bitch, i’m a big deal

torn between making a "what if" au comic of sebastian going to the city vs actually playing the game 😭

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Harvey x OC/Self-insert!Farmer

Genre: hurt/comfort, a touch of angst with a fluffy ending

CW: bodily harm, injury, blood, gore

A/N: Here's a very late entry for June of Doom, Day 4! This time with the "Does that hurt?" prompt paired with the "Fracture" prompt. This is the very first Stardew Valley one-shot I've ever written so I am quite excited about this. I wrote this with my farmer in mind. She is a mix between a "farmersona" and an OC, and I think I'll write more about her and her life in the Valley in the future. This one-shot is set somewhere between Harvey's four and six heart events. Sil is already more than aware of her feelings for him and Harvey has just recently realized he has a crush on her. She fell first and he fell harder, so to speak. Hope you like it! @juneofdoom

The intense smell of disinfectant is the first thing she feels as she comes back to her senses. She lets out a groan as she slowly tries to open her eyes. The task is made rather difficult by the brightness of the room, which makes her already dry eyes burn even more.

“You're finally awake.” That's enough to finally get her to open her eyes, and when her vision eventually clears she manages to find the source of the tense voice that startled her. “...Doc...?” She asks groggily as she focuses her gaze on the man leaning against the doorway.

Doctor Harvey looks at her seriously, with his hands shoved in the pockets of his white coat as he assesses her general conditions with a quick glance. Sil, the local farmer, is looking rather rough... but it is nothing compared to what she looked like last night, when she was brought into his clinic. It was nothing short of chilling.

She was brought in by Pam somewhere around midnight, the older woman slamming the door open and yelling for him to rush over and help her hold the girl upright. The sight of Sil, bruised and barely hanging onto Pam's shoulder as she winced and grunted in pain, was enough to make his heart sink to the floor. Still, he acted quickly and soon she was laying on one of the beds. Her long, black coat was in tatters and the rest of her clothes had a number of rips and stains onto them. Her pants seemed to have had the worst of it, and the reason became immediately apparent to the doctor. The black fabric was soaked in blood and the skin underneath had clear bite marks into it, like an animal had chomped down on her leg and thrashed around. Moreover... her leg was clearly broken. He knew that to save his mental sanity he should've avoided inquiring, but against his better judgment he asked her what had happened and it took him all he had not to yell at her when she groaned something about “Skull Cavern”.

He could tell she was trying to put on a brave face for him, but he also knew that all that would fly out the window as soon as he reset her bone. And it did. She let out a blood-curdling scream as soon as the bone went back into place... and then it was lights out.

Thinking back on it now still fills him with dread... and it re-stokes his anger. His jaw tightens slightly as he looks at the farmer in silence while she tries to get the fog to finally lift from her mind. It's all still a haze, but as the seconds pass she grows more and more conscious of her surroundings and of what happened last night. Her first instinct when she finally manages to sit up is to reach for her hat, but a disgruntled noise comes out of her as soon as she finds out it's not sitting atop her head as it usually is. A quick glance to the side reveals the cowboy hat is hanging onto a nearby chair like her ruined coat.

“Damn, I'm gonna have to buy a new coat huh...?” She says with a small huff of a chuckle before bringing her gaze back to the doctor, but when she does, her smile drops almost instantly. He is looking at her with anger swirling in his green eyes. “That's what you are worried about? Your coat?” He asks in disbelief before removing his glasses and running a hand over his face as if to try and rub the irritation away, in vain of course. “Your leg is broken, for Yoba's sake! And all of this because you went in those mines again! Did I not tell you to be careful?! Do you have any idea how bad the situation looked last night?! Since you refuse to put a stop to your explorations, the least you could do is to be cautious when you head into those places!”

The farmer doesn't flinch, but she raises her eyebrows in surprise, before slouching her back slightly in what could only be described as shame. Harvey's never raised his voice at her like this before. She suddenly feels like a child that is being scolded by her father for doing something stupid, but this is not her only reason to feel ashamed. It is also because, even though doctor Harvey is yelling at her, she can see the hurt in his eyes. She clearly worried him a great deal, to the point where his patience obviously ran out.

Harvey has been nothing but kind to her since the day she moved to Stardew Valley, even though he was clearly terrified of her when they first met. She couldn't really blame him, given her rather... unapproachable appearance. At first she was definitely not thrilled to make the doctor's acquaintance, considering her rather rocky relationship with medical personnel up until that point, but by the end of her first week in her new home he had already started to grow on her. He was simply so kind and friendly, despite his initial uncertainty and shyness... She couldn't help but be drawn to him, and that sentiment grew rather fast... and kept growing, and growing, until it became clear to her that her simple, innocent infatuation with the town doctor had turned into a full-blown crush. A rather surprising turn of events, considering she had sworn off dating shortly before she left the city to reclaim her grandfather's land... but she still welcomed it. She is certain Harvey must know of her feelings by now, as she made no attempt to hide them, and she is rather confident they are reciprocated, judging by his behavior towards her over the last couple of months. So... knowing she is the reason for his distress right now weighs gravely on her heart. She feels like a moron.

“I'm sorry, you're right... I was way too careless this time around. I... don't know what I was thinking”. A strained smile pulls at her lips as she meets the doctor's eyes again. “I had no intention of scaring ya like that, truly... I just thought I could handle it, ya know? I've gotta do everything by myself up in that farm and... well, damn, things ain't going as smoothly as I hoped”. She lets out a humorless chuckle, rubbing the back of her neck awkwardly. Harvey doesn't say anything as he looks at her, but he can feel his anger slowly boiling down to a simmer when he notices the sadness in her demeanor. Now that he thinks about it, she did seem a bit weary lately. Paler than usual and always in a rush to get a myriad of jobs done.

Seeing that he has no intention of saying anything, she keeps talking, recognizing that he is leaving her the space to explain herself... unburden herself.

“It's just... a lot. I gave up everything to move here and, granted, life in the city sucked but... I knew what to expect, ya know? Everything had its own place and all I had to do was keep up the routine. I had very little, but it was more than enough to keep me afloat. Here? Hell, every time I earn some money I immediately have to spend it to make sure my farm stays standin', and somehow my duties extend far beyond takin' care of Wysteria Hill! I had no idea that movin' would mean takin' care of the whole town one way or another. The farm business, the requests, the community center... I mean, don't get me wrong! I am more than happy to help! But... keepin' on top of everything has been... hard. I have to put in a lot of extra work to make sure I can keep things runnin' smoothly. I guess my whole focus has been on getting my work done, lately, and it made me... kinda lose track of other things? Like...”

“Like your own health and safety?” Harvey finishes her sentence for her, his voice now far calmer than before. She nods after a moment, not trusting her increasingly quivery voice to answer his question, and he sighs, dropping his shoulders slightly as he steps closer to her bed. “I knew that being the local farmer couldn't be an easy job, but I didn't realize it was weighing down on you this much. I can't imagine the burden it has put on your shoulders, leaving everything behind to start anew here... But still, I must stress the importance of taking care of yourself. A million things could've gone wrong last night and... Gosh, I don't even want to think about it...” he mutters as he shakes his head, averting his gaze from her in his attempt to disperse those haunting thoughts.

Sil swallow thickly, feeling another pang of guilt skewer her heart when she finds herself hoping, wanting for his concern to go beyond a doctor's duty, to stem from something deeper... not knowing that somehow her pining doesn't even come close to comparing to his. She leans towards Harvey and gently reaches for his hand, ignoring the shock of pain shooting up her leg when she doesn't move carefully enough. “I'm sorry Harv. I promise I won't be as careless as last night ever again. I don't want ya to be sad because of me. Never. I can't tell ya I'll never go down there again... but I promise I'll always do so with the goal of comin' back out safe and sound, rather than with my pack full of extra materials.” She smiles at him as reassuringly as possible, rubbing the back of his hand with her thumb.

The tender gesture is uncharacteristic of her, and he knows it very well. Friendly as she is, she still very much doesn't appreciate people being in her personal space, so for her to initiate physical touch like this... it must mean something, right? It's his turn to gulp now, as he feels his face growing embarrassingly warm at that thought. He wanted to scold her again for refusing to give up on her excursions once more, but all he can do now, after noticing her little wince of pain when she leaned in to grab his hand, is sigh in acceptance and let his face soften once more as he gently squeezes her smaller hand. “Does that hurt?” He asks kindly while glancing at her leg. The wound was frightening when he first saw it, but he is more than confident in her ability to heal now that it's all patched up and that her bone is properly set.

She smiles at him, visibly relaxing when she realizes he is no longer angry at her. “Ah, it ain't nothing I can't handle, doc. You really worked your magic on me, as usual. I barely feel a thing.” She reassures him with a grin, winking at him jokingly as she adds “You're like my very own guardian angel.”

Harvey almost scoffs at her, more out of embarrassment rather than full-blown dissent. He can't deny that hearing her say something like that feels... very good. “Okay, now you are just trying to butter me up.” He mutters as he raises an eyebrow at her, making her grin widen even more and her eyes twinkle with mischief. “Well... is it working?” The flirtatious tone in her voice almost makes him choke as he stumbles over his own words. “You - you are far too pleased for somebody who is supposed to be feeling sorry right now!” He manages to exclaim with a huff, before pouting at her. Despite his embarrassment, the sound of her laughter makes his heart jump in his chest.

based on this book excerpt my little sister sent me

“That, my lad was a dragon.”