#lovely lillpon
Summary: Hope learns something important about herself. It makes her happy, but it may need to stay a secret for now.
Words: 841
AO3Notes: Hey @hookaroo. I did it. This is for you, darling.
~
If Hope thinks far back on it, it started when she was young. Like, reallyyoung.
She remembers enjoying a scene from a cartoon, where a boy had been hurt by one of the monsters he and his team would usually fight. It was nothing serious, of course, just a couple of bruises, but she still remembers fondly back at it… and she doesn’t even remember the cartoon’s name anymore.
But she was still little back then. She didn’t give it much thought for years, until Papa had needed to go to the hospital after being seriously injured and there had been no-one immediately available that could heal him. He survived it, of course, as he does, but seeing him in the hospital bed, all patched up and connected to a heart monitor, while hours before she’d imagined her favourite character going through a similar “adventure”, well, it hit her hard.
Is there something wrong with her?
Papa always overcomes his troubles, though at her current age of fifteen, she knows there’s emotional residue every time. She got used to his frequent visits to Archie long ago. But she thinks he wouldn’t take it well if she admitted what she liked to imagine for her favourite characters… since those imaginings tend to go closer and closer to things Papa has experienced himself.
But at the end of the day, she never wishes him any harm. Never did, never will. The only reason she doesn’t jump at the chance to heal him herself is because her healing magic is still raw and unpredictable, so unless it’s a true emergency she lets the experts take control. However… she’s seen how hard he hugs her after he’s been healed from something or saved from somewhere really dangerous. Usually, he’s not clingy at all. But in such cases, she always sees how much in need of comfort he is… and that’s what she wishes both for him, and her favourite characters.
She may want to put them through Hell, but only so they can receive a ton of comfort afterwards. Well, as long as there issome focus on their pain first.
And she’s actually proud about her knowledge around injuries and the such. Growing up in Storybrooke, surrounded by the United Realms, can give a small child such experience from the start. And with such a… honestly, danger-seeking father as hers, well, it only adds to her list. Burns, scratches, stab wounds (of any depth), dislocated limbs, needles, hospital care in general…
She once overheard her parents talking about how they’re worried those experiences might traumatize her. She barely held herself back from laughing out loud. If only they knew that as soon as she saw it happen to anyone *cough*her father*cough* her mind immediately made scenarios of her favourite characters going through that stuff. Heck, her list is so big there’s more than enough for each character to go through!
Really, what is wrong with her?
She’s kept it vehemently a secret for years, not even typing those scenarios into her private computer. It’s not that she needed them written down to remember them, either. With Alice’s help she found a spell to preserve the stories in her mind - and even fully dramatize them, as if they were real films playing before her eyes. She can always count on her half-sister for such imaginative spells.
But at the end, curiosity gets the best of her. She sits at her computer, so nervous she’s nearly shaking, and uses the other magic she knows of; Google.
At first, she’s so mortified she plugs her computer completely off and nearly sets it on fire. Might as well destroy all evidence, she thinks. No-one can know.
It consumes her so much her parents ask her the very next day what’s wrong. She shrugs, eyes stuck to her cereal bowl.
Until she researches again the same night. And the next. And the next. And the next.
Until she finds herself fifty thousand words deep into a fanfiction that, as the author called it, is a “whumpy” one.
It’s the day her life changes. She talks with other people, like her, from all across the world, and suddenly she realizes she’s not weird. She’s not dangerous, not a psycho, not anything that needs to be “fixed”.
Holy shit, she can finally like this stuff and not feel ashamed.
Before she knows it, she’s written something herself. It’s something small, and short. But it draws other fans’ attention. And they like it.
With a huge smile on her face as she reads the feedback on her story, she pulls her wild red hair into a ponytail, cracks her knuckles and starts typing furiously.
~
Many hours and typed words later, she finally checks the time.
It’s 5 am.
On a Wednesday.
Shit, she had homework to do.
BLING!
New comment on her story: “OMG I loved this so much!! Poor little guy, how is he gonna get out of this mess? :D”
Hope fist-bumps the air.
Fuckin’ worth it.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH YOU DID THE THING!!!!!!! :D
I LOVE IT SO MUCH YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW!!!!!!
:DDDDD
“He survived it, of course, as he does“ LOLLLL!!!!! BABY!!
Awwwww that’s so cute, his visits with Archie, and, and like, Hope feeling guilty about liking things so close to what her Papa has suffered through a;lksjdf;lakjsdflkj AND THAT HE ALWAYS HUGS HER HARDER AFTER I LOVE THIS SOOO MUUUUCHH!!!!!! (Do you know how many typos I’ve had to fix already writing this because I just can’t type fast enough to keep up with my explosion of feels!!!!)
HER DANGER-SEEKING FATHER!!!!! XD that about sums it up! (And I love that she’s learned so much about injuries/healing from that!)
AND I AM SO JEALOUS OF ALICE’S SPELL I SO WANT TO SEE MY SCENARIOS COME TO LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAHHH!!! That is super creative and so Alice too! :D
Thank you for this lovely and realistic depiction of a whumper’s self-discovery I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!! <3
