#WE NEED TEACH HIM BETTER COPING MECHANISMS

[arcticsilver]

*just reposted something, saying something about putting gegg in an orbie squisher*

GOD DAMNIT NOW I HAVE TO FEED YOU FOOLS

[uzurimisery]

the space between two bodies. / satosugu x reader / part 1

Warnings: MDNI, happy ending, angst, cheating (not really this is explained in part 2), unhealthy relationships/coping mechanisms, suicidal ideation, depression, smut, no sorcery au, unedited

A/N: I started thinking about Gojo with anxiety and nihilist Geto and then what that looks like in a poly relationship with someone as flawed as they are

part two

“We’re sorry but we’ve decided to go with another candidate now. We will retain your information on file should a more suitable role open up.” 

The email stared back at you, the words on your phone screen blurring as droplets of rain hit it as you read it over for the hundredth time. Today was just another shitty fucked up day in the endless string of shitty fucked up days that had become your life. The third consecutive month of unemployment in a row. At least previously you could get temp jobs but now each day that passed just ate away at you with how useless you felt. 

Pocketing your phone, you pull out a 100 yen coin and put it in the vending machine.

You didn’t even like your old job but Jesus it was like no one was actually hiring. And when you did get an interview, you’d get ghosted afterward. On the rare occasion they didn’t ghost you, you’d receive a rejection letter like this one. It was preferable, you supposed, that your existence and effort were at least acknowledged, no matter how much it stung. Still hurt like a bitch to be told you weren’t good enough. 

Anything would be better than this, fuck you’d take being overworked and underpaid if it felt like you were doing something. This endless cycle of gnawing uncertainty and applications, interviews, followed by rejections. Worse than that you were out of deodorant and trying to find some in Japan was a Herculean effort. 

Yeah, it’s been a shit go and you’re fucking exhausted.

Maybe you’d go be an English teacher like everyone else who moves to Japan. You wouldn’t need a co-teacher so the pay would be better if you were just starting out. Not that you wanted to teach again dear god that was less than ideal. Thank god you had settled status. The thought of having to deal with visa issues at the same time made you feel sick. 

Maybe you could work at a host club. You turned, staring at your reflection in the glass. Your boobs weren’t half bad as you pushed them up from the underside like a push-up bra would. Or sell feet pictures. The market was probably oversaturated at this point but maybe there would be some interest.

Wait Jesus had your hair looked like that all day? Fuck. No wonder that girl kept staring at you on the train she thought you were a lunatic.

Sighing you press the button for 4H. It wasn’t like you’d always been this way, sort of drifting in a sea of uncertainty abroad your boat of doubt with no wind to guide your sails. There was a period of time, maybe a five-year stretch after you had graduated from university where your life was on track. An entry-level job in your degree field, a long-term boyfriend turned fiance, wedding planning, and a great group of friends. Shit, you had it all. 

The fiance was the first to go. 

As it turns out, finding your fiance in bed with the girl he swore you didn’t have to worry about, his tongue halfway down her throat like he’s trying to do an endoscopy, is a terrible way to find out you’re being cheated on. When he noticed you standing in the doorway he had the gall to sputter some bullshit about how it was your fault it happened. You were too focused on your work, you didn’t give him attention, blah, blah, blah. It was you who broke the relationship up by working so much and being married to your job. And as he paid for the overpriced four-bedroom apartment in an area of Tokyo that you didn’t even like, you lost the apartment in the breakup. 

You couldn’t slum dog millionaire your life away on Shoko and Utahime’s couch forever eating tubs of ice cream and binging TV after that, so everyone told you, or rather forced you, to move in with Suguru and Satoru. Bouncing around from couple to couple. It did give you some stability and just as things go up so must they come down. 

The company you were working for was liquidated after an investigation by the federal government found years of tax fraud. Luckily they got bought out, and you thought maybe if you put in work you could still climb the ladder. But all those late nights in the office, conbini dinners, and unpaid overtime, you were just another name on a severance list.

It felt like waves were crashing over you, each one larger than the rest. Almost like you were tied to a dock during a hurricane, a tsunami, or some fucking natural disaster that threatened to drown you if you didn’t hold onto something but there wasn’t much to hold on to. You could hold onto the minuscule amount of friendships that you had at least. It was far too awkward and messy to keep up with anyone else other than your main four since the rest were so tied to your ex-fiance and his life. Stupid fucking lawyer. 

The four of you were close-ish. Less close since Shoko had gone on rotation at a university on the other side of Tokyo. It meant she and Utahime had moved nearer to it since Utahime was willing to commute. But Suguru and Satoru were still close with you and still dating.  Biting as that felt at times. 

You met Geto first in a shared philosophy lecture. One of those run-of-the-mill ones, but the content that really got the two of you talking was nihilism. It was the seminar groups after class you shared where he really saw you. Stripped away of pretenses and your nerves laid bare. Not just another face in a lecture hall but something more, something human. The deep indents of nails in your palms and the rubbing of your hands together under the table. He had seen right through you, recognized the darker parts of himself in you- it made you feel understood.

The machine made a mechanical noise and the lights flickered. Sighing you kick the machine lightly to see if anything happens, if life could give you this one thing today that you so desperately needed. Just like everything else, nothing goes your way and your stupid drink stays logged on the shelf. So like every reasonable person you kick the machine again. 

“Stupid fucking piece of shit machine,” you murmur a growing string of profanities under your breath as you repeatedly kick the machine

.

All you wanted was one of those ¥100 coffee drinks that were loaded with caffeine to keep going through your slog of a day was that so hard? Maybe it would be best if you just packed it up and called it quits. Move back home with your parents and be berated daily. Why aren’t you married? Why did you and Kosuke break up? When are they going to get some grandchildren? They aren’t getting any younger you know. Face the cutting shame of fucking up another opportunity, another chance. 

What was the point in trying anymore when you couldn’t even get a stupid drink that you don't honestly even want at this point out of a vending machine so you can go home and masturbate to audio porn before you cry yourself to fucking sleep? 

Suguru’s voice cut through the spiral of thoughts, your name on his lips. 

“What are you doing here? I thought you had an interview and you’d be home late?” 

Of course, he’d catch you like this. 

“Hey Sugs,” it came out as a groan as you kicked the machine again, a loud clang following as your drink hit the bottom of the dispenser. Bending down, you grab the can before turning and facing him. “I did.” 

“How’d it go?”

“Like shit.” Maybe you should work on your delivery. This flat effect is really making you should like a bitch. Are you a bitch? 

Geto’s eyes raked over you, infuriatingly calm and measured. He was always so carefully disheveled, the type of person to look effortlessly put together no matter the occasion. Stupid name-brand black sweater over a white button-down half tucked into chinos with a chain on the belt. His hair, shiny and perfect, was neatly tucked into his signature half-up-hald-down look to keep the strand out of his eyes, minus the one for style. Notably, he was wearing his glasses for once, sleek frames perks on a tall nose. Oh, he smelt nice too, his sandalwood and bergamot cologne hitting you as he stepped closer, extending his umbrella to cover the two of you. Fuck he was so handsome it wasn’t fair.

“I'm sorry to hear that,” Geto replied softly.

You shrugged, trying to brush it off. “ It is what it is.”

But the reality of it clung to you and drug you down, down, down into the depths of your psyche. That small, scared feeling you tried so hard to suppress started bubbling up again, twisting your insides into knots. It made you feel sick, so much like a lost little child in a world that had grown far too big and complex. Here it was, rearing its ugly head, in front of one of the top ten people you never wanted to see in such a shit state.

But that's all Gojo and Geto do at this point. They pick up the broken, crumbling pieces of yourself that slip between your fingers. You feel like a cracked vase leaking water all over the place no matter how desperately they try and patch up the ceramic. Each day the gap between you and them grows more apparent. They were both soaring and you were falling to the ground and rolling around in the mud. 

Geto had just done a four-page spread in Architects Digest, even though he was a pretentious motherfucker who hated the magazine. And Gojo… God, he’d just opened for Prada at Paris Fashion Week. They went viral on every social media platform a while back for how hot and gay they were. You’d been caught in the crossfire of your accounts being tagged and gained a social media boost, but that also meant a bunch of people DMing you telling you to take pictures of them. 

The most fucked up thing about it all was the gnawing feeling that chewing on your bones that you were being dragged around like an accessory to remind them how good they had it. A permanent third wheel they’ve been stuck with since university. Two talented lovers on the brink of permanent importance and their weird little friend who follows them along like a lost puppy. It wasn’t even true and that's why it hurt so much. You knew they believed in you, thought that you could be a successful artist, and supported you in it even, but the jealousy rotted inside you like a festering wound. You weren’t even jealous of their success, only just partial, but it was like you weren’t good enough to be around them. 

Maybe you were better off as wall decor in the life they were building together. Something quiet and serene that didn’t demand anything from them. Better that than the bitter, jealous mess you were every time you saw them succeed.

He starts, the same spiel he goes to when you get like this. “You can always-”

“No.” your voice comes out sharper than you intended, but you don’t care. 

“I don’t know why you act like it’s such a bad off,” Suguru presses, his calm demeanor only pissing you off more.  

“I don’t want to work for you.” 

“Why not.” 

You snap. “Because I don’t want to, Suguru! Is that so hard to understand?”

Fuck, you wanted to storm off, go back to the house, and slam the door behind you as you went. But it didn’t matter if you stormed off, you lived in one of his guest bedrooms. Both of you were just headed to the same place. Sad little rescue that you were.

Suguru assessed, his eyes softened, breaking you down. He picked out every one of your insecurities as he stared at you. Microscopic inspection, each of your cells was being assessed for your state of being. Have you eaten? Was it enough? Had you slept? Are you even capable of taking care of yourself in this state? 

The weight of his gaze made your chest tighten, and before you could control it, try and reel it back in, tears welled up in your eyes. Blinking them back, you swallowed hard, the lump in your throat bobbing as you did. You hated this. Hated the way his care, his pity, felt like a knife twisting in the last remaining shred of pride you clung to. 

Pity was the killy of pride and you should accept that your pride was already decomposing in the septic tank in the backyard. 

Fuck up, fuck up, fuck up. All you ever were, all you’d ever be. Every loose thread of your shirt feels like it's cutting against your skin. The hem of your trousers drowns your feet like you're wearing your parents' clothes. Shabby. Uncouth. Inept. 

Wordlessly, you turned on your heel and fled, rushing out of the side street as the tears spilled past your lash line. You couldn’t do this anymore--no more questions, no more pity. No matter how hard you tried, how hard you struggled, clawed your way through the fucking dirt, you could never be like them. Never be good like theme, never right like them, never fit like them. They had these perfect little lives that they could boast to everyone about. When they spoke, people listened. People cared what they had to say. The world parted for them, it was the Red Sea and they were Moses, making space. There’d always be room for them to shine. 

But you were screaming into a void, your throat raw, bloody, and you were aching from the endless effort to be seen, to be heard. You wanted to be looked at like your own person, your own successes. Hard to be noticed for something that rarely happened. No matter how loud you screamed, how much you begged, your voice was just lost in the noise. 

You knew Suguru would follow. He always did. Even if you didn’t live in the same house, he’d have followed you. His voice was muffled by the pressure in your ears but you could hear him trying to talk to you. He let you get all the way home and inside the gate of the house before he grabbed your wrist and yanked you backward. 

Trying to pull away, your shoulder wrenched painfully as you trashed in his grip. 

“Calm down,” Suguru spoke firmly, pulling you into his chest. His sweater was soft, and your face smushed against the fabric as sobs wrecked your body, trembling like the earth in an earthquake.

It was hard to speak through the tears, so all you could do was try and slip out of his hold as you sobbed. You didn’t want this comfort. You wanted to run from your failure. From how suffocating life felt and that no matter what you'd never be enough. Worse than that, the sweet sickly feeling that trickled down your throat that when he held your life this, it made the world feel just a little bit more bearable. As if somewhere you could survive another day if he kept touching you. It wasn’t yours to feel and he wasn’t yours to hold. 

Suguru lets you wiggle around. You hit his torso a few times, your strength fading as you cry. When your sobs turned to hiccups and gasps for breaths, he gently cupped your face, thumbs brushing away the tears that still spilled from your eyes. 

“Talk to me,” he said softly, barely above a whisper. The songs of a city nearly eclipsing it. 

What could you say? How could you explain this feeling? This horrible guilt, pain, and jealousy ate away at you every single day. The tears came harder now, speeding up as if to help drown you in your misery and take you out of it for good. Hiccuping you drew breath, sharp and quick, hoping to speak but nothing comes out. Words claw at your throat, digging it with sharpened points. It hurts the way they hang onto you.

“Is it all too much again?” His voice is so soft, warm like fleece pajamas fresh out of the dryer as he holds you so delicately.

This wasn’t the first time that one of the three of you had been so consumed by dread, suffocated by the weight of life itself. Suguru knew it all too well himself, from high school to know he held it tightly in his hands. It never went away from him, he just learned to live with it, let it fade into the background, and let a constant hum of despair serve as the baseline for the day-to-day. 

His thumbs brush over the apex of your cheekbones again and the tenderness shatters you, another wave of sobs tearing through you. They pull you under, out into the open ocean, and through their rip current.

“I just..” you start, it scratches your throat, thick with phlegm. “ I can’t do this anymore.” 

His voice remained steady. “Do what?” 

“Any of it. I can’t do it.” 

“You’re capable of it. You can do it.” 

Jarring, rough, whipping across your skin as the rubber band pulls too tight and snaps. You lash out, and it stings where it hits. The anger cuts through your skin like your fingernails leave crescent moons in your palms. 

“No, I fucking can’t!” It's ripped out of you as you stalk away like a wounded animal. “I can’t okay. I can’t do shit. I can’t keep a relationship without being cheated on. I can’t manage to get my own place. I can’t get a fucking job. I can’t sit here and pretend like I’m not fucking wasting away in my own misery watching you and Gojo and Shoko all succeed and be the only one of us still shooting for the stars and coming crashing down to earth every single fucking time. You and Gojo with your perfect little lives look at me like a charity case to be fixed.”

“We have never looked at you like a charity case.” His tone was firm.

“Really? Then what the fuck do you look at me like, huh?” You press the question circling back around. “Is it pity? Did the two of you see some poor stray that you wanted to take in and keep like a pet when we met at university? Is that it?” 

His eyes were hard, unreadable.

“It is that. You pity me.”

“Jesus, no! We don’t pity you- I don’t pity you! Is it so hard to believe that I care about you?”

“Yes, it is! There’s no reason for you to care,” 

“What the hell wouldn’t I care?” Suguru’s voice raised to a shout, frustration cracking his facade. 

“Because I’m just like everyone you hate!” Your chest heaves as you let out a flood of emotions. “ No ambitions, contributing nothing to society, just leeching off others.” 

“You’re not like them.” 

“I am. On paper, I’m exactly like them. The only reason that you’d keep me around is because it makes you feel good to watch me suffer or you pity me.”

“How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t pity you?” His voice cracked with emotion, but you didn’t stop.

“Then tell me why you care!” It comes out so desperately. You're begging him for understanding, to know why he stays. To know why he lets you in.

For once he looked uncertain. His mask slipped, revealing the cracks in his facade. It’s been so long since you’ve seen underneath it you’d almost forgotten how he looked when he wasn’t pretending to be happy. 

“Or is it that you don’t care?” 

Something flashed in his eyes, flickerings of things you only saw when he looked at Gojo. He opens his mouth to speak and then closes it. There's a fear in his eyes, like if he acts in this moment something may crack and crumble like the foundation of a house that leaves him crumpled in a pile of wood. He doesn’t, or won’t, give you an answer. 

So you turn on your heel, the conversation over in your mind, and head to the front door. You’ll go up and pack a bag before heading across town and crashing on Shoko and Utahime’s couch before calling your parents and groveling to them. 

But as you reach the door, Suguru reaches you. His arm wraps around your waist and he spins you around and pushes your back against it. He’s got you pinned. 

“It’s because I love you.” It’s the faintest breeze that passes from his lips, like a car driving past on a hot day, sweat making your shirt stick to you. “I care because I love you.”

Everything is frozen in a still frame. Neither one of you moves, neither one of you breathes. A still moment that holds you tight, threatens to squeeze you so tightly your heart bursts. 

“What do you mean by that?” You swallow as you speak, like pebbles in your throat. 

Suguru blinks back tears, looking up and then back at you. “That I love you. Fuck! I’m in love with you.” 

Disbelief makes your voice shake. “No, you’re not not. You’re with Satoru.” 

“And? I can’t love both of you?” 

“No, you can’t,” Hypocrisy tastes acrid on your tongue. You know damn well you could never pick between the two of them, that this blighted jealousy you feel towards them is more the fact they have the other rather than their success. It’s something you don’t admit but it’s there. “Besides, you’re lying to me.”

“No.” His response was firm and immediate. The whole time you’d known them, their worlds had revolved around each other. They’d been the only thing for each other for so long. It was an unspoken truth that they were made for each other in a way that could only be sewn by the fabric of the universe itself. Something so profoundly and divinely created it had been written in the fabric of life at the moment of the Big Bang. 

“I’ve seen you watching.” Suguru’s tone is low, cutting, it vibrates through you as he has you pinned. 

A sick, icy dread wraps around your spine. It starts in your toes and crawls up your body. Your muscles lock in place as it climbs up until it's all the way in your head. Paralyzing fear grips you.

“I don't…” The lie is transparent before it comes to fruition. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” It’s brittle, cracking on your teeth as it passes through them.

“Don’t play innocent.” Suguru’s voice was sharp, cutting through the air like a blade. The tension between you tightens and winds up to pitch, but there's a current that punctuates it. One that feels heady and warm. One that excites you in the same way it embarrasses you. “I’ve seen you watching. I’ve seen you for years. The first time, maybe it was a mistake. But last week? Three weeks before that?”

Your mouth went dry, choking on the excuse that tried to bubble up. Like finely ground chalk powder coasted every surface of it. “I—”

He cuts you off before you can even try to defend yourself. “I know you get off on it too. Leave your curtains open while you touch yourself. Saying his name, my name.”

Horror twists inside you like a knife, your heart dropping to the pit of your stomach. You’d always been so careful, never acting when you thought they were home. Never want to risk exactly this happening. Your face burned like you drank half a liter of vodka in a go. Maybe you’d wake up and realize this was a nightmare. The humiliation was unbearable. 

“Imagine my surprise,” Suguru continues in a low chuckle, left hand slotting perfectly against your waist, “when I came home early one day and saw that.” 

The tears that had stopped in your flash of anger spill hot and fast down your cheeks. The raw, hot shame and embarrassment muddle you. It makes you want a sinkhole to open up beneath you and swallow you whole. You can’t meet his gaze, your vision blurry. 

“I’m sorry. I’ll move out.” you stammer out, the words falling in a chopping spiccato, desperate to create space between the two of you. You’d never be able to face him again. 

“Who said anything about moving out?” Suguru comes, pulling you closer to him till you're flush against his chest. He bends down, breath tickling your ear. You feel the sharp pressure of his teeth grazing the shell of it, a jolt going through your body. “You don’t get to leave now.” Pulling back, he meets your eyes in a half-lidded gaze. 

Both of you are playing the game again. Looking for something unspoken, some cryptic clue you need to decipher. He was searching for discomfort, disgust, anything to make him draw back and stop. You searched for understanding, dissecting how it got to this point. Every moment, every glance, every touch from him that you had ever overlooked. 

He always held a soft glint in his eyes when he looked at you. Something subtle, normally reserved for Satoru. It warmed the edge of his voice when he spoke and crinkled the corners of his eyes when he smiled. There was that softness for Shoko, but it was different. The one he had for you was a more reserved, pulled-back, and dialled-down version of what gripped him when he looked at Satoru. He had always viewed you this way.

The times you sat sandwiched between him and Gojo, your legs brushing against him, his arm slung around your shoulders to reach Satoru. Pulling you against him on the train, in clubs, at parties, the bump of your hips against his own. Compliments when you wore flattering, his pushing Satoru to dress you up. He liked it best when you were in shorter dresses and skirts with tights. 

Suguru had always wanted you, but you had failed to notice. 

Instinct took over before reason could temper it. You pushed off the door, your hands flying to the loose part of his hair at the nape of his neck. The strands feelt just as silky an shiny as they look between your fingers. Without hesitation, the space between you two diminishes. You aren’t sure who closes the distance first, but your lips lock hungry. Teeth knocking against each other as you both desperately cling to the other. It's rough and aggressive, both of you starved animals feasting on flesh. The taste of copper spreading in your mouth as he bit down on your lip making you whine. His breathing becomes your own, heady mix of desire and dark, primal urge..

His tongue pushes against yours, taking advantage of your now open mouth, wet and warm brushing against the back of your teeth, laying claim to your mouth. Geto was dominating in all aspects of his life so it was unsurprising that he set the pace and led you to where he wanted to be. He moved your legs up, patting your ass to jump, to then wrap around his waist as he pressed you against the door. You grind your hips against his growing erection as he holds you there, and you can feel the heat of him even through his pants.

Suguru pulls away panting. His eyes are half closed, lips blushed a beautiful red and damp with saliva. He moves in again, this time to your neck, where he bites down hard. You squirm as he sucks a dark and angry mark, his mark, on your skin. The bite of his teeth against your skin feels right. It eats away at the jealous monster inside you every second he’s latched onto you.

Fed up with the door, Suguru opens it and carries you through the threshold. He moves the two of you through the genkan, toeing off his shoes while you kick your own off, and into the living room where he drops you on the couch. There’s an air about him, so intense it’s nearly oppressive, as his fingers inch up underneath your sweater, sliding it off of you. It’s a predator circling their prey, the success of a hunt now that he’s got you on your back against the soft fabric of the couch. He’d been waiting for this far longer than you thought and it spurs you on.

Suguru moves in tandem with you, tugging off his sweater and button-up shirt, exposing his happy trail. The dark dusting of hair makes your mouth water. Once his shirt is off, his hands cover your chest through your bra, palming your tits like stress balls. It's unpadded and lacey, and it lets him feel as if your nipples get hard. He pushes the cups down, leaving them to rest under your breasts, and pushes them up slightly, accentuated by your being on your back.

His fingertips close around your nipples as he pinches and pulls at them. You knew how much of a sadist he could be. One night you watched him edge Satoru for an hour straight. Seen how hot he looked with Gojo in his mouth as he writhed around. A sweet moan escaped you as he played with your nipples and rolled his hips against yours. It makes your head feel fuzzy, thoughts focusing purely on him. His weight presses down on you, so heavy and right it makes you ache.

You lunge forward, propping yourself up on your elbows to kiss him again. It’s just as messy and hungry as before, years of built-up desire between the two of you saturating your every pore. It settles in your bones that pulses in time with your heart. 

Suguru doesn’t separate from you, but he slides your trousers and underwear off in one go as you kick your socks off. He tugs his own off hastily, boxer briefs following in turn. His public hair is trimmed, a close crop like you’ve seen it before. Like every other aspect of him, it’s neatly maintained, put into its place, and kept there. 

His fingers dig into the flesh of your hips as he pulls your hips up by his head. Your back is half off the sofa as he places your legs over his shoulders and parts your core with his fingers. He blows cold air onto your clit that makes you squirm before he licks your clit. Moaning, you try to grind yourself against his face but his hands tighten on your hips, holding them firm. You’d get what he wanted to give you. Fight against it and get nothing, or accept it. 

He was slow to start. His tongue lazily explores you, getting familiar with your taste. It pushed against your clit, wide and flat, before swirling his tongue around it. The ball of his tongue piercing rubbed against the most sensitive part of you. Your hips jerk forward and he looks up, a warning in his eyes, but he doesn’t stop. Suguru curls his tongue again, this time moving it side to side, letting his piercing catch on your clit purposefully.  Every action he takes is measured as he picks up speed while latching his lips around it to add delicious suction. Two of his fingers slide inside you, reaching far deeper than your own ever could. He pumps them in and out of you, driving you closer to the edge.

You felt your pussy drooling, liquid gushing out and covering his chin. The muscles in your abdomen tightened with each passing second until you swore they'd cramp. It was all too much as you came, jerking and contracting in on yourself. Black spots dot your vision as your world shakes on this axis. 

Sugru watched as you came, pulling back from your pussy to stare at your face. His eyes never left yours as he rubbed soothing circles into your skin with his thumbs. He could cover nearly all of you with how big his hands were, warm and calloused. Minus a cold spot on his left hand. 

His engagement ring. 

The silver felt like it burned your skin as he smiled at you and planted a kiss on your inner thigh. It glimmers in the low light, bouncing light off like a homing beacon. Bubbling sickness, bile rising in your throat, disgust palming at your skin. What had you just done? You’ve just violated a boundary so gigantic with Suguru. Let your own selfish need for intimacy lead you to this. He was engaged to your best friend. They were getting married next year.

You rushed to grab your clothes, panic surging through you. The world spins around you. 

“What’s wrong?” 

“We shouldn’t have done that,” you buttoned up your trousers, throwing your sweater on. Your hair is a mess and your skin feels clammy and flushed. The need to vomit is overwhelming. “This was a mistake.”

Suguru’s rising from the couch, trying to grab you, stopping you from moving but you dodge his hand. “A mistake?” 

Your left hand meets your mouth as you bite the nail of your thumb. It clicks against your front teeth. 

“Satoru won’t mind-” 

“A mistake Suguru,” You shake your head, bending down and grabbing the rest of your stuff. “Please. Just forget this.” Without waiting for his reply, you run up the stairs and slam the door behind you. 

You really are a bitch.

©️ uzuzrimisery

[godspeedviper]

How the therapists react to your "worst" symptoms - Headcanons

SFW || TW: mentions of self harm, mention of suicidal ideation, therapy sessions, very brief mention of (unlabeled) disordered eating, mention of psychosis & violent thoughts.

A/N: this was written by someone who has been in therapy for many years and has personal experience with these types of symptoms. this is not meant to romanticize any mental illness or symptoms of it. this is purely self indulgent fluff. just because your experience might be different doesn't make these experiences any less valid. if you don't like this simply do not read it, block if you must, and move on.

Jonathan Crane (Scarecrow)

He is the most objective and detached of the lot. Therefore he never seems to have much of a reaction no matter what you do or say to him. He really has seen it all before. This does help you feel less anxious as time goes on, knowing he won't ever judge you or ascribe any kind of morality to your actions.

"If it causes you distress or harm, then we should work towards eliminating it altogether." is his typical response to your concerns about your own coping mechanisms. "You do not owe anyone kindness, just remember to restrain yourself from causing harm whenever possible."

He is the only one to have no discernible reaction to your self harm scars/burns. One day, he noticed an especially fresh one and offered to disinfect and bandage the wound for you. He always gives you space to bring things up at your own pace, when you feel comfortable doing so.

"Not all of us have the capacity to be so gentle, and that's alright." he says about your outbursts. "I'm not known for being the warmest, but that doesn't make me any less skilled at my work, or any less worthy of respect. If you do not hold my lack of socially acceptable agreeableness against me, then you should not hold it against yourself."

Bonus: when you finally have the courage to mention the substance usage he remains as cool and detached as ever. "I am glad you were honest with me so we can monitor for any interactions with your medications. Know that I won't judge you for moderate usage, after all, do we not professionally refer to medications as drugs? It isn't ideal, but it is a way of self medicating. All I ask is that you be fully honest with me about your usage so I can better take care of you."

Hannibal Lecter (NBC)

He is surprisingly gentle and very soft spoken, although you were intimidated by him at first and the opulence of his office. He usually greets you with a warm smile and asks how your week went and if you've eaten yet today. He teaches you to enjoy food again, describing it as an art, and asking you to be mindful and present when enjoying a meal. Listen to your body, what it tells you about the ingredients, the quality of the meal, and the hands that made it.

He always asks you what you want to do, making sure to actively include you in your own treatment plan. He thoroughly explains treatment options, medications and their possible side effects, and has you weigh your options. This allows you to really analyze your own reactions and act accordingly when you are alone.

"Now, you do understand I am required to recommend inpatient treatment if you are feeling actively suicidal." he says, when you come in on an extra bad day. "However, I want to trust you and give you the option of what to do from here. If you think it will do you more harm than good, let me know, but you have to be honest."

One day you get the courage to ask why there is a first aid kit on his desk, though you already assume why. He simply looks at you and asks "Do you need it today?" before gently tending to your recent self harm wounds. He never calls you out for it, but he does periodically ask you upfront if you've been engaging in self injurious behaviors. If you respond yes, he asks to tend to your wounds, and if you say no, he celebrates with you. "Good. I'm proud of you for holding yourself back."

Bonus: when you land in the hospital, Hannibal makes sure to go visit you while your therapy slot is on hold. He never calls attention to the circumstances that lead you here, and focuses solely on your recovery and how he can't wait to have you back in the office soon.

Harleen Quinzel (Harley Quinn)

It doesn't take long for her to shed her professional demeanor. She makes you feel like you're talking to a close friend, yet manages to never fully lose the "doctor" in her. She offers you fidget toys as a way to ease the tension of talking about such vulnerable and heavy subjects.

She makes everything into a little game or a challenge to motivate you changing habits. Every time you manage to avoid indulging in negative coping mechanisms, she rewards you with a little heart shaped chocolate at the end of the session. On bad days, she simply encourages you to try again and she gifts you a cute bandaid at the end of the session to signify your healing from a bad day (sometimes, the bandaids come in handy for self harm wounds).

"Being childish can be a good thing!" she tells you. "Its important to have a little whimsy in your life. Just because you grew up doesn't mean you have to... ya know, grow up." She encourages you to try and add a little joy to your daily life. You start taking fuzzy tipped pens to work and keeping plushies at home for comfort. Surprisingly, it does help.

Every now and again she asks for your advice or assistance on minor things, such as which dress she should wear for a date, or what show to watch next. Sure, you are technically paying for her time, but this fact alone doesn't entirely relieve you of the feeling that you are burdensome. Whenever that feeling creeps back up, she reminds you of all the times you helped her make decisions until you admit your usefulness with a smile.

Bonus: "Hearing voices or other noises doesn't make you evil." is her reply when she learns of your psychotic symptoms. "Everyone is susceptible to experiencing psychosis. Hell, I've felt it when I was losing sleep in med school. It doesn't make you a bad person."

Hannibal Lecter (Silence of the Lambs)

You are intimidated by him at first, but his hypnotic voice grows on you. He always sounds so self assured, but never assertive. He has an almost paternal quality to him, making you feel simultaneously comfortable and protected.

He always listens to you intently, you never feel ignored by him. Hannibal is the only one that makes you feel seen and you tell him as much. "Oh everyone sees you my dear, you can be assured of that, but not everyone has the courage to acknowledge you. Keep this in mind for the next time you should feel the urge to do something drastic for attention."

You were worried you would eventually do something to turn him away, as you had to so many therapists before him. However, he simply scoffs at the idea that you could ever do anything that could possibly frighten him or upset him.

When you finally have the courage to tell him about the violent intrusive thoughts he remains as calm as ever. "In the past, we humans had to hunt to survive. We also had to protect ourselves and our kin. As time goes on, that propensity for violence remains, even if our survival is no longer dependent on it."

Bonus: You come clean to him about getting into a fight with someone, being entirely overtaken by rage and paranoia. You call yourself a monster and cry. "I have worked with serial killers, family annihilators, rapists the worst that the world has to offer. I know monsters. You are not one. You wanna know why?" You nod yes. "Because my dear, you have remorse and regret for your actions, they do not. Besides, you would not be sitting here with me if you did not want the anger to control you."

AO3 || Guidelines || Request || Ko-Fi

[itsabouttimex2]

Do you have any headcanons for after an escape attempt with each monkey demon ( Mk , Monkey king and macaque) What would be their reaction at first? What would they do when they find you? How stricter would they get? What would they start doing differently after the attempt?

MK, as usual, has very different responses depending on the season he’s in.

Season 1 MK probably doesn’t even consider the possibility that Y/N could “escape”. This is when the relationship between the two of you is at it’s healthiest, before this poor boy goes through hell and back.

You aren’t locked up, he doesn’t have you hidden away, there’s nowhere that you’re explicitly forbidden to go- there’s nothing to escape from. His assumption isn’t “Y/N is running away from me!” or “I can’t let them escape!” but instead, “It’s been a while since I’ve seen Y/N… so I’ll drop everything to go visit them right now!”

Sometimes he abandons all prior goals to run off and see you. Sometimes he rushes through a fight and ends it a little more… fiercely than his opponents would have liked.

Once the trauma starts rolling in and Y/N becomes his coping mechanism as much as they are his friend, MK starts to personally define exactly what counts as “escape”.

You aren’t allowed to leave his side without telling where you’ll be going and when you’ll be back. If you’re a competent enough fighter to take on a Bull Clone or two, he won’t push this ‘rule’ as hard. And if you can’t do that?

Then MK makes a serious push for you to train with him. He’ll beg and pester Wukong to teach you at least some of the 72 Transformations as a form of defending yourself or getting out of nasty scrapes without his help. Eventually, his mentor concedes (after some serious bribery on MK’s part) and allows you to take part in the sessions.

But until you can reasonably take care of yourself against two or three opponents at once, MK is by your side every minute he gets the chance. Running off or giving him the slip means little once he’s mastered his Gold Vision, which he does very quickly. Or he can extend his pole to the skies to get a much better view of the surrounding area to see exactly where you ran off to.

Give him the slip too many times, and MK will tie your wrist to his with his headband, ensuring that you don’t get “lost” as he drags you along after him.

“C’mon, Y/N! I already got permission from Pigsy for you to stay the night!”

“That’s sweet of you both, really… but last time I stayed the night, it turned into a week.”

“I know! That was the best, wasn’t it?! Maybe this time, we can stretch it out to a month!”

Sun Wukong will let it slide once. Just once, he’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, choosing to believe that you wouldn’t go running off with a very good reason. After that, his restrictions mount and your freedoms decline one by one. Each consecutive escape brings you one step close to being locked inside Shuilian Cave, where he decides that you are safest.

But that’s for a later day, once you’ve run his trust dry.

For now, he believes in you.

So he’ll let you leave, giving you a single day to tend to whatever business that you needed to attend to so urgently that you left.

All alone. In the middle of the night. With a single packed bag.

Wukong will let this one first escape slide, because lord only knows that he’s pulled so many horseshit antics that his kid/friend/student/whatever Y/N is running off once isn’t that big of a deal. And really…

He wants to believe in you here. He wants to think that this is something you’re doing for a very good reason, instead of just being a desperate attempt to get away from him.

When the single day he allots you is over and done, you can start counting out your precious, meager minutes of freedom one by one.

In less than an hour, his flying cloud blazes through the sky and blisters the earth like a comet, leaving a crater of destruction and cinders where it lands.

And aboard the vaporous mount is none other the Great Sage himself, arms folded and grin forced.

“Hey there, bud. You been out here having fun, huh?”

No vigor or vim to line his words. No electric cheer to fuel his fluid movements. No warmth in his tone.

It’s almost hard to call him Sun Wukong.

But it is him here, and he’s here for you. He offers you a hand, stiff and tense. The way the acts makes it clear there’s no choice but to take it, not when the air grows thick and the tension is stormy.

“C’mon, bud. Time to head home.”

Pre-Season 4 Macaque is the only one on this list that’s immoral enough to outright kidnap someone, in my opinion. MK might guilt you into staying with him, and while Sun Wukong would technically commit kidnapping, it’s by virtue of not letting you leave instead of forcibly taking you away. It’d be more along the lines of false imprisonment.

But Macaque?

If all his careful maneuvers and schemes prove inefficient in keeping you close, he’ll switch to brute force in the blink of an eye.

Macaque; at the start, gently manipulates you. His shackles are first gossamer, innocuous and kind. He builds you up and tears you down in increments, never swaying too far to either side. You never feel confident enough to leave, never feel hurt enough to lash out.

He doesn’t chase after you. He makes you feel unstable and dependent, then molds you into seeing him as a shelter that you aren’t strong enough to leave.

It’s a brutal process for Y/N, especially if they’re his student, because he intentionally picks a lonely and insecure person for the sake of rivaling MK.

And if you do somehow break free from the psychological and emotional strings he uses to puppeteer you about, Macaque simply switches to physically stringing you up with his shadows and forcing you to act out your deepest insecurities as he narrates them to an audience of shadow clones.

“Poor little Y/N… forever on their own, watching from the shadows while all the rest of the world laughs and loves with one another.”

The shadows around your body maneuver and mold you, forcing you to wave your hands and walk, dragging your lips into frowns and smiles. Every little shame and self-doubt you possess is bared to the light, bared to his shadows, and you can’t help but be strung along as a passive watcher in your very own story.

You break into tears halfway through, devolving into hysteric sobbing by the end.

And Macaque; no longer a shelter but instead a jail, offers you comfort to reel you back into his grasp. He’ll take you into his arms as you weep, promising to make you stronger, strong enough to forget the past and all that he’s forcing you to leave behind.

Now that you’re rendered to your most reduced state, he can start to work his magic.

“Trust me, kiddo… everything I’m doing, I’m doing for your own good. You get me?”

[sleeplessgoldfinchfixation]

A lot of people seem to cite Boris as the character who gets Theo into drugs and kind of brings about his subsequent drug addiction, but this is ignoring that by the time he meets Boris, almost every adult who is supposed to take care of him has already drugged him.

Page 111, "Mrs. Barbour had started giving me a little green pill called Elavil that she explained would keep me from being scared at night...(it strikes me now, though it didn't then, that Mrs. Barbour was well out of line by giving me unprescribed medication on top of the yellow capsules and tiny orange footballs Dave the Shrink had prescribed me.)"

His caretaker, Mrs. Barbour, teaches him that he should treat his grief with drugs. His mental health care team assigned by the state treats his grief with drugs (I think Xanax, which is pretty addictive.) Granted, he's in therapy at this time as well, and I'm not trying to malign the sometimes necessary decision to put minors on prescription drugs for mental health, but combined with Mrs. Barbour, it contributes to the sense that adults give him drugs for being sad.

Page 218, just a couple hours into his father's custody of him (and after his father and Xandra have already once let him get drunk), his father and Xandra see he's scared in the airport, link it (partially correctly) to his trauma from the museum explosion, and conclude:

"Why don't you give him one of those, you know."

"Got it," said Xandra smartly, stopping to fish in her purse, producing two large white bullet-shaped pills. One she dropped in my father's outstretched palm, and the other she gave to me.

By the time Theo meets Boris, every adult responsible for him since his mother's death has seen his grief and trauma, and told him, through their actions, that medication is the answer.

When Boris gives him alcohol and drugs, he's doing it for similar reasons, (page 333-- "I slightly wished we had picked another night to take them, but Boris had insisted it would make me feel better." and page 351, offering him coke, "It'll make you feel better!") But Boris is about the same age as Theo, and, like Theo, has learned to self-medicate from the adults around him. Out of everyone who offers Theo drugs (actual prescriptions from Dave aside in this point), he's the only one who believably doesn't know better.

But one key difference is that Boris, of all the people who give him drugs, is the only one who really engages with and witnesses Theo's grief and trauma. Getting drugs from Mrs. Barbour and from his father are both intended to dampen his outward symptoms because they are inconvenient to others. It's to help him push everything down. When Boris gives Theo alcohol, it actually brings out his true feelings, and Boris never seems inconvenienced by this or unwelcoming of it (page 280-281, "Sometimes, in the night, I woke up wailing...Happily, Boris never seemed annoyed or even very startled when I woke him").

So, while Boris imparts bad drug and alcohol use habits to Theo, he's not the one who gets him started self-medicating. Of all the people around Theo, he has the most limited resources by far (financially, psychological coping mechanism-wise, etc). In fact, he needs help himself that he never really receives. Despite this, he's the only character who really hears Theo's experience and offers all the resources he does have to help.

[thepersonperson]

Ngl your post summarises so well why i love sukugo and why im so insane about them

Like of fucking course those two would work together when Sukuna deeply does not care about any social rules to ever exist. Of course they do when Gojo is confronted with someone gay for him and not hiding behind anything. This is not survivable and i love them and care them. I even had written in the notes for my fic about Gojo being the person who generally prefers to keep things as they are but i couldnt actually formulate why i think that. You are so smart your analysis is so wonderful

This is also why I like Sukugo a lot. It's not just that Sukuna matches Gojo's freak, he enables it. Encourages it even. Makes it worse. Sukuna's existence is a twisted opposition to Jujutsu Society. It's very hedonistic, sadistic, and selfish but by golly it is rebellion.

The flattery is also appreciated, but please understand that I am very stupid and am capable of making mistakes. Alternate perspectives like yours are just as valuable. Which is why I'm shoehorning your tags on this post into this ask. (They are great tags and everyone should see them. Also I don't know how to respond to them otherwise.)

#yeah youre right # sorry i got time to think about it #and im kind of writing gojo rhe same but a vit more influenced by sukuna lmao #tbh as the person coming from a post soviet country #i honestly cant like #fully agree with everything due to just #like i understand that what people want from socialism isnt what was in soviet union #but its still very much hard to accept that anyone could want what we went through lol #when i tell you that socialism actually pitted everyone against each other isnt not a joke #but i understand what you lead into and yeah yeah true

#tbf to gojo he really tried even if his method ultimately failed #like he had genuinely tried to do better for the kids that came after him despite the desperate lack of empathy of understanding of others #and himself #like i can appreciate the desperate desire to make change for the better

#and yeah geto was so horribly jealous its insane #of anything really #i also kinda really think geto has the mentality that after toji gojo is different? #that the boy he knew died and this is someone else #and what he does it ultimately for the boy he loved and for the boy who survived through changing #it also may be a bit of a fucked up coping mechanism how to deal with it all and differentiate what gojo was to him and is

#but yeah i was thinkinf about it and talking a lot #they were so badly exploited as children #we know its better with gojo than it was before #but then also if gojo takes on the hardest missions for the students that means he’s not present to teach its a fucked up circle #he doesnt understand enough to be a full leader to make a rebellion but he is trying god damn #but yeah the only way he could articulate what he’s actually feeling is through battle which is sad

#i take the way he stopped looking for exciting battles growing up is him growing up #like sending yuuta for cursed tools. he made his peace that he cant just chase men while he needs to take care of the kids #idk its all deeplt fucked up and im very sad for them

That's a fair criticism and even better commentary. I understand the aversion to some of the words I'm using to describe this. It's just that I don't know how else to effectively communicate what I think is the main issue. I do appreciate you're willing to hear me out on this though! (You're applying Umineko's "Without love, it cannot be seen." which makes me very happy.)

I'm US based which is a hypercapitalist hellscape, so when I talk about socialism it doesn't mean "do exactly what the Soviet Union did" (that would be very bad) but instead some of the ideas behind workers rights are good and desperately needed to curb stomp the type of labor exploitation they're experiencing. (Like unions for better pay, hours, and working conditions.)

Theory is useful because it give you the words to describe exactly what's wrong and the ideas that can guide you towards productive solutions. I can say Jujutsu Society is bad because of labor exploitation from the higher ups and therefore unions would help mitigate their power because I learned about those things.

Gojo and Geto don't have those words or background so they see part of the problem but have no name for it. And because they don't understand why it's happening, their solutions are surface-level treatments that don't address the real source of their suffering.

Toji was a symptom of the problem. Geto saw Toji as the entire problem so he thinks eradicating anything like Toji is the solution. Gojo saw Toji as a symptom and a potential solution to the real problem—Jujutsu Society. He recognized that Toji being strong is what helped him escape this problem so he laser focused on it. If he and his students are strong, they can change things. What things exactly? Gojo doesn't have the knowledge or time to dwell deeper on it. To him strength=revolution. He neglects the need for mutual aid, addressing overwork, and limiting child labor because the words and framework to deal with that are missing.

Gojo can't really do anything other than keep things the sameish because he doesn't know how the better world he's seeking works. (Similar to how you recognized this flaw of his, but couldn't put it into words since you didn't have them.) He both does things better for his students and screws them up in whole new different ways as a result of this. It's very tragic.

And everything wrong with Jujutsu Society is still just a microcosm of Japanese work culture that leads to this exploitation in the first place. Nanami is the only character that makes this connection and he has no idea what to do about it other than work where he feels less bad about it.

It's kind of like knowing a grease fire is dangerous but not knowing how to put it out.

>Gojo throws water on the grease fire trying to put it out and makes it worse before he starts suffocating it with his body instead of a blanket.

>Geto tries to eradicate grease from existence not knowing that other types of fire exist.

>Nanami realizes oxygen and fuel are the source of fires but he has none of the tools to put them out or prevent them.

>Sukuna understands that letting the fire burn everything to ash means there will never be fire again. ...While ignoring this also means there will be nothing left in the aftermath.

If any of these people were taught fire safety (labor theory), their methods of dealing with the fire (labor exploitation) and preventing it in the future would be so much better.

Japan has some of the lowest union memberships and the worst working conditions amongst rich countries. JJK has a lot to say on the topic so I'm being very annoying about it because I don't see others talking about it this way.

[waffliesinyoface]

fic concept: sakura gets recruited into ANBU during the timeskip and kakashi starts losing his mind a little bit

specifically because like. i don't doubt that as soon as team 7 dissolved after sasuke's defection, kakashi went right back to doing ANBU shit.

naruto's gone, sasuke gone, sakura is still in the village but she has tsunade who is (in his mind) much better at teaching her than he ever was and he DEFINITELY has zero opinions about that at all, no sirree, so he just kinda. vanishes. a little bit. because he is incredibly mentally well adjusted, you see.

anyways. tsunade isn't letting him completely get lost in ANBU, because This Is Not A Healthy Coping Mechanism, Kakashi, but like. konoha is real fucking low on manpower for a bit there so she can't not assign him ANBU missions.

enter sakura, who is like. getting ridiculously good at medicine. her combat potential is kind of limited until she actually perfects tsunade's strength technique, but ANBU is mostly about stealth so that's not much of a liability. But, like, field medicine? did you lose an arm? do you still have the arm? yeah, she can fix that no biggie. it's just simple anatomy?? guys its not hard. (never let it be said that sakura isn't just as much of a freak of nature as the other members of team 7)

anyways. between that, her excellent chakra control (needed for stealth techniques), ability to work well with others, her penchant for violence, and the fact that "Sakura Haruno" is starting to get known as "The Hokage's Apprentice"... shoving her in ANBU from time to time is excellent training, means Tsunade can keep an eye on her, and it allows her to take missions with less risk of someone recognizing her and going "oh we need to deal with this before she grows up and becomes the second slug sage". It's enrichment AND the protection of anonymity!

However. the thing about Sakura is. She has pink hair. She has bright pink hair. Even if Kakashi wasn't already intimately familiar with her, it's really really goddamn obvious who she is under the mask.

Tsunade "introduces" her as "ANBU Squirrel", and Kakashi, under his own ANBU Wolf mask, has to try really really hard not to freak out that one of his precious genin is working in ANBU.

On the one hand, why. Why are you doing this to him. Please this is so stressful he can remember taking her on missions to catch cats, why is she in ANBU now its only been like a YEAR since she graduated.

On the other hand, he absolutely cannot let her get assigned to anyone else because they won't be completely neurotically obsessed with keeping her safe like he would.

And Tsunade won't hear a word about taking her out of ANBU because you don't get to just ghost your students, Kakashi. You will interact with your little baby duckling and stop trying to duck your responsibilities as her sensei.

[nonvaleantredeo]

Marius de Romanus Appreciation Week, day 5

Prompt: Look toward the sun, but don’t turn your back to the storm (druid proverb)

Today I have a cosplay to show you)

Originaly, it was a cosplay + poem but after four days of publish challenge prompts day-to-day, I'll be late with one part. At the beginning I planned to publish in Russian, then translated to better understanding, but now turn out, this is so interesting so... I'm only in the middle of the work, that I'll try to finish translate tomorrow and publish late

And this is Armand, who's ask to his God in the XIX century after break up with Louis. One of his attempts to find Master in other ways, first of which was religion. It's only my headcanon, because we don't have much of information about this period of his life, however this proverb sound like something Marius would teach Amadeo all the time they was together - at first to heal him, and then to support

This photo was taken at such a beautiful church, also the father was so nice. Almost like master💔

Please don't forget - doesn't matter if your society accept or not your healing and coping mechanism, if you need to lay yourself on something you should. It's better to be claimed weak then be dead.

[light-gayber]

*Bill Nye Voice*

Consider The Following

The series Welcome To Demon School, Iruma-Kun! is a possible allegory for what it is like living with an invisible disability, with an accepting guardian, but an unaccepting general society.

We have Iruma, who is human, and he's in the Demon World. He doesn't understand much of anything there, and he can't say No when somebody makes a request. But on his orientation day at school, he makes one friend (Alice Asmodeus), who is different from him but they're both strong and he ends up gaining the friend's respect, after accidentally causing trouble. He's put into what is basically a "Special Needs" class because of the trouble caused. (Sound familiar?)

His adoptive grandfather, Sullivan, dotes on him and wants to make him as happy and comfortable as he can, despite his differences, even making him a carriage so he doesn't feel bad about not having wings or magic like his demon schoolmates. (Do you see where I'm going?) He doesn't feel comfortable with this, and so walks to school instead.

Then, when he starts going to school, he meets another friend (Clara), who is different from him, but also similar because she also doesn't have many friends. He enjoys being her friend. Alice has been walking him to school and back, and Clara joins.

Then, when it is time for what is basically a magic and flying exam, Iruma has trouble with it since he can't do either. But, he still does eventually pass, and gets the Ring of Solomon, which absorbs magic and allows Iruma to do magic as well, but because it's hungry, it eats his classmates' magic, until Sullivan comes along, and lets it eat his magic. This is basically Sullivan teaching Iruma how to use a coping mechanism correctly so that he doesn't cause more problems.

Then, when the ring absorbs enough magic and Iruma ranks up enough (Adjusts so he can handle the world better), Iruma gets Alikred, who's like a way he discovers to use his coping mechanism better. But then he goes through his Evil Cycle, which is like him being overwhelmed or overstimulated, and getting grumpy because of it.

[thelittleghoul]

Bayverse Donnie with a reader who is an age regressor

Not requested !!

Notes: headcanon, gender neutral reader, romantic relationship, sfw, fluff.

•Donnie isn’t dumb when it comes to psychology and how the human brain works, he knows there’s a reason to why some humans revert to a younger mind set. It’s a way to cope with trauma, stress, etc so when you told him your an age regressor he wasn’t concerned about how “weird” the coping mechanism was, his first instinct was to sit you down and ask you about your troubles

•”How is your home life right now? You know I’m always here to talk with you. How has work/school been? Have you’ve been feeling more stressed lately?”

•He says as he’s scanning your stress levels giving you kisses on your cheeks and forehead in between to comfort you

•”I’m really happy you trust me to know about this. You can tell me anything ok?”

•In reality he already knew that you were an age regressor. He’s really good at reading body language and picks up on things easily. The clinginess, the way you light up when he calls you a pet name, to the stuffies in your room

•The real kicker was when you would put on an old childhood movie or go out to eat at your favourite restaurant as a kid for “the memories” and “nostalgia”

•He likes taking care of you in general. Not only it teaches him to take care of himself more but it makes him feel comforted to know your safe and healthy whether that be he scans you to make sure you’ve been drinking enough water or making sure your happy by eating your favourite food with you over a good movie. So when he turned into your caregiver he was astatic

•When your regressed he already has your little gear (pacifier, toys, stuffies etc) washed and sanitized for you in a cute bin you brought down to the layer

•He also has a mini fridge in the lab (cause he’s ALWAYS in the lab) he stocks with little treats for you when your hungry

•Speaking of the min fridge and bin of little gear, that’s no where near his work desk for safety reasons. Instead he made somewhat of a nest made of pillows and blankets in the corner of the room the calming twinkle lights soothing the area

•Both of you really appreciate that not only age regression helps take care of you, but also him. He can’t look after you if he’s busy working so it’s a good way to get him away from his work and focus more on you and himself

•The naps are incredible!! You guys sleep like babies (pun intended) the cute lights, the time away from computers, Donnie has never had a better sleep in his life untill you opened up to him and we all know this poor boy needs it

•He hangs up all of your drawing in the lab it puts him in a better mood and he thinks your little doodles are adorable

•He’s the best for when/if you go through impure regression “I’m right here sweetie I got you.” He already knows your triggers meaning he also knows what to do when you’re going through them. Something on social media triggered you? He’s putting on a comfort movie. Having unwanted memories or thoughts about a trigger? Here comes your personal therapist to guide you through it. Stressed out of your mind? He’s dimming the lights and rubbing your back while softly hushing you. He’s studied enough about you he could make a whole guide book on you (in a non creepy way)

•He’s the type of caregiver to pat you on the back for everything!! “You did such a good job look at you! I’m so proud of you!” Colouring, finishing your plate, you name it. He has gold star stickers in one of his drawer for every colouring sheet and drawing you do

•At the end of the day age regression has done more good than harm for the relationship. Yes he loves you when your not regressed obviously but when you are let’s just say you have nothing to worry about with this big guy 💜

[emptypencilcase]

you ever just sit and think about sharkboy and lavagirl? yeah, me too.

anyway, here’s a (not very detailed) analysis of those two characters and their significance to max in the movie.

So it’s made very obvious to us as the audience that certain characters in Max’s fantasy world are entirely (and might I add, very subtly) based off of people in his own life:

Except for Sharkboy and Lavagirl, right? WRONG. In that universe they are fictional characters made by Max who (in my opinion) were created by him to cope with his shitty life. The reason I think this is because Sharkboy and Lavagirl are personifications of Max’s own insecurities and imperfections.

Sharkboy, personality-wise, is very much like Max; he’s emotional, short-tempered, emo. He also has experiences that mirror Max’s own life, for example: him losing his father. Sharkboy losing his dad is a direct parallel to how Max feels about his own parents, who are too busy fighting with each other to pay their (obviously struggling) son any attention, and even unload their problems onto him. a nine year old?! anyways, Max’s parents’ negligence of him and his problems is his equivalent to them “drifting away”. (much like Sharkboy’s dad did on that lifeboat!!)

Moving on to Lavagirl!! Lavagirl feels like she’s not a good person; all she can do is harm people, and destroy things. She burns. This is kind of like how Max feels about everything in his life; his parents’ marriage, any potential relationship he could form in school, his dream journal- all ruined because he wasn’t good enough. It’s his fault. And that’s what Lavagirl is supposed to represent, that feeling of not being good enough. 

So it would make sense for Max-a nine year old child-to process the world through this lense of superheroes and supervillains. He feels better about his own problems knowing that there are these “heroes” out there with the same problems. But he takes it too far.

Max is a creative kid, we know this. It was obvious since the beginning!! He started building a robot on his own for gods’ sakes?! He uses his creativity as a way to cope, like we’ve seen with him creating Sharkboy and Lavagirl. But the adults in his life are telling him to stop: stop dreaming, and stop being creative. They say this because they can probably see where this is going.

So this mentally ill child is told to stop using the one and only coping mechanism that seems to be working for him, and he tries. He really does try. However, because no one ever bothered to find/teach him a healthier way to help him cope, he goes the complete opposite direction. All of a sudden Sharkboy and Lavagirl are actually real!! and they need Max, and he’s thinking “finally I’m needed, I’m wanted.” when in reality he’s just FUCKING CRAZY AND DELUSIONAL. But that’s what happens. The End.

Oh and I failed to mention, Max probably also has autism and it helps him to view the world using fictional stories/characters. And his unfinished robot is a metaphor for the pressure that is put on him to stop being creative.

ok bye!

[little-fandom-dump]

going to try so hard to cohesively express all of my feelings about Thee israel basilica hands, so bear with me as i write a fuckin novella about this wet cat lad

(obvi spoilers for s2, e 1-7)

i am first and foremost. just incredibly impressed with his growth this season. last year, we had "he's done something to my boss's brain" and "this, whatever you've become...is a fate worse than death". last season, he had nothing but malice and spite for stede (for helping ed discover he can be soft and gentle) and ed (for letting himself change around stede) both. we know canonically now that it was all fueled by love- albeit a possessive and jealous love that hinged on his ideal perception of who ed was as blackbeard.

for years, he subjected himself to a cruel and unfulfilling affection. he allowed himself to be abused just to feel needed, to receive table scraps of attention and praise.

by all rights, he should fucking hate stede this season. after all, didn't he ruin blackbeard's pirating prowess, tarnish the version of the man he has fallen in love with? the crying in a soft velvet robe, the blanket fort and amateur poetry- these are coping mechanisms ed would never have indulged in before meeting stede.

but izzy doesn't hate stede, not really. like he says in episode 7, he understands that stede makes ed a better person- someone more loving to himself and those around him. how could he truly hate someone who does what he could not, who helps the man he loves grow into the best version of himself?

no, who izzy really hates is himself. in izzy's eyes, he's the one who pushed ed into becoming the kraken again after the breakup- he thinks he's responsible for all of the abuse and torture ed puts the crew through in the resulting weeks. the gun to jim's head, the apathy at ivan's death, the extreme psychological and physical abuse that ed inflicts onto the crew- izzy puts a lot of that blame on himself. we see this in his interaction with lucius about moving on- he dangled his leg above the shark, wasn't it really his fault when his leg was bitten off? he drinks himself half to death, begs for the crew to just kill him already, drives all of his pain inwards and inwards and inwards.

the thing about that, though? when a person engages in such self-destruction, they're bound to hurt those closest to them (ask me how i know). and he does. izzy's pain and guilt and self-hatred bleed into the lives of the crew, and it's only after he puts ed's gun to his temple and misses that he realizes it. so, what does he do? ever the unkillable bastard, izzy climbs his ragged way out onto the deck and turns the same gun back on ed. he may be a fucked-up self-loathing twat, but he can't allow (what he views as) his mistakes to hurt the crew-- or ed--anymore.

it is a testament to both the brilliant writing (and con's acting), however, that he doesn't suddenly heal after that. it wouldn't be a realistic expectation to have of him- after all, he's gone through incredible physical, emotional, and mental trauma for years now. izzy, he's not a functioning or emotionally healthy person. instead of suddenly being better and well-adjusted, he's angry and bitter and still so self-destructive. but he still tries to thank stede for the rescue. still tries to convince stede that ed didn't hate their breakup and do horrendous things to the crew and himself, still tries to keep him from knowing they (seemingly) killed him.

and when ed wakes up and stede finds himself the captain of their motley crew again, izzy is still hurting but izzy still tries. among so much hurt and devastation, he tries! and then the crew makes him a new leg, a literal embodiment of the trust and love they have for him- and he realizes that he deserves better! he deserves better for himself than to drink alone and spit venomous insults at his reflection. sure, he still drinks before noon and insults the crew-- but he also teaches stede new pirating skills, helps lucius out of his own traumatic funk, navigates the new ship dynamic as best he can. the insults are still there but there's no longer poisonous intent behind them. (the poison replaced with positivity)

the amount of grace and emotional maturity izzy is displaying in later episodes is incredible, considering what storms he's just weathered. his effort is admirable, especially towards ed and stede. he has every right to hate the two of them, to disavow them and leave the Revenge, but he doesn't. Instead, he takes time to reclaim parts of himself that were long hidden or never developed at all. chrissake, he lets himself be tender! he lets wee john help him with his makeup, sings a lilting love song to the crew, openly admits to stede that he loves ed, supports stede on the republic of pirates, allows himself to be more vulnerable than he's ever been before.

izzy sees now how good ed and stede are for each other, and he congratulates them on their, *ahem*, docking even while harboring his own jealousy and hurt. even if it's a bit of a joke, the sincerity is still there- he's willing to grin and tell stede he balances ed out, the two of them are good for each other. it's not even remotely hinted at, but i'm willing to bet izzy knew what the two of them were doing in the cabin while he was singing his soft and sweet requiem for the love he harbors for ed. and yet he still chooses to be kind and supportive to them both. to himself.

i know this post was a million paces long, but i'm just having so many feelings about izzy hands. and i'm so, so proud of him for admitting to himself that he deserves better, he deserves vulnerability, comfort, support, and the fullness of his identity as a queer person. it's a major change this season (one i honestly did not expect!), but one i love love love. great storytelling and great acting. i'm so looking forward to the future of izzy's character development.

TLDR: izzy's commitment to doing better for himself and others makes me emotional. i'm incredibly proud of him for trying to do/be better each passing moment.

[amaranthsynthesis]

1 and 30 for Durge ask meme ~ LordGoretash

love the signature on the anonymous asks I always get a kick out of this

(questions from here)

What circumstances led to your Dark Urge becoming their Class/Subclass?

Ballard's first 'urge', the foster family slaughter we get the flashback of, is from when he was six or seven years old. He was literally just a baby, and he was kind of a difficult kid--he didn't learn to speak for a long time (he knew, he just did not want to, so no one figured out he could for ages) and he did not, as few children do, have a lot of coping mechanisms to his name. He threw a lot of tantrums, and one of them ended up with a body count of like a dozen, since no one was really anticipating the whole 'murderous child of Bhaal' thing to be an issue for another few years at least. A lot of noncombatants, but not entirely servants or slaves--a few actual ranking house members and soldiers were among the dead as well.

The matron mother had her thoughts about how Ballard's training was going to go, but the plans were adjusted and escalated rapidly. Since the issue, as far as she could determine, was one of self-control, Ballard needed training in a class that was focused on discipline. Self-regulation and meditation would help make sure he (and everyone around him) survived long enough to enact Bhaal's world-ending plans. So she had a monk brought in, an older tiefling woman from the surface they had some trade with, and she organized Ballard's training. She could not remain in the underdark permanently, and her weeks teaching Ballard were punctuated by months away where she left him 'homework' and forms to study in her absence, but the training itself as well as the solitude suited Ballard well and he grew into it easily. He struggled still with his temper, and was only trained with his fists and a staff for a decade or so, but it made his life immensely less stressful.

His teacher was a monk of the Open Hand, but she pegged him for the Way of Shadows basically immediately. Between his home environment and his quiet, watchful nature, it made a great deal of sense--though the tiefling wasn't made aware that her pupil was Bhaalspawn, and that the skills of an assassin would prove invaluable.

30. What are your Dark Urge’s intentions/goals after the end of the game?

This is a great question because I, Finn, do not know. My PC struggles with Act 3 and I am a bit overwhelmed by all of the content, so I've not finished a playthrough or made firm decisions about the end of Ballard's personal storyline! So disclaimer, all of the below is speculation and therefor subject to change.

Ballard wants to help solve his friends problems. From his perspective, this involves most of them seizing the power that was used to hurt them in the past so that it cannot be used to do so again. He's supportive of Gale using the crown, and Astarion using the ritual, and though Shadowheart did not end up killing the Nightsong he SUPER thinks they should just kill everyone in the House of Grief so they can't come after he later. He's currently in contention with Wyll about rescuing his father from the Iron Throne, with Karlach about allying with Gortash again, and with Lae'zel because he can't decide if he mistrusts the Emperor or Orpheus more and will not commit to raiding Raphael's. Shit's not going like.... great.

Ballard is torn in a hundred directions and doesn't know how the absolute crisis is going to turn out. He can't decide what he wants, if he is trying to redeem or better himself, if he should return to the purpose he was created for or reject his father entirely, if his new friends or old allies outweigh one another. If asked what he intends to do after, I don't think he'd have an answer. If asked what he hopes might come after... Ballard would still not have an answer, probably, but he hopes very dearly that he will not be alone in the end.

[muninnhuginn]

The thing about Nightfall is that yeah she needs further development, but if you look at the bones of what's there and compare her to both Twilight and Yuri you can still find some fascinating insights.

If you start with Twilight, he was her mentor and taught her to compartmentalise her emotions away as he does. Twilight hasn't yet realised himself but he has been slowly moving past that to feel genuine emotions with his family (something that Nightfall herself noted). By contrast, Nightfall hasn't. She's stagnant, her only real deviation from Twilight's teachings being her crush on him.

(That said, we know the position Twilight was in when he joined WISE and that attempting to lock away emotions is an unhealthy coping mechanism designed as a teaching. We've seen how both Twilight and his own mentor Handler have been affected by their prior experiences, so what's Nightfall's story? How did she end up in this same unhealthy postion and will she join Twilight and Handler in starting to break that cycle?)

In terms of how Nightfall compares to Yuri, it comes down to their relationship with their most important person. Yuri latched onto Yor because they lost their parents at a young age and Yor had to step in a provide that role, sacrificing her own childhood in the process. However, he's still locked into that childhood phase where he idealises Yor and doesn't listen to or accept that she's moving on with her life. She still wants him in it, but she wants him to get the hint when he's making her uncomfortable or being rude to Loid.

If we then look at Nightfall, we can see the same behaviour of idealising and not seeing the person for who they are. Nightfall does see that Twilight genuinely feels something for his family but she then spins that into a further idealisation of Twilight and condemnation of Yor. This is a repeating pattern with her. She believes she could do a better job than Yor and yet she demeans the very aspects of Yor that Twilight appreciates, showing that her own understanding of him is paper-thin.

The part of this the story hasn't yet explored is *why* she latched onto Twilight. She latched onto him as Yuri did Yor and allows herself this one breaking of the doctrine. If you look at all the pieces it seems that she was in a dark place and feels that Twilight, a kindred spirit, saved her. The question now is: now that he is moving on, can she start to move on too?

[astragreenwoode]

The Spitfire Curse - Chapter Three

Previous: Chapter Two • Next: Chapter Four • Masterlist • AO3 Version

Rating: Explicit(18+ ONLY)

Pairings: Billy Hargrove x Fem!OC, Steve Harrington x Nancy Wheeler

Warnings: Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-Con, Non-specified Mental Illness, Self-Harm, Drug Use, Hypersexuality, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Hearing Voices

Genre: Adventure, Thriller, Horror, Slow-Burn Romance, Angst, Hurt/Comfort. Smut, Fluff, Slight Canon-Divergence, Fix-it fic

As always, thank you @take-everything-you-can for your beta reading and all your feedback!

Chapter Three: People Are Strange

Word Count: 11,042

Chapter Warnings: Disembodied Voices, Hypersexual Thoughts, Anxiety, Sexual Themes and Implied Smut, Explicit Language, Humiliation

Chapter Summary: Maeven recalls the last time she was so nervous to be at a new school, and how her father helped her through it. During the school tour, she meets two of her new classmates and catches glimpses of other friends she may make along the way. But whether or not she adjusts well to Hawkins High all depends on her. . .and Billy, of course.

September 1974

The last time I was so nervous about being at a new school, I was about to turn eight years old. Before San Diego, we lived in a small-ish rural community in southern Oregon. After getting married, Mom and Dad decided they needed a break from California, and moved to a place where their children could enjoy life without the world spoiling them.

Our home was five miles outside of town on a dirt and gravel road, in a field surrounded by a ring of trees. The trees made a dome around the edge of our property, covering the front yard and the front of our house in a veil of shade that faced east. The sun shined on the other half of our property, warming up the grass like a heated blanket. The stone path from our back porch led into the wildwood, turning into a small bridge that stood over the creek.

I spent my early days exploring the seemingly infinite woods and warming myself on the grass as I stared up at the tall trees and blue skies; Max was so little then, and Thunder was still alive. He was our family’s big malamute mix they adopted before we were born.

We lived on the edge of one of the Pacific Northwest’s many lush and green forests. Since no one officially owned it and our closest neighbor was two miles away, I liked to imagine it was mine. It was where I discovered my lifelong passion for everything wild when I found friendship with a soft-natured raccoon. I’d later come to make friends with possums, a fox family, and a quiet doe with her fawn. It was comfortable there; cozy in the colder months, and cooler during the warmer months. While it wasn’t perfect, we were happy there. But as Max and I grew, it seemed to become smaller and more crowded.

Eventually, Mom and Dad grew homesick for California and decided to move us back to San Diego permanently. Until then, we had only ever taken long road trips there and back again every Spring and Summer break. Moving transferred our parents’ homesickness onto Max and me. She was as upset by the move as I was, but was more excited; she thought of it as a new adventure.

The day Dad waited with us at the bus stop for our first day at a new school, I was petrified. Max was jumping over the cracks in the sidewalk as I gripped the straps of my backpack and stared down at my feet. That morning, I clung to my mom as I begged her to let me stay home, but she forced me to dry my tears or else she’d be late for her first day back at her old hospital.

Dad surprised us that morning. As I was about to get on the bus with Max’s hand in mine and the bus driver trying to hurry us along, Dad tugged us toward him.

“You know what? I’ll drive you girls today. It’s a special day.”

I was hoping he would just take us straight back home; well, to our new house. I didn’t consider it home, yet. What he ended up doing that day was much better than I expected, teaching me an important lesson I still rely on today.

He drove us to our new school in his jet-black Impala; he bought it the year I was born. Max was in her car seat in the back kicking her feet to the sound of She Loves You by the Beatles on the stereo. It was her favorite. Mine was Blackbird. I loved riding in that car

As we drove up to the building of the elementary school, I curled myself into a ball and sunk deeper into my seat.

“C’mon, Mae-Mae, we gotta go. You don’t wanna be late for your first day,” my Dad sighed, putting his hand on my knee and giving it a gentle shake. I tightened my arms around my knees.

“I’m not going,” I mumbled through my curled limbs.

“It’s not a choice, Spitfire.”

“I’M NOT GOING!” I exploded, uncurling myself and staring daggers at my Dad with tears in my eyes. He was taken aback a little by my sudden outburst but still kept his cool. But when I heard Max start to sniffle at the sudden loudness, I climbed up on the seat and held her little hand. I knew if she started to cry, I wouldn’t be able to get my tears to stop falling.

“No, no, Maxy, don’t cry! I’m sorry!” I whimpered, trying to keep myself composed as I closed my eyes to hold in my tears. After I took a few deep breaths, I heard Max’s cries cease as she started back up with giggles. I opened my eyes to see Dad waving Max’s stuffed rabbit, Flopsy in her face. She had just dropped it. It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t my fault.

After returning Flopsy to her, Dad turned back to me and put his hand on my shoulder.

“I know this is hard for you, Maeven. I really do. I didn’t want to, either, but we had to,” he tried to explain, but I wasn’t having any of it.

“No, we didn’t,” I whined, tilting my head up to the roof of the Impala.

“We did. It might not feel like it, but we did,” he responded. I turned my back and brought my knees up to my chest as my feet rested on the leather seats. It was something I knew he would prefer I not do. But he didn’t say anything.

We sat in silence for what seemed like hours when in reality, it was probably only five minutes or so. The world moved on outside the car, the parking lot alive with parents and kids of all kinds walking in and out of the building. It helped that Dad just let us sit there and let me soak up the environment instead of just pushing me straight in.

“Do you remember when I first read you Watership Down?” he asked suddenly, breaking the uncomfortable silence. I didn’t understand why he asked that at first, but it was nice to have a distraction from the growing anxiety in my stomach brought on by my fear of change.

“Yeah? What about it?”

Watership Down was one of my favorite books. Mom and Dad took turns reading it to me when I was smaller; a chapter a night. Before that book, I never saw rabbits as exciting creatures. I loved them as much as all the animals I had come to love and study in books, zoos, and in the forest behind our old house. They were never as interesting as the others until Richard Adams turned them into something different.

“Do you remember what you first felt when the rabbits left their warren?” he followed up. I read and re-read that book so many times that I knew it by heart now. I had to think for a minute.

“I was excited. I knew they’d go on to have some fun adventures,” I said. Dad nodded his head at my enthusiasm.

“Yeah. And they did, didn’t they? But why did they leave?”

I had to think about it for a moment again.

“Because they were in danger?”

“Exactly. They left because they had to,” he explained, and I finally started to understand what he was trying to say.

“Are we in danger?” I asked, my shoulders tensing as I frantically looked around the parking lot.

“No, no, Spitfire,” he reassuringly laughed, stroking the back of my head. “It wasn’t dangerous back at our old house. You’re safe. I promise.”

“Then why? Did I do something wrong?”

“Of course, you didn’t, Maeven. It’s nobody’s fault. It’s just that. . .things just happen, sometimes. Unexpected things you didn’t prepare for, and the best and only way you can make things better is to change.”

I stayed quiet a little bit longer, my shoulders now relaxing. Dad gave me as much time as I needed to reply.

“But that’s sad,” I whined.

“It can be sad. And that’s okay. Do you remember when you were so upset that you couldn’t wear your favorite coat anymore when you played in the snow?”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, but what did we do that day? I took you to get a new one, and you ended up liking that even better.”

I nodded my head. I did love that coat. It was a deep vibrant shade of purple with snowflakes along the trim. And of course, I missed my old one. I had a good reason to; it was rainbow striped. But Mom gave me striped rainbow leggings for Christmas I could wear instead. Everything worked out in the end, even if I didn’t feel like it would.

“The point is, Maeven,” Dad continued. “nothing can always stay the same. And when the rabbits had to fight the general, weren’t you scared?”

I was scared for them. I was afraid of what would happen to their warren; their new home they fought so hard to find and make their own. I wanted everything to be alright.

“Mmm-hmm. . .”

“Hazel, Fiver, Bigwig, and Holly were scared, too. But what happened?”

Even though they were scared of what Efrafa would do to them if they lost, they did it, anyway. They were brave.

“They did it anyway?”

After so many hardships, the rabbits of Watership Down were fine. “Be cunning and full of tricks, and your people will never be destroyed,” the book's words echoed in my head.

“Exactly. And when they did, they ended up happier, safer, and stronger than they were in Sandelford, weren’t they?”

“Mmm-hmm! They adaptated!” I mispronounced.

“It’s adapted, Maeven,” Dad laughed, fluffing up my hair.

“Oh, okay. Adapted,” I corrected myself.

Going to a new school didn’t seem so frightening, anymore. If rabbits were smart and stubborn enough to dig themselves out of every bad situation, I would be fine.

“You are an animal, Maeven. You’re smart and strong, and wherever you go, I know you’ll adapt. You’re gonna do great in there. I just know it.”

. . .

Billy turned the radio on at full blast for the remainder of the ride, filling the awkward silence with the thrashing of Motley Crue. Maeven kept bouncing her leg and tried not to let the volume bother her. Snapping the rubber band against her wrist helped keep her calm, even if it hurt a little.

Maeven caught a quick glimpse of the campus the other day when Billy picked up her and Max from the arcade. The school was a lot less intimidating when looking at it up close. It was underwhelming compared to what Maeven and Billy were used to, but she saw that as a good thing. It meant there weren’t as many people, so maybe she wouldn’t be as nervous when caught in the crowds. Unfortunately, it also meant she would be noticed in a small school where everyone knew everyone, and word probably spread faster in the rumor mill than back in California.

“They’re gonna find out, somehow,” the voice taunted. “And when they do, you’ll be dead. You never even had a chance, Not here, not anywhere. Just run away.”

“No! Shut up! Just shut the hell up!” Maeven yelled, not hesitating to slap herself in the face. But as soon as Billy caught her wrist to stop her from harming herself again, she remembered that she wasn’t alone, and suddenly realized they were parked in the parking lot now.

“Sorry! I’m sorry, it’s just. . .”

“The voices?”

“Yeah. . .”

“It’s okay. Just ignore them and they’ll go away.”

“Easier said than done,” Maeven said to herself.

The look in Billy’s eyes broke her heart. It had been a while since she snapped like that.

The campus was most definitely smaller than Newport’s. It was more similar to the size of the Junior High she and Max attended back in California. The Junior and Senior Highs were in separate buildings, spread out amongst the campus with a few disconnected buildings where they probably had extracurriculars and clubs. Maybe the auditorium was there, too. It would be easier to navigate once they were done with the tour. And Maeven liked that she could keep an eye on Max.

Max and Susan got out of Neil’s station wagon before he drove off, as he had to finish last-minute transfer paperwork before he started his new gig at the bank. As Maeven and Billy stepped out of his Camaro, he stood close to her with his hand on the small of her back. It was something that usually kept her calm, but he did so in a way so that no one in their family would notice.

“You’re gonna be fine, okay? Just keep your head down, and don’t give anyone a reason to stare at you.”

Again; easier said than done.

Maeven just nodded, lingering on the comforting feeling even after he pulled his hand away from her back. She tightened the straps of her backpack onto her shoulders, thinking how she probably looked like a total geek right now bringing her backpack to school when she hadn’t even started classes, yet.

Walking to the front office of the high school was oddly refreshing to her. She had always liked being in school. She loved learning and the feeling the environment gave her. Maeven just wasn’t always a fan of the people who inhabited them; especially when they were teenagers.

As they walked up to the front desk, Susan took the initiative and leaned on the front counter as she waited for the secretary to notice her.

“Hi, there! Can I help you?”

“Yes, I’m Susan Hargrove. My kids are starting here tomorrow and-”

“Not your kid, Susan,” Billy interrupted, making sure to sound as stern as possible. It caught Susan off-guard as she flinched and turned to him, giving a timid smile. It was a little scary to Maeven and Max how much he sounded like his father at that moment.

“Of course. My daughters and stepson are starting here tomorrow and we were told we’d be given a tour of campus,” she elaborated to the secretary.

“Oh, yes! Give me just a minute,” she said, turning to her phone.

Maeven clasped her hands in front of her as she swung her hips slightly to make her long skirt twirl. Max crossed her arms and tapped her fingers.

“Sir. Mrs. Hargrove and her kids are here to see you.”

Maeven could tell by the look on Billy’s face that he wanted to correct his relation to the Mayfields again. She knew why; he was still bitter about his mother, and she didn’t blame him. As much as he hated her for leaving him the way she did, she was still his mom. He would always miss and love her. He was determined not to let Susan take her place.

The sisters tapped their feet in annoyance. How well did these phones work? How talkative was this principal that he made his secretary stay on the line for so long?

“Mmmhmm. Alright. You can head on in, Down the hall, last door on the right,” she finally replied, hanging up the phone. Max let out a sigh that said ‘finally!’ Maeven wasn’t as vocal, but she felt the same.

“Thank you.”

Susan took the lead as they followed the secretary’s directions, knocking on the door before entering. Maeven took a look at the plaque by the door; Principal John Higgins. She knew a kid with that last name once. He looked like a principal, as if he was born to be one. She was curious to see what kind he was; an uncaring hardass with a god complex or a decent person who actually saw his students as people.

“You must be Susan. Principal Higgins. We spoke on the phone last week?” He reached out to shake her hand.

“Billy.”

“Yes, hi. Nice to meet you.” she smiled widely as she accepted it.

“And this must be Margaret, William, and Maxine?” he guessed.

“Maeven.”

“Max.”

They all corrected in unison. 

“Of course. My apologies. Please, have a seat.” He was a bit overwhelmed but pretended not to be as he gestured to the chairs and couch by his desk. Susan and Billy sat in the office chairs while the sisters sat on the black and yellow checkered couch. Maeven pawed at the backpack in her lap, bouncing her leg and scratching her hands.

“I’m sure you won’t find this school any different than your last one,” Higgins said, pulling out three separate manilla folders. “But, it might not be what you’re quite used to all the way down in sunny California.”

“It’s definitely a lot smaller,” Susan laughed, putting on her smile as Billy rolled his eyes. He leaned back in the chair, his legs spread wide as if he owned the place. His sudden attempt at displaying his brawn made Higgins clear his throat.

“So, Billy. From your transcript, I can see you’re the average student and have some trouble with authority. But it seems that in California, you were quite the star athlete.”

“Yes, sir,” he smiled.”Quarterback, Designated Hitter, and Power Forward.”

Maeven had experienced attraction to all kinds of people, no matter their clique. She had gone on dates with jocks before, even if she found most of them to be jerks. But Billy stood out. It bugged her that she could never the exact reason why.

“Perfect, son. Sports are an important part of the culture here, so I’m sure you’ll fit right in,” Higgins said, closing the file before opening another, turning his head to the younger of the Mayfield sisters.

“And, Max. I can see you’re also an average student. But you do seem to be exceptional when it comes to math. We have clubs and tutoring programs where I’m sure you’ll be welcome. Been in trouble a few times, but nothing too extreme. I know starting a new school at your age can be scary and frustrating. Am I going to have any trouble with you?”

Max blew her hair out of her face, her arms still crossed. She had never been one for clubs, but who knows? Maybe that would change at Hawkins

“As long as no one else here dumps their crap on me, I’ll be good.”

“Max!” her mother scolded her. Billy and Maeven chuckled as she gave her little sister a playful slap on the arm.

“No worries, Mrs. Hargrove. I’ve heard worse. I’ll take that as a ‘no.’” Higgins laughed.

Maeven’s file came last, which made her heartbeat quicken a little. She knew he wouldn’t be as lighthearted and upbeat as he was with Billy and Max.

“I understand there are some matters you and Margaret wish to inform me about privately,” he said. All eyes in the room were now turned to Maeven as she squeezed her backpack. She hated when that happened; it fueled the fire of paranoia in her.

“Yes, sir,” Susan answered for her daughter once she recognized she wouldn’t speak for herself.

“Billy, Max, why don’t you two go wait outside?” Higgins turned to them. “This shouldn’t take long. Doris should have your class schedules ready for you.”

Max gave her big sister a calming squeeze on her hand. Billy shot her an encouraging nod of his head and a wink of his baby blue eyes that made her stomach flutter and thighs squeeze together instinctively. As they left the room, Maeven switched herself over to the chair Billy previously occupied.

“Now, Mar-Sorry, Maeven. I understand that you’re a repeating junior. From what your mother tells me, you had sort of a tough time last year.”

Susan turned to her daughter when she didn’t answer Principal Higgins. Maeven kept bouncing her leg as she scratched the back of her hand with her nails until the skin was red. She hated when she did that; mainly because it came off as rude to those unaware of her. . .condition. It also broke her heart to see her little girl hurt herself, especially when it would bleed and scab. Susan reached her hands out to her daughter, one steadying her leg while the other rested atop her hands to stop her scratching.

“Sorry. She’s a little shy,” she apologized, bringing Maeven out of her self-induced trance.

“Yes, sir. I am. I mean. . .I did,” Maeven softly said.

“That’s certainly not a problem,” he stated, looking over her file. “I called Newport High last week and spoke with a few of your teachers. They all said you were a pleasure to have in class and your test scores are. . .intimidating. But they said that around the second semester, you sort of. . .lost your way?”

It was nice to hear that the staff back at her old school still thought about her that way. Although, Maeven wouldn’t blame them if they happened to feel anything negative toward her. Her decline in the social and academic hierarchy and eventual expulsion weren’t exactly a pretty sight to witness.

“Yeah. . .that sounds fair,” she replied.

“I can understand that,” Higgins said, seemingly empathizing with her. It was oddly refreshing. “We have a few other kids here who’ve had to repeat grades due to their struggles in life. I see you have a history of fighting and skipping classes, and that you’ve dealt with emotional problems in the past.”

Before Maeven could say anything, her mother interjected.

“She has, yes, but she is doing much better, sir. We’re hoping a change of scenery will help with that.”

Susan and Higgins didn’t need to pry further, as Maeven knew what they were talking about. She hated when her mother did that, refusing to talk about her daughter’s past of pain as if it was more devastating for her.

“Slap her, Maeven. You know you want to,” the voice instructed, but Maeven just shook it off, literally; her head and body twitched almost as if she was seizing before stilling itself. She gave her mom a reassuring nod before turning her attention back to Higgins.

“I’m not looking to cause any trouble here, sir. I plan to stay focused on my grades this time around. I promise,” she smiled, trying her best to imitate the one her mother used.

“That’s good to hear. You seem to have been an over-achiever back at Newport, so we have more than a couple of clubs that’ll keep you out of trouble. We have a science fair in the spring, and from what your teachers told me, you’ll win first prize. Of course, I still expect you to meet with the school Counselor, Miss Kelly, once a week.”

“Yeah. I’m good with that,” Maeven nodded.

“That’s what I like to hear. Lastly, you’ll be needing accommodations due to your. . .condition?”

Once again, Maeven could tell exactly what he was referring to. It wasn’t that much of a surprise that a middle-aged white principal didn’t want to speak so openly to one of his students about how painfully crippling her periods had become these last nine months. And, of course, her brain condition wasn’t exactly easy for those outside a doctor’s office to comprehend.

“Yes, I do. Is that okay?”

“I’m not able to provide them all, but I can help you with most of them,” he stated, handing Maeven a laminated Hawkins High hall pass with her name at the top and his signature at the bottom.

“Here’s a hall pass for your classes when you’re. I put down a note so that all your teachers will allow you to take tests under the supervision of the school librarian. Unfortunately, I cannot grant you an all-access hall pass; too much opportunity for it to be abused. I’m sure you’re a good kid, but I just can’t afford to take the risk.”

Again, she wasn’t surprised at this. Maeven figured she wouldn’t get an all-access pass for when her brain decided to shut down or go full panic mode out of the blue. Her father’s motto was always ‘ It never hurts to ask.’ Maybe it wouldn’t be so hard for people to understand someday, but not today. She had no choice but to power through.

“It’s alright. Completely understandable,” she lied.

Principal Higgins closed her file before getting up from his desk to put it in a random drawer. When he led Susan and Maeven out to the front office, Max and Billy were chatting with three other students.

“Oh, good! I see you’ve already met,” he announced himself. The kids all stood up from the benches and chairs, turning themselves towards him. Maeven shrugged her backpack over her shoulder as she stood between Max and Billy. She gave her little sister a pat on the back that she instinctually returned.

“I thought it’d be helpful for you guys to meet a couple of your classmates before tomorrow. They’ll be giving you a tour,” Higgins spoke.

Maeven bit her lip. When she pictured the day as she woke up that morning, she didn’t anticipate meeting other kids face to face immediately. She figured there might be students around campus, but didn’t plan on meeting any new kids her age until tomorrow. She didn’t prepare for this, and Maeven dreaded being unprepared.

The mismatched siblings stood in a row of three facing their future classmates in the same formation. 

“Billy, Maeven, this is Steve Harrington and Nancy Wheeler. And Max, this is Jennifer Hayes. Guys, this is Billy Hargrove and Maeven and Max Mayfield.”

Maeven took them in one by one, sizing them up.

Jennifer looked and seemed friendly enough. She seemed like the classic social butterfly; a good girl who surrounded herself with as many people as possible. However, those kinds of people, more often than not, were more shallow than they liked to admit. Maeven had experienced that first-hand in Middle School. Besides, she seemed too girly to be a friend of her baby sister.

“Hi,” she waved at Max.

“She seems boring. Basic. Max definitely won’t get along with her,” the voice whispered. Maeven looked down before rolling her eyes, not wanting to draw attention to herself before her eyes met Nancy’s.

Nancy had a similar vibe to Jennifer with a few key differences. Unlike the middle schooler, she seemed more like the type of girl who had a small inner circle of close friends. She dressed like a scholar, like the model student of an exclusive all-girls boarding school. Nancy was also classically pretty; big doe eyes with dark hair that framed her head like a crown. She reminded Maeven of her friend, Madeleine.

“. . .hi,” she squeaked out, eyes wide. She looked like she saw a ghost.

“She knows how crazy you are. Look at her, she’s terrified.”

“How could she know?” she vocalized in her head, trying her best not to let her paranoia get the better of her. There was no way this absolute stranger could know of her instability.

“People have their ways. You never know.”

Finally, Maeven’s eyes landed on Steve.

“Hey,” he muttered, pushing his soft, chestnut hair back innocently. Meanwhile, Maeven fought to keep her body cool.

“Oh, my fuck, he’s cute,” the voice expressed. For once, it said something she could agree with. 

Steve Harrington was almost so pretty that it hurt. He had the same cocky and suave charm that attracted her to Billy in the first place. He was also about the same height as Billy, and Maeven could tell just by the way he carried himself that he was a jock. Unlike the other jocks she met, his charisma seemed to stem from a place of kindness.

"He's checking you out,” the voice teased in her ear, sending a shiver down Maeven’s spine and filling her with that familiar sense of warm longing.“You should take him and Billy to the janitor's closet so they can fuck you.”

"What!? No! What is wrong with you!?"

"He'll like you more if you let him use you."

"Be fucking quiet!" she internally yelled, silencing it. Maeven hid her hands in the sleeves of her sweater as she held them together, one gripping the cuff while the other scratched the top of it. She held in her anxiety, giving the others a soft, shy smile.

“Why don’t you guys take your tours and we’ll meet back here in a half hour?” Higgins asked. Everyone nodded as the students walked out of the office and into the hall. One way led outside to the Middle School, while the other led down to the rest of the High School halls.

“See you in a bit, squirt,” Billy laughed at Max, reaching up to give her a condescending pat on the head. Max slapped his hand away as she pointed at her sister.

“Hey, only she gets to call me that,” she warned, as threateningly as a small middle schooler could be.

“Whatever,” he scoffed, turning his nose up before following Maeven and the others.

. . .

Everything was less intimidating once Maeven got a closer look as they walked around. The campus seemed well taken care of despite its age. Newport had a more mid-century modern style, all neat and smooth with underwhelming geometric themes. It felt more like a fancy museum than a school. Hawkins High was different. It was charming. Maeven could feel the history built into every cracked brick or tile and dented locker. The halls were lined with character.

The group of teens walked stiffly down the hallways of the high school, relaxing their posture when the principal and Mrs. Hargrove were no longer in their sight or within hearing range. This Steve Harrington guy was the one who finally broke the silence.

“So, Higgins said that you guys are from California?” he asked, turning to Maeven and Billy.

“Mmm-hmm,” Billy mumbled. It was clear to Maeven that he was still feeling out Steve’s vibe. He seemed nice enough, possibly another athlete like Billy; they shared body types, both having defined muscles and the classic upside-down Dorito figures. Steve was maybe just an inch shorter than Billy, though.

“Is it nice down there?” he followed up.

“Definitely better than here,” he scoffed, eyes off of Steve like he didn’t even exist to him. Billy wasn’t willing to be too friendly with him. It wasn’t often that he connected with someone right away, and Harrington was no different than the others. The only person he had that naturally and quickly ignited the chemistry between them was Maeven

“Super. . .” Steve uncomfortably droned out.

Maeven’s eyes focused on Nancy, who still looked at her as if she was face-to-face with someone she shouldn’t be. She wondered what it was about her that gave her such a fright. Was it the way she dressed? The way she carried herself? Maybe it was the way she fidgeted with her hands. How she twirled the loose threads of her sweater around her fingers?  Maybe she just generally gave off an unsettling vibe. She couldn’t tell, anymore.

“You’re scaring her, you know? You’re being so quiet and you keep looking at her. She probably thinks you’re a secret serial killer,”

“But I’m not a-”

“Not yet, you’re not. But you could still become one. You have all the qualifications; insane, suicidal, anger issues, unhealthy obsessions with blood, and sex. Not to mention you already have one vict-. . .”

Maeven tore her eyes away from Nancy, instead choosing to focus on the dents in the lockers and the green and orange stripes on the wall. Her sudden change in perspective cut off her inner monster. She couldn’t tell if she looked elsewhere out of respect for Nancy’s comfort, or if it was so she wouldn’t see the tears pooling up in the corners of her eyes, threatening to spill. She would not break down in front of these new people, she decided.

Nancy clapped her hands together with enthusiasm as the group stopped at the entrance of the cafeteria.

“So!” she broke the awkward silence, gently taking hold of Steve’s wrist before dragging him along with her. “Uhmm, obviously this is the cafeteria,” she said, using her other hand to gesture around her like the lady on Wheel of Fortune.

The cafeteria was probably just a little smaller than the one at Newport. Obviously, there were a lot less students here. It also had a lot more windows and natural lighting with a door that swung lead out to more lunch tables. There was also a stage against the wall at the far end of it, which Maeven assumed was where the theatre department was. Newport had its auditorium for plays, recitals, and school debates, but Maeven liked how humble Hawkins High was turning out to be so far.

What appeared to be the school’s group of Band Kids gathered on the stage and the surrounding lunch tables. Some were tuning and practicing their instruments, while others were simply chatting and taking a break. The gold and white tassels on the green uniforms caught Maevens eye, especially when they were worn by the cute dark-blonde, almost red-haired girl with dusted freckles and dark blue eyes. She let out a laugh that seemed contagious. Maeven was suddenly reminded of a girl she played seven minutes in Heaven with at a party during her freshman year. She turned away once she realized she was staring back, pointing her head down as her face tinted pink.

“Those are our band kids over there, gearing up for homecoming,” Nancy continued, gesturing around her as Billy and Maeven followed her and Steve. “If you guys want a good seat, I would plan on getting here as early as possible. Also because the earlier you get here, the better chance you have of your food being edible.”

“Noted,” Billy nodded. 

School lunches and their edibility varied from school to school, district to district. Maeven was planning on bringing her lunch, anyways. Maybe she’d try it one day once she was more comfortable.

“That’s also the stage where they put on plays and musicals,” Steve pointed out as they walked back into the hallway. “It hasn’t been announced yet what the winter play will be, but we actually have normal theatre kids here if you can believe it. They were really annoying when we were in middle school, but. . .I guess they grew out of that?”

Steve Harrington didn’t seem like a theatre kid, but he had the energy of one.

Maeven eyed the way Nancy and Steve held hands and stayed close to each other as the group walked down the hallway. They did look pretty cute together, she couldn’t deny that. But they seemed too much like a cliche. Then again, who was Maeven to judge them? She was probably the farthest thing from a cliche one could ever be. Still, there seemed to be more than meets the eye in their relationship; Maeven couldn’t quite place her finger on it, but she knew it was there.

Steve opened the right of the double wooden doors that lead into the school gym. Again, it was smaller than the one Maeven was used to back in California. But it had its charm. There were a group of guys on the far side shooting hoops and practicing dribbling with each other. On the other side was a group of cheerleaders stretching their muscles and practicing their routine.

Maeven didn’t mind seeing the basketball team and their muscles sweating with activity, and she absolutely didn’t mind seeing the cheer squad in their short twirling skirts as they practiced. She was particularly intrigued by the cheerleader with strawberry blonde hair in a high ponytail and a smile that could light up a room of depressed people. She looked like a Barbie doll come to life. The way she seemed to put her whole spirit into the routine made it more like watching a ballet show; it was mesmerizing. Maeven found herself fantasizing that if she met her while in inpatient treatment, she probably would’ve recovered faster.

“This is the gym,” Steve said. “We hold all our gym classes, practices, pep rallies, and basketball games here. We have football and baseball, too, but they’re not as popular.”

“So basketball is your official religion around here. Got it,” Maeven spoke up with a soft giggle at the end. Steve and Nancy turned to smile at her. When she wondered why, she realized this was the first time she uttered a word since the tour began.

Steve seemed to be the most taken aback at the sound of Maeven’s voice, laughing at her joke. “Yeah, I guess you could say that. Do, uhm. . .do either of you play?” he asked, gesturing to Maeven and Billy.

“Uh-uh,” Maeven shook her head.

“Yeah. I’ve played before,” Billy mentioned, shrugging his shoulders. Like a lot of boys his age, he channeled all his energy and unchecked rage and aggression into playing High School sports. Despite wearing the stereotypical jock persona, he was also a metalhead. He and Maeven spent their first few weeks together doing nothing but getting high in his Camaro and thrashing along to the radio in an attempt to vent their shared frustration.

Maeven eyed the logo with the school mascot on the wall; Go Hawkins Tigers! It was a bit faded, maybe needing a fresh coat of paint. She wondered if maybe they’d let her paint a mural for the school as she did at Newport. She would ask them later. . .maybe.

“It’s kind of a missed opportunity that they’re the Hawkins High Tigers and not the Hawkins High Hawks,” the voice in her head laughed. Maeven chuckled at the joke she told herself. It was rare that she and her inner voice agreed with each other. When they did work together, it was usually to both their benefit.

“It’s kinda-

“You any good at it?” Steve said, accidentally cutting Maeven off.

“Compared to those little pussies, yeah,” Billy scoffed as he pointed toward the basketball team. It was clear that a few of them were new at this, missing hoops, tripping on their own feet, and losing the rhythm of their dribbles.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off,” Steve apologized, turning back to Maeven.

“Say something, Maeven. They’re all looking at you.” the voice whispered, spiking Maeven’s heart rate and making her palms clam up.

“No, it’s fine,” she stated, shaking her head to brush off the nervousness. “I was. . .I don’t even remember what I was gonna say,” she laughed, trying to trick herself into thinking so.

“Yeah, she’s a little forgetful, aren’t ya Mae-Mae?” Billy laughed, tussling her hair before sneakily moving his hand down to cup the small of her back again where no one would notice.

“Yeah. . .sorry. . .”

Both Steve and Nancy looked at each other before turning back to Maeven, confused at her apology.

“What? It’s fine. Don’t worry about it,” Nancy laughed, reassuringly touching Maeven’s arm,

“You apologized when you didn’t need to again, you stupid bitch.”

. . .

Before Billy could even think about challenging the basketball kids in the gym, Steve and Nancy moved the tour forward. Maeven had her sketchpad and a gel pen in her hand, mapping out the school as the group continued walking. Gel pens were her preferred writing tool, as she loved the sensation in her hands when she conducted the ink. She made sure to include all the turns in the hallways and possible shortcuts, including all the exits in case she ever found herself in a situation when and where she needed to haul ass out of there. Maeven always needed a plan to protect herself in case things went wrong again, in case she got bad again.

Steve and Billy walked side by side as Maeven and Nancy were a few feet behind them. The boys walked in an awkward conversation as Billy kept pushing Steve’s buttons; it was one of his favorite pastimes. Although Maeven was too focused on the school and her developing map to hear exactly what they talked about, she could only guess that Billy took charge of the discussion like he always did.

“I um. . .I thought your name was Margaret?”

Nancy’s sudden question caused Maeven’s hand to jerk slightly and mess up a line on her map. She clenched her jaw in anoyance; she would fix that and give herself a proper punishment later. Instead, she soaked her tears of frustration into her eyes and turned to Nancy.

“It is. Maeven’s my middle name,” she clarified.

“It’s. . .nice. Unique. Scottish?” Nancy asked, much to Maeven’s surprise. She was half right.

“Irish, actually. On my dad’s side. My mom’s the Scottish one,” she replied.

The two girls turned their heads forward, watching as Billy pushed Steve just a little too hard as he let out a laugh. Steve stumbled on his feet a little before regaining balance and continued walking as if nothing just happened. To him, it was just another jock with an obnoxious personality; it was nothing new to him.

“Your brother seems. . .nice?” Nancy said, unsure how Maeven would take her honest opinion.

“When he wants to be. And he’s my stepbrother,” she said before they turned left at the next forked hallway, making another note on her map.

“Oh, okay. That makes more sense,” Nancy realized aloud as if a puzzle in her head was finally completed.

“Why?”

“No offense, but. . .” Nancy trailed off, eyeing Billy up and down before doing the same with Maeven. “you look nothing alike and you don’t act like brother and sister,” she pointed out, gesturing at their clear differences.

“None taken, Nancy. Actually, it’s a compliment,” Maeven laughed, bookmarking her place in her sketchbook with her thumb as she closed it.

Nancy had been eyeing Maeven for the entire duration of the tour for two reasons. One; she wasn’t what she was expecting when Principal Higgins asked her to show a new honor student around. Maeven didn’t carry herself with pride and confidence the way others would. She certainly took no effort in trying to dress up for the role. However, she definitely seemed to be quiet and introverted, but also nice personality that reminded her of Barb.

That brought her to reason number two; this new girl reminded her so much of her departed friend so much it almost hurt. And it wasn’t just the vibrant shade of ginger hair that made her sentimental and nostalgic. It was in the way she could focus her attention on whatever she seemed to be working on. Nancy still didn’t know much about Maeven, but she almost had her believing in reincarnation. She had to remind herself that Barb was gone, and that reincarnation didn’t work like that even if it was real. 

She made a vow to herself not to compare the two of them, anymore, even if the resemblance was uncanny.

“So. . .Higgins said you were on the honor roll back at your old school,” Nancy said, changing the subject.

“Yeah. For a lot of things, but. . .mostly science,” Maeven answered. Nancy noticed the stickers on her sketchbook that consisted of various flowers and animals, as well as a few skulls of various species. Barb wanted to be an Astronomer after she graduated. They would’ve gotten along.

“Maybe you’ll be able to get through to Steve better than me,” Nancy suggested.

“He has trouble with science?”

“A little bit of everything. He’s more of a ‘sports and parties’ guy.”

Taking in what Nancy told her and the way Steve acted with both her and Billy, Maeven nodded in agreement. “Yeah. I can see that. Especially with that hair.”

In California, the more popular of the students at Maeven’s school treated their hair like a crown of pure gold atop their heads. It’s part of what attracted her to Billy in the first place. She found it hot when people took care of themselves and took pride in their appearances. 

Maeven was a little jealous that Nancy got to run her hands through Steve’s cloud-soft hair and she couldn’t. But she had Billy. She had Billy. She needed to keep reminding herself of that; she had Billy and she didn’t need anyone else.

“Yep. King Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington,” Nancy chuckled with air–quotes. Maeven almost choked on her saliva.

“What the fuck?” she laughed

“That’s what everyone calls him,” Nany explained. It certainly wasn’t the cleverest nickname Maeven had heard throughout High School, but it was definitely fitting to Steve. And it was interesting to find out that he was apparently voted the ‘King of Hawkins High’. Did that make Nancy the Queen?

“Are you serious? That’s hilarious. It suits him,” Maeven observed.

“What’re you planning on doing after graduation?” Nancy wondered aloud. Maeven’s head perked up as she answered almost immediately.

“Environmental Science. I wanna work for the National Parks Service in Wildlife Conservation,” she explained.

This was the first time Nancy noticed the way Maeven’s eyes lit up with wonder. She seemed almost like a completely different person when talking about something she loved. The fact that she was so self-assured in her future choice of career was something Nancy envied. She had good grades, sure. But starting her Junior Year of High School still having no clue what she wanted out of her life was incredibly weighing on her shoulders. 

“Woah, that's. . .” Nancy trailed off, struggling to find her words.

“Weird?” Maeven finished for her, silently preparing to go back into her shell. But Nancy stopped her before she could; she liked this new girl.

“I was gonna say ‘different.’ A lot of the other girls here say ‘supermodel’ or ‘actress,’” she explained.

Those were common dream jobs she heard back at Newport. She had also heard ‘makeup artist,’ ‘director,’ and ‘musician.’ Her girlfriends back in California had different dreams. Emily wanted to be a teacher, Madison wanted to run her family’s marijuana farm. Cassandra wanted to create special effects for horror movies. 

Maeven was surprised that Nancy didn’t add ‘Princess’ to that list.

“Are a lot of the other girls here boring basic bitches?” Maeven joked.

“No. . .well. . .maybe they are, but not all of them,” Nancy replied. “My friend Barb, she wants. . .wanted to be an astronomer.”

Maeven’s head perked up at the mere idea of another science geek at this school. Her dad had an old telescope and used to take her and Max on trips where they could see the night sky clearer.

“Really? That’s pretty badass, actually. You’ll have to introduce her to me tomorrow,” she suggested, to which Nancy seemed to almost freeze on sight.

“Oh, actually, she’s. . .not around anymore,” she told Maeven, biting back the familiar burning sensation of oncoming tears.

“That’s a shame. It would’ve been nice to know another brainiac,” Maeven said.

“Well, you still have me, here,”  Nancy laughed, grateful that she didn’t cry. Maeven’s heart rate spiked almost immediately at her reply, anxiety filling up her lungs almost like she was drowning.

“Great job, you little bitch. You just insulted her. She’s not gonna want to be your friend now,” the voice taunted.

“Oh, no, no, no. That’s absolutely not what I meant at all, Nancy. I’m sorry,” she stuttered out, her face heating up and her breath growing heavy. 

Nancy’s brow furrowed in uncertainty. Why was Maeven getting so upset? She didn’t do anything wrong. She placed her hand on the new girl’s back, confused and worried when she flinched at her touch.

“Woah, woah. It’s fine, Maeven. You’re good,” she reassured, feeling her heartbeat slowing from her back beneath her palm.

“Sorry,” Maeven panted out, catching her breath as her gripped her sketchbook like a vice.

“Okay, I’ll forgive you if you stop apologizing,” Nancy laughed out.

“Alright, so-. . .thank you,” Maeven corrected herself, finally finding her bearings. Nothing was ruined. Everything was fine. She did nothing wrong. Nancy said so herself.

“Anyway, what’re you doing after you graduate?” she asked, changing the subject.

“I. . .honestly, I’m not sure,” Nancy admitted. It was the first time she said it aloud.

“That’s alright. You’ve got time.”

“Yeah,” she sighed. It didn’t feel like Nancy had time, even if she was two years away from graduation. All she was certain of was that she didn’t want to walk the same path as her parents.

. . .

Steve held the door open to the library, letting the others walk through. Libraries were easily Maeven’s favorite place in any school. She could spend hours exploring the collection of knowledge each one held.

“And this is the library. It’s usually the busiest when we have Study Hall. Other than that, it’s pretty quiet,” Nancy said.

“It’s nice,” Maeven pointed out, tapping her fingernails against the hardwood table. She found that most libraries were neutral territory; always a little colder than the rest of the rooms in schools and smelled pretty nice despite the fact that some of the books held there were old and dusty. She could picture herself spending a lot of time here, even in the afternoons after school let out. That is if Billy wasn’t too impatient to get driving her and Max home out of the way.

“Yeah, I bet I’m probably gonna find you in here a lot,” Billy joked, playfully nudging Maeven’s arm. He turned to Steve and Nancy. “She’s a bit of a nerd,” he said, pointing at her like it was a big secret.

“I like school. What can I say?”

“No one likes school, Maeven,” Billy laughed at her as they left the library. Nancy noticed the way Maeven seemed to shrink into herself whenever he talked about her, and found herself wondering why.

Nearing the end of the tour as they continued down the halls, Maeven turned back to the map in her sketchbook, marking down the library. The group suddenly stopped at the sound of a shrill, clearly annoyed voice coming from the nearby classroom. Maeven flinched, almost dropping her sketchbook.

“I expect to see you back here next Sunday, Munson! I got you for the next four weeks and I’d rather not see you after that!”

The door to the classroom practically slammed open, making Maeven jump again. Out walked the other end of that seemingly dreadful conversation; a tall boy with a leather jacket and a denim vest with many hand-sewn patches.

“Oh, come on! I know you’d miss me sooner or later, McGrady!” he laughed, tripping over his own feet before regaining his balance and leaning against the set of lockers across from the classroom.

He was a metalhead; that much was obvious, donning a Black Sabbath shirt with ripped jeans and silver rings decorating his fingers. Maeven could see him and Billy getting along. They clearly had the same taste in music, but this Munson guy didn’t seem like the type to hang around jocks due to the way he eyed Steve up and down with purse distaste.

 Even if she only observed him for ten seconds, Maeven could tell that he was a troublemaker. He acted awfully confident and cocky for someone who still had a month of weekend detentions to get through. 

She also couldn’t deny that this guy was an absolute specimen of a human being; his wide brown eyes and the dimples in his smooth cheeks complimented his strong jawline. The bottom locks of his dark brown hair were a little uneven and choppy, stopping just above his soldiers similar to the way hers was. Again, Maeven liked pretty boys; the boys who almost had feminine features and weren’t afraid to show them off.

And of course, he had to have tattoos. She only caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a cluster of bats on his right arm, but it was enough to send a warm chill throughout her body as she squeezed her thighs together. Maeven found her mind lustfully wandering through the possibility of ghosting her fingers over the ink on his skin that no one else saw.

“Munson,” Steve acknowledged him, passively.

“Harrington,” he replied with a wide, teasing smile before turning his eyes to Billy, nodding, “Guy I’ve never seen before.” he nodded.

As he collected his backpack from the ground and turned to pass the group, he turned to Nancy and Maeven; the first giving him a half-smile laced with annoyed tolerance, while the second just stared. It wasn’t in a rude way, though. Maeven observed Munson with widely curious eyes, reminding him of an owl. As he walked past them, he playfully held out his arm and gave a short bow, the same way a gentleman would allow a woman to pass sixty years or so ago. 

“Ladies,” he excused himself before walking the other way. His frivolous demeanor and spirited attitude made Maeven blush, prompting her to bring up her sketchbook up just below her eyes. She huffed out a small laugh as she watched him walk out the double doors, a strange spring in his step.

“Who the fuck was that guy?” Billy asked, looking at Nancy and Steve.

“Nobody important,” Steve rolled his eyes.

. . .

By the time Steve and Nancy finished giving Billy and Maeven the tour, they were n the completely opposite side of the building from where the main office was. 

“Aaaand I guess that’s pretty much it,” Steve concluded, clapping his hands together. “But I suggest you stay away from the woods by the bleachers over there. It’s where our resident freak over there likes to deal.” 

They stopped at the end of a long hallway next to a set of bathrooms and double doors leading out to the football field. Steve warily gestured to the dark woods nestling behind the rusty, silver bleachers.

Maeven wanted to ask for more clarification, but Billy beat her to it.

“You mean drugs?” he laughed

“Yeah. It’s that crazy guy we saw who just got out of detention. I’d steer clear of him. He got held back,” Nancy answered.

Maeven decided to file that piece of information under ‘private’ for a later date. Even if she didn’t plan on being open about it, it was a little more reassuring that she wouldn’t be the only repeat in school this year. And now she knew who to flag down with a private note in a locker when she needed to replenish her stash.

“Noted. I’mma go take a leak,” Billy announced. Nancy handed her purse to Steve, who willingly accepted it.

“I have to go, too. I’ll be right back,” she smiled, leaning up to give him a small peck on the cheek.

“‘Kay.” Steve muttered, giving her a small rub on her back before waving her off. That left him and the new girl in silence by the doors.

She was leaning on her shoulder on the glass window of the door, focussing her attention down in her sketchbook as she raised one leg behind her to give it a break from walking for so long. The glass of the window chilled her cheek as she rested against it, making her arm stim as she shook the feeling off. Her abrupt and random movement caused Steve’s eyebrows to knit. To him, it seemed like her arm was possessed for a split second. Then again, he had definitely seen stranger things happen.

“Aren’t you gonna go rub one out in the bathroom?” the voice suddenly asked Maeven, who gripped her pen in frustration.

“Not with Nancy in there,” she silently replied. “What if she tries to talk to me? I’ll do it when I get home.”

“You’ve touched yourself before with other girls in the stalls next to you. You should’ve done it in the shower this morning. If you don’t go now, you’re gonna regret it later,” it taunted.

“I said ‘no.’”

“Suit yourself.”

“So, your brother seems. . .”

“Step-brother,” Maeven corrected Steve, not breaking her gaze on her sketchbook. She finished her map and drew a little marijuana leaf near the woods as a reference for herself. She would color it when she got home, as well as the rest of the school with her many art materials.

“Your stepbrother seems like. . .kind of an ass?” Steve phrased it like a question, testing the waters before he could dive straight in. Maeven found herself laughing. Steve definitely wasn’t sugar-coating it.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tattle on you. He is kind of a prick, sometimes,” she laughed, closing her sketchbook before tucking it into her backpack. She turned to lean her back against the doors as she teetered on her heels, crossing one foot in front of the other as she held her hands together

Steve looked down at her feet, taking notice of the number of scuff marks and the painted white stars on the toes of Maeven’s doc martens. She wore colorfully mismatched socks with random stripes and designs. He caught a small glimpse of the fishnet tights underneath them, pondering at her unique combination.

“Soooo, uh. . .why do they call you Maeven?” He casually asked, not really knowing what else he could say. 

“I’m named after my aunt Maggie, but it gets confusing. Maeven’s my middle name,” she replied, twirling the loose threads of her sweater around her fingers.

“Oh, okay. Got it,” Steve nodded, followed by another awkward silence. 

Maeven wasn’t exactly the type of person Steve would chose to hang out with in his spare time. He couldn’t even really pinpoint what she was all about. This girl was obviously an intelligent over-achiever, but seemed so withdrawn and quiet up close and personal. Most smart kids he met were major attention seekers. For someone who dressed in such a hardcore manner, she wasn’t loud and angry and actually seemed very nice. She was also apparently an artsy nerd indicated by the stickers on her sketchbook and Billy’s earlier comment. Steve wondered if she would get along with Mike and his friends. But he didn’t understand why Billy seemed so fond of her. She seemed more of the type to hang out with freaks like Munson.

“So, you and Nancy? You guys seem happy,” Maeven observed, bringing Steve’s train of thought off-track. It took him a moment to process and answer her.

“Yeah,” he perked up, suddenly grateful that the silence was over. “We’ve been going out for a little over a year now,” Steve reminisced.

“Nice,” Maeven gave him a closed-mouth smile with an added nod. It was reassuring that she noticed him and Nancy without knowing anything prior; it meant the sparks were still there. . .weren’t they?

“What’s it like in California?” he wondered aloud. Maeven’s eyes left his for a moment and she gathered her thoughts.

“A lot bigger. . .and sunnier. Also not as chilly in the fall as it is here.” she told Steve. She found it odd that she never really realized how overwhelmingly warm it was in California until she was moved across the country. It felt nice, though; like a breath of fresh air.

“Yeah. I bet you have a lot more to do there than here,” Steve guessed. He could only really imagine. He had barely tread outside Indiana his whole life, let alone Hawkins. Sure, he was interested in the world outside his home town, but was perfectly content staying right where he was.

“Well, we may have malls and skyscrapers, yeah. But it's packed with people,” Maeven explained, unwrapping the thread from her finger to let the blood flow back in.

“It’s a big state. Hawkins must be a big downgrade,” Steve humbled himself and his home town. He was well aware Hawkins wasn’t really anyone’s first choice.

“Not necessarily,” Maeven counter-argued.

“You like it here?”

“It’s growing on me; a change in temperature, lots of woods surrounding us, not as crowded. What more could I ask for?”

Maeven found the town of Hawkins, Indiana weirdly endearing; a nice change from the overwhelming suffocation of city life, even if she did happen to sense a strange vibe from it. Still, Steve pressed on. He found it hard to believe that she found Hawkins more exciting than California, of all places.

“What part of the state are you from?”

“San Diego. Well, also a little bit from San Francisco,” Maeven told him.

“Really? How does that work?”

“When you’re parents are divorced,” she casually said. Her reply hit a nerve in Steve. 

His parent’s weren’t divorced, so he couldn’t exactly relate. But as far as he was concerned, they should be split up. His mom obviously didn’t trust his father to go anywhere without being under her supervision, lest he ends up seducing other women. That wasn’t what a marriage was supposed to be. Steve promised himself that his and Nancy’s would be different; better.

“So. . .I’m guessing your mom married Billy’s dad?” he guessed. When he saw her mother and sister earlier, he could definitely see the resemblance.

“Yeah. They’ve been together for about ten months now,” Maeven said, to which Steve was taken aback.

“Woah, okay.”

“What?”

“Just seems a little fast. That’s all,” he pointed out. He was raised to believe that you had to court someone for at least a year before even considering marriage.

“It is, yeah. Trust me. I didn’t even find out they were engaged until after they got married,” Maeven rolled her eyes.

“Seriously?” Steve tried to suppress his laugh, which Maeven joined in on.

He was surprised she didn’t seem more pissed about it. He certainly would be if he was forced into that situation.

“No offense, but, uhm. . .how did you miss that?”

“Don’t mention that you were in the looney bin for three months. He’s not gonna want to be your friend anymore if he thinks you’re crazy. He already saw you twitch your arm,” the voice warned her.

“I was. . .busy. I kinda buried myself in school and parties,” she told him. It wasn’t exactly a lie; just leaving out three months of the timeline. But Steve didn’t need to know that.

Keeping herself occupied with all her homework, afterschool clubs, drug-fueled parties, and many interests kept her mind off of her parents. There were times when she managed to convince herself her parents weren’t even a part of her life. Of course, she knew that they were still there, but their presence and roles to Maeven were tuned out. She didn’t recognize the people they had become and had to learn to somehow live without seeing them together anymore.

It was a change that she never prepared for, and still found it hard to grasp at times.

“I gotta say, you are. . .totally not what I expected you to be,” Steve realized.

“Really? What were you expecting?” Maeven asked him.

“Most of the smart kids or honor students here are pretty loud and proud. You’re just. . .” he droned, struggling to find the right word.

“Humble?” she suggested.

“Yeah, sure. I was gonna say ‘shy,’ but that works, too,” he clarified. “And now I find out you like parties, and my whole vision of you has changed again.”

Steve wasn’t as noticeably perceptive as Nancy was, that was for sure. But he seemed to make up for it in natural charisma. He also appeared more emotionally intelligent than his girlfriend, even if it seemed like he was still adjusting to his new learning curve.

“You ever heard that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, Steven?” she joked with him.

“I have, indeed,” he playfully answered.

“To tell you the truth, I didn’t really understand it until about a year ago,” he confessed, internally cringing at his behavior last year. He still couldn’t believe it had been that long already.

“That’s surprising,” Maeven told him.

“What is?”

“Not to be a hypocrite, but I didn’t peg you as a mean guy,” she added, much to Steve’s relief. He often found himself worrying he was still the same ‘douche-bag,’ as Mike had once called him, that he was a not-too-long ago. Steve didn’t like the person he became when he was around Tommy and Carol.

“Well, that’s good to hear,” he admitted. 

“Yeah, you don’t have the whole. . .asshole jock energy the same way Billy does. Sounds like you used to, though?”

Was this girl psychic? It was really starting to freak him out, But he kept talking, anyway.

“Not exactly proud of it, but yeah.”

“I think you should be. . .about changing for the better, that is,” Maeven explained. Steve had never thought about it that way, before. He ended up more engaged in this conversation with the new girl than he thought he would be.

“What classes do you have, by the way?” It just dawned on him, and it triggered Mae to move quickly when taking off her backpack as if she was in a hurry.

“Let me check, hold on,” she said, swiftly dropping to crouch on the ground and dig around inside for the schedule the lady at the front office handed to her.

“Where did that sudden burst of energy come from?” Steve thought to himself. He considered asking why she carried so much stuff in her bag but decided against it.

“Uhmm. . .History and Literature 4 for First period. Then Biology 4, Art, Health. After lunch, it’s Algebra 4, Gym, and then Study Hall. But, I guess that last one is what everyone has,” she read aloud, leaning over to Steve’s side so he could have a look at the paper, too.

“Oh, good, we have Lit and gym together,” he pointed out. “And I think you have Health and Math with Nancy.”

“Nice to know I won't be totally flying blind,” she sighed with relief.

“You’re taking a lot of advanced classes. Higgins wasn’t kidding when he said you were smart,” he complimented. Maeven was about to thank him, but the voice in her head stopped her, ruining it like he hadn’t said anything nice about her at all.“Don’t tell him you should be a senior. Don’t tell him you had to repeat a year. Don’t be stupid, Maeven.”

. . .

A/N: Thanks so much for tuning in and all the love I've gotten back on this! It may not be a lot in terms of other fanfics, but I'm happy even if just one person enjoys my writing. This took longer to write than I thought, as I had to split up what I had originally planned for this one and put it into the next one. As always, I love hearing what you guys think about this and maybe what you might want to see or think will happen.

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[kmze]

This is kinda controversial but do you think Lexi seriously wanted to help Stefan? I know she was there for him during some of his darkest times,was his primary caregiver,sister from another mother but I don't think what she was doing with him was actually working and I feel like she knew it wasn't working.I think she wanted to exert a certain amount of control over him.She waited until he was completely out of his head compromised by his addiction and convinced him that torturing himself to straight and narrow was the only way to go.

Oh I love controversial questions anon! So I do think that Lexi wanted to help Stefan and that she did love and cared about him but I do agree that her methods did not work for Stefan. I'm not sure how much blame to put on her though because the show really didn't give us enough of the Stefan/Lexi friendship story so I see why you could interpret it the way you do. Lexi's methods seemed to be abstinence and 12 step programs and the problem was that abstaining did nothing for Stefan because once temptation got ahold of him it was all over, which is why he completely flew off the handle after drinking human blood in the first season.

I actually think one of the biggest issues Stefan had to overcome with his blood addiction was the dichotomy he created between himself and "The Ripper" and he doesn't accept that until everything he goes through in S3. He says to Klaus in 3x19 that he'd been trying to fight off that part of himself but now that he's accepted it he won't let it control him. For me that was the first step he needed to take and perhaps Lexi enabled the dichotomy and that's why she never worked through that issue with him. Of course that wasn't the only thing Stefan needed to work on because he also needed a better coping mechanism to deal with his blood addiction that abstinence. Damon tried to teach him moderation which he could not handle, most addicts can't do moderation (because Stefan as his personality is an addict) which is why they abstain but Stefan needs blood to survive.

What actually seemed to work for Stefan was having a sober sponsor who he could trust to keep him in control. Damon offered to do that in S3 but Damon suuuccckkkksss as a sober sponsor because Stefan isn't able to relax around him and then once they were at odds over Elena he wasn't even an option. That's why he asked Caroline who he knew was "a genius at self control" and she in turn told him to come to her whenever he wanted and she wouldn't let him lose control. The show then gave us a few moments of Caroline supporting him and by S6 he called himself a "reformed ripper" and seemed to be in pretty good control of his bloodlust. I think Stefan just needed someone he could trust completely and only Caroline was able to do that, I think the fact that she always made herself available to help him was a big part of that. He was always able to relax around her the way he never could with Damon or even Lexi, like when she told him to have fun at the party and he threw her over his shoulder and had no problems dancing and making a fool of himself with her.

We didn't see him go on another binge until S8 and that was when his humanity was off, and again he was with Damon and Damon wasn't cooperating and had him on edge. Once he was back in Mystic Falls around Caroline he started sublimating with alcohol and seemed to have his bloodlust back in check.