[1d] oh, let your red heart show - gen
Instead of doing useful things, like packing or sleeping, or other slightly less useful things, like writing my pseudo-big bang fic or the fic that I totally owe my runty brother (sorry!), here are 1100 ridiculous words about a UK boyband called Wand Erection One Direction. (THEY REMIND ME OF A BASKET OF GAY BRITISH KITTENS AND/OR PUPPIES OKAY.)
Anyway.
-
oh, let your red heart show
one direction - gen
fake fake fake.
nine drabbles and one double-drabble about ridiculousness and almost magical realism. blame andrew kaufman's delightful/beautiful all my friends are superheroes. also, the title's taken from a lovely hey! rosetta song.
for jackiejunior
-
Niall’s life takes a turn for the weird the year he turns seventeen. Not only does he get picked by Simon Fucking Cowell to join a goddamned boyband, which lets him do awesome shit like meet Michael Buble and Katy Perry, but this is also the year that Niall discovers that he’s probably telepathic.
Not long after, he discovers that the others also exhibit strange abilities of their own, and that’s when the revelation hits: maybe they weren’t just brought together because they sound relatively good in five-part harmony.
Holy shit, Niall realizes. All my new bandmates likely have superpowers!
-
He doesn’t mean to tell Zayn: it just kind of happens - he sort of blurts it out by accident.
“Wait,” Zayn says, and it’s to his credit that he doesn’t just walk away without waiting for an explanation. “What do you mean?”
“Superpowers,” Niall repeats patiently.
“And we’ve got them? I mean, like, One Direction?”
Niall blinks. “Yeah, I think so.”
“How?” Zayn raises an eyebrow, trying to understand.
Niall just shrugs.
Zayn squints at him. “You probably don’t want to share that with too many people,” he finally says. “So you don’t get, you know. Taken away or whatever.”
-
In the middle of October, Louis half-seriously gets dared to jump off the roof of the X-Factor house; never able to say “no” to a dare, he does so without another thought.
Almost as soon as he jumps, the rest of One Direction’s scrambling down the stairs to where he’s landed on the grass. But when they get there, Louis’ just standing there, upright and completely unscathed.
“Oh shit,” is all Niall can say as the others stare at Louis in horror. “You flew, Louis!”
“Uh,” Louis says, breathless and uncertain, before leaning forward to puke all over Liam’s boots.
-
The manifestation of Niall’s telepathy happens like this: ever since his arrival at X-Factor, he finds that his opinions are perfectly aligned with those around him, especially with the boys in the group. When Louis is asked if he wants lunch, Niall often finds that he’s ready for lunch, too; when Harry gets asked what’s his favourite new song, Niall realizes that his answer is the exact same.
“Pretty sure that’s not what telepathy is, mate,” Zayn tells him one day.
“I knew you were going to say that!” Niall says triumphantly. “See?”
Zayn just sighs and shakes his head.
-
Liam’s invisibility is a revelation that trickles slowly into Niall’s consciousness. And it’s not even obvious or anything: it’s not like Liam will vanish in mid-conversation; quite frankly, Niall’s not even sure Liam’s aware of his particular ability.
It’s just that it manifests whenever no one’s around, but Liam maintains the stunning ability to reappear again whenever they look for him.
It’s like that time, after that performance, when Liam disappears for a little while:
“Wait, where’s Liam?” Harry wonders aloud.
“Right here,” Liam says waving from behind everyone, suddenly visible again. Niall turns around.
And there he is.
-
“It’s stupid,” Zayn says. “Stupid and unlogical.”
“Unlogical ain’t a word,” Niall replies serenely, eyes glued to the new Kylie Minogue video. “And it’s not stupid. Louis can fly. How do you explain that?”
“That’s exactly it!” Zayn huffs. “He can’t!”
Niall refuses to be deterred. “Then how didn’t he break his legs when he jumped?”
Zayn seems to consider this. “What am I thinking about right now?” he finally says.
For a moment, Niall stares thoughtfully at Zayn. Then he narrows his eyes and punches him hard in the shoulder. “Don’t be such a fucking twat,” Niall tells him.
-
When Harry nudges Niall over to make room on the couch, Niall complies immediately as he’s never been able to say “no” to Harry.
Actually, no one can.
It’s the curls, Niall decides. They give him the power of persuasion.
Cautiously, he hints at this to Harry, just to see what he’d say.
“Nah,” Harry says, not looking up from his laptop. “My superpower would be amazing. Like time travel. And I can’t time travel. So no superpowers,” he explains, like it’s infallible logic.
You’re wrong, Niall wants to say. But he doesn’t: just smiles and hugs his secret close.
-
Zayn corners Niall one morning. “So, if everyone has superpowers, what’s mine?” he asks.
“You’re Zayn,” Niall replies, still tired and disoriented. “You fall asleep everywhere,” he manages around a wide yawn. “It’s impressive.”
“Oh, thanks,” Zayn says sourly and stalks off to investigate the world of cereal.
Niall runs a hand over his face and sighs. While he’s pretty sure he knew that this was how Zayn was going to react, it didn’t make it any less true: he did fall asleep anywhere and everywhere, and it was impressive.
Maybe Zayn would understand how extraordinary that was, one day.
-
Most of the time, Niall thinks that it’s kind of cool that they’re the first boyband in the world with superpowers (that he knows of anyway), so he decides that he’s okay with it.
His comfort-levels waver, however, whenever Simon Fucking Cowell beams and tells them he just knows that they’ll take over the world; unfortunately Niall still can’t quite wrap his mind around the utility of some of his bandmates’ superpowers.
At the same time, Niall knows he trusts the others, no matter what. So what can he do, but just hope that this will all make sense someday.
-
And then, everything goes wrong.
It begins when Niall finds that he’s no longer able to anticipate Zayn’s moods, and almost gets caught in the crossfire when even Harry can’t sway Zayn and the two of them start sniping at each other after rehearsal. Their disagreement esculates quickly, and suddenly, Harry and Zayn aren’t even speaking anymore.
Niall’s busy feeling sorry for himself and very much like a failure, when someone taps him on the shoulder: “Niall,” Louis says uncharacteristically serious, and holding him at arm’s length. “Listen. I can’t fly, okay? Wish I could, but I can’t.”
He pulls Niall in for a hug, and Niall can’t decide if he wants to laugh or cry - the whole god-damned situation’s so ridiculous. Maybe he was wrong: maybe he was just being stupid all along.
“You’re not stupid,” Louis says, muffled into Niall’s neck - Niall’s surprised and pretty sure he hadn’t said anything out loud, but whispers his thanks anyway.
Out of nowhere, Liam appears and wraps his arms around both of them. “Hi,” he says. “Why are we hugging?”
Niall exhales, a breath he didn’t know he had been holding, and decides that maybe everything’s not lost after all.
[ end ]
Anyway.
-
oh, let your red heart show
one direction - gen
fake fake fake.
nine drabbles and one double-drabble about ridiculousness and almost magical realism. blame andrew kaufman's delightful/beautiful all my friends are superheroes. also, the title's taken from a lovely hey! rosetta song.
for jackiejunior
-
Niall’s life takes a turn for the weird the year he turns seventeen. Not only does he get picked by Simon Fucking Cowell to join a goddamned boyband, which lets him do awesome shit like meet Michael Buble and Katy Perry, but this is also the year that Niall discovers that he’s probably telepathic.
Not long after, he discovers that the others also exhibit strange abilities of their own, and that’s when the revelation hits: maybe they weren’t just brought together because they sound relatively good in five-part harmony.
Holy shit, Niall realizes. All my new bandmates likely have superpowers!
-
He doesn’t mean to tell Zayn: it just kind of happens - he sort of blurts it out by accident.
“Wait,” Zayn says, and it’s to his credit that he doesn’t just walk away without waiting for an explanation. “What do you mean?”
“Superpowers,” Niall repeats patiently.
“And we’ve got them? I mean, like, One Direction?”
Niall blinks. “Yeah, I think so.”
“How?” Zayn raises an eyebrow, trying to understand.
Niall just shrugs.
Zayn squints at him. “You probably don’t want to share that with too many people,” he finally says. “So you don’t get, you know. Taken away or whatever.”
-
In the middle of October, Louis half-seriously gets dared to jump off the roof of the X-Factor house; never able to say “no” to a dare, he does so without another thought.
Almost as soon as he jumps, the rest of One Direction’s scrambling down the stairs to where he’s landed on the grass. But when they get there, Louis’ just standing there, upright and completely unscathed.
“Oh shit,” is all Niall can say as the others stare at Louis in horror. “You flew, Louis!”
“Uh,” Louis says, breathless and uncertain, before leaning forward to puke all over Liam’s boots.
-
The manifestation of Niall’s telepathy happens like this: ever since his arrival at X-Factor, he finds that his opinions are perfectly aligned with those around him, especially with the boys in the group. When Louis is asked if he wants lunch, Niall often finds that he’s ready for lunch, too; when Harry gets asked what’s his favourite new song, Niall realizes that his answer is the exact same.
“Pretty sure that’s not what telepathy is, mate,” Zayn tells him one day.
“I knew you were going to say that!” Niall says triumphantly. “See?”
Zayn just sighs and shakes his head.
-
Liam’s invisibility is a revelation that trickles slowly into Niall’s consciousness. And it’s not even obvious or anything: it’s not like Liam will vanish in mid-conversation; quite frankly, Niall’s not even sure Liam’s aware of his particular ability.
It’s just that it manifests whenever no one’s around, but Liam maintains the stunning ability to reappear again whenever they look for him.
It’s like that time, after that performance, when Liam disappears for a little while:
“Wait, where’s Liam?” Harry wonders aloud.
“Right here,” Liam says waving from behind everyone, suddenly visible again. Niall turns around.
And there he is.
-
“It’s stupid,” Zayn says. “Stupid and unlogical.”
“Unlogical ain’t a word,” Niall replies serenely, eyes glued to the new Kylie Minogue video. “And it’s not stupid. Louis can fly. How do you explain that?”
“That’s exactly it!” Zayn huffs. “He can’t!”
Niall refuses to be deterred. “Then how didn’t he break his legs when he jumped?”
Zayn seems to consider this. “What am I thinking about right now?” he finally says.
For a moment, Niall stares thoughtfully at Zayn. Then he narrows his eyes and punches him hard in the shoulder. “Don’t be such a fucking twat,” Niall tells him.
-
When Harry nudges Niall over to make room on the couch, Niall complies immediately as he’s never been able to say “no” to Harry.
Actually, no one can.
It’s the curls, Niall decides. They give him the power of persuasion.
Cautiously, he hints at this to Harry, just to see what he’d say.
“Nah,” Harry says, not looking up from his laptop. “My superpower would be amazing. Like time travel. And I can’t time travel. So no superpowers,” he explains, like it’s infallible logic.
You’re wrong, Niall wants to say. But he doesn’t: just smiles and hugs his secret close.
-
Zayn corners Niall one morning. “So, if everyone has superpowers, what’s mine?” he asks.
“You’re Zayn,” Niall replies, still tired and disoriented. “You fall asleep everywhere,” he manages around a wide yawn. “It’s impressive.”
“Oh, thanks,” Zayn says sourly and stalks off to investigate the world of cereal.
Niall runs a hand over his face and sighs. While he’s pretty sure he knew that this was how Zayn was going to react, it didn’t make it any less true: he did fall asleep anywhere and everywhere, and it was impressive.
Maybe Zayn would understand how extraordinary that was, one day.
-
Most of the time, Niall thinks that it’s kind of cool that they’re the first boyband in the world with superpowers (that he knows of anyway), so he decides that he’s okay with it.
His comfort-levels waver, however, whenever Simon Fucking Cowell beams and tells them he just knows that they’ll take over the world; unfortunately Niall still can’t quite wrap his mind around the utility of some of his bandmates’ superpowers.
At the same time, Niall knows he trusts the others, no matter what. So what can he do, but just hope that this will all make sense someday.
-
And then, everything goes wrong.
It begins when Niall finds that he’s no longer able to anticipate Zayn’s moods, and almost gets caught in the crossfire when even Harry can’t sway Zayn and the two of them start sniping at each other after rehearsal. Their disagreement esculates quickly, and suddenly, Harry and Zayn aren’t even speaking anymore.
Niall’s busy feeling sorry for himself and very much like a failure, when someone taps him on the shoulder: “Niall,” Louis says uncharacteristically serious, and holding him at arm’s length. “Listen. I can’t fly, okay? Wish I could, but I can’t.”
He pulls Niall in for a hug, and Niall can’t decide if he wants to laugh or cry - the whole god-damned situation’s so ridiculous. Maybe he was wrong: maybe he was just being stupid all along.
“You’re not stupid,” Louis says, muffled into Niall’s neck - Niall’s surprised and pretty sure he hadn’t said anything out loud, but whispers his thanks anyway.
Out of nowhere, Liam appears and wraps his arms around both of them. “Hi,” he says. “Why are we hugging?”
Niall exhales, a breath he didn’t know he had been holding, and decides that maybe everything’s not lost after all.
[ end ]