![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
two_handed posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
dollymixtures[Continued from here]
That could have gone... better. A lot better.
At the same time, though, Harry felt like he should probably have seen this coming. Uma was not, as a rule, very good at being the kind of person who was happy for their friend's success when they had no success of their own - which is to say that hearing Harry had found a way through the barrier, was being allowed to stay there, and had found his true love, had not exactly been met with warmth and congratulations.
More like rage and accusations.
Harry wasn't sure which he'd disliked more - the heavy implication he was using Mal to achieve his own ends while betraying his friends at the same time, or the comments about how Mal was 'slumming it' to have gone from king to pirate.
At least Gil had been happy to see him alive.
He'd tried to smooth things over with Uma, but with her temper it was hardly surprising he'd been unsuccessful, so by the time they crossed back through the barrier - having promised he'd return to talk about this, despite Uma's protestations that he should never come back - he wasn't feeling so great.
"I think that went well." he tried, unsuccessfully, to joke.
That could have gone... better. A lot better.
At the same time, though, Harry felt like he should probably have seen this coming. Uma was not, as a rule, very good at being the kind of person who was happy for their friend's success when they had no success of their own - which is to say that hearing Harry had found a way through the barrier, was being allowed to stay there, and had found his true love, had not exactly been met with warmth and congratulations.
More like rage and accusations.
Harry wasn't sure which he'd disliked more - the heavy implication he was using Mal to achieve his own ends while betraying his friends at the same time, or the comments about how Mal was 'slumming it' to have gone from king to pirate.
At least Gil had been happy to see him alive.
He'd tried to smooth things over with Uma, but with her temper it was hardly surprising he'd been unsuccessful, so by the time they crossed back through the barrier - having promised he'd return to talk about this, despite Uma's protestations that he should never come back - he wasn't feeling so great.
"I think that went well." he tried, unsuccessfully, to joke.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-15 10:13 pm (UTC)Uma was very good at manipulating people, and it wasn't entirely her fault. Her mother was Ursula, after all. Deep down, Mal suspected that Uma had been a little hurt by it all too. That Harry got to stay in Auradon, that Harry and Mal had found their true love. And maybe that Uma was losing Harry forever.
It wasn't true. Because Ben was still working on things to make it so people from the Isle could come to Auradon. So those kids didn't have to continue living the way they had since they'd been born. Ben was not his father. And he was one of Mal's best friends, he listened to her, despite the fact they were no longer together. Mal was in favor of taking the barrier down permanently. And she felt it had to be done before someone on the Isle did something drastic. Again.
Right now though, her focus was on Harry. And how he was feeling after their encounter with Uma. She knew he probably felt a little down about how things had gone.
Gil had seemed happy at least, if a bit confused on why Harry had been gone for so long, especially when Uma implied that it was a lie. That Harry wanted to just stay in Auradon because he thought he was better than the pirates or something. Mal hoped that even someone as simple as Gil would know deep down that it wasn't true. Harry loved him. Mal knew that, and she hoped Gil knew it too.
Mal shook her head at his joke. "Look, it's done now. It was ugly...but at least we did it. Now we just need to give them some time to come around to the idea. Uma said a lot of things but...I don't think she really meant most of them." It just had to be such a shock to her that Harry and Mal were each other's true love and what all of that meant. No one had been more shocked than Mal and Harry themselves had been at the lake.
"Hopefully, given a little time and space Uma will calm down and we can continue to work on Auradon and Isle relations. And for the record, I don't believe what she said. I know there is no way you could possibly have faked that...and being in Auradon that long on purpose in a lake you probably would have died of boredom so...they're just words, Harry. Uma is just lashing out."
no subject
Date: 2020-11-19 01:15 am (UTC)Harry nodded - he had to tell himself she was right, that Uma would come around eventually. It was hard, though, and without being there to see how things were going he could only guess.. they said absence made the heart grow fonder, but he didn't think that would be the case in this instance. Uma felt betrayed - even if Harry hadn't exactly left willingly - and she'd reacted to that by lashing out, Harry knew that's what had happened, but he also knew that she was good at holding grudges, that there was a possibility he'd lost his friendship with Uma for good - and that hurt.
"She was hurting and she wanted us to hurt too," he agreed - it was why she'd tried both tactics, prodded at both their insecurities however she could, just to try and drive a wedge through them somehow, and the best thing to do would be to ignore it, all of it. Knowing that didn't make it any easier, and Mal's reassurance that she didn't believe Uma's accusations left a little space to suggest perhaps she did believe the other things Uma said. At the back of his mind he knew he was being ridiculous, but he couldn't stop himself. So instead of agreeing and reassuring her in turn that he definitely wasn't faking anything, he asked a question.
"And you're not... you don't feel like you've traded down or whatever, right?" Uma was right, she had been dating a king, and somebody like Mal? She could get any boy she wanted, the idea that she'd settle for Harry just because of some fate or destiny nonsense was a little hard for him to really believe - which is exactly why Uma said it, of course.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-20 01:54 am (UTC)"Of course not," Mal shook her head. Harry might have been a pirate and Ben was a king, but that didn't matter to Mal. It wasn't like she was looking to status climb. And there had been a part of Mal that was insecure and didn't really know if she belonged with Ben. If she was good enough for him. And maybe all that insecurity was because she was supposed to be with Harry.
It wasn't just about destiny though, even when they'd been on the Isle...Mal had felt herself drawn to him. They didn't really do dating on the Isle, but there had definitely been flirting. And now they had found out they were each other's true love. Somehow it all made sense.
"Harry, I'm with you because I want to be. I know we still have a lot to figure out. But in the end, it's not about Ben or Uma. It's about us."
no subject
Date: 2020-11-21 02:23 am (UTC)"You're not though, are you?" He asked - he hated himself a little bit for doing it, but it was in his mind now and he couldn't help but picking at that thread. It was the kind of thing he did - pushed and pushed just to see when something would break. Normally it was finding where people's boundaries were rather than testing the strength of romantic ties, but the principle was the same.
"You're with me because it's true love. If that kiss hadn't turned me back, if I was still stuck that way... or if I'd gotten off the Isle another way, would we be where we are now?"
He knew it wasn't a fair question, there were a million other factors that would have changed if things hadn't happened the way they did, and he wanted to take comfort in the fact that she had kissed him at all, but he couldn't make himself believe it. He could be very charming when he wanted to be, and he'd wanted to charm her - would it really have lasted if the kiss hadn't broken the spell?
no subject
Date: 2020-11-22 11:01 pm (UTC)"The only thing I do know is I want to see where this goes if you do." Mal had been shocked by what happened, they both had been. But at the same time it made a sort of sense too. It kind of explained why things with Ben hadn't worked out and everything. It was something they were going to have to work on together. But Uma had definitely gotten in their head, which was exactly what she'd wanted.
"And we can't deal with the what-ifs, the what-ifs will drive us crazy," Mal added. "We have to deal with the here and now, and I know it's scary." She gently took his hand. "I'm scared too, but I'm more afraid of how I'll feel the rest of my life if we don't see this through."