

His parents keep their promise and he settles hesitantly into life in a preparatory boarding school.

The entire thing starts feeling weirdly normal. He sits with Liam for breakfast while he absent-mindedly seeks out the boy with hurricane eyes and the madman mind.

He watches as his part-time friend walk to his classes with those with whom he grew up with.

But Harry gets allocated a course alone with someone else in their little closed foursome.

They all have most of the same classes together really, but it’s foreign language and an elective and they’ve both apparently decided on French.

He raises a brow when Addison sits herself down next to him.

With a shrug she tells him that Zayn took the option to drop foreign language as he’s already multilingual, Louis chose German to impress his new neighbour Ada back at home, and Poppy followed suit because she’s spent pretty much all her summers in Berlin anyway and just wants an easy mark.

Harry chuckles.

“Liam’s taking German too,” he offers, “Because he loves everything automobile and he wants to possibly work with engines in the future and there really isn’t much that beats some fine German engineering.”

Addison arches a perfect brow at his spiel, “That’s forward planning right there.”

She takes out her textbooks as he watches, twelve kinds of awed at the ease and confidence of which she embodies.

She’s charm and chaos rolled into a minute frame.

And to be quite frank, Harry never quite had a clear read on Addison.

She’s old money too, according to Liam, as though it’s supposed to mean something.

But all he knows about is that she’s far too loud for someone so tiny, and that there’s a glimmer in her eyes that told tales of her crazy despite every attempt to appear like someone who is condescendingly rich and bored and blue blooded.

He can see in the way that she walks and talks; she has absolutely no desire to be prim and proper, and fit into the crusty upper class mould of London high society.

But a lifetime of hard conditioning of tradition and rules of propriety is hard to undo.

Harry’s sure it had taken her years to fully embody the face of pure disinterest, always unimpressed and not quite an open book. And she’s mastered perfectly the art of laughing in silence too.

“Just a matter of biting your lip and constricting your chest,” she says.

“You'll find it useful someday, trust me."

And he can’t understand it; why wouldn’t you laugh out loud if you wanted to?

“It’s the difference between us and them,” Liam tells him as they have their midnight talks when they both can’t sleep.

He doesn’t often think about that divide though; new money and old money. It makes him want to put his head through the nearest wall. But he wouldn’t do that, not when he’s deciding to grow his hair out.

So he just doesn’t dwell on it.

Harry debates Chaucer with Zayn in the library on Wednesdays, staying too late and talking too loud, and hangs out with Addison twice a week, partnering up for their scheduled class, absorbing orthology and memorising phonology.

And when they’re meant to be correcting each other’s grammar, she spells out profanities in every language known to man, face deadpan and devoid of emotion when he catches her doing it.

She’s smarter than she lets on, that he knows for a fact.

So he just crosses out the profanities and laughs.

It’s something, Harry thinks to himself, the settling in curb is not as steep as people make it out to be.

He’s thirteen.

He’s outgrown preparatory school and enters Wellesley College.

Except this time he’s not the one leaving, almost the entire school comes with him.

And by some stroke of coincidence or perhaps a divine joke, he gets roomed with a scholarship student.

He’s glad for it because it’s not him this time.

There are new faces and he’s now an old face; no longer invisible and no longer imposing. He sits with Liam, Louis, and Zayn for breakfast, Dee doodles more curse words into his homework during independent study periods, and Poppy giggles herself silly at his shitty jokes during dinner.

Harry, for all his bold self-made promises of not making permanent connections, begins to just sort of... fit into all of their lives.

Like they’ve been waiting for him this entire time.

His fists, writhed white from clenching so hard pushing the world away, start to relax.

And it shows.

He assures Niall that they don’t bite, that they’ve just all known each other longer.

Assures the Irish lad that that outside feeling goes away; because you eventually build your own inside jokes, your own personal relationships over time.

Like the way Addison’s become a permanent resident in their room, calling Niall all kinds of pop cultural blonde nicknames, listening to his Kings of Leon albums, and very occasionally condescendingly hover over them while they attempt to make a dent at their respective courseworks.

Like the way Zayn starts calling him Haz and it catches on.

And the way Zayn starts calling Addison Dee and it catches on too.

But he speaks her name differently.

He can’t really explain it, but it’s softer. Gentler. As though his tongue whispers her name like a prayer and his hands long cradle drops of her like water in the shower.

He asks him about it after they successfully steal the Provost’s confiscated whiskey stash.

(It involved, in no particular order:

A fork, two stolen pairs of shoes, three really good hair ties, and a willing Liam and Louis who are bribed into their silent roles by the promise of a share in the spoils.)

“I dunno, really,” Zayn says.

The two of them sit on the ground and drink until they can’t see straight, lying flat on the ground and looking at the stars, whiskey draining into their blood and across their veins.

He starts mumbling off about how everything wouldn’t matter one day anyway, because they’d be long gone; their footprints won’t perpetually stain the tiles of Wellesley hallways no matter how hard they try, and the names they’ve given each other won’t be written down into history books.

“It all just doesn’t matter,” he says.

And it’s like Harry’s been sitting at the bottom of a swimming pool all his life.

The world, as he knows it, full of clouded water.

And he’s just now breaking the surface into a new dimension of living. He almost hopes that Zayn’s words will swallow him whole. He wants to be swallowed whole and spat out something new.

Harry doesn’t know what it all means though, but in that moment, he swears that he could live off that feeling forever; alcohol running through his veins and best mate by his side, drunkedly contemplating mortality.

It’s as though someone had just tapped him on the shoulder and sucker punched him in the face.

And he’s not quite sure what his life is anymore.

He’s fourteen.

He’s grown three inches over summer and his hair is long enough to cover his ears now. He feels like his heart has grown three sizes bigger too and he’s sitting at the edge of the window that he’s managed to wedge open on the highest floor of the library.

Everything looks so small, even though he’s the one who’s young and uncomprehending.

He looks at their little study group; Niall with his attempts to make sense of Louis’ work, Liam explaining something or another to Poppy, and Dee and Zayn just sort of bickering and laughing into their hands about nothing at all.

Zayn somehow always comes out of their study group a little worse for wear, coursework not quite done and eyes a little too glazed over, as though he’s been staring at the sun too long.

And it’s all just... normal.

They’ve all kind of just jumped right into it, finding a surrogate family with one another with their real families on the sidelines kind of a little bit like, as Zayn calls it, “a pile of flaming horse shit.”

Money, as nice as it is to have, doesn’t really do much to protect or shield them from anything.

Harry closes his eyes, soaking in the sun’s feeble rays and feeling the soft hush of the greeneries.

“You’re going to get us expelled,” Niall complains, rolling his eyes.

“Life isn’t all about the rules, Horan.”

“Except physics is and gravity is real even if you don’t believe in it,” Dee comments lazily, eyes not leaving the book she’s reading.

“Addison Fitzgerald, is that concern in your voice?”

Harry climbs off the window opening and pulls out the chair next to her a little too hard on purpose, scraping it’s legs against the floor.

She doesn’t so much as flinch.

“I’m just not interested in looking after Zayn at your funeral,” she tears her eyes away from the passage she’s engrossed in, “But I’m sure you'll leave a sizeable enough inheritance for your poor widow to not be all that distraught.”

She shoots her patented wry smile his way.

“A bloke can only wish,” Zayn quips dreamily, expression frozen in an exaggerated seriousness.

Harry laughs, but a feeling he doesn’t quite recognise blooms through his chest.

He’s fifteen.

He has a lower voice now and his limbs have grown some more. Which help, considering that they’re running as fast as their legs can carry them.

They stop to catch their breath, both boys laughing raucously.

He sees Zayn’s outline, shaking in a combination of nerves, fatigue, and laughter. It’s a sight that could start wars and burn whole cities to the ground, he thinks.

“D’you think it’ll work?”

Zayn’s voice anchors him to the present.

“Don’t see how it won’t,” Harry says.

It’s the annual school ball, frumpy soirees with little to look forward to apart from silly dresses and frivolous tuxedos. And it’s about to get a lot more interesting. Not pig’s blood and false nominations interesting obviously. But what they've done is beyond petty meanness.

They’ve set up a mini explosive to ensure plausible deniability thanks to Liam’s expertise, which would burn down a line of gunpowder courtesy of Niall’s chemistry wits, leading to copious amounts of firecrackers obtained by Louis’ wily charms.

Basking in their genius, Harry sits himself on an upturned bucket, waiting on the rest of their group to return from their tasks.

He and Zayn had just broken into the Provost’s office and shifted some paper around, to throw him off, diverting the suspicion of what they were actually planning.

The watch that sits on his wrist says it’s three seventeen when Niall and Poppy emerge at the rendezvous point, triumphant and positively buzzing with adrenaline.

Liam and Louis return shortly after, Dee conspicuously missing.

“McKinney was... out late,” Louis chokes out as he takes a puff of a cigarette he barely manages to light referring to the newly hired discipline master.

Realisation dawns on them as Niall asks what they were all thinking.

“Where’s Dee?”

“We got separated,” Liam says.

“She’s not back yet?”

Concern etches across all their faces simultaneously.

Harry doesn’t worry though; he’s seen her feign contrition to appease many a time. If there’s anyone who could talk herself out of being found with firecrackers and gunpowder on school grounds, it’d be her surely.

But Zayn is not as convinced, pacing up and down, face so pale that white doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Even in the dark, they could see it.

They could all see it.

“If something’s happened with the firecrackers or the gunpowder—”

“We’d have heard it,” Niall cuts him off simply.

There’s logic to his words after all, gunpowder and fireworks are barely inconspicuous things.

“She’s fine,” he says, repeating it over and over again, as though a magical talisman.

After another fifteen minutes of their hairs all standing on end, fidgety and jumpy, Louis suggests that they all go to bed, “If she’s been caught, she’d be sent back to her room, yeah?”

But Zayn is beyond sleep.

“We agreed to meet back here, I’m not leaving ‘til she gets back.”

His voice is raspier than that time he drank an entire bottle of absinthe because Liam says it would kill him.

Everyone stays. Poppy falls asleep on Louis' shoulder, Liam smokes enough cigarettes to tranquilise a horse, and Niall paces around aimlessly and uncomfortably, his first official foray with mayhem. Scholarship students are, after all, not afforded the same rule bending luxury the same way the other students are.

Zayn’s paranoia covers them like a blanket, thick and suffocating. Every sigh and glance at his watch stretches the tension in the room even more, as though waiting for an inevitable implosion.

She appears an hour later and he glows like a lightbulb.

He all but runs into her and envelopes her, burying his head into her neck.

Harry looks away, feeling the tiniest hint of annoyance at the sight, the oxygen that’s finally rushing back into his lungs from a breath he didn’t know he’s holding burns of something he doesn’t quite comprehend. It feels like something private, like he's intruding into something he’s not meant to see.

Niall apparently shares the same sentiment, finding his shoes interacting with the dirt on the ground of the cramped gardening shed suddenly very amusing.

The raw relief that visibly settles into Zayn’s bones spread to every corner of their little hideout.

But Harry’s heart thunders in his chest and he can’t see anything but the dark outline of their embrace.

He is too undone and too put-together to do anything but retreat, standing up in a flummox and tripping on the edge of something or another.

A watering can? A shovel?

The loud clanging startles everyone and the pair jump apart.

“Haz?”

Zayn’s voice comes out softly, a small push, restrained, tinged with worry and concern.

He shakes his head, running his hands through his hair because he’s about to fucking explode.

“Let’s get out of here before we all get into even more trouble for four o'clock in the morning,” he says nervously, hiding the inexplicable anxiety with a nervous laugh.

It’s abrupt, and it’s sudden. His hands clench avariciously at the bits of madness that has seeped into his consciousness.

But he walks out of the gardener’s shed and he doesn’t turn back.

He’s sixteen.

And it occurs to Harry that he is very much in trouble.

His eyes are heavy from the champers, flickering tiredly to the boy across from him on the balcony.

Zayn’s voice hoarse and gravelly from the tobacco.

“I’m so fuckin’ in love with her.”

Trouble, indeed.

“Then ask her out again.”

Harry’s voice has gotten lower too, but it has nothing to do with the cigarettes. Or even the copious amounts of champagne he’s had through the course of the night.

“What, just like that?”

Harry shrugs, unsure of how Zayn can be sort of seeing one of their best friends one moment, and then just as suddenly as it began, not really sure what happened to it the next.

“It’s really not that difficult.”

And besides, if you don’t then Niall might, he thinks.

But he doesn’t say it out loud.

They continue smoking their cigarettes; Harry not elaborating and Zayn unquestioning.

He mind cooks up half a dozen ways for his best mates to sort out their relationship status, or more accurately, their current lack thereof of one. But he reins himself in before his limbs moves them towards inevitable storm.

It’s not going to be one of those nights, he thinks to himself.

Especially not after Dee’s very colourful threats still ring clearly in his mind from the last time he meddled, “Lock me in a closet again and I will slice your knees off and feed you the stew I’ll make of your bone and cartilage.”

Harry doesn’t even laugh. Because he knows if anyone can get away with slicing his knees off, it’d be her. And Zayn wouldn’t even do anything about it.

Heck, he’d probably even slice his own knees off and place them in a pot for her if it’d save her the trouble of doing it herself.

A stab of something punches him in the gut.

He remembers Liam telling him that it’s complicated.

“Just don’t stick your head in it again,” he says.

But it’s not complicated, not really. Harry knows complicated, as a matter of fact, he’s good with complicated.

Complicated is when your parents barely see each other because they’re so busy chasing a dream. Complicated is when their guilt is so strong that they throw mounds of money at you and let you run off with your friends for summer vacation. Complicated is when your sister, freshly graduated, aspires to build an app that’ll become the next big thing to prove herself worthy of said absentee parents’ time and affection.

Wanting or not wanting to snog the living daylights out of someone while leaving all your friends completely in suspense is decidedly not complicated.

Dee’s head pokes out onto the balcony, as if on cue, Zayn's eyes are slightly droopy and mouth loosely grasping at an uncontainable smile.

“Lou is completely smashed, he’s about to cut right through the ice sculpture on the front yard.”

Zayn’s eyes light up, whether at the words or the bearer of those words is as good as anyone’s guess.

“How?”

“How do you think?” She giggles, her entire body swaying, brows arched as though that’s the most ridiculous inquiry ever.

“Dee, you are bloody brilliant,” Zayn drops his cigarette and stubs it out before dashing off with her.

Harry catches his own reflection on the sliding glass doors and decides he might just need another cigarette before he rejoins his friends and the rest of the civilisation inside. Those who just stood around, glasses in their hands, alcohol in their system, basking in their wealth, and physical belongings.

They comment on the tapestries, and expensive china, and pristine furniture. As though an un-lived in house is something to be boasted of.

He is so lost in his own thoughts that he isn’t even aware of someone opening the doors and stepping outside. It isn’t until he hears her heels clicking against the marbled floors that he realises he isn’t alone anymore.

“You came out here to escape too?”

Her wavy black hair blows a bit in the wind, making her tuck a few strands of it behind her ear.

Her movements are graceful and poised and he thinks she must be another one of the bored pin up princesses dragged to these do’s.

The silence sits between them, thick and deafening.

And so he whips out the cigarette box and pops another stick into his mouth before igniting his lighter, gazing at the flickering flame for a moment before touching it to the white tip, crumbling it to ash and burning it bright orange.

“You smoke.”

It’s not a question as much as it is a statement. And her voice, though laced with boredom, isn’t quite the tone he expects. Different from when he firsts makes her presence known, the one that’s refined and rich with a pleasantness that’s dipped in something golden.

She sounds a little more edged the second time around, more daring, as though she had seen something that had her comfortable enough to let loose.

“It would seem so, yeah,” he raises his head to blow out a cloud of smoke.

Not the best small talk, but he’s really not in the mood.

In one fluid movement, she takes the cigarette from his fingers with ease, raising it to her lips for a lengthy drag.

It shouldn’t surprise him really, in all his time in Wellesley, he’s seen Dee outdrink and outsmoke the boys in their form, himself included.

It’s always the most unexpected ones that holds the most surprises.

But her boldness does startle him, and he’s too stunned to do or say anything about this stranger adeptly stealing cigarettes from his fingers.

She blows a thin line of smoke before her gaze returns squarely onto his.

A challenge of sorts; I won’t tell if you don’t.

Her eyes are bright and suddenly they’re both laughing.

“Victoria,” she offers.

“Harry,” he responds.

She’s twenty. She’s a fashion student who’s dropped out of college, the youngest after four boys in her family. A rebel from birth, she says, always starting things before she knows how she’ll finish them, all gut feeling and instinct and a natural compulsion to just do things without a thought of consequence.

Victoria reminds him of someone. Someone he can’t quite place. Someone who he dreams of. Whose name and voice and manner is just at the tip of his tongue.

The cigarette burns out and they smoke another.

And another, and another, and another.

His resolve and self-preservation that tonight won’t be “one of those nights” breaks in half.

He catches himself staring at her.

And when she does too, she asks, unabashed, “And what do you think you’re staring at?”

“You,” he says simply.

She iridescent and lustrous, like a glowstick.

In one swiftly elegant move, she moves towards him again, fisting her hands in the front of his shirt

She tastes sweet, like honey and champagne. His hands grip her waistline, hauling her hips against his as he bites her lower lip.

A moan rips from the back of her throat and he whispers her name against her skin.

Harry knows that this is finally it, the infamous summer fling that Poppy talks about when she returned from her previous summer vacation, tanned from travel. He’s knows what it’s meant to mean and what happens. There are hookups and there are break ups and you just ebb and flow into it.

But he can’t help it.

He finds himself falling for girl with the dark hair and the luminous eyes.

“Come to Tuscany with me?” Harry asks, out of breath and still seeing stars.

“What, now?”

“Yeah.”

She nods her acceptance with a giggle and they take off then and there.

He texts Zayn to prove a point;

It’s really not that difficult.

He’s seventeen.

He stands upright and proud in a vintage suit that doesn't fit him quite perfect and he’s scared. Harry is more afraid he’s ever been, mostly because he can’t for the life of him understand how he’s ended up in a church with happy wedding bells ringing and rose petals on the ground to steal a bride.

Of all the absurdly ridiculous and vapid plans he’s executed in his life, this would probably rank highest.

But he can’t think of that. Not when he has a clear blueprint to follow;

Find the bride, steal the bride, ride off into the sunset.

He somehow manages to escape notice, blending in with the crowd before snaking into the back room.

Find the bride -- check.

She is a vision of perfection.

The sight of her triggers how her lips taste like honey and champagne that first night they met. How she giggles against his lips as his hands wander.

But now she’s dressed in white, in a little chapel off of London, ready to be wed.

They tell him to fuck it; screw the invitation, don’t put yourself through the pain of seeing your dream girl from that perfect summer. And definitely, definitely, do not help her become a runaway bride.

But Harry is a romantic, he always has been.

So when Zayn shows up at his room with a tux in hand, he succumbs.

They break about thirteen school rules getting out of Wellesley in the middle of a school day, and about twenty one traffic laws to get to the church just in the nick of time.

And seeing her, he realises that he needs this. She needs this.

Whether or not she chooses him, there has to be some kind of a conclusion. A resolution. One doesn’t spend a romantic month in Tuscany with someone just to marry someone else without so much as an explanation.

And so there he is.

The silence that sits between them is palpable; lingering and loud.

“You’re not supposed to be back here,” she finally says.

“You’re not supposed to run off with some bloke for the summer and then spend the year writing him emails to suddenly tell him you were engaged the entire time.”

The sight of her, doe eyed and clad in white, is the proverbial last straw cracking under the pressure. It shatters, something beautiful, collapsing the massive, heaping pile of bullshit he's kept in for the last couple of months.

“I sent you an invite because I can’t do this,” she blurts out.

Harry briefly wonders if it’ll still be considered stealing a bride if she walks out willingly with you, “You’ve been writing me in hopes of breaking your engagement?”

She laughs, devoid of any real humour.

“The term break an engagement implies that I’ve changed my mind at some point between saying yes and going out to the bachelorette party,” she declares, voice cold and jarred, moving around the room restless and anxious.

“I can’t do this,” she says impulsively, “I just can’t.”

Her eyes are brimming with tears about to spill over and it’s wrong, and sick, and so, so... wrong.

“Then don’t.”

He pleads so gently, he’s not sure if the words had really been breathed to life.

It is an odd feeling, Harry thinks, to be so sure of what he’s doing, “Come with me.”

She stares at him, wordless.

It’s the longest pause he’s ever lived through.

But then she kicks off her Jimmy Choo’s and they make a run for it.

Zayn is waiting just outside with the engine running, ready to go at a drop of a hat.

He drives off before the car doors are even shut proper and they ride into the sunset together, Zayn piloting their getaway vehicle.

Harry looks to the girl in next to him, and he cannot believe himself. He is about to sit for his A levels in a year and he has no clue what he’ll major in after or if he’ll even be accepted to college.

But he knows he wants her, that he wants this.

If it’s a choice between Victoria and her voice and hair and her smile and her laugh and her everything, or knowing the future, he’d pick her. Every time.

He wants to hear her talk and laugh and smile, more than he wants certainty.

And he can’t remember ever being happier.

He’s eighteen.

He has bigger problems than a bar brawl, yet there he is.

They’re faced with their A levels soon and the whole form is at the local watering hole that they often sneak out to, planning their graduating prank dubbed Project Vanity.

It happens too fast. But then again, doesn’t it always. One minute Harry’s in a conversation with Liam about colleges when out of the corner of his eye, he sees Niall throw his arm over Dee and he’s about to mention in passing that there might be something going on between Niall and Dee, when the next, he’s tapped on the shoulder and literally sucker punched.

He doesn’t even know how it happens, but Zayn is by his side quicker than anything he’s ever seen move.

As though it’s nothing more than a split second decision.

Harry turns to confront this assault head on, ready to defend himself or talk himself out of whatever mess he’s probably created to deserve it. But one look at the heaving chest and snarled lip and Harry just knows that he doesn’t have a good defense.

Or even any defense to speak of, really.

He stole a bride a year ago and now it’s time for penance. It’s fight or flight. And Harry has never been one to shy away from a challenge before, even if he’s not much of a fighter.

His jaw is still throbbing from that first punch hurled his way but his fingers unclench themselves and he’s ready to be beaten a bloody mess when a fist on his right swings.

It hits its mark with a terrifying angry crack.

The sound of flesh on flesh is the most satisfying thing he hears all day.

“Fuck,” Zayn sputters, shaking his hand out as every head in the dingy bar turns toward the scuffle.

And then all hell breaks loose; bottles are thrown, punches land, and bruises form.

Sweat and bone and bloody messes.

A particularly strong swing hits him square at the back of the head and he remembers nothing else. Only the steady throbbing ache reverberating through his skull and deep into every recess of his brain as he comes to with Zayn’s face looming into view, cut lip and all.

He’s nineteen.

And he’s lying on the couch, unmoving, in his pajamas.

Fresh out of school, he moves into the an apartment within walking distance if college. By some stroke of luck, he’s been accepted into London School of Economics.

No one is more surprised than him.

Harry suspects his dad may have a thing or two to do about it.

“We just don’t want you to make the same mistakes we did,” the older Mr Styles says.

“You need a degree to be taken seriously.”

He doesn’t complain.

Instead he lets his parents pay for tuition and rent and amenities. Victoria moves in and blogs from home. The housekeeper comes twice a week. They plan their weekends around what scenic backdrops they can head to for her to take her out pictures.

Life is good.

Until it’s not.

And he’s just there on his couch, wasting away.

There’s a sizeable amount that fills in the apartment; furniture, knick knacks from their travels, decor, food. But it just feels stripped somehow. Bare. Hollow. Like he’s lying in the middle of a home he doesn't recognise.

I’m sorry, she said, shaking her head. Her bags already packed and sitting just around the corner.

“I just... I can’t do this.”

The same words she had said when she ran out of that church with him.

The same words that left what’s unsaid lingering between them, eating away at his skull like the hum of pain that burrowed into his brain when the man she left at the altar socked him in the face.

It feels like a lifetime ago.

His phone rings.

And rings, and rings, and rings.

He looks at the caller ID and doesn’t pick up, content wallowing in self pity.

His front door swings open, and Harry doesn’t even bother to look.

“She left,” he chokes out.

In her absence, even his voice no longer feels his. And it feels wrong, unnatural, to even dare acknowledge her absence. It’s as though someone had ripped a hole right out of his heart.

“Jesus,” Zayn says, waltzing in without knocking.

“Fuck mate, have you even showered in the last two days?”

His best friend has about all the subtlety of a bus.

He doesn’t go to school for two weeks and his mates take turns checking up on him.

Niall, who is waist deep in a med degree on top of working two jobs to afford said med degree brings beer, Louis gives the housekeeper instructions to work around his designated wallow space for the day, Liam calls every other day from Germany to nag him about personal hygiene, Zayn practically moves in, and Poppy comes by with new lamps and drapes and sheets to rid him of everything she’s ever touched.

Even Dee flies back between classes to tell him to cut it the fuck out as she makes him omelets.

“At least they’re not made of your knees,” she says.

His head and heart and body feels too tired filling up the Victoria sized hole within to even smile.

Dimly, he thinks to himself that it’s a divorce of sorts. That Victoria should be getting at least half custody of their friends. Like the way Poppy had to alternate between Berlin and London from ages ten to eighteen, and the way Louis has double Christmases, and birthdays, and everything in between.

His friends are as much her friends by now, aren’t they?

After all, didn’t Niall, who’s living on campus in Imperial College, have a standing brunch date with Victoria where he helps her take those hashtag outfit of the day things?

And didn’t Louis use to pop by with those infernal films she used to like so much and spend entire mornings talking about old pictures?

He's sure that Poppy flew out with Victoria on at least three different fashion weeks, jabbering away about autumn colours and vintage resurgence.

Zayn’s even road tripped with her and Dee around France before he started reading law in Oxford, didn’t he?

Surely, they should be making up excuses as to why they won’t be round the apartment much and sneak out to see her at the coffee shop every now and then.

He confronts Zayn about it while he’s on the couch, Graham Norton reruns playing on the telly.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he says cracking open two beers and handing one over to Harry, “We’d pick you over anyone anytime.”

And it’s the first in fourteen days that he feels any closer to being whole again.

He’s twenty.

He’s taking a sabbatical from college.

Because, “Drop out of college and you can expect all your shares at Styles Enterprises rescinded.”

The threats sound petty and trivial, but Harry is sure that the older Styles is dead serious. A man doesn’t run a multi-billion pound tech corporation without the ability to make good on his threats.

And he’s sure he won’t survive based on his mother’s mercy alone.

So he’s just “taking a term off.”

He moves his life to Spain and spends whole days devoted to a neverending summer siesta. He has the local pizzeria’s number memorised and he has a standing reservation at the quaint little tapas and vino place around the corner of his hotel.

“Alright, it’s been long enough.”

The curtains are drawn open eight days into his little self-seeking vacation.

“If you’re going to grab life by the balls, Haz, at least do it right.”

Zayn’s voice floats into his head through the drunken afternoon nap fuzz, varying in volume and tone like a badly tuned radio.

He’s apparently taken the semester off too.

They’re not broken, Zayn insists, maybe a little beaten, but it’s nothing that a good few weeks of life on the Spanish roads can’t fix.

So they rent a car and drive from city to city. Reading badly translated city guides they get from tourist attractions and plotting out their journey on the fly with Harry navigating from the front seat, eating chips and asking if he’s even reading the damned map right, bitching about Zayn’s terrible taste in music with all that grimy dubstep bass and dirty R&B.

He looks at Zayn and he’s alight during those days and nights, a mixture of crumpled cotton shirts, honey hued skin, and hair humbly adrift.

Zayn doesn’t say it, but Harry knows that he knows that the sudden trip directly coincides with the anniversary of Victoria leaving. He misses her, he misses her like the desert misses the rain and on the exact one year mark to the day that she walked out of their apartment, he gets so drunk that he’s just lying on the floor of their hotel room, staring at the ceiling and slurring his words.

“I was so fucking stupid,” he says, over and over.

“How could I possibly think that someone who gives her word that she’ll marry you, and then bails, could ever keep a promise?”

He is completely and utterly sloshed and his chest feels like a black hole.

“It was all a mistake, wasn’t it?” Harry slurs, beer spilling all over the carpet.

The room is spinning and his head is throbbing and he wasn’t to just power down and hibernate into the next century.

Zayn’s voice cuts through the clutter though, unforgiving and devoid of pity.

“No, it wasn’t.”

His best friend’s face is contorted into an expression he doesn’t recognise, “You loved her, that was real. And you still do, that’s still real.”

He goes on as-a-matter-of-factly, “People just leave sometimes, it’s just.. a thing that happens.”

Harry looks at his best mate, blurry and drunk. So, so drunk. Between the scent of tobacco and the misty haze of its smoke, he sees his best mate’s face and he thinks to himself that it’s the most glorious sight in the world.

He wants to reach out and examine his best friend in deep detail, touch him like a child greedily poring over a treasure map.

But his head pounds, his vision is sliding, and then he’s asleep; the world around him forgotten.

He wakes up with his head pounding and Poppy’s voice on speaker, “Dee’s dying.”

The dying person in question protests from the background, her voice cracking through the phone line like a whip, “FOR FUCK’S SAKE POPPY.”

“She’s in denial.”

Zayn doesn't even say a word and Harry, in his hungover daze, books two flights out to Paris from his phone as the two of them bicker on the line.

He wonders momentarily what it’s like to be loved so surely and confidently by him.

He wants to rip into Zayn’s chest and take his heart between his teeth to devour piece by piece, until there’s nothing left. He thinks that maybe, just maybe, that way he can have him to himself.

It’s a peptic ulcer, the doctor says, brought on by internalised stress.

“She’s got the stomach lining of a 60-year-old air traffic controller,” the man with the white coat chuckles.

Zayn is pale as a sheet as he refrains from throwing the doctor against the wall, “She’s an art history student in Sorbonne, what could she possibly got to be— You know what, I don’t even care. Just, for fuck’s sake—”

It takes both Harry and Poppy to drag him out for a smoke, the smartest course of action really, before Zayn punches out the men of the French private healthcare industry.

He calms down after exactly three cigarettes and the nurses let them into her room.

She’s resting, they say. But the doctors and the nurses know better than to use the words “visiting hours” with Zayn in the room.

They see it in his eyes that those words just don’t apply here.

He imagines them shaking their heads with a small smile curved on their lips.

“Ahh. Young love,” he pictures them saying.

Zayn falls asleep on the uncomfortable bedside chair, head lulling over awkwardly.

With a less than graceful yawn and eyes rimmed red, Poppy leaves and promises she’ll bring breakfast for them the next morning. A couple of croissants, some macaroons for them maybe, and coffee, she promises.

“Don’t bother with the cafeteria rubbish,” she says, “It’s absolute shite.”

Harry assumes that with Louis' obvious absence that the on-again-off-again pair are on an off stage in their relationship again. So he doesn't say anything.

He does wonder though if it's worst to feel like you've lost something you had or to never have had it at all while he kicks his heels up to make himself comfortable for the night. Or as comfortable as he can anyway, with his long limbs and overgrown hair smelling of travel sticking to his face in the single seater.

Moonlight is filtering in through the open window and the whole world is quiet, holding its breath.

Harry looks at his best mate snoozing in his combined fatigue of travel and worry, and his heart suddenly feels eleven times too big for his ribs. Perhaps the worst part about losing someone is if you never even had them to begin with, he thinks.

It’s almost sunrise when a voice distracts him from huffing and puffing, tossing and turning restlessly in the chair that just isn’t meant to be slept in.

“Your shit’s a mess, Styles.”

He lets go of a breath he didn’t know he’s holding in, shaking his leg that’s fallen asleep, “Says the one who’s hospitalised dealing with an art history degree.”

She rolls her eyes, “At least I’ve never missed a haircut appointment, seriously, can you even call that thing on your head, hair?”

“Nice to see you feeling better enough to nitpick at my appearance,” Harry chuckles softly, moving his chair closer to the bed, “Poppy says she came to see you because you’ve been awfully quiet lately.”

“It’s just,” she starts before her eyes shift, taking in his entire appearance, “Alright, seriously what is going on with that hair, and when did you stop buttoning your shirts, you look bloody ridiculous.”

“I cut my summer siesta short to see you,” Harry counters, indignantly.

“I’m sure it’s Zayn cut your trip short to see me, he worries too damned much.”

Desperate to avoid further teasing from the brunette about his life and his hair and his choice of clothing, he steers the conversation elsewhere, “So you do know your effect on him.”

She refuses to meet his gaze.

“Think you’ll ever give him another chance?” Harry presses on.

No one really knew what happened between the pair, just that they sort of were.

Until they weren’t.

“I dunno,” Dee shrugs meekly, “Think you’ll ever quit pining over Victoria and finish your degree?”

Harry grins, even from a hospital bed with a belly full of blood, she’s still sassing him. He mimics her simplistic reply mere moments ago, “I dunno.”

Zayn shifts in his sleep and Harry wonders if he should cough loudly enough to startle him awake and make an excuse to leave.

“What’s it like?”

Dee’s voice breaks through his reverie.

He looks at her, all weak and washed out against the light blue of the hospital gown, her hair splayed across the pillow a stark contrast against the pale of her neck.

“What’s what like?”

“Loving someone for so long.”

She looks exactly like an art history major for once, quietly contemplative, almost as white as a blank canvas and spilling life all over.

Harry reflects on what she’s asking for a moment, eyes landing on the snoozing Zayn before them even though he knows she’s talking about Victoria.

The words come instinctively.

“Like you know them better than you know yourself.”

He’s twenty-one.

He drops out of college and sells everything he owns right down to the designer suits and shoes and ties.

He snaps a picture of the emptied out penthouse that his parents have been paying for, and sends it to them with a note;

Off to make my own way.

Love, Harry.

It’s hard to leave, but even more difficult to stay.

London held too many memories. And it held him back from all the things he wants to do, and see, and experience. His parents lit a fire in him in his youth and the fire, rekindled by the weeks on the road with Zayn, burned too strong to ignore.

So he leaves London on a tide of careful planning and pure brute force of will.

The new place he moves into, in sunny Los Angeles, is completely and utterly a dump.

Harry takes one look at the unpolished floorboards and the old walls, the mould on the tiles in the bathroom and the threadbare couch in the centre of the living room, and he signs the lease.

The wallpaper is peeling itself off the walls, he has absolutely zero furniture apart from the couch that also doubles as a pull out bed, and not all the taps work.

But there’s two bedrooms, a lockable front door, and a piece of paper that says that it’s all legally his.

He loves it.

He builds his first million from that dingy apartment.

And even though Niall's the one who's in the same country code as he is, Zayn and Dee are hte ones who are over with two bottles of champagne within twenty-four hours of him texting the group chat; one to spray him down with and another to drink.

They hit town that night, drinking far too much, running into trouble like flies to honey. And he can't help but think, he's killing it at this adulting thing.

He’s twenty-two.

He’s back in London temporarily because Dee had called and promised to track him down in the city of angels and swing a baseball bat at his head so hard that it’ll be delivered to Zayn as a graduation present.

“It’s also his birthday, in case you’ve forgotten.”

So he buys the first flight out to London and takes a taxi straight to Dee’s address.

The first thing Harry notices is a scent; an utter Zayn-ness lingering in the air.

It’s early, the sun barely has time to get warm, and he isn’t quite up yet. It disconcerts him, that whiff of Zayn. It takes him back to the days where he would lie in his best mate’s bed, back in Wellesley. And hours long road trips in the windy roads of Spain and Portugal.

“It smells like Zayn in here,” he announces, without so much as thought of what the words would sound like out of his mouth.

Dee laughs.

Evidently, it sounds ridiculous.

But recognising the scent is instinctual, like breathing.

And he finds it ironic that becoming so familiar with someone that you can smell them in a room makes them feel like more of a stranger than anything.

“So threats are the only way I can get you home then?” Dee crosses her arms sardonically staring him down from across the room.

But there is a tinkle of delight in her voice that Harry recognises.

And she’s also biting her lip the way she used to when concealing a laugh.

A gust of wind blows in from the balcony and the thrill, that dizzying pull of one Zayn Malik runs through his veins like electricity, igniting them right to their ends.

Before he knows it, he is enveloped in the familiar combined scent of tobacco and lemon and bergamot.

A warmth floods through him.

Must be the sun, he thinks, from the now open balcony.

“You fuckin’ idiot.”

His grin is better than any drug Harry’s ever experienced.

Harry chuckles appreciatively, casually grabbing a slice of uneaten toast from the Dee’s plate and taking a hefty bite.

Zayn starts talking about his post graduation plans, joining his father’s company and working his way from the bottom up.

“I mean, Liam’s working with his dad and they’re making a pretty good run of it, I figure I’ll do alright.”

He keeps talking and Harry’s mind, half awake from the ten hour flight and lack of caffeine can still absorb the continued deep timbre of his voice as he starts excitedly babbling about how it’ll be the first time they’re all in the same place at the same time.

There’s a new lightness to Zayn and Harry’s not quite sure what it is.

He’s going on about how Poppy and Louis have finally gotten their act together and moved in to their own place when Harry completely loses track of his words. Zayn reaches out to grab a mug from the top shelf, moving around comfortably in the kitchen that isn’t his, and Harry’s mind can suddenly register nothing else. He is distracted by Zayn’s movements; swift and seamless.

The way he easily pours a steaming brew into the mug, scoops two sugar teaspoons of sugar into it, dribbles in some milk before giving the concoction a quick swirl has him enraptured.

He extends the mug out to him and Harry’s gaze snaps from Zayn’s hands to his face.

“What?” Zayn looks down at the mug in his hands. “Did I get it wrong?”

“No.”

"So?” Zayn questions with an expression of easy nonchalance.

Harry isn't sure himself, but his stomach is clenching uncomfortably and he doesn't think it's from the long haul flight.

“You and Dee normally have tea,” his mind is apparently just making words up as he goes.

“There isn't any caffeine in tea though is there?” Zayn points out with a chuckle, “And you’re quite the grouch in the mornings.”

He slides the cup over.

Harry takes a gulp; the coffee burns as it fills his mouth and slips down his throat, but the sensation is better than the alternative.

“I got almost everyone home and a reservation at Hibiscus tonight,” Dee stands up, announcing to no one in particular, “Please wear something that’s buttoned up all the way?”

The latter statement is aimed at him, disarmingly sincere.

“And try not to burn down my house while I’m out, will you?” Dee looks at Zayn accusingly after chucking her plate into the sink.

“First of all, it was your candle,” Zayn huffs, an inside joke he isn’t in on, “Second of all, the house is still very much intact, innit?”

She shakes her head, small smile playing on her lips.

And that’s when it happens.

Zayn leans forward and catches her lips with his own. Casually. Comfortably. As though it’s a daily occurrence between them.

Harry barely registers her kissing him on the cheek and walking out after that.

More than any heartbreak, Harry realises, is when you didn't even know there was something to break.

And everyone seems to be moving forward so rapidly; Poppy and Louis, Dee and Zayn, Liam, and even Niall who they barely see anymore because the bastard has the audacity to study medicine while knowing his own health decline, because, "a sick doctor? Come on, it'll be a fuckin' riot."

They all seem to be working towards something substantial in their life. Whether it’s moving in with your on-again-off-again partner or finally labelling your relationship status or fitting into the shoes you’ve been groomed for your entire life, they were all traveling in the same orbit.

Change, Harry thinks, is always bittersweet. A scary monster that hides beneath his bed that he's learned to battle since the age of four, that first big terrifying leap into the unknown guided by nothing but the certainty in his parents hand.

And he’s happy for his mates, really, in all their certainty.

There’s just this bitter taste in his mouth he can’t explain.

He’s twenty-three.

And by now, he’s had one too many broken bones to not instantly recognise pain when he sees it.

Harry knows deep cuts from scrapes, however hidden they are by blood. He knows how bruises hurt and age and heal. And he understands intimately the look of pure stoicism in the face of pain.

So when he sees her, he knows she’s hurting.

He’s at a wedding out in Napa Valley and she’s just by the bar, the wine glass in her hand never too lonely for too long.

He instinctively just meanders towards the girl who looked as lost as he is.

“Let me guess, you want to buy me a drink from the free open bar.”

Her accent American, her voice bored, and her expression unamused.

“I was going to go with the ‘make me the third happiest person in the room’ route, but that works too,” Harry counters before taking a seat next to the one exchanging the proverbial blood bleeding out through her chest with gushing red wine in her hand.

“You’re Harry Styles,” her voice perks up.

“Excuse me?”

He’s more than a little taken aback; he hardly calls himself a recluse on the long list of millionaire start up owners, but he ever really considered the fact that his face and name might be common knowledge.

“You’re the heir to Styles Enterprises,” she goes on, as though reciting from a list she’s memorised, “You stuck it to your old man by starting up your own company five thousand miles away and you refused his buyout even when your four most expensive start up acquisitions failed. You’re kind of legendary in the industry,” she raises the glass to her lips once more with an eyebrow raised.

He’s more amused by it than anything.

“And what industry is that?”

“Tech journalism,” she lifts her chin at the words, pride evident on her face, “My name’s Beth Matthews.”

“Is that how you met and fell in love with the groom, Beth?”

It catches her by surprise. She’s blinking rapidly at his words, as though wondering if she misheard him somehow, “What are you—”

“Call it an instinct,” he shrugs.

He tells the barkeep that he'll have what the lady is having and plants himself firmly by her side for the rest of the night.

It's a familiarity, he decides. Their connection is one of two damanged people who sought for a home in others without having the blame of being the one who did the breaking.

Harry Styles didn’t unwittingly fall in love with Beth Matthews, he jumped; head first, eyes closed and trying not to think of it too much.

In hindsight, he should have really seen it coming; she does, after all, have the dark hair and eyes to match.

He hates to admit it, but he does have a type. And one moment she’s reluctantly laughing at his jokes by the open bar at the garden party of a wedding reception, and the next she’s whispering secrets to him at 2am from the bathroom they’ve locked themselves in.

He can’t for the life of him remember how they had acquired exactly thirteen thousand inside jokes over a few hours and too many glasses of wine, but all of them made him laugh and they’re snuggled next to each other with every crook and cranny of their bodies fitting perfectly.

Beth’s hair, which held scent traces of a lemon-y shampoo and the cigarettes she’s been smoking all night, reminds him of both home and the open road.

It’s quickly becoming apparent, even in his alcohol hazed mind, that he’s liking this girl a great deal more than he had intended to. It’s evolving into more than what he had hoped for; a few drinks, a straightforward shag, and a number on a napkin that will never be used.

But it isn’t until he finds himself staring at that the way her brow furrows before she sneezes that he realises that he’s a goner.

Hoping to impress her, he recounts the exaggerated tales of how he aided and abetted in multiple runaway brides in Vegas while attending a bachelor’s party.

“If you want, I can totally steal the bride and keep her distracted while you go for the groom,” he jokes.

An inexplicable sadness returns to her eyes.

A distraction; that’s all it had been for her.

“You know, it’s refreshing to see someone who can afford to take a million second chances but still holds on so strongly to the first,” she says.

He loses his trail of thought at that.

“Victoria. You still love her don’t you?” Beth prods on.

“What?”

“I mean, that’s what this all is, isn’t it? You keep falling for the ones you can’t have, like you’re re-living some kind of a trauma,” she slurs, “And it all stems back to that first runaway bride, that first person you fell in love with but couldn’t have.”

There’s a silence between them and Harry’s not quite sure what to say.

He hadn’t realised that he’d told this stranger so much about himself. He definitely wasn’t expecting her to be as perceptive to his words and stories and nuances.

Yet there they are, both stewing in their bleeding hearts and a lung cavity full of confusion.

Stranger still, is that his mind didn't immediately go to Victoria. As a matter of fact, it's been months since he had even so much as thought about her.

“You know, when we were sixteen, we used to sit on his parents roof and dream of a life where we’d go make something of ourselves,” she reaches into her purse and pulls out the wedding invite, the very one that had the smiles of the happy couple plastered on, “And now he has. I’m just not in it.”

His mind is a riot; as if he’s been hit in the head and all the blood is rushing to his head.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts all of the sudden.

She freezes, turning her head to stare at him.

“Well, if we never felt pain, we wouldn’t appreciate happiness nearly as much as we do, now would we?"

His eyes lock on her own hazel hued ones, astonished by her eloquence after drinking half the bar dry.

“You really think it’s that simple?”

She thinks for a moment before deciding on a response.

“I hope so.”

Beth gets to her feet unsteadily and leaves him in the bathroom alone, taking his heart with her.

He’s twenty-four.

It hasn’t exactly been a fun ride so far.

Harry has lived in six countries, aided and abetted in five runaway brides, invested in four failed start ups, been in three fights, and had his heart broken twice.

And he’s pretty sure both times were by the same person, wearing different faces.

Which is probably why when he rushes into the bridal room to find Dee frantically pacing and on the verge of tears, he doesn’t know what his presence is meant to do or not do.

“Tell me something good,” she pleads.

“What?”

“I don’t know, I just—”

“No,” Harry declares, the scene all too familiar for him, “No, no, no, no, no. No! I am not about to find myself involved in a sixth runaway bride situation, especially not with Zayn on the receiving end, Addison, you are not doing this to me.”

His head is spinning and he can’t believe it, she starts saying his name when her head tilts in contemplation.

“Did you just say sixth?”

He assures her it isn’t the time nor the place for the story and she starts moving around nervously once more.

Fearing the worse, he asks relucatntly, unsure if he even really wants to know the answer. Unsure if the deepest darkest parts of him actually wants for an opposite outcome, “What’s wrong?”

“Just tell me something good, Haz, I need to hear something good.”

Her voice is pleading and sincere. And he doesn’t quite know what is good or true is anymore. So he goes with what he knows, “He loves you.”

Dee sighs, sitting herself down, eyes flickering to the bouquet in the corner.

“Zayn’s loved you since he was eleven,” Harry all but forces the words off his tongue.

He hates to admit it, but it had been clear to him since that first English period that Zayn is utterly unobtainable due to the fact that he already belonged to someone else.

“You may have thought that he was interested in a play thing, a doll, a pretty thing to put in a trophy case but you saw the truth eventually, you walked in love with him with your eyes wide open. You chose him every step of the way.”

“That’s just it, isn’t it?” Dee whispers, barely audible, as though she’s talking to herself more than she is talking to him, “Everyone keeps telling me that I love him and that he loves me. And that we make perfect sense together. But how do you tell the difference between something that actually exists and something that only exists because everyone tells you it does?”

“What are you saying?” Harry exclaims, “This is Zayn we’re talking about.”

“The same Zayn who nearly had a heart attack in the garden shed when you didn’t come back from that stupid prank,” he starts, “The same Zayn who came this close to punching out a French physician, the one who bought you that ridiculously expensive painting when you graduated Sorbonne.”

She looks up at him pacing around the room, like she’s thinking.

“I just can’t shake this feeling that that nothing about us makes sense, not the way that—” Dee stops herself mid sentence.

She looks uneasy, even more so than she did moments before, like she’s about to confess something terrible. And for a moment, he’s almost relieved. Almost.

“Not the way that it should,” she finishes the sentence somewhat inadequately.

Dee looks like she’s choking when he says it, like suddenly there is not enough air in the whole room to fill her cracking lungs.

Secrets are a weird thing, he thinks to himself.

“Maybe it’s not supposed to make sense.”

Harry’s not sure who he’s trying to convince more, really, himself or her.

He sits himself down right in front of the bride, reaching to hold her hands steady in his own because she looks like she might disintegrate.

“Maybe there are a million universes out there where you don’t meet Zayn, and you marry someone else,” he suggests, “But you’re here, in this universe, and it’s real.”

She looks at him in something like wonder and he doesn’t know if there’s anything else left to say.

There’s a knock on the door telling him it’s time.

He gets up to leave her to it.

She has probably two good minutes if she wants to run. It’s an instinct he quite understands.

He’s lived in six countries to date.

He’s aided and abetted five runaway brides, put his entire life savings into four failed start ups, been in three physical fights where he's literally had the lights knocked out of him, and had his heart broken twice.

But he���s standing next to Zayn at the end of the aisle on his wedding day. And his smile is so full of light when he sees the bride walk down the aisle, it blinds him.

He’s sure that their paths cross in a different million universes in a different million ways, some of which they probably don’t even so much as glance at one another.

Maybe in all of them, Zayn never loves him back the way Harry loves him.

But still, he’s here in this universe.

So Harry considers himself lucky after all.