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Be Irresistible, Click Here Lewis is the host of The School of Greatness podcast and the author of The Mask of Masculinity. An icon of American ... could you do me a quick favor if you're listening to this please hit the follow or subscribe button it helps more than you know and we invite subscribers in every month to watch the show in person am i doing everything in my power to live the way i want to live because if it could be over in a moment i got to shift my attention to things that really matter our next guest has quite a resume a former professional football player turned lifestyle entrepreneur who was making millions of dollars in helping others achieve their dreams new york times best-selling author school of greatness please welcome lewis you have been very very open about the abuse you suffered when you were five i mean i knew something was wrong i knew something was off every single day for 25 years i thought about it i needed to heal the memories of the past in order to create a healthy relationship with myself and others in the present the challenge is most men have not been taught how to effectively communicate their guilt their insecurities constantly working on yourself is huge in intimacy in relationships what is the single biggest killer of relationships i'm gonna say something right now that you're probably not gonna like so without further ado i'm stephen bartlett and this is the diary of a ceo i hope nobody's listening but if you are then please keep this to yourself [Music] lewis i have to start with a with a point of gratitude which is thank you so much for doing this you are and i don't say this lightly but you are one of the real inspirations for me in this whole podcasting content space because you've been you're like the goat in my eyes you've you're the guy that did it first in in our space and did it best at the same time but not just that when i got to meet you maybe a month ago in dubai i was pretty much in awe of a bunch of things that i noticed about you that really set you apart one of them was this real unbelievable self-awareness which i talked to my team about before you got here i said he's one of the most self-aware guys that i've ever met because he's done and doing the work and the second thing is there's actually probably three things that come to mind the second thing is your genuine curiosity about humans on a very deep level because we'd be having we were having a conversation at 2 a.m in a bar and if there was a moment of silence it would be interjected by you with like a tell me three things that you're your biggest failings in life or three things and i just thought this is a guy that doesn't want to mess around at surface level with small talk and things that don't matter and then the third point which kind of links to those two in some way is your unbelievable ability to speak and deliver a concept or an idea with wisdom and a personal anecdote attached in a way that's captivating to the point that people don't tune out when you're talking and i don't i'm not blowing smoke up your ass but i genuinely was like i need to learn this specifically that delivery of ideas and having seen you on jay's and tom bill used podcasts i saw it then again and it's a culmination of all that self-awareness and practice but there was something else which you showed me when we were in dubai having that conversation at 2 am in the morning which is where i wanted to start our conversation today which was the the screen saver of your phone that really stayed with me yeah can you tell me what the screensaver of your phone is this is uh yeah i don't know if you guys for those watching on youtube i don't know if you guys can see this but this is a photo of myself uh when i'm probably about five years old and i put it on there a year ago because i was doing some intensive i would say inner child healing with a therapist i was working in in a in another relationship that i was ending i was ending a relationship

and i realized that in relationships in the past i was repeating a pattern of people pleasing of saying yes to things that i didn't want to say yes to of changing and shifting who i authentically was in order to try to please or make someone else happy and a lot of it came from the dynamics of my childhood from being sexually abused from having just a challenging let's say family dynamic with parents and things like that and so for years i was never taught on how to deal with my inner child i never was taught how to heal the things that i was really wounded as a child and so having these experiences of intensive emotional intelligence and therapy training on dealing with previous relationships and then in the current relationship was extremely helpful for me and my my therapist said we got to heal that part of your life that is attached to a memory of a wound and unless you heal that you're to keep repeating certain patterns and so that's why i have that on there and i'm actually going to change it to a different period of time in my life when i was about 11 to 12. that's the next phase of growth for me is to actually heal that next stage so that's why i do it what was the world and the perception of the world that that five-year-old lewis house saw and felt what was he feeling and seeing oh man he was abandoned he was abused he was taken advantage of he was unworthy he was unlovable and that was what i believed and so it's hard to create a meaningful relationship with myself and with another person if that story or narrative or belief was still there for me which it was unconsciously so i needed to heal the memories of the past in order to create a healthy relationship with myself and others in the present and where did that story come from that he was unlovable i've heard you describe yourself even as thinking you were dumb thinking you you couldn't you weren't worthy of friendships and things like that where did all of that i mean it was all from real life experiences and results that i was experiencing so just getting picked on as a kid feeling neglected from parents and family members feeling you know again sexual abuse that i dealt with and struggling throughout school my entire childhood until it took me seven years to finish college i was in the bottom of my class in school elementary middle and high school and so the narrative was there were real world results that were showing me that i was unlovable or being taken advantage of or abused or these things and so that stayed with me and this is why i built a persona or really a mask i tried to mask it and defend myself by becoming a great athlete by getting bigger faster and stronger so that i could defend myself against the feeling of being taken advantage of or abused but that didn't leave me feeling fulfilled it left me feeling angry and resentful when you were you you have been very very open about the abuse you suffered when you were five from a babysitter's son i believe yeah did you understand at the time that it was abuse no i had no idea i mean i knew something was wrong i knew something was off but i didn't know i mean as a five-year-old i don't think anyone really knows how to emotionally handle that or emotionally regulate or understand what's really happening at that time but it was something that i lived with for every single day for 25 years i thought about it i thought about the instant whether it be consciously or unconsciously it was coming up it might be a second or it might be minutes long of a memory but it came up pretty much every every day for 25 years until i went through it a transformational workshop experience that got me to finally face it and it wasn't until i faced it and started to integrate the healing of that moment that i felt like i was a prisoner for so long until it set me free of actually talking about my shame expressing it communicating it with my friends my family and then eventually i did a podcast about it which took me about

six months to publish because i recorded it and i waited six months because i said if people knew this about me no one would love me my business is over i'm gonna have no friends if people actually knew how shameful this thing was for me and i think that was the biggest fear but what i realized this was back in 2013 i mean the end of 2013 early 2014. and i thought my i literally thought my life was over i was like no one is gonna love me but i i also thought to myself i can no longer be a prisoner inside with this information i need to let it out and if i can help one man heal from what they've been through then it's worth it i'm happy to lose everything if i can help one man and it was one of the most profound experiences and and really spiritually freeing experiences of my life was opening up talking about it and the aftermath was so powerful for weeks i was getting essays from men opening up saying you know i'm married i've got three kids i'm 55. my wife and kids don't know and i've been holding this with me for this long it happened to me when i was 11. you know men opening up about all the different experiences of sexual abuse or trauma that they face with the challenge is most men have not been taught how to effectively communicate their shame their guilt their insecurities there's not many guys that grow up i don't think you had guy friends when you were 12 15 18 23 saying you know what can we just have a coffee and talk about how shameful i feel about my my uh my past right now or i don't only feel that good today let's talk about it or my body image is kind of off like we don't do that generally as men we're not taught how to do that in society but when you ask women how often do you meet with a girlfriend on a weekly basis to talk about your shame your insecurities the challenges you're dealing with in your relationships struggles at work whatever it might be women typically say they they meet with their girlfriends every week if not every single day they'll have a conversation with a girlfriend a sister a mom about a challenge or just what's on their mind but we just haven't been taught that so i started i really wanted to change the narrative and be a model there was no one that looked like me growing up that talked about these things there was no athlete that i admired that was like on tv saying i've been sexually abused or i went through childhood trauma or i didn't love myself or i struggled with insecurities growing up i just didn't see that growing up as a kid so my goal was to be a model of saying you know i'm willing to lose everything if i can help men heal because i truly believe a lot of the pain caused in the world is caused by men who have massive wounds who are reactive because they don't know how to handle or regulate their emotions and so they react in certain scenarios whether it be domestic violence domestic abuse war uh just reactions on social media causing more stress screaming in a workplace whatever it might be driving here in london just people honking at the horn because they're they don't know how to handle their inner wounds their emotional regulation and i feel like if all humans but men specifically can continue to learn these tools it'll be powerful but we weren't taught this in school there was nothing in school that was like okay emotional regulation 101 class there was none of this it was just suck it up be a man toughen up don't you know we don't talk about these things so and i think the world has been shifting over the last four or five years as well where it's more acceptable for men to talk about it with you know social media in a good sense allowing men to be more vulnerable and kind of lifting these conversations up about mental health so i'm seeing that shift but i just didn't see that or have a model when i was growing up in terms of models when you were growing up could you tell me a little bit about the dynamics of your parents as well because i've heard you describe the early

life and um yeah the quote that i read from you was that they were miserable times and the tension in the house impacted you and your siblings yeah i mean i grew up it's challenging because my father just passed away a month and a half ago and for 17 years he he got in an accident 17 years ago with a car accident where a car came up on his car hit him through the windshield and split his head open he was in a coma for a few months had severe brain trauma stayed alive miraculously but just had a challenging 17 years where he never fully recovered so it was a it was an interesting dynamic with my dad the last 17 years growing up as the youngest of four my siblings i feel like probably had it worse than me they had to deal with you know 20 year old parents my parents were 20 when they had my brother and then 24 when they had my sister and then 28 when they had my other sister then they had me at 31. so they had to deal you know grow up with parents who didn't have these tools either so i have a lot of grace for my parents because they didn't have the tools of emotional regulation or how to communicate effectively or how to process wounds and i think if you don't know how to process wounds it's going to be hard to just interact without being defensive or reactive or you know all these different things passive aggressive so i grew up for the first 13 years of my life in fear in fear i knew my parents loved me but there was this like energy that felt fearful and i was afraid of my father he was pretty angry he was an angry guy and he would he was super loving but then he would explode at times because he didn't know how to process emotions and he had wounds and so that was the challenging thing it was it was confusing and they weren't loving towards each other so i didn't feel safe my brother went away to prison when i was eight years old for for four and a half years so every weekend we would travel two years two hours to go to a prison visiting room and see my brother for a few hours so i was exposed to things that i probably shouldn't have been exposed to at eight years old until 12 which expanded my mind and my my my world view and my perception of people but also it's just challenging to have a sibling in jail for that long and dealing with the dynamics of that yeah it was just a it was a challenging time but at 13 i begged my parents to send me away i went to a private boarding school at 13 uh from middle school and high school and i couldn't get away fast enough they didn't send me away because i was a bad kid i begged them to send me away because i didn't feel safe at home i really want to dig into that what was it your dad's anger and his anger directed i guess uh you or your siblings or all of us yeah all of us but it wasn't all the time you know so again he was a loving guy he would tuck me into bed at night he would play catch with me in the backyard but then there'd be but then it'd be an explosion and we just didn't know when it would be and so the beautiful part about my dad is he had a massive transformation when i turned 13. he started to dive into the emotional intelligence training workshops and and seeking wisdom on how to process his emotions and he had incredible you know healing transformation so from 13 to 21 i had this incredible relationship with my dad he would fly out to all my games he would be so loving and supportive he wasn't angry he wasn't reactive he had this transformation so it's almost like i had two lives with my dad the first half of first 13 years i loved him but i was also afraid of him 13 to 21 he was like my best friend and so when he got in his accident when i was around 21. it was devastating because now i didn't have a mentor that now was showing up in a different way was loving was vulnerable i saw him cry a lot more i saw him just be sensitive so when he got his accident i didn't have that anymore he wasn't able to have that relationship with me because of the brain accident and this

was a time when i felt like i needed it the most right i went to go play arena football i went to go chase a dream i got injured in at the end of the first season had a surgery with my wrist and at that time was 2000 end of 2007 2008 the economy was crashing in usa people weren't hiring those who had master's degrees i barely graduated with a you know just a general degree i'm living on my sister's couch for a year and a half i've got no money i've got no mentorship from my father and so in a sense it was almost like this is the weird thing when i reflect back on it because i don't think i would be the man i am today without his accident although i wish he didn't have the accident i don't think i'd be in service i don't think i would care about people as much i don't think i'd be on a mission to want to change lives and serve millions of people around the world i don't think it'd be doing an interview show or a podcast i don't think you'd be writing books or all these things but something shifted within me because he was physically alive but emotionally and mentally not there so i didn't have that access to a relationship something shifted in me where i couldn't rely on him for money for kind of that wisdom i had to i just had to unleash something new that was that i didn't think was inside of me and i don't know if your parents are still around or if your dad is still oh yeah yeah something shifted in me 17 years ago when my dad got in the accident and then something shifted even more in the last month and a half when he passed that it's hard to explain i don't know i haven't really fully processed it it's still kind of a processing time and there's some a lot of gratitude and memories but a lot of sadness tied to it but i just don't think i'd be the man i am without his accident because it made me unleash something inside of me that was untapped when i met you in dubai every topic you talked on you talked on as if you'd processed it and done work on it and you had a perspective on it and then when you spoke about your dad it was like the end of what we call a cul-de-sac getting to the end of the street where there's nowhere else to go it was like you hadn't the conversation ended there and you would look down at the floor yeah and i knew i'm so sorry to hear of your loss by the way but i could see that it was still something that you're like there was two kind of suspicions i had one was that you you were still processing it of course yeah but the second was that there was a profound lesson somewhere there because of the pause you took and the way that you looked at the floor and but on every other topic you were like illuminated it's the best way to describe it you see what i mean yeah i think one of the things that it taught me 17 years ago was that my dad also felt larger than life i don't know if your father felt that way it feels that way as well yeah but he felt large in life he was extremely intelligent and smart he was a very charismatic he was resourceful talented he was he he was a big lover he loved people and he gave his heart in a big way after this transformation and he cared deeply about relationships like i witnessed things he did that brought smiles to people's faces all the time which is probably a lot of things that i've like translated in my own life but one of the things that taught me was that if this can happen to a guy who feels larger than life in a moment when he was on vacation with his then uh you know partner at the time not my mother they got divorced but they were on vacation having a great time if this could happen in a moment at any time then it brought so much urgency to my life to make sure i pursue the things that really are meaningful to me and for years there were things that i had to do that i wasn't like love i had to work really hard to get to that place when i was broke and had no money on my sister's couch it wasn't like this all just unfolded perfectly it was years of effort work late

nights all that stuff but it made me just say what is my mission what's my intention for this season of my life and am i doing everything in my power to live the way i want to live because if it could be over in a moment i got to shift my attention to things that really matter and so that was a big powerful shift for me and when he passed last month it made it even clearer you know there's so many opportunities for someone like yourself and myself at this stage of our life and our careers and a lot of opportunities can seem incredible here's a big money-making opportunity here's a cool project i can do with someone here's these things that are coming my way but if it's not aligning to my mission of something greater if it's not aligning to my ultimate level of joy and authentic power then should i be doing it right now if it was all over in a day and a month in a year is this something i would say yes to and so it's just bringing me closer to that awareness that how it could all be over in a moment and it brings the energy back to like my relationship with my girlfriend i'm like if it was over tomorrow am i doing and saying what i need to say today and that's been a powerful thing for me there's a real i mean i always reflect on this that brony ware who was the palliative nurse who interviewed people in their last days and the retrospective clarity people must have in their last days about what they did and didn't do yeah right is so so empowering but as you say there one of the things that terrifies me is my dad is ill he's like not in good health and he's he's outlived his siblings and his life if you look at it in any kind of comparative measure was way more stressful than them and his brother died of a heart attack and his brother died younger than he is now so this thing is haunting me almost in the back room and the haunting thing is like what should i be doing now my relationship with my dad isn't particularly strong um you know what i mean how often do you see them a year through three four times okay this my friend jesse etzler made this example one time to me uh and to like the audience he said and his father just passed away actually a couple weeks ago and he said my my parents are old they're in their 80s or something like that and um you know maybe they have five or ten more years but it's really five or ten more times with them if you only see them once or twice a year it's not five or ten years if you see them two three times a year maybe you have three times if it's a year maybe you have ten times if it's four years that you experienced a moment in person with your dad yeah hopefully he lives 10 20 years but two to three times a year is really 20 times left with your dad and when we put it in i just got chills thinking about that when we put it in perspective like that are we giving as much as we could to the relationship are we opening up and healing certain things that maybe aren't aren't healed yet are we having the conversations that are unspoken and i think i feel like i did the best of my abilities to do that with where he was at emotionally and mentally and i would encourage you or anyone listening or watching to to ask themselves on a scale of one to ten how is my relationship with my father my mother and if it's not above a seven right now what can you do not about them even if they're the parent what can you do to reach out and communicate how can you take responsibility for your part of that relationship and you just never know in any moment what if someone's not listening to this now and they think well my parents or my dad or my mum or whatever was abusive or toxic or whatever to me is i think you got to ask yourself if they died today would i be happy with how i communicated how i showed up and maybe that means you need to disown your parents for a season of life because you're not able to get along but are you still happy if you did that with everything you tried to do from a loving calm healed place

it's your healing journey it's not about what they do or what they didn't do it's about your healing journey and i look at it as a gift from everything i experience from my childhood you know i don't look at it as a painful thing anymore you know i'm not living in fear from the memories of my past anymore i look at it as god i'm so grateful that i grew up feeling insecure unlovable and really dumb because i care deeply about loving other people i care deeply about being a good listener and showing people how much i care i care deeply about wisdom and knowledge in a different way not just from school and books but from interactions with human experiences adventure learning new skills and hobbies and just progressing as a human and i think you know even from the sexual abuse i'm not mad at it anymore i'm not hurt by it anymore i hope it never happens to anyone in the history i don't wish it on anyone but i also know that it gave me an incredible gift because i've healed from it i've taken my power back from that and i know that it's benefited me now because i've rewrote in the story about what it means about me and i think if we can rewrite those stories in an empowering way then we are not powerless we're powerful to that point of your healing journey though you describe your life in these three sort of sections right you've got the i think it's the the preteens yeah and then it's like the team to 22 and then it's the is it for and then the 20s and then the 30s right yeah the 20s phase as i read it as i read through the whole all the experiences on you you know your sister's sofa the linkedin stuff you've done felt a little bit like you were finding yourself yeah of course yeah and then post 30s it's it feels like the work really started to begin i mean 30 is when everything started to change because that's the moment i allowed myself to be vulnerable for the first time i just thought i had it figured out and what i realized is i knew nothing there were symptoms of an internal conflict that suggested to you that you didn't have it figured out of course yeah i mean i mean getting in fist fights on a basketball court in a in a pickup game that's supposed to be fun and reacting so much to someone jabbing me you know in the ribs or or smack talking me talking bad or just like talking trash and being so reactive she's getting it like you're extremely explosive again it was more of like i didn't heal a lot of things from my childhood it wasn't like one thing for my dad or the sexual abuse it was kind of like the entire childhood all the stories and all the examples that made me feel like i'm not lovable or i'm someone to be taken advantage of was still inside of me so it wasn't just one thing or one experience it was all of it that was building a case for me to be reactive and explosive and feel like uh you know the the world was just out to get me or something and when i learned the art of emotional regulation that's when everything started to change and i learned a part of that at 30 until 37 but in intimate relationships i still hadn't learned how to fully love and honor my authentic power i still gave in because i deeply wanted people to like me i deeply wanted the person that i was giving my heart to to love and accept me and yet i was choosing people based on a wound still from my parents from my mom you know giving in from my mom not feeling probably loved and accepted and kind of repeating that pattern of her with my dad i was finding partners like that and i was taking on the mother role like kind of what my mom was taking on and i was giving in i watched her give in over and over and over to my dad and never stand up for who she truly was you know this is all unconscious it wasn't until about a year ago when i started to learn this and process it so i was choosing partners that after a period of time they would get upset at me over and over of lots of different things they just weren't happy with who i was or the actions or

decisions or things i did in my business or whatever whatever it was that made them feel like they were insecure or something same and so i would say okay i'll change this to make you happy okay you don't like me doing this okay i'll stop doing this okay you don't like me salsa dancing you don't like me traveling you don't like me speaking you don't like me doing okay like whatever's gonna make you happy because there was love there and i thought that when you love someone you'll do whatever you can to make that love stay to make it last and so i would give and give and give up who i was in order to create peace and love and what i was doing was creating incredible pain resentment and anger and frustration was inside of me of the person of the relationship and of myself because you were abandoning yourself abandoning myself over and over again and i didn't know how to say no and how how to be around someone who was unhappy with me in intimacy i could do this in business and friends but in intimacy when there was love i didn't know how to say no and so i just gave in to create peace and what i realized is that you know i was looking to create to buy peace by abandoning myself but you can't buy peace we must be peace and if someone is okay with that great if they're not then maybe you're not in alignment and that's okay but i was not willing to let go of the feeling of love it was a false love it wasn't authentic love because authentic love is accepting the person for who they are and them accepting you for who you are it's not trying to change the person if you're trying to change someone you shouldn't be with them we should be elevating each other to grow but if there are fundamental things about you that i don't like and i'm trying to change you why am i in a relationship with you go find someone that you don't need to change and vice versa and so my girlfriend martha i was like listen we started dating and i'd done months of this healing work and finally started the process and feel this inner peace i said listen i'm going to be 100 authentic to who i am i'm going to obnoxiously be myself around you and i'm letting you know i want to i want to be so obnoxiously myself that i i hope you run away i hope you run away because i'm never going to change i'm not going to change for you or anyone else i'm going to evolve i'm going to constantly improve grow i want you to be willing to give me feedback but i'm not going to change of something you're unhappy about about me here are my values here's my vision here's my lifestyle this is what i'm going to be doing i'm not going to change this stuff just letting you know and it's been a beautiful journey because it's amazing just to see what it's like having authentic trust and someone receiving you for a hundred percent who you are and feeling like i can be myself i've never felt this until now it's beautiful it's such a important conversation because it's crazy man you described the reasons why in your trauma that that made you a people pleaser and do you know what's really interesting is when you told me that you were a people pleaser um i couldn't believe that i'm like what you big tough athlete man people pleaser carrick you know what i mean but it just it goes to show that that sort of that trauma in us yeah um is kind of agnostic to to our mask or absolutely you know certain and i when you told me that because we had a little bit of this conversation just a hint of it in when we met in dubai i realized that i've been a people please actually but i never thought i was in all of my relationships i think the significant reason why they failed is exactly what you've described i've gone in trying to compromise everything really oh my god just just to keep them and try and keep them happy um with me and in the short term that day fine you go any kind of mid to long term time horizon and it's resentment you know i take full responsibility for every relationship i've chosen and been in and

stayed in because i could have gone out of any relationship at any moment but i was afraid and i lacked the really the self-confidence to step away because i was afraid of losing love but it's not real love if it's inauthentic if you're having to change who you are to make someone happy i just don't feel like that's real love i'm all for making adjustments in alignment with certain things but it shouldn't be changing your core essence of who you are to make someone happy that's not real love you said something to me which um really puzzled me because i've never heard it before which was when i said um i started talking to you about what things i should be compromising in my relationships and you went no compromise i mean for me i don't believe in compromising who i am yeah if you're like listen this week i want to go to this place for a restaurant and next week you can choose that's i guess a compromise of like activities yeah yeah but not compromising your core values and your authentic power if we are compromising our authentic selves we are essentially saying screw you to our creator you've created us for who we are and no i don't want to be this way for one human being because it doesn't make them feel good or makes them unhappy or they're afraid or scared as opposed to who can i be if i'm 100 myself in life and i'm not saying like if you've got flaws adjust those and prove those like i'm all willing to improve and adjust all my flaws but if it's something that's at my core is my personality i'm not changing for anyone why i want to be changing for one person that just doesn't seem like a good i don't know situation and i've done it for too long and with with martha your current partner yeah um you had a conversation very early on about your unwillingness to compromise your core values yes and my priorities and your priorities yes so tell me exactly what you mean by your priorities yeah how that was received man i told her probably like three months in as we i knew in the first night i met her i go i wanted to be single i was like just got done this healing journey get out of a relationship i was like i really want to be single for like a year and just be single and i met her before that time and i remember thinking uh crap there's something unique and special here on a different level more than just sexual attraction there's a spiritual connection there's something deeper that i can see a vision of something incredible that i couldn't do on my own right and i was like let me just string this along as far as i can before i get committed right let me just give it some space not jump into this thing too fast like let's just take it slow and after about three months i said to her i go listen i'm gonna tell you something that i don't think you're gonna like and i said this many times to her i go i'm gonna say something right now that you're probably not gonna like and i don't think any woman wants to hear this from a man i'm just letting you know and she's thinking i'm about to drop a bomb or something and i'm like you may not want to continue dating me after you hear this she was like what is it you know she's freaking out i go you will never be my number one priority never and i had an explanation i said listen my number one priority needs to be my health because without my health i can't fully show up for my number two priority which is my mission or my calling from god oh god he wasn't even number two louis and i said you're not number one and you're not number two you're number three and no woman wants to hear i'm the third priority in some man's life they need to make me number one i need to be thinking they need to think about me all the time i'm number one priority otherwise i'm out of here and it's not that she's not a number one top priority but health needs to come first at all times that doesn't mean all day i'm doing my health it's just i need to make sure every day i'm taking care of it this is a top priority if

this is number two number three number 10 i'm not going to be good for you in our relationship i'm not going to have energy i'm going to be more moody so i need to make this a priority first for the second priority which is my mission my calling from god the universe the world whatever you want to call whatever's speaking through me into the existence because if that is not a high priority for me then i'm going to be unhappy because i'm gonna feel like there's something calling me in the world and i'm not doing it because i'm giving more time and attention to one person but if i'm healthy and working on myself if i am putting energy and time into my mission then you're going to have the most incredible relationship of your life because i'm going to be of service to you in such a high beautiful authentic way that you're going to be feeling like you're the number one priority but you just have to be an awareness that this is where i'm coming from and it doesn't mean i'm not going to be spending all my time with you and i'm free and we're not going to have an amazing life but you got to be aware this is my priorities and the crazy thing is right when i finished she said that's the most amazing thing i've ever heard because that's exactly what i've been looking for i've been dating guys with no purpose none of them had a purpose they made me their purpose and i was like no what's the thing you want to do in the world what's the calling you have and none of them had a calling they had stuffed activities they had hobbies but it wasn't like a main calling in the world and she was like you're the perfect match for me because you have a mission to serve the world and i'm cool with that were you trying to scare her off in a previous relationship i was trying to scare her off by saying i'm never going to change who i am based on a previous release based on five previous relationships it was based on every relationship before where i abandoned myself to try to make one person happy and create peace in an environment because there was never peace and it's my responsibility is my decisions by choosing these relationships by staying and by not leaving sooner and so it's never because i just wanted to fix the relationship i was like okay how can we make this better what mask have i got to wear exactly yeah and so man it's it's liberating and freeing and the only way this works is because this sounds bad i want to say something probably sounds bad i think my girlfriend would be okay with me saying this but the only way this works is i'm willing to walk away at any moment i don't want to walk away i want to be with this woman she's incredible she's a gift in my life but if it's not in alignment with her values her vision her lifestyle my values my vision my lifestyle and we don't fully accept who we are then we shouldn't be together and i want the best for her and i want the best for me so as sad as i would be i'm willing to walk away at any moment if it compromises giving up who i am and it brings me peace because i'm not attached i'm committed i'm holding it loosely you know i've got my hands wrapped around the relationship but i'm not suffocating the relationship i'm not squeezing it to death i'm like okay you can you want it you don't need it yeah i want it i'm committed i'm all in but i'm not going to change who i am yeah to force it i had a few words to say about one of my sponsors on this podcast my girlfriend came upstairs yesterday when i was having a shower and she said to me that she tried the heel protein shake which lives on my fridge over there and she said it's amazing low calories you get your 20 odd grams of protein you get your 26 vitamins and minerals and it's nutritionally complete in the protein space there's lots of things but it's hard to find something that is nice especially when consumed just with water and that is nutritionally complete and that has about 100 calories in total while also giving you 20 grams of protein

if you haven't tried the keel protein product do give it a try the salted caramel one if you put some ice cubes in it and you put it in a blender and you try it is as good as pretty much any milkshake on the market just mixed with water it's been a game changer for me because i'm trying to drop my calorie intake and i'm trying to be a little bit more healthy with my diet so this is where heel fits in my life thank you hill for making a product that i actually like the salted caramel is my favorite i've got the banana one here which is the one my girlfriend likes but for me salted caramel is the one when you talk about priorities i was trying to in my head think of a a use of words that might be more um received better and it's funny because i was thinking about this table i was thinking there's this table now has two levels right the first foundation of this table you could call health right without that nothing else can sit on the table the second foundation could be mission and then the relationship sits on top of both and it's enabled by the foundation of my my health and my mission absolutely man i think if you kind of flip it it kind of sounds better like because effectively you're putting your health at the bottom which is yeah well sources still your foundation but i completely get that because at any time in my life where i've abandoned my my sense of mission i can only do that for a short period of time i can only fake that before i start to lose orientation in my mind and you resent yourself you represent the person you present the relationship and you're like you're not in love as much with the relationship because you feel like you're not it's not lifting you to your highest calling amen and i think the beautiful thing about martha in our relationship i think should be open with me talking about this but every relationship i've been in i was like i wonder what it would be like to start therapy in the beginning when everything is perfect so with martha i said in the beginning i said listen i'm doing therapy every two weeks i did this for the last year on my own individually i'm going to be doing it for this next year and years just as emotional accountability for myself in life business friends family like anything i need to process it's just good for me to clean the energy and not let things pile up and i said i'd love for us and she was doing this individually i said i'd love for us to do this together as we start to develop our relationship when things are great and actually see if we are in alignment and so two weekends ago we did a five hour session together with my therapist talking about expectations agreements values dreams vision and just processing anything we needed to process and it was such a powerful experience that when things are going good to continue to talk about vision casting what we want to build together not when things are going bad and it's really to talk about things that maybe we haven't fully been comfortable talking about yet and putting it out there as opposed to hiding things or waiting for things to come out later and it was such a powerful five-hour experience i mean it's very emotional and you're processing a lot and we're we're diving in deep exercises eye gazing talking about things like it's an emotional relationship workout yeah you'll save a lot of time and headache by going to therapy when things are great as opposed to when things are bad it's like that prevention versus reaction once it's read his ugly head and there's been some bust up you go to the gym not because you're sick but because you're healthy yeah to stay healthy you know not what not when your weight to get sick now i need to go to the gym yeah and i think who does that in relationships i don't know anyone who's done that you hear people say like before marriage we do like a pre-marital maybe relationship training with the churches or like a therapist but that's after a few years usually i just wanted to experiment

i have no idea where it's going to go but i feel like um something's something's happening underneath the surface by both of us doing this together when things are good men just don't do this stuff lewis i'm thinking about my guy friends and i i can imagine some hesitancy towards them 100 because they just not it's all the things you've described they've won a mask of toughness we put them we keep keep the emotions in the back room you know what i mean and and also do you know what you know what as well guys don't love conflict with love fun man so they would probably see that as oh my god i'm going to get told off oh my god she's going to give me [ __ ] for that thing i do it's so hard man what you've described there that doing the making the roots go deeper again something i have to thank you for because we had a conversation about vision values and lifestyle oh and when i got back from dubai how'd it go i had a conversation with my girlfriend and she was all for it so on that table there and i said i spoke to louis and he talked about vision values and lifestyle so we sat there one night on the weekend lit a candle we were making some like pottery stuff and we said after we've done this we'll just write down our visions values and lifestyle and we'll go through them one one by one so like i speak on one you speak one that's beautiful it took about three hours and there were tears oh my god moments of joy [Laughter] but the conclusion was exactly what you've described there was all these little things i'll give you some detail give it to me how we when we go to sleep at night i like to go to sleep a certain way so i like something playing she likes silence oh but you haven't talked about it probably hadn't talked about it wow and it was one of the things just about like our sleep routine we're obviously gonna have to sleep in bed for many many years and we hadn't discussed it and i knew it was conflict i was getting in bed and knowing if i play this she's not gonna be happy but she might not say anything and so just talking it through and going look babe the reason why i listen to something when i go to sleep is because i've had 29 years of doing that when i lived in the countryside in plymouth i had a radio in my room and the kid in me found comfort in hearing a voice when i went to sleep you've had 29 years of doing it another way we've got to ask ourselves is it really a problem and we and that was the discussion like is it a problem if i say if i put an airport in because i'm not going to compromise right and if you you know you won't even hear it is it really a problem and then we discussed why she thought it might be a problem does that impact her intimacy well intimacies are suff you know and eventually we came to this conclusion and it's not an issue anymore and it was an issue in our relationship for about a year it was that niggling little you could feel the contempt and resentment slowly building and you guys were a long distance too right so so it wasn't like you weren't sleeping it wasn't every every every day for months no so you like a couple weeks at a time yeah but when you're gonna be more together consistently it could be a problem yeah that's one of the list of about 30 things that we we addressed and worked through and more than anything coming out the end of that exercise which is something i've never done with any partner i've ever had i've never even had the conversation you just crash no you don't i didn't learn this until like two years ago yeah you just just you just get on with life right you just try to keep having fun experiences and avoid conflict the conflict i've had so many uncomfortable conversations with with martha that it's like a muscle you got to practice it and every time an uncomfortable conversation comes up i have to breathe i'm like oh man i feel tense yeah i don't want to do it i don't like it i don't think anyone likes it but the more we do it here's the thing we've created a safe

space where and the reason i don't like to do it or haven't like to do it until now is because every time i would have an uncomfortable conversation before the partner i had could not handle it so i'd say here's how i'm feeling and they couldn't handle it or there'd be an explosion or reaction or something so it didn't make me feel safe to have the uncomfortable conversation so i would avoid it amen and with martha i said to her listen like the first one come from a conversation i go she asked me a question about something that was kind of like i can't remember exactly what it was but i remember like hmm should i tell her the truth or should i cut us a little bit of the truth you know and i go do you want me to be 100 honest with you and she said yes always i go are you sure you want me to be 100 honest she said yes and i go okay let me ask you one more time and the reason i'm asking is because i've never met someone who can hold the space for my honesty without reacting or crying or screaming or running away so are you saying you're you're emotionally available to hold the space for my honesty and truth she said yes i'm a grown woman i go interesting okay well here it is she was like thank you for your honesty and it built a one step okay let me try this again one more time and make sure she can really handle it and the more steps of her holding space for my honesty my vulnerability and not exploding or reacting makes me feel like okay i can say anything and she may not like it it may be uncomfortable but she's not explosive and that's a powerful thing of how can i be comfortable in the discomfort while also feeling safe that's huge and you've got to learn to practice that yourself in a relationship and not be reactive if a partner is telling you stuff about their past you don't like or what they did or this and that you got to be okay and practice it and they've got to be and that's where constantly working on yourself is huge in intimacy and relationships and if one person's doing that and the other person isn't there's going to be conflict yeah do you have a trainer when you work out yes have you had a business coach in the past or mentors would you stop getting coaching in business even though you've been so successful you want to stop even though you've got all this money and businesses and startups and investment you know dragons then you'd keep hiring a coach or have a mentor in business why would we not do that for our emotions and our heart it is the most powerful energy that we have emotions and our heart and yet we have a stigma around having a coach or mentor or a guide or a therapist whatever you want to call it of emotional regulation and accountability and people make so many mistakes in their lives by not having that regulated their reactions can have consequences for years people go to prison for one reaction people lose their entire business for one reaction people lose their marriages because of one emotional reaction this is one of the most powerful currencies in the world in my opinion is having power over your emotions not stuffing your emotions not saying they don't exist not acknowledging them but expressing them in a healthy way and in a healthy environment and when we learn that and i've been learning that over the last couple of years it's been an incredible shift in every area of my life and i also just feel an incredible sense of peace i'm not saying that i'm always going to be perfect in the future around this but showing up to someone twice twice a month and processing makes me a whole lot better you just reminded me of something that really stuck out to me when i first met you was when we were sat there and you're doing it again today you've done it three times today is you would say something and then you'd say and that's my responsibility so even when you were talking about previous relationships you've been and whatever else you would not blame the other person you would like aggressively not

blame them in a in a really remarkable way so you'd say this happened this happened this happened this happened where any other human being i've ever met was was in their right to attribute the blame to the person and you would always end the sentence as you've done three times today with and that's on me or and that's my responsibility yeah why because i chose it i chose those experiences i chose those relationships i chose the environment i chose those people i chose to stay and it's my responsibility on how i show up and how i react how i respond and how i stay or leave but even when someone was toxic or whatever to you you say that was on me it's my responsibility because if someone does that and i stay with them that's on me that's me not standing up for myself it's me abandoning myself that's not on them they're living their life they're doing what they do naturally it didn't line up with me but i stayed so that's on me i can't expect someone else to change i can't expect someone else to respect my values my vision and my lifestyle they have theirs and they're showing it through their actions and their behaviors and so for me if i'm able to witness that and be aware and not have the false sense of love and be attached to the false sense of love that i'm feeling i'm having this feeling about this person and i want to get back to this healthy environment with this person i got to learn to let that go and that's why i say i can hold love in my hands loosely committed and excited about it but if it's not meant for me i shouldn't hold on to it and abandon myself and i think i did that too many times so that's 100 my responsibility can you run me through then because i know there's gonna be people that people listening to this that i've just had we both done this exercise and it was amazing and they're gonna they're now thinking what is the values part what is the vision problem what's the lifestyle part yeah i think the values is really about well for me the values is like okay i value health in my life i'm i'm gonna be focused on my health i value my mission my team my business like that's a conscious mission i value spending time with friends i value all my hobbies and activities that's salsa dancing that's traveling that's all these different things i enjoy doing i value conscious conversations like i want to have conscious conversations i can't have superficial conversations i literally met someone this morning before i came here um who was a part of a big company here in london and within two minutes i probably like shouldn't do this but i don't know if all british people are this way and it's not a bad thing but it's very good with like surface talk you know oh how was your how was the flight and uh what was the world order some or whatever it is you know and it's like which is fine but i just can't handle it after a few minutes so right away i i'm the person saying next to me i was like how's your marriage you know i just i was like how long have you been married for you know and she was like i've been married for like six years and i go what's three questions you wish you would have asked i literally did this i go what's three questions you wish you would have asked the day before you got married that you didn't ask because i'm just fascinated by people you know i'm curious i'm like how amazing has marriage been how's it been has it been healthy have you had challenges is there anything you wish you would have changed or talked about sooner and right away she's like opening up and like being vulnerable and i was like sorry to put this on you right now but i'm just fascinated because i want to learn from everyone and um so i was like i want to have conscious conversations it's one of my values so we have these deep intimate talks all the time and so i write down a list of all my values the vision is this is the vision for my personal life so personally i want to be working out i'm going to be healthy as an individual my

vision is my my mission which is building a conscious business to serve millions of people to help them improve the quality of their life and this is a major priority to me this is my one and two priority this is my vision and also our relationship vision which i think is extremely important to talk about with your partner here's the vision i have for our relationship for these these couple years and for the future this is what i see with flexibility nothing's set in stone but this is what i see what is your vision for our relationship because maybe her or his vision is different one person wants to have kids the other person doesn't one wants to get married the other doesn't one wants an open relationship the other one doesn't want that one wants their family around every weekend the other one's like i don't want to be around your family every weekend so what is the vision of our shared relationship and then lifestyle i love you know traveling do you like to travel i love to watch these types of movies i like to eat these types of foods i like these types of experiences this is a lifestyle that i live if you have a completely different lifestyle that's going to be hard for us if you like to do none of those things if you like to stay at home every day where i want to go out and network with people and travel that's just going to be a top we're going to be butting heads a lot and there might be maybe it works but it might cause some friction and distance in the future so are we in alignment of values vision and lifestyle it doesn't have to be 100 perfect but is there alignment in each category and i think the more alignment you have the more potential for a better healthier relationship and on things like work this is obviously a big one for ambitious people when they um when they're running a business they're career driven they're vision or mission driven and they have a partner i want to know from a work perspective what kind of conversation you've had with martha and vice versa because i know you're a guy that travels a lot does a lot of speaking is very you know in pursuit of yourself and your potential so how do you then balance like being a boyfriend being present going on dates and stuff what's the conversation when i first met her i said one of my values is alone time like that's one of my values as well is having alone time having enough space in our home so that i can go in the room and do what i want to do and watch sports or chill and you can do what you want to do and i feel like we have space it doesn't mean i don't want to be around her all the time but i also value my space and alone time and so does she so it's having those conversations and with with business i said listen if you can come on any trip like you're more than welcome to come i'd love for you to come but she's doing her own thing she's traveling as well back and forth from atlanta so um and she'll be filming two movies later this year and gone for two months at a time so i'll need to travel at those times and she'll travel with me and that's the season of our life right now and you're anticipating another season at some point i imagine at some point yeah i mean it may evolve may change in the family and all these other things so it's like when that season happens there may be less travel for her how do you feel about that about what about the next season that family because there's a smoke on your face which is why this is something that i say to her i go listen i'm really intentional about building a deep strong foundation let's keep building a strong foundation and everything else will follow if i feel a sense of peace i feel a sense of safety in this relationship just like you then all these other things are going to happen naturally and they'll probably happen fast naturally once we both have a deeper foundation and just experienced life more so have you historically had a commitment challenge 100 man 100 percent well actually i haven't had a

commitment challenge because i've always been committed i've been in very long-term community relationships but i've had a commitment challenge in seeing around family and kids because i never trusted the person i was with fully so i couldn't see myself having kids with them and i kept waiting to see something to shift to where i felt like this was kind of where my head would go this is maybe weird but i would say if something ever happened to me could i trust this person would take care of my kids and i just never felt that because i never felt like i could trust him with me like again i take full responsibility and accountability because i chose people that didn't accept me fully that weren't happy with who i was and so that's on me and i never felt like i could go to the next level with any of them because i was like something's off inside and i feel like ah i'm changing who i am to make them happy and they're still not happy so i can't have kids with i can't see myself living like this for you know 20 years with someone so and that kind of trauma that niggle is is that still inside you there somewhere as you think about it i think it was in the first maybe a few months of us dating but i don't feel like it is anymore yeah i feel like every day i create more and more peace and connection and safety and she's just an incredible person like she's just a great human being and trustworthy and so it's like even if something happened to me she could be incredible you know incredible mom so of all the things you've learned from your good and bad relationships if you were to have if i had to if i said to you that what is the single biggest killer of relationships what would your answer be uh i would say the biggest killer of relationships is being out of integrity with your authentic power and abandoning yourself to create peace in the relationship because if one person's doing that or two people are doing that there's some type of codependency there's some type of wound on why we're doing that that's creating that so for me the biggest killer is not healing that's the biggest killer whatever wounds we have be on the healing journey it's not it's not going to happen overnight it's not like a moment it's a journey of healing and i think the more people are willing to dive into their heart and their emotions and whatever insecurities wherever they feel triggered that's where you need to lean into because that trigger's going to come up into relationships big time if you haven't healed it so it's the emotional healing i think it's one of the most powerful things it's funny i interviewed a brain surgeon who'd done over a thousand brain surgeries and studied the brain and he's also a phd in neuroscience so he studies the mind and thoughts and he's a brain surgeon and i said what's the number one skill do you feel like human beings should learn to master and his answer was beautiful he said emotional regulation i was like i 100 agree because if we don't have the power to regulate our feelings around a situation and environment something that happens in events then that event has power over us as opposed to us over that moment and if it has power over us to where we react so strongly we need to ask ourselves why am i so triggered where is that one that's a wound somewhere where is that wound and how can i start the healing journey i'm not saying that things are gonna happen in life and you're never gonna feel something but just not react and be overwhelmed emotionally to where it takes you away from love and takes you away from your mission but if something is so strong that it causes you to lose sleep for three days or causes you to react in a negative way it's pulling you away from your heart from love and from your meaningful mission i think we just got to get back to okay why is this stressing me out how can i process this and integrate healing in a healthy way so that when life happens it doesn't pull me off my mission and that's something

i've experienced for the first time in the last three months is really like life has happened in a big way for me it's sidetracked me a little bit but it's not pulling me off like i'm i'm needing to face it and deal with things and process but it's not like defeating me to where i feel like i'm exhausted and that's because i'm holding myself emotionally accountable and doing the work if i if someone's listening to this and they don't have a therapist they don't have the resources or whatever to have therapy how else can they go about developing the self-awareness required for that emotional regulation journey there's definitely things you can do on your own i would i would uh read a book called how to do the work by uh nicole lapera which gives you a lot of exercises and practices and things like that on how to do the work yourself so you can get the book for 25 bucks and start there and start your own ritual and healing process whether it be journaling whether it be you know other different types of meditations things like that they have she has different rituals in there you can do but i would recommend i don't think there's anything more powerful than sitting in front of a human and talking to someone about how you feel or what you're going through so whether that's a priest or a parent or a teacher or you know a friend that you trust someone you feel like who has a little bit more wisdom than you i would start there until you can afford the therapy and in terms of emotional journeys you cite that you're still on one absolutely what are the things that you're now talking to your therapist about that you're trying to solve in yourself i had this photo for the last year i'll just show the camera the photo of my five-year-old self and in the last session i did with her it was all about um healing the inner child right it was all about healing the inner child and doing the the work i mean i did some weird stuff like putting myself in spiritual and mental environments where i'm talking to my five-year-old self and looking at my five-year-old self hugging my five-year-old self integrating my five-year-old self with my adult self and kind of re-parenting that psychological child some weird stuff but whatever reason it's worked for me because now i can look at a situation and say okay do i feel triggered oh where's that coming from is it from that hurt child if so all i need to do is have a conversation with that part of my mind and say i'm an adult now and the adult is here and i got your back i can take care of this i know how to process and soothe things in a healthy way i don't need to lean onto an addiction or reaction or whatever it may be to process i know how to handle this i know how to breathe i know how to take a walk i know how to have a conversation and process you're safe you're okay it's all going to be okay whereas before i didn't have that ability to communicate with a wounded part of myself and so now she said we've healed the five-year-old version of you that was sexually abused because i don't get triggered about it i don't get reactive to it i'm not defensive and guarded anymore and i'm also shifting the way i don't please people in relationships anymore so i've done a lot of things to do the work about intimacy and relationships and just in life she's like now and i go okay am i done because this is a lot of work you know it's like it's a lot you're diving into your emotions you're tapping into uncomfortable stuff you're like crying it's all these things she's like this is a journey do you want to go to the next level in your life are you satisfied i'm like okay you got to keep going you know there's always something else and so she's like we want to tap into the 11 to 12 year old self and she's like find a photo that's my next homework is to put a photo of myself when i was 11 or 12 and start healing that part of my life and there was a bunch of different stuff that happened in that phase that i haven't fully

healed or forgiven myself and so that'll be the next work to do and it'll be like stages of life until i meet myself to where i am now interesting and healing and working on the evolution of all the memories of the past that wrote a story and developed chapters in a book that did not serve me it's like a script wasn't it yeah and rewriting the script and not diminishing the things that happened but acknowledging them and healing them in a different way and processing it in a healthy way so that i can meet myself where i'm at now and then really start elevating how much has doing a podcast where you sit with these people but also yeah right it's a game changer when i get the biggest like neuroscience i've had so many and this year has been like the year of therapists and neuroscientists and spiritual gurus and just being like figuring out more and more about emotions about regulation about healing about inner child work because i have people on there i'm like when i'm struggling with something in my life i bring those people on i'm like teach me how to like overcome this right it's incredible yeah and so my audience would be like oh louis is going through stuff with this oh louis is going through a breakout oh lewis is in a relationship it's amazing the other thing that i am i know a lot of people will will struggle with is the confidence to overcome some kind of fear you talked a little bit there about ourselves story and how that limits us one of the the fears i know you had in your life which is almost impossible to imagine based on the man you are sat in front of me today was that fear of public speaking huge fear man and i could not stand in front of two to three p friends in school and really even have a conversation like i didn't know how if someone asked me a question i would get nervous i couldn't even respond with really a small story just because i was so the story i told myself that i was so used to being made fun of and picked on growing up that i just didn't want to speak that much because i didn't want to be made fun of i had a few words to say about one of my sponsors on this podcast as you might know crafted are one of the sponsors of this podcast and crafted are a jewelry brand and they make really meaningful pieces of jewelry the really wonderful thing about crafted jewelry is it's super affordable it looks amazing the pieces hold tremendous meaning and they are really well made i think i've worn this piece for almost a year it hasn't broken hasn't changed color because it's really really good quality and it costs roughly 50 quid people will be surprised when they hear that they'll probably assume that all of my jewelry is like solid gold and cost thousands and thousands of pounds but what's the point when you can achieve the exact same effect from a piece of jewelry that's high quality and cost 50 quid that's why i buy crafted to put in context of where you are today you're an international speaker you're getting honest you're getting paid big six figure numbers to speak once yeah and i just want to put that in context because you went from someone that basically couldn't have a conversation kind of like an international public speaker yeah i don't know if um it was like this in school in the uk but in america at least in ohio where i grew up the teacher would sometimes say okay we're gonna have you guys read aloud right and okay lewis open up chapter one paragraph one and stand up and read in front of people and it got to the point where it was so terrifying because i would get up and i was not able to read until really about 10th grade no joke when i went into eighth grade that private boarding school they tested me reading and comprehension and everything and i had a second grade reading level so when i was in school it was so hard for me to stand in front of the class and read aloud because the simplest words i didn't know what they were what they were dyslexic so it was just challenging to read and then

i'd feel nervous and then i would sabotage it and then kids would laugh because i couldn't read and so it's just kind of like a traumatizing thing that i had to learn how to let go of and heal and so i just never wanted to speak in front of people and i remember this is funny i was also um i was also terrified to dance and i started salsa dancing obsessively because i wanted to overcome this fear and when i was learning this skill of salsa dancing to overcome that fear i met a guy who was a public speaker and he got paid to speak around the country and i said how do you do this and he said meet me tomorrow at this coffee shop and all and i'll answer any question you have because we're literally like in the middle of the dance floor and i'm asking this so i meet him at this coffee shop in columbus ohio and he was like if you want to overcome the fear of public speaking you need to practice it every week and i recommend joining this thing called toastmasters where you can practice in a safe environment where they're not going to laugh at you and he said go every week for a year and come back to me when you're done and that's what i did i went to a toastmasters club every week for a year and i remember it was terrifying for the first few months but the more i did it and just messed up i just kept messing up but i found someone to mentor me there i practiced it consistently every single week my next speech i would put myself in uncomfortable conversations to just be made fun of or just feel like i'm so stupid around these people but every week i'd show up i'd get a little bit more confidence a little bit more confidence to the last week of the year i remember i had no notes no props no nothing and i was extremely poised and confident and got like the standing ovation at the end of the year because they saw my journey the first speech i had everything written out word for word word for word i look down at behind a podium and read word for word i didn't look up once on my first speech to the point where i was like okay i'm writing a speech and then looking up a couple times while reading it to then it was like just note cards then it was bullet points so then it was a slide to then it was nothing but it was mind-blowing because it took a year to kind of get a baseline of confidence and it took every week showing up but i'm telling you if i could do something like this it's possible but you got to be willing to be so uncomfortable to overcome these fears sometimes there's two things i was reflecting on as you were speaking then it's the first is how that you know repetitions rewrites this new kind of subjective evidence about who we are what we're capable of which results in mastery but it starts with repetition which creates new evidence and then you've got the mastery point but also just that that wasn't just a lesson about public speaking it's a general lesson about what happens when in life we arrive at the crossroads of fear and one side says turn right to go back to comfort which is never do this thing ever again because it's humiliating and the other is like it's the lights are off down that path but it's like into the fear and this happens every week in everyone's life in your job in your relationship in someone offers you oh do you want to come and do this thing and you go that's not south sudan's and or you go through a hard relationship and you're like i can't open my heart up exactly love vulnerability um but so evident in your story and even the fact that you write down your biggest fears every year it's so clear that you continually chose to go into the fear and that resulted in tremendous growth yeah it's always it's always and the amount of confidence i have over the last 15 20 years really of just taking on these different fears that i thought i would never be able to do let's talk salsa dancing you know i started that 17 years ago it's opened up a world to me i've traveled the world i've salsa dance in every major city

around the world over the last 17 years i've met incredible people i have had so much fun i get to just go and dance and have fun and it gives me an incredible sense it's a tool that i can take out at any moment whenever needed it's a language that i can speak to so many people that speak that language and it's given me a level of confidence that i never had without that because it was a fear and now it's something that's fun that i've mastered it's incredible same thing with public speaking i remember thinking before i started toastmasters like if i want to get a job i need to learn public speaking if i want to like improve in the career that i go into i need to be able to communicate in a board room and get my ideas across even if i'm an employee i just need to be able to communicate or if i'm a ceo one day i need to be able to inspire if i want to be on stage i need to be able to get a message across to influence and impact people so i was like if i want to accomplish my dreams i need to overcome this fear and it's brought me so many opportunities because i spent a year obsessing over this and failing again it's brought me incredible financial resources it's put me in front it's i've traveled the world because of speaking it's brought me business deals i've met and collaborated with other speakers that i've met on stage at these events it's given me confidence you know by having this skill so every fear that i have if i master it and i go all in on it something magical and beautiful happens on the other side same in relationships after the previous relationship i was like okay i can be afraid and be single for a year and like guard my heart or i can open my heart keep it expansive not closed off after this pain and challenge keep it open and see what's possible and when i met her i was thinking to myself ah i don't know if i want to like go into this but i was like let me keep it open and explore and it's been magic and beauty on the other side because i've gone on that as well every time it's just something magical happens when i think about that crossroads analogy where you've got you arrive at the crossroads of fear and it says turn right if you want to go back into certain comfort oh turn left it's dark in there yeah it goes go into the fear and address it went through it i think the people the reason why people turn right into certainty and to comfort or really go back right is because they've miscalculated what the actual risk is so in the case of say being vulnerable in your relationships it seems like the the low risk path is to like keep the mask on just please them and whatever yeah however when you zoom out that is the existential risk of the relationship is faking and being inauthentic to yourself that was actually the risk but people like they mis they don't know what the risk is and generally in life it's people when they say to me oh you're so courageous for dropping out of university and starting this business i've reflected on that over the years because i've really struggled with this concept of people thinking i was courageous in my mind the risk was staying in university going into the corporate rat race and not pursuing myself and then having a mid-life crisis when i'd abandoned myself that was the risk the easy cowardice thing to do was leaving university and pursuing myself and i think the refraining of it yeah is really probably the most potent way of getting people to understand that in fact the dark left side of that fear crossroads is actually the least risky path to take if you zoom out absolutely and you see what's on the other side yeah what's possible for you what's available on the other side yeah exactly or even if you see what certainty and comfort will exactly deliver it's about having a short period of pain versus long period of pain and the short pain is diving into the fear maybe the pain is a week a month or a year in order to overcome that fear until you overcome it and transcend it or

having this numbing low-level pain for the rest of your life by not choosing that which one do you want you know for me i just can't live that way and it's not just a one right so if you if you if you fake it in work and then your relationships then your friendships then you're gonna have in your health yes you're gonna have ten loans exactly which is gonna what happens then depression yeah crippling anxiety exactly panic attacks behavior all these you know addictions everything man as you look off into your future then lewis you're thinking about how lewis house shapes his future what he's pursuing how he finds his meaning and happiness on an ongoing basis what is the answer everything is based on mission the the mechanism is kind of irrelevant how i do it is irrelevant the mission is to serve 100 million lives weekly to help them improve the quality of their life that's the mission that's your mission that's the mission that's been the mission for about eight years it's been consistently that why 100 million people ask me that i think when i came up with that number it's because i'd already impacted millions at the time and whenever i ask people like what's your dream and they say they want to change the world it just doesn't seem real like okay what does that mean and then some people say i want to change billions of lives okay it just seems like it's hard to measure it's hard to measure that quickly like how fast is that going to happen but i'd already impacted millions and i was like okay what would it look like how long would it take me to reach 100 million people at once like in a year and then how could i what would it look like to do it in a month and then in a week and then how could i repeat that every week what's the mechanism right now it's podcasting youtube social media books events all those different things maybe in the future there's another mechanism for me i'm not attached to the mechanism i'm committed to the mission and so i'm flexible and open on how i want to make sure that i'm a a messenger and i'm a facilitator of messages with other messengers and that's the mission for this season of my life until something shifts inside of me where it says you know that's not your calling anymore then i'll listen to that next mission two questions then the first question is why does that matter to you why does helping 100 million lives a week matter to you what are you going to get if that happens if you succeed well helping one person matters to me when i wrote my book the mask of masculinity i remember thinking to myself this probably isn't going to sell 100 million copies right it's about how men can be vulnerable like most men don't want to buy that book it's this one here yeah so the mask of masculinity i once i started opening up about my healing journey and seeing the impact and the responses that men were having i was like gosh i need to write about this don't i internally i was like this needs to happen next my book agent was like let's go do another book about business or marketing and i was like i just can't do it like even if i make no money this has to come out of me because if we can help one man heal their internal relationship with themselves and then heal their relationship with their family and their marriage whatever it might be then it's worth it to me and so i just felt like i needed to put it out and so i'm happy to help one person and i feel accomplished i feel purposeful useful i feel like my talents were for something meaningful but i know there's something more inside of me and so i'm striving to serve 100 million lives one of the reasons that's meaningful to me is because i believe that we're all here for a reason i believe that we all have a certain unique set of gifts and talents and i want to see how far those talents can spread i just feel like that's part of my calling at this season of my life and i'm a hundred percent happy and fulfilled with all the efforts i've had to this moment

because it's everything i've been able to do but i know there's so much more so this is just something for me to aim towards to reach towards it gives me a target it's something i can measure it's not too unrealistic it's a big number but i feel like yeah how things are going maybe it could happen in a year maybe it's 10 years i don't know but it gives me a focus and it keeps me in alignment on the things i say yes and no to does this decision project interview partnership serve 100 million lives or get me closer to it or is it a distraction so it helps me get clear on saying yes or no to things as well and what happens today if you get an email when you leave here and it says lewis good news we've we've we're now reaching 100 million lives a week i say great we gotta we gotta repeat this over and over again for a while until i feel like okay what's the next goal i mean i mean if we get 100 million lives weekly then i'll be like awesome it's been i'm doing this podcast for nine years now it's like i've been doing this for a long time last year we got over 100 million views just on our youtube channel alone so we're in the hundreds of millions a year of and i don't calculate it as like a like or like a one second view i'm like what's a 20 minutes of some an interaction we had over 100 million just on youtube of 24 minute watch time so for me that's a deep encounter of someone introspective learning diving in you know overcoming something and trying something new that's meaningful to me and so if we can do that weekly for a while then i'll i'll take an assessment and say okay where am i at my life this season am i striving for more am i maintaining am i shifting you know i'll reassess it then would it be a really happy day i'm happy today i'm really happy today because gary vaynerchuk said to me he said my goal is to buy the new york jets and in the same breath he said it will be the worst day of my life right because there's no more chase it's no more thing to work towards and here's the thing i'm happy today because i have inner peace and i think there's no goal that i've accomplished in the past that has brought me into peace when i accomplished it i felt depressed and anxious with a lot of goals from the past now i feel happy with just showing up and giving my best day to day it's as lame as that sounds the healing work has allowed me it doesn't mean i'm like satisfied i still am driven and i'm hungry for more but i'm just in such a beautiful place in my relationship with myself and my relationship with martha and my relationship with friends and family my team i just feel like man if this was it i'm in a peaceful place and that's beautiful amazing and i i truly feel it i truly feel it in everything that you said yeah and it doesn't mean i'm perfect and it doesn't mean i have it all figured out it doesn't mean i'm not going to make mistakes in the future it just means that's the path of one we have a closing tradition on this product okay which is the previous guest writes a question for the next guest into the diary what is the most frequent piece of advice people ask you for and what is the answer i mean what do people ask me for what is the most frequent piece of advice people ask you like the question they ask me for like a piece of advice yeah what's the most frequent piece of advice i mean it's like what would you do if you were starting all over again you know if you were 21 and or you started your podcast again or you know you were getting started again in your business what would you have done differently is what i get asked and then what's the answer i mean the answer is i don't know if i would have done anything differently because it's all given me a lot of wisdom and experiences to where i'm at now i wish i would i guess i wish i would have like known this stuff sooner but i think we all need to learn things as they come to us what i will i guess what i wish i'd known differently is how to have inner peace i wish

i would have had that skill because i think i would be farther ahead and i would have been happier sooner inside had i learned that skill of healing of inner peace emotional regulation all these things that kind of held me back from being 100 my authentic self and in my power towards building everything that i'm doing i sit here with people a lot and i remember speaking to gary and gary talked to me about the importance for him of legacy yeah is this something that's important to you the concept of legacy does it take yes and no it is in the sense that like with my dad passing i think about his legacy right and i've had a lot of like sad moments and i've also had a lot of beautiful grateful moments thinking about his life and his legacy and what he how he lived what he taught during his his life and what he left behind in terms of wisdom and lessons and i think it's important to for me that's valuable in the sense that i'm going to be around you know my siblings going to be around his grandchildren are around who experienced him they're going to have we are going to have memories and an imprint based on his life and how he lived with us and now it's all about how we show up through his legacy you know i'm a part of his legacy he was a part of my foundation and now i'm going to be a part of that and i think about that because i want to make sure that my last name is meaningful and it would make him proud you know to make sure that am i doing things in alignment with what he taught me would make the world a better place would be good for our community am i living to the highest level of the values not the stuff that he didn't do well but the stuff he did well do well and so i think it's important because we're going to be interacting with people and when we're gone they're either think of us in a positive way or negative way and they might be acting like we acted in either of those ways so i think it's valuable and important and i think about it in that sense but i also think about that it's not important because in 200 years no one's going to remember maybe you know like someone has like a memory of in a history book and they talk about you but no one you know is going to know you in a in a hundred years no one you interact with is going to know you so and the the big scheme of things you know it doesn't it doesn't matter after a hundred years really but it matters because everything is a reflection of our past it's like dominance yeah my grandparents influence my parents their traumas and their beauty influenced them which influenced me and i felt like i had to heal the traumas of the past legacy as well just like i'm carrying with me the beautiful parts of the past and and leaning into those but also healing things that were brought down that they never healed so there's an impact with the legacy yeah i my answer is very similar to yours in the sense that i i've never understood why people care about what people like what people will say about me when i'm gone right right like i don't care because i again if i engaged in that thinking it's the same as caring too much about what they think about me now yeah like i'm not gonna be there i'm gonna be dead so but i i've never heard it and it's really refreshing to hear that kind of domino's analogy where like actually the way that i the way that i show up is going to impact my kids they might impact 10 then it's 20 that's 50 and then that's how the world is created yeah and i think the traumas that our parents you know had or didn't heal are going to be felt in our childhood in our adulthood until we heal it so and that might be their grandparents and their grandparents who'd like pass it down so we either need to heal it now otherwise we're going to pass it down to our kids lewis thank you um you're a very very special individual for so many reasons but i think having had this conversation with you the the most and also you know it's a reflection of your book as well the mask of

masculinity is your ability to be open and vulnerable is i think like the most powerful service especially men can be doing in this world for all the reasons we've described because that like being emotionally in touch and being willing to be open is the foundation of all of our interactions our happiness our mental health our even our physical health and as as is the case in this country at the moment the thing that is unfortunately killing most men under the age of 45 is themselves suicide is the biggest killer of men in in our country under that age group so and it's a reflection of i think the lack of um vulnerability absolutely and the lack of openness and the lack of ability to process and regulate our emotions so having a light like you in the world that is leading that crusade in such an open way even though i know the feeling of discomfort it can even gives me to talk about things like my mental health or how i'm feeling or all those things inspires me and you've inspired me to be more open and in fact you've actually inspired me to go on the journey of like having therapy just for the sake of not because there's i'm like oh i need to fix this but because of the prevention and because of all the unknown unknowns absolutely man so thank you thank you you're an inspiration to me and so many others and it's been a joy to have you on my podcast thanks brother appreciate it [Music] [Music] [Music] ...

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frogsandfries · 3 months

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I'm wondering if I should post this lovely, in-fucking-coherent message I received from my sister's drug-addled abusive husband,

but I just made a formal report to CPS and journaled my heart out. I stopped being scared of people just straight making shit up about me years ago. It doesn't make me shut up. It makes me laugh at you because it shows me the true intelligence differential. Like, look, normally I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they really are as intelligent as I am--I'm not trying to pretend I'm Steven Hawking. If he was still alive, he could probably make me feel like I probably make many people feel. But then they do this shit, where they just like, fucking take words that have come out of my mouth, throw them in a bag, shake the bag, and accuse me of saying whatever the fuck it suits them for me to have said.

First, my sister comes up in this house, which is supposed to be a refuge safe from child predators and drug addicts and yelling--and you fucking yell at your kids? These children are not even people to her. They are pawns. Objects. If you stroke my sister's ego, if you fall in line behind her, you get to have a relationship with the girls. If you do anything to offend my sister, your "privilege" is revoked. It's fucking abusive to them more than us.

I have worked hard to be a better adult for children to be around than both of my parents put together. When possible, I want children in my presence to feel listened to, to feel like independent beings who can be independent, as age appropriate. I don't want them to have a screen shoved in their face all the time.

Then she picks a fucking fight with me. Over a misunderstanding between myself and her child. Over the fucking......god..... DAMN. WIFI. AGAIN. Leave. The. Fucking. Wifi. Alone. It is, at that point in the day, one in the fucking morning. It was fucking time to go to sleep. Not time to be on one's goddamn phone. Not for a child nor an adult.

Really. Honestly. It's like our younger sister said, any excuse, any hint of an excuse. She didn't truly want to leave her drug addict husband and his child-predator father. She doesn't know how not to abuse and be abused and she fucking likes it that way. She doesn't want to grow up and be a fucking adult because then she'd have to be fucking responsible for her children and her actions and she'd have to come back to consensus fucking reality.

And I don't give a fucking flying hint of a shit about her. It's her life. She's an adult. This is the life she's choosing. Fine. Whatever. But imagine being so gung-ho for both your daughters to grow up worse than you did: The internet shoved in their face well beyond the years where a child wants or needs a pacifier. Getting yelled at regularly. Their grandfather singling one of them out. And their abusive, drug-addict father. Oh, and the other one's learning disability being com-fucking-pletely ignored.

And actually, I don't think they are brats. I know goddamn well their fucking mother is. I think these girls are eager for some adults to be fucking adults, to give them positive, healthy attention and encouragement. I think they'd be happy to spend less time on their goddamn phones and more motherfucking time being treated like human fucking beings.

Anyway, I'd love to hear these apparent voice recordings of me where I'm talking about, what did this drug-addled piece of trash say, the sexual fantasies I had with the ex that I brought a legal case against for pedophilia? Uh, yeah....okeeeee. Anyone with half a remaining brain-cell would have heard that conversation, with their own ears, not filtered through the mouth of an attention-starved drama-whore, that I was disgusted and horrified and I had immediately put my foot down about this. I believe ver-fucking-batim I said "don't ever talk about my nieces again". But fucking whatever. People on this excuse for a husband's intelligence level hear and remember whatever the fuck they want to hear.

At least I didn't do any drugs in front of them. I didn't crush up my pills and smoke them. I didn't talk to them about this is indica and this is sativa and mommy smokes marijuana right in front of her kids. Even my stoner friend didn't smoke in front of her kid or even talk about it, even though it was legal in the state they came from, just like it's legal in the state my sister's husband came from.

Well. I guess this is what it is to be an adult: Constantly being involved with the law and legal/judicial system.

Anyway, I'm trying to get this far enough out of my system to actually get some goddamn sleep.

I'm just........so pissed off. Why the fuck does SHE get to have kids and I'm basically barren. She gets to continue (and deepen!!) the fucking cycle when I've worked so fucking hard to be a better role model to children. She treats them like objects, often inconveniences. She yells at them.

Why is she so fucking weak.

I was so looking forward to finally, finally building a relationship with my nieces, playing board games and maybe reading and making window clings. I bought them fucking Popin Cookin kits. I was going to print coloring pages for them and let them use my Crayola colored pencils.

Whatever. Anyway. When I get up, I guess I'm going to run the jars in the fridge through the sanitizer and probably jar up the rest of these honey berries, and then the strawberries, rhubarb, maybe make a strawberry-rhubarb jam/preserve, and hopefully the asparagus. Probably finish putting the kitchen table together.

Was looking forward to having my nieces here, safe. Didn't realize my nieces were the adults in charge of my sister/their mother. But she has to constantly nitpick them for little "slights" against her. Whatever. Whatever so that my sister doesn't have to be responsible for her own goddamn pathetic waste of a life. I wanted to roll my eyes so goddamn hard when the girls proudly proclaimed their mom is an artist. 🙄🙄🙄 And I'm Andy fucking Warhol. She doesn't do anything creative; she just copies and copies and copies. And not even well. Like, sure, I've just copied all these plushie patterns, but at least I'm transforming them into a new medium. And the graphic novel is about as wholecloth as something can be: My art, my original characters in a new combination of settings and scenarios. But I'm not here to piss over who's a real artist.

0 notes

onovnii · 3 years

Note

Hiya, I adore your nsfw headcanons! Could you do one for Beel from Obey me? (Maybe with a gentle/small reader 🥺)

# nsfw headcanons

feat. beelzebub x gn!reader

summary. how he is in bed

cw. smut (duh) , male and female genitalia mentionedd , slight breeding kink , oral

author n. this took a bit but im glad i get to write for beel again ^^” dont get the chance often hahahd

beelzebub.

▸ when it comes to the more intimate part of your relationship, beel will definitely wait for you until you’re ready.

▸ he has limited knowledge about humans, but from what he can tell they take a while to get used to things, especially in relationships.

▸ beel wont make any moves unless you do them first.

▸ once you give him the greenlight, he’ll always asks if you’re sure just before doing it.

▸ partially because of the reasons above ^ and the fact beel is… big 💀

▸ because you’re smaller in comparison, beel wants to be extra careful

▸ so the first few times you guys have sex, he’s very soft and loving

▸ he takes his time learning your body, what makes you feel good and the things you dont like

▸ beel likes kissing. there’s a lot of it during sex with him.

▸ your thighs, stomach, neck, lips— doesn’t matter, beel’s leaving soft kisses everywhere. hickeys too but—

▸ speaking of, beel likes to leave love bites all over you. not because of possessiveness, but because it gives him a weird sense of satisfaction. the same kind he gets when eating something really good.

▸ seeing you under him, out of breath covered in sweat and bruises makes him wanna go again.

▸ beel lives to please, so if you want to be on top and dom him that’s perfectly fine too. he’s not exactly used to it but down for it

▸ like his twin, loves seeing you ride him.

▸ his hands are always on your hips, guiding you.

▸ depending on what you have, beel will try to make you finish before him

▸ he’ll make you ride him slow, one hand on your clit making you desperate and needy. for a reason he cant put to words, beel loves seeing you like that.

▸ or alternatively, he’ll sit you on his lap and rub your tip til you’re just as needy. either way, you’ll be desperately begging for him to go faster.

▸ if you get tired of being on top, beel will gladly take over.

▸ always asking where you’d like him to cum.

▸ want to be covered in it? of course mc

▸ want to be filled with it? anything for you :)

▸ just one thing, unlike his brothers, beel cums a lot… the most actually.

▸ he’s so pent up because he’d rather work out or do another activity than jack off. (he doesn’t do it often)

▸ good luck with that ;’)

▸ another thing beel loves, and everyone can agree on, is that he loves oral. loves to give mostly.

▸ beel can eat pussy like a mf 😔 he’s so good at it he could rival asmo tbh

▸ beel can also suck dick so good it’ll have you cumming in less than a minute 😏

▸ he always knows what to do with his tongue, always knows your most sensitive areas.

▸ the first time though, he takes his time to learn these things. he wants to please you, so ofc he’d want to do that.

▸ also really loves to cockwarm you…just keeping your cock in his mouth until you give him the go

▸ despite his strong urge to suck you dry, he’ll obediently sit on his knees until you say it’s okay. gets all teary eyed lowkey

▸ he makes the perfect sub tbh…

▸ oh and, bc he likes oral and to give sm, he could go on for houuursss. even if his jaw started to ache, he’d keep going until you said to stop.

▸ it’s kinda cute

▸ beel doesn’t ask for it often, but he likes it when you do it back to him too.

▸ he’ll never force you to swallow all his cum though, for reasons stated above

▸ he does appreciate it though.

▸ speaking of i imagine his cum to be a little…bitter? sour? (idk how to describe it)

▸ although he has a pretty healthy lifestyle overall, his diet is…questionable…because of his insatiable hunger he ends up eating very uh… weird things

▸ that’s besides the point though.

▸ beel doesn’t like being rough with you generally. he feels like he’s gonna snap you like a twig 💀

▸ most of the time he lets you take the initiative.

▸ if you ask him to be rougher though…he hesitates but does so anyway. (you ARE his master anyway..)

▸ cliche as all hell but food play 😕…

▸ the kind where he pours honey or chocolate on your chest and licks it clean.. never missing a spot.

▸ putting pieces of fruit on your tummy and slowly trailing down your body, eating the fruit until he eventually gets between your legs 😕

▸ he can be kinky when he wants to be ig…

▸ i couldn’t make a nsfw hc post WITHOUT mentioning his stamina…

▸ beel can go round after round after round…

▸ there are days where you two have less intimate sex and more, “fucking-like-bunnies” kind of sex 💀

▸ and those are the days beel’s roughness really show…

▸ how long y’all go for depends alll on you.

▸ i needed to put this somewhere as well, but because beel is very family oriented, the idea of having a family with you is a thought he has often

▸ even if it isn’t physically possible, he still feels the urge to cum inside you as deep as possible.

▸ if you let him, loves to hold you against him, bite onto your shoulder while he cums in you.

▸ doesn’t want any of it to leak out :(

▸ baby stays inside u to prevent it from happening

▸ accidental cockwarming???

- val

#val after dark #obey me smut #obey me smut headcanons #obey me smut scenarios #beelzebub smut #beel smut #beelzebub smut headcanons #beel smut headcanons #obey me headcanons

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salemwritesxx · 3 years

Text

𝓲𝓷𝓮𝔁𝓹𝓮𝓻𝓲𝓮𝓷𝓬𝓮𝓭. | 𝓹𝓪𝓻𝓽 𝓽𝔀𝓸

𝔹 𝔸 𝕂 𝕌 𝔾 𝕆 𝕌 𝕂 𝔸 𝕋 𝕊 𝕌 𝕂 𝕀

⇴ male reader [22, virgin] ⇴ all characters are depicted as [18]+

↣ rating: explicit, 18+ ↣ warnings: over 5k words long, smut, Age Gap (12 years), older Bakugou (34), shy virgin reader, fluffy smut

｡☆✼★━━━━━━━━━━━━★✼☆｡

“Mhmhm… Mh… Wait, Katsuki…san…”, you barely managed to mumble before breaking the kisses, both of you panting lightly.

“Huh?! I’ve waited too fucking long, [Your.name]!”, Bakugou growled while trying to pull you back down.

Though you managed to push him back a little before your boyfriend could aggressively kiss you once more.

“I know, just… let me take a shower first! I just came home from my 10 hour shift, threw my hero costume into the hallway and rushed over here.”

“Ughg, fine.”, Katsuki grumbled lightly, his hand that had held on to your shirt desperately, loosening.

A small smile flitted across your lips before you quickly smooched him.

“Thank you. Oh and- here.”, you pulled the two tickets you had talked about before out of your back pocket.

“Oh… right… You said you had tickets, hm?”

“Yup, a friend of mine works behind the scenes for the comedian we both really like. Remember? We talked about it?”, tilting your head lightly, your cute smile and shimmering eyes reminded Katsuki of an adorable little dog. The thought alone made him also smile a little – so innocent and cute.

“Yeah… On our first date. I can’t believe you remembered.”

“Of course! So, I used my connections to get us two tickets.”, you excitedly declared. It helped with the urge of not staring at your boyfriend who was still standing naked in front of you.

“So when are we going?”, Bakugou casually asked, looking at the two tickets to find a date.

“April next year! I am so exited already though.”, you giggled.

Meanwhile Bakugou’s heart was doing a flip in his chest. Next year in April meant that you were believing you and him would still be together by that time. Making plans so far ahead, how was he supposed not to get emotional and happy?

“Katsuki-sa- hm!”

Pulling you down again, he surprised you with yet another intimate kiss. Once again not knowing where to really put your hands, you awkwardly placed them on his lower back. Though feeling the bare skin under your fingertips was enough to send a strong jolt down south. Damn it, how were you going to survive actual sex?

“Go take a shower. And don’t let me wait too long.”, Bakugou finally said when he pulled back with a smirk on his lips that made your cheeks warm.

“Uh-huh!”, was your only dreamily sighed answer as you watched him for a moment, completely dazed. There he was, walking up the stairs so casually – butt-naked and making your dick hurt inside your jeans.

Thus, you literally sprinted into the bathroom to take the quickest shower while scrubbing yourself the cleanest you’ve ever been.

Bakugou on the other hand couldn’t contain his grin when he stared at the tickets in his hands. He didn’t even know if you had realized the meaning behind those. Or maybe he was just overreacting seeing you plan ahead so much. It probably would have made him uncomfortable a few months ago, when he was freshly dating you, but now? Katsuki couldn’t stop his heart from beating so violently in his chest.

Walking over to the drawer, he prepared some things, like throwing the tube of lube onto the bed and rummaging through all the condoms that he hoarded. Without realizing it, his mind started wandering on its own. Not that anyone could really blame him. Bakugou had the desire to have sex with you for quite some time, so of course he had let his imagination take over. Wondering what you would look like without anything on. Since, to this day, you had been too shy to even undress in front of him.

Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t had any intimate contact with anyone ever since his last relationship ended four years ago. And suddenly, Bakugou’s heart hammered quickly for a different reason. It definitely had been a while since he had sex with anyone.

When Katsuki heard someone rushing up the stairs though, he quickly shook his head a bit, trying to get those thoughts out of his head.

“What am I fucking thinking? It’s just sex. No need to overthink this so much. God, I’m getting old.”

And then, you already came inside, a towel around your hips.

“Ah, good timing. So, do you think we need Large or Extra Large?”, Bakugou teased you, holding up two condoms. However, his teasing certainly flew over your head when your face displayed pure shock.

Only for you to turn around, wanting to flee again. Thankfully though, Bakugou reacted swiftly, grabbing your arm and turning you back around, just for your hands to cover your face.

“I will disappoint you, Katsuki-san!”

“Hey, that was just a joke, come on. You’re so fucking easy to scare.”, he chuckled and playfully rolled his eyes.

“Sorry…”, you mumbled shyly.

“Come here. Don’t think about it too hard. I ain’t grading you or anything, yeah? Just relax.”, and with that, he pulled you down for a kiss. His other hand sneaking to your hips and pulling on the towel. This time, you thankfully stayed calm as you let him push you back and onto the bed.

His muscular, broad body crawling on top of yours almost made you explode. This was really happening. How often had you imagined and dreamt about it? And now it was really going to happen.

“It’s just…”, you broke the kisses, your eyes already gleaming with lust, “I feel like I’m gonna explode any second, Katsuki-san. Just seeing you naked is enough to make me go crazy. To be honest… just thinking about you is enough to give me a boner. I feel so stupid!”

Bakugou was blushing a little, yet he was flattered. With his mind sometimes playing tricks on him and him fearing he was too old for you, knowing he had such an effect on you… was nice.

“That’s not stupid… You’re so cute.”, he whispered before leaning down again to kiss you.

“Touch me… You want to… no?”

“HMH!”, was the only thing you whimpered so desperately as Katsuki already grabbed your hand to place them onto his small, yet unbelievably strong body.

All it took was for Bakugou to scooch closer and lower his ass onto your hips for your cock to bounce and drops of precum to drip down. Your body visibly shuddering was honestly the best feeling, because your reactions were so cute and honest. Still so innocent to the touches. Katsuki loved that. He really felt incredibly desirable and wanted.

Your trembling hands were roaming his body, not sure what to do but you also didn’t want to stop. His muscles felt so nice underneath your palm. His skin was smooth and yet rough in some areas. Bakugou’s body was showing scars from previous battles, though it only made him so sexy and handsome it was almost too much for you.

At the end, you stopped when you grabbed his luscious thighs the moment he started to grind his cock against your own. An unstoppable moan escaped your throat instantly as you dug your nails into his skin whilst another violent jolt made your cock visibly throb.

Breaking away from your mouth eventually, Bakugou couldn’t help but smirk when he saw how red your lips already were from so much kissing. Leaning in, his swollen lips met your neck, softly nibbling and making you shudder once more. His smirk so prominent you could feel it on your skin.

“How do you feel, [Your.name]?”, Katsuki whispered in your ear, enjoying the soft moan and twitching of your body against his.

“Hot… It’s unfair you’re so… fucking sexy, Katsuki-san…”, you barely managed to choke out.

It only elicit a small chuckle from your boyfriend when he sat back up, his cheeks however having a small pink tint to them. You watched attentively as he reached to the side to grab the lube. Though before he could open the bottle, you stopped him.

“Wait, Katsuki-san, can… can I do it…?”, which definitely made your poor, shy heart beat ten times as fast as it was healthy.

“Haa… you sure?”, he reluctantly asked, one brow raised.

But you nodded and sat back up to wrap your arms around his hips while your noses almost touched.

“Mh. I want to make you feel good… and learn what you like…”, you sheepishly mumbled and then softly placed a kiss on the tip of his nose.

“Oh…”, Bakugou smirked before wrapping his arms around your neck to kiss you, then whisper against your lips, “Then don’t hold back… I’ll serve as your guinea pig.”

Smirking yourself, you returned the kisses a little deeper, trying to get out the last bit of confidence you had in yourself as you mumbled back, “Then I will put in all my effort so you just need to come back for another round of experimenting.”

And Katsuki certainly liked that you slowly seemed to warm up and not be as nervous as before. His responds a mere chuckle only to capture your lips again for a passionate kiss.

Meanwhile, with your heavily thumping heart, you clumsily opened the lube bottle to squirt some of the liquid onto your fingers before throwing it back onto the bed after closing. Pulling back from your boyfriend’s mouth, you just looked at him for a few seconds to try and get the courage to touch him… Something you had never done before. Touching someone in such an intimate place.

Though before you could chicken out again, you finally reached down and dipped your fingers between his cheeks, the little shudder from Bakugou immediately spurring you on. Hence why you gave yourself the push to play with his ass; circling his twitching hole and rubbing the lube around, just to see him shiver a little.

“Oi… don’t tease…”, Katsuki could also just choke out, before softly moaning a little when you worked your finger inside.

Just the feeling of his warm insides around your finger alone made your cock twitch, the urge to just plunge into him was almost unbearable. Your own breathing quickened as you pushed another finger in before starting to move them. His muscular body was now pressed against your own, your free hand groping his ass to spread him even more.

“Haha- Ah- I guess… you’re a natural…?”, Bakugou chuckled, trying to sound cool and seductive as he wanted to keep the mask of the older and more experienced one. However, when you pushed deeper and found that little spot that made him whine, it was all over for him.

While you had to seriously fight back the urge to just cum all over him because he was just way too fucking sexy and made you completely insane with how erotic he was, Bakugou just let loose and moaned freely.

“D-Do that… ah- gain…”

You truthfully couldn’t believe that was actually happening. Your head was spinning as you moved your fingers like before, rubbing against his sweet spot, trying to memorize what made him feel good.

“I-Is that okay… Katsuki-san?”, you were lightly gasping. He was truly taking your breath away – you didn’t even want to know what would happen if you would actually have sex, your dick was probably going to explode the second you would enter with how on edge you already were.

“Hmh- keep… going, okay?”, Katsuki was merely whining.

God, he sounded so differently, and it was so erotic and sexy. And it certainly didn’t help when he scooched even closer, his throbbing cock rubbing up against your own was almost enough for you.

“K-Katsuki-san, ahn don’t… do that…”, you helplessly moaned and buried your face in the nook of his neck, making him just chuckle.

“I don’t know what you- fuck-! even.. mea- NGH!”, clawing at your shoulder, he deliberately started moving his hips a little. Thrusting his throbbing dick against your own, smearing precum around while you kept fucking him with your fingers.

“K-Katsuki-san!”, all you could do was moan out his name, being the sensitive virgin you were, this was almost too much for you.

His nails were clawing at your shoulder while his hips were moving erratically, making it harder for you to thrust against his sweet spot, but Katsuki didn’t care. He was consumed by the pleasure as he rubbed his cock against yours.

“Oh- fuck- GOD- I’m.. ah clos- Katsu…san….”, you could barely choke out, being interrupted by your gasps and moans, but that certainly didn’t stop your lover from moving even more vigorously. Though reaching down was the straw that broke the camel’s back as feeling his hand engulfing your cocks and stroking them was the last touch you needed before cumming all over him and yourself.

With your free hand you clawed at his back as you moaned into the crook of his neck. Your erotic noises sending multiple chills down Bakugou’s spine as he held onto you as tightly as you held on to him; letting your hips ride out that orgasm.

When you finally raised your head, you were still gasping and your [eye.color] eyes still gleaming with lust (though also a little bit of embarrassment that you orgasmed so soon and couldn’t hold back). Bakugou, however, simply leaned in for another few kisses that you certainly appreciated.

“Mmm- sorry… Katsuki-san…”

“Oh shut up.”, he chuckled in between little gasps.

With cum dripping from his hand he then reached back to the night stand to grab the box of tissues, cleaning his hand as well as your own that you had pulled back from his ass. All while smirking a little since you looked so dazed from that orgasm and what had just happened.

Before he could say anything though, you had already wrapped your arms around him tightly, pressing his naked, warm body against your own. Bakugou’s own arms sneaking around your torso as well after he had thrown the tissue in the trash. For a few seconds, it was rather quiet, just the beating of your hearts audible, until you finally dropped the bomb.

“I love you, Katsuki-san.”, you whispered into the nook of his neck.

For a few moments he was just flabbergasted. While his mouth needed a few moments to speak his feelings out loud, his heart was already beating 10 miles per hour. It had been so long since someone had whispered those words to him. Someone who wasn’t just a big fan of him screaming whenever he was outside as a pro-hero, or his family. No… that was certainly a different love.

Leaning back a bit, he ‘forced’ you to look at him, even though he fully understood how embarrassed you were and also how on edge that he was just silent. Bakugou could almost see all the thoughts rushing through your pretty little head, but with just his rare, little smile, you were put at ease.

“I love you, too.”

And before you could react, he had already cupped your face and pulled you in for a kiss. A kiss that made your heart thump so much you thought you might die. You had never felt that happy before. Graduating from U.A.? Amazing accomplishment. Meeting Katsuki and being able to date him? A dream come true, indeed. But hearing your lover say those three words back to you for the first time was just… indescribable happiness rushing through your veins.

With a little bit of force, Bakugou managed to push you back onto the bed, both of you giggling while kissing. He was happy. You were happy. If time could just stop now.

But, it didn’t. Time went on and thus, you whispered in between kisses, “Just… give me 10 minutes… ‘nd I’m…. ready…mmkay?”

Breaking away fully, he leaned on his elbow as he looked at you, his ruby eyes gleaming with lust and a smirk on his lips.

“10 minutes, huh? You really are young.”

“Oh shut up.”, you giggled yourself, when just a second later realization sank in.

“No, wait! I didn’t mean it, I’m sorry!”, your cheeks were basically on fire. Being so rude to someone older was just… you had never done that.

Bakugou on the other hand though just stared at you for a few seconds, before leaning in once more for a kiss, surprising you. However, easing into the kiss quite quickly, your eyes fluttered open again when he sat back up a little. Just far away enough for just the tip of your noses to touch anymore.

“Don’t apologize… Fuck honorifics, okay? Fuck speaking keigo, just… talk to me normally.”

“A-are you sure, Katsuki-san? I mean… our age gap…….”, you gulped at the end, feeling uneasy.

“So? Zero fucks given. I hate honorifics. If you use keigo with me I feel so old…” he avoided eye contact for a moment, before looking back and tilting his head lightly.

“I just want to feel like your boyfriend, not your fucking boss or something…”

“Katsuki-sa- nh- I’ll try! I promise. It’s just really hard to let go, but… I… I want to call you nicknames, too!”, now you had to turn your head away because you were too embarrassed, “B-but maybe that’s a little inappropriate…”

“No…”, a small smile flitted across his lips, “I’d like that.”

And those simple words made your heart skip a beat.

Leaning in the last few inches, Bakugou kissed you on the mouth once more; the tip of his tongue gracing along your bottom lip until you opened them, allowing him inside. A sloppy, intimate kiss igniting again as he slightly changed positions so he was on top of you like before.

Feeling more confident though, you let your hands travel down his spine to his ass. Grabbing the firm skin and spreading his cheeks, you earned his little moan that made your heart jump in excitement. However, it only took a second before you also softly groaned into his mouth when he started grinding again.

With that, even though you had just orgasmed, it was certainly easy to rile you up again. Having the man of your dreams basically humping you was very effective indeed. And Bakugou seemed to notice how easily agitated you were, the smirk on his lips when he broke away was very prominent.

“Should I take it as a compliment that you’re already hard as a rock after just 5 minutes?”, Katsuki teased you, before lowering his head to pepper kisses onto your neck.

You just whimpered a little “Katsuki…” in embarrassment, only to thrust your hips against his as well. Taking him a little off-guard, his surprised grunt made you also grin a little.

“I-It’s not my fault… it’s just you… you’re so… incredible. I… I can’t help it…”, you had a hard time talking properly as Katsuki wasn’t stopping his movements, both of you desperately grinding against each other.

“Haha, I like that.”, Bakugou chuckled, his deep voice sending a chill down his spine.

Though, in the end, he decided to stop (hearing your little whine when he did that was very cute) and sit back up. Both of your cocks back to leaking and throbbing and this time, he stood up fully. Your glazed eyes following him when he walked over to the drawer from before to grab a condom, before bouncing back on top of you.

“You ready?”, he just whispered with that grin on his lips again that made your loins hurt with how erotic he was.

So all you could do was nod very enthusiastically that made Bakugou laugh a little.

With that, you watched attentively once more as he opened the condom; however a blissful hiss escaped your throat when he wrapped his hand around your dick to give it a few strokes. Hence why your head fell back into the pillow for a moment as you had to concentrate really hard to control yourself and not embarrass yourself by cumming again so soon. (Which was very hard because being a virgin and having this sexy man touch you was very effective in making you lose control very fast)

“[Your.name]…”, Katsuki had your full attention once more when he whispered your name like that, though when you looked up… Your cock visibly bounced in his hand as he was hovering right above it with his ass.

“Oh God…”, you grabbed his thighs as your breath hitched in your throat, watching as he lowered himself on top of you.

Clenching your teeth, the feeling of Bakugou’s ass spreading and engulfing your cockhead was almost too much. But it only intensified when his moaning self pushed down even further.

“K-Katsuki!”, was the only thing you could whimper as his hot, sticky insides swallowed more and more of your throbbing cock, almost pushing you over the edge with how tight he was.

Bakugou was just trying to control his moans as it had been so long since he last felt such a nice, thick dick inside his ass. His body trembled due to the full feeling as well as his insides fluttered excitingly; the urge to move overwhelming him.

Without really thinking about how close you possibly were, Katsuki started swaying his hips. First only lightly, but it only took a few moments before he started properly riding you. The moans that left your lips only spurring him on, especially when you locked eyes with him. Just the way you were melting and clawing at his thigh, while looking at him so intensely, it made Bakugou burn up even more.

“Ahnh. God- Katsuk- ah you’re so… amazing- I can’t-“, you chocked out in between heavy gasps and moans.

Katsuki really couldn’t comprehend how cute and innocent you were, being so completely mind-blown by him riding you hard. It made gross little butterflies fly uncontrollably inside his tummy – how he missed that feeling. As someone who never had a casual hook-up, finally being able to have sex again with someone he trusted and loved felt indescribable.

When he deliberately started tightening around you, the whiny moan that escaped your throat sent a chill up his spine.

“I’m gonna- if you… do that… agai-“, you so desperately choked out, being completely overwhelmed. And your boyfriend just chuckled and continued to tease you. Fuck. You had never felt so good. Your dick was throbbing and so rock-hard, you were barely able to hold yourself back from cumming again – and that in the first few minutes of Bakugou doing his magic.

Leaning down, Katsuki pressed his palms into the pillow beside your head while he pressed his lips on yours. Igniting a sloppy kiss, you both couldn’t control your lustful moans and grunts. Bakugou just knew what he was doing, how he had to angle himself so your cock penetrated his prostate and made him see little stars.

You were close. So unbeliavabel close. It was almost painful how hard you were and how much you needed the release. Thus, without thinking much about anything anymore (as he had officially blown your mind today and you weren’t able to think straight anymore) you just reached down to his own bouncing cock; wrapping your fingers around it, the throaty moan that left his lips only riling you up more. It also made you more confident in your action, thus you proceeded to also pump his cock while he was moving so passionately.

Spurred on by your own actions, Katsuki only teased you more. His insides fluttering around you and tightening, just to listen to your desperate moans. Feeling your nails drag across his back as he pushed you over the edge with his skillful moves. Your moans deep and so erotic that it made Bakugou shiver, though nothing compared to your spasming, trembling body underneath him.

You were both gasping for air and sweating. Though before you could even remotely start to calm down, Katsuki had already started swaying his hips lightly, making you jerk and moan in surprise.

“K-Katsuki-“, you choked out his name, [eye.color] eyes wide open.

But the way he looked at you, glistening lips slightly opened, his ruby eyes barely closed and drops of sweat running down his temple – so sexy.

“Just a little… Think you can… handle it?”, he crookedly grinned.

All you could do was nod and pull him down.

Lips colliding and tongues entwining, he openly moaned into your mouth when you started thrusting your hips. Using the last bit of your hard cock before going limp to make him get off while also stroking his dick.

Even though the friction was so overwhelming and your cock was so overstimulated by that point it almost made you lose your mind, you didn’t want to stop. And Bakugou didn’t want to either. His hips relentlessly grinding, your cock shoved in balls-deep and your hand stroking him was almost pushing him over the edge.

The good thing was, Katsuki was already so sensitive and riled up because it had been so long since he last had sex. He couldn’t even think about his own insecurities, like being too old or knowing you could see his wrinkles and scarred skin from work as a pro-hero; you made him feel safe and loved. Yet, Bakugou was so turned on. Even if you had been clumsy or shy, he was dripping precum all over the place. He was so wet. And the feeling of his ass being stuffed was just so nice.

“NGH- [Your.name]-!”, breaking the sloppy kisses, he threw his head to the side, gasping heavily.

You seriously couldn’t stop staring at him. Especially when it all broke down and he started moaning so lewdly. His cock started twitching in your hand before he came all over your hand and belly. His body was trembling, thighs shaking and you could watch and stroke him through the orgasm, earning his whiny groans.

After a few moments, Bakugou opened his ruby eyes once more, before leaning in and pecking your lips, whispering a soft, “I love you.” Which made your heart jump and your lips curve into a big smile as you smooched him over and over again, mumbling an “I love you, too.” back.

As you were laying there for a few minutes, you just shared little kisses, as if both of your lips weren’t already swollen and red from all the kissing prior, but you just couldn’t stop. He was so cute and sexy. Just- how was he seriously your boyfriend?

Though in the end, Katsuki did sit back up again.

“Shall we go clean this off, huh?”, he… almost bashfully, smirked and nodded to your hand. Hence you just chuckled and agreed.

And so, rather quickly, Bakugou got off of you, disposed of the condom and in the end, you rushed into the bathroom for a quick wash; nothing too long, really, because both of you wanted to get back into bed fairly swiftly again. Hence, it only took a few minutes before you and your boyfriend were in the sheets once more, cuddling this time.

“So… how did you feel…?”, you asked after a few moments. Rather quietly though and carefully, not knowing how to really initiate the conversation about ‘giving feedback’.

“It felt fucking nice.”, then he cuddled closer and turned your head towards him so you had to look at him, “You did good for your first time.”

Of course he had to tease you about it.

“Katsuki!”, you playfully kicked him.

“I mean it… I… want to make you feel good. Is there something you want me to do next time?”

When Bakugou realized you were so serious about it, he couldn’t help but smile a little.

“I mean it, too, ya know? I felt very good. And I, too, only want you to feel good when we do it. So we can both feel the fucking best!”, Bakugou then grinned, which thankfully made you giggle as well when you leaned in for another swift smooch.

“Also… don’t think about it too much, okay? This was your first time. You only get to be the best when you practice a lot.”, smirking seductively, he slipped his leg between your own and scooched as closely as he could against your body, “And I promise you I have never skipped practice once in my life. So I hope you’re fucking prepared for what’s to come.”

As you had to search for your heart that had dropped far beyond your stomach due to Katsuki’s advances, you could just gulp and nod. However, you also didn’t shy away anymore when you grab onto him as well. Which pleasantly surprised Bakugou, hence leaning in the last few inches for a smooch.

“Thank you…”, was the last thing you thought you would hear him mumble all of a sudden.

Bakugou realized your slightly confused look on your face, thus clarifying.

“Four years ago, my ex broke me so much I thought he had made me unable to like, let alone love anyone ever again.”

“Oh… I’m sorry about that, Katsuki.”, you whispered empathetically and your hand reaching out to softly caress his back. Which instantly made him smile a little, even though those were such painful memories.

“You know. I was done. I didn’t care about having a relationship anymore and so also basically giving up sex completely since I don’t wanna just randomly fuck with anyone. All the paparazzi just waiting for this moment? And the fear of meeting random strangers who then potentially blackmail me, it was just all too fucking risky. So four years ago it all just… broke apart. Everything. He betrayed me and hurt me so much.”

Katsuki then, however, sat back up a little so he could look at you, propping himself up on his elbow.

“So.. what I just want to say is. Thank you. For making me feel something again and… I ain’t used to this cheesy shit, but… For making me fall in love again. If you would have not been so persistent, I would have been still hurting and hating everyone and everything and just be a miserable ass, ya know?”, he said at last with a small smile on his lips as he reached for your hand to lace your fingers together.

“I am glad.”, smilling brightly, you leaned in for a kiss until you pushed him back into the pillow, making him chuckle.

After bottling up everything for the past weeks, he was relieved you both finally took the next step in your relationship. And hopefully, from now on, everything was going uphill. Though, to be honest, with him and you finally having started with having sex and generally experimenting sexually, Bakugou couldn’t wait for the next few weeks.

Because if he had learned anything in the past 15 years of dating, it was that, when you start to have sex, you will do it anywhere and anytime, all the time – and he was ready, oh so ready for that stage of your relationship. Plus, judging by how you were already slightly grinding against him again, you probably were as excited as him for what’s to come.

｡☆✼★━━━━━━━━━━━━★✼☆｡

@salemwritesxx || do not repost, edit, modify or translate my works

⇻ salem.talks: I tried really hard to have this ready for my birthday yesterday but this is one beast of a fucking second part I just couldn’t finish it in time. so… here is a treat for you and myself

#salemswriting.#bakugou katsuki #bakugou x male reader #bakugou x reader #bnha x male reader #bottom bakugou #bakugou smut #older bakugou #bakugou #smut

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scorchedhearth · 2 years

Note

i saw you say that you like scarlett, sooo do you have any headcanons for her or her relationship with jason?

i do like her! or maybe i should say i like her concept because the way it’s executed in the actual run is uh. debatable i shall say. + jason’s fucked characterization doesn’t help either but i do think they can be an interesting duo.

hcs under cut cause i have a page full of those, enjoy!

jason doesn’t take sasha in for any goal (red hood wouldn’t ever use a kid like that, wth). he just sees a teen, angry and terrified and in pain and knows he’s the only one who can help her in her current situation. it’s also by luck, he wasn’t out looking for a sidekick

sasha’s the one who comes to jason about fighting with him, not the other way around. he teaches her how to defend herself in order to give her some safety and reassure her after what she suffered through with pyg, but it’s weeks later that she asks to go fight with him and he then teaches her how to attack

its a response to her trauma, seeing her father suffer to pyg's hand for being a criminal messed with her, as taking his life did and she feels she needs to take action after that happened and prevent it from happening again. it's not healthy, but it's something to keep her going instead of sitting with her grief and pain

she gets nightmares and sleepless nights after what happened to her, jason always sits with her or stays in the same room when it happens. they don’t talk but it helps her feel safe to know he’s watching over her, the big bad red hood protecting her

she gives back as good as she gets, jason is an asshole but she can be worse than him, and she doesn’t shy away from fighting with him and telling him what she thinks and wants. the only time she lets herself be ordered is when they’re patrolling in the streets because she knows he’s the better fighter between the two of them, but any other situation and she stands her ground and tells him off. jason loves her to pieces for that fact alone, it’s rare to meet people who can butt head as hard as he does and are as stubborn.

jason is conflicted about letting her fight by his side, and he understands some of bruce’s actions better in light of sasha coming to him. although i think she’s more similar to robin!dick than jason’s, which i don’t think jason knows a lot about so it’s more on the meta aspect of their relationship that one

sasha despite what happened to her is still very much a teenager, and once she feels safe enough with jason she lets that shine through. she’s defensive at first, but once she sees it's okay she freely mentions those interests like tv drama, boys bands, her interest in sports, etc, as well as in the behavior, letting less mature and unguarded moment happen

jason isn’t a replacement to her dad or her family. she told him off and made it clear that wouldn’t happen, he’s an ally, someone trusted and to rely on but not family and to the both of them that means more, especially given the time they find each other in their respective life

sasha learns fast, and what she doesn’t have in skills she makes up with her anger and direct actions. i love how she gets robin off guard by jumping him despite having less training than him, it is something she relies on a lot in her fighting style, looking unassuming and taking dramatic actions and letting her emotions fuel her

she burns fast through the anger and grief from her pyg trauma, and that’s what makes her leave gotham. she can’t be scarlet forever it takes too much out of her, and once the mask finally falls she takes the opportunity to be sasha again

she keeps in touch with jason, a few times a year he’ll get a text or a quick visit. they never last because it’s reminder of a harsh time in her life but it’s important for her to remember who helped her during those time

i just think of the potential of giving jason someone to look after personally, and someone with anger and pain and grief like him. he lost his parents to crime, he's been betrayed and suffered and he could have interesting things to give to sasha. in return, seeing her move on could be good to him. overall, there's something to get in their dynamic

#asks #anon #jason todd #sasha dc #scarlet dc #jason & sasha #dc

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irish-urn · 2 years

Note

What is a Dasey HC of yours that you love, but that you aren't necessarily going to write about?

(Asking this question to give people one shot ideas so that you're not the only one feeding this starving fandom 😂) ((also because I think you're crazy interesting and intelligent and I love your brain))

Oh boy. Dasey headcanons that I love that I might not get the chance to write about totally, but still kind of incorporate into my stories... AND THEN ASKED WITH COMPLIMENTS AND FLATTERY. HOW CAN A GIRL SAY NO???

(Seriously, thank thee for the compliments. My weird brain is purring happily now.)

1. Neither Derek or Casey are actually really good at cooking when they first move out. Sure, Casey has a few recipes that she’s learned -- breakfast foods, spaghetti, maybe a lasagna or some kind of casserole (easy things that can feed a family when Nora and George are too busy) -- and Derek likes mixing things when he needs to (my brother does this, and then eats it whether it’s good or not), but they’re not super great at it.

Which is why Casey signs them up for cooking classes. Now that Derek and her are living together, they can’t live off Queen’s meal plan any longer, and Derek’s hockey requirements have a very strict diet, and Casey knows that a healthy meal plan does wonders for her mental health, so this will solve all their problems.

...It would solve more problems if they weren’t Derek and Casey. No matter whether they’re in love or not, they’re not going to be the chill couple in the corner.

(AND, if you’re looking for oneshot ideas, it’s super easy to turn this into a “Casey accidentally signed herself up for a couples class, and now needs a partner” thing)

2. At some point in their relationship, after “I love you’s” are exchanged, Derek asks Casey to teach him how to dance. Because dancing is obviously important to Casey, and she’s hot and sexy and beautiful when she’s dancing, and Casey is all about “teamwork” and “partnership”, which means if he wants to make this last... he’s gonna need to know how to dance.

(I’ll keep this vague for fandom feeding, but there are so many ways this could go down.)

...Most of my HCs I’m hoping to write about, tbh, and I’d hate to spoil things for anyone reading kick at the darkness ‘till it bleeds daylight (aka: the college series)... But, uh. Other elements I strongly believe appear in a Dasey life that aren’t too spoiler-y:

--blanket forts (D’s pretty good at making these, tbh)

--Halloween couple costumes (the cheese factor varies at different points in their lives. As college kids, these costumes are hot and sexy; as parents, a range of Casey-insistent family themed (think The Addams Family) to a gleeful embarrassing papa!Derek when his kids need to be shown who’s boss (I’m thinking salt and pepper shakers, tbh) to a “Damn! That’s a milf and a dilf!” (as Mr. and Mrs. Smith)

(Damn, they would definitely do a Luke and Leia one year just to make everyone uncomfortable, wouldn’t they?)

--bets and/or competitions (there is almost always one happening, even if only casually)

--wrestling matches (look, does Derek limp into work one day from one of these? is the worst part of Casey’s pregnancies the fact that they have to halt these (because Derek doesn’t want to hurt the baby)?)

--all the hugs

#urn writes #asks #dasey #kick at the darkness 'till it bleeds daylight #i have every intention of writing the story after no white flags; the sequel to H&HinG; and maybe a couple of others #and then have this AU idea buzzing in my brain #so i don't know how many hcs i can give you; sorry!!

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wehangout · 2 years

Text

Let Me make it up to You

Gallavich Week 2022 - Day 2: Quote based. “I love being married. It’s so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.” - Rita Rudner.

Read on AO3

@gallavichthings

“Are you telling me I got drunk-married, agreed to stay married for the sake of health insurance, lied to my family about having an entire relationship with the stranger I married, only to end up with someone who doesn’t know how to use a fucking dishwasher?”

You look up from an old Guns & Ammo to cock an eyebrow at your new husband. “I grew up poor, Gallagher. Didn’t even know what a dishwasher was until worked in the kitchen at juvie.”

“I grew up poor, too, but I still know that once the dishwasher is full you have to turn it on and do the load in order to have clean dishes!”

“Yeah, well …” You tongue your cheek and say nothing else because this is new, this is all new, and you’re not sure how bad it could get.

“Yeah, well, what, Mickey?”

“I’m sorry, okay? Let me make it up to you.”

“Make it up to me? How?”

“I dunno … I could suck your dick?”

Gallagher’s eyes narrow. “Seriously?”

“Sure. That shit worked out well the night we got hitched – might as well make the most of the situation, right?”

“Jesus Christ … fuck. Yeah, okay.”

“Will you at least try it?”

“I’m not trying your fucked-up healthy food that has nothing but oats and shit in it.”

Gallagher snorts. “I can assure you there is no shit in quinoa.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Or oats,” he says, shoving another mouthful in.

“Still not gonna try it. And why are you being so pushy about it? We can’t seriously like that shit?”

“I do, actually. So you’re just gonna sit there and eat your burger?”

“Yes I am.”

“On Meatless Monday?”

“Oh, you know what, Gallagher? Fuck you and your Meatless Monday bullshit. I never agreed to doing that shit. In fact, I was wholeheartedly against it from the second you mentioned it.”

“Yeah, but you could be supportive.”

“Of oats instead of meat? Fuck no.”

“There are no oats! God, why are you such an asshole?”

“Why are you such a pussy bitch?”

“Fuck you. Eating this way is good for my state of mind and you’re being a real tool about it.”

“I …” You swallow back whatever you were going to say and think of the pills he keeps in the bathroom cabinet. “Yeah, fair enough.”

“No apology?”

“No. Maybe I could offer you’re a blow job instead?”

“I’ll take it.”

“Do you ever pick up after yourself?”

“Do you ever chill the fuck out?”

“A pair of socks,” he says, flinging them at you. “It’s not that fucking difficult.”

“Neither is not being anal-retentive.”

“I’ll give you anal-retentive.”

“Ooh, please do.”

“Mickey!”

“I’m sorry, okay? Look, I’ll try harder to put my socks in the laundry basket when I take them off.” You get out off the couch and do exactly that. “I’ll even try and remember to do a load of laundry every now and then.”

“A half-assed promise doesn’t make up for the amount of filthy washing I picked up today.”

“Fuck. I mean, I could blow you?”

“Really?”

“I know we’re still new at this, but have you ever known me to not want to blow you?”

“Yeah, fair enough. Okay.”

“Why do you have to be so aggressive?”

“It’s called dental hygiene, Gallagher.”

“It’s called brushing until you bleed,” he says, disgusted.

“My gums don’t bleed, asshole.”

“No, but you do get toothpaste spit all over the fucking mirror. It’s gross.”

Both eyebrows shoot up and you continue to speak around the toothbrush in your mouth. “Seriously? You licked my ass last night, but toothpaste spit is gross?”

“Could you just learn to clean the mirror after you’re done. It doesn’t take more than five seconds to grab a cloth and wipe the spit away. It’s common sense and common curtesy.”

“Whatever, Captain Clean. Are you done busting my balls over toothpaste spit?”

“No.”

You spit into the sink and wipe your mouth with the back of your hand. “Will it shut you up if I get on my knees and choke on your dick.”

“I – yeah, it might.”

“Quit hogging the remote.”

“Fuck off, you don’t even like TV.”

“Of course I like TV. Everyone likes TV.”

“Not true.”

“Name one person who doesn’t like TV.”

“My brother.”

Gallagher yanks the remote out of your hand. “Please. How am I supposed to know if that’s true? Also, you have, like, seven brothers so that’s only one-seventh of an answer.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, would you like me to be more specific? Colin. Colin doesn’t like TV.”

“You’re literally lying to my face right now, aren’t you?”

You stare into his eyes for a few moments before relenting. “Yeah. Sorry. Want me to make it up to you? There are other things I can do with my mouth that aren’t lying.”

“You’re offering to blow me again?��

“Hell yeah.”

“You know that’s not gonna work every time, right?”

“Isn’t it?”

“Fucker. Go on, then.”

“You finished the milk and didn’t get more?”

“The fuck?” You throw him a glare over the rim of your coffee cup. “I don’t even have milk in my coffee.”

“You have it in your cereal.”

“I … fuck. Yeah, I guess I do.”

“Mickey.”

“Sorry, man, let me make it up to you.”

He rolls his eyes. “Let me guess, another blowie.”

“You gonna tell me you don’t want it?”

“Fuck no.”

“Mickey?”

“Yeah.”

“What happened to my watch?”

“Oh. Fuck. Uh … you want a –”

“Yes. Get on your fucking knees.”

“So, don’t be mad.”

You sit your beer on the table and look up at him. “Great opening, Gallagher.”

“Something happened. I take full responsibility, but I want you to know it was an accident.”

“Spit it out, man.”

“I tripped. And spilled my quinoa.” He pauses, runs a hand over the back of his neck. “It spilt all through your shoes.”

“My shoes – you mean my Timberlands?”

“Yeah.”

You get to your feet, beer forgotten. “Are you fucking serious? Those are literally the only shoes I have and now they’re filled with oats and shit?”

“There are no oats –” he starts, then stops himself. “You know what? I’m sorry. It was an accident and I’m sorry.”

“Let me make it up to you.”

“You gonna pay for my new winter boots?”

“No.” He grins and steps closer. “But I could blow you.”

“Oh.” One side of your mouth tilts up to match his smile. “Yeah, okay.”

#gallavich Week 2022 #ian and mickey #gallavich fic #gallavich #shameless fic #my fic #accidental marriage au

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tragictrainmen · 2 years

Text

Welcome

Yo I'm Ari! I'm an autistic trans dude who loves me some autistic Trains dudes. HA

I’m a 31yr old adult but this is a harmless pokemon train blog. Not really gonna be posting anything inappropriate. please interact responsibly and only follow if you want to. *thumbs up*

Anyway this is an introductory post of sorts. :> I’m compiling all my headcanons for the Submas twins in one place, and so ppl wanting to follow can get a feel for the kind of content I’ll be reblogging! (and maybe even... making????)

SO let’s get started.

Headcanons that apply to both the boys:

Eyes glow in low light. This is seen with Ingo's eyes in PLA and is too cool not to just call canon. Graphical error? Never heard of her. Seriously thought it was to make Ingo feel like a ghost lost in the past. Really thought his plot twist was gonna be that he was dead the whole time. |D

Both boys are on the spectrum. Both are canonically literalists who avoid lying, share a special interest in trains and Pokemon battles, both struggle with social cues and come across as either aggressively blunt (Emmet) or constantly unhappy and severe (Ingo).

They’re Aro/Ace, although they have a close Platonic friendship with Elesa. I Love adopted sister Elesa content. I am NOT a blankshipper. Do not like incest content. Looking for healthy sibling relationships in my content pls and thank you. I also Love Uncle Ingo and Akari content. He’s a good dad.

On that note: I really like shit that subverts toxic masculinity, especially as a trans dude myself, so I don’t see male sibling affection as idk.. erotic? wrong? If they cuddle on the couch watching a movie together then like. That’s just them hanging out. Idk I'm the oldest of 5 siblings I know what siblings do when they love each other and live together. (and have survived trauma together) And half the reason I like submas content is bcus of their healthy sibling bond that survives through their trauma. Also they are neurodivergent. 🤗

I don't headcanon either of the boys as heavy swearers. Maybe Emmet will say shit and Ingo would mutter damn, but neither would say fuck publicly. It’s more of a professionalism thing, and they’re both very articulate in unique ways. I feel like they’d be concerned cussing would cause someone to take them less seriously. (I don’t mind content where they do cuss! I think Emmet saying fuck is funny as shit, it just doesn’t fit how I ‘read’ them.)

The nitty gritty, like personal autistic headcanons for each brother and how they operate together will all be under a cut to save post length.

Ingo:

- Autism shows itself in lack of facial expression. Pretty much does not realize he is Not Emoting 90% of the time. (This is actually canon in Pokemon Masters? He's genuinely surprised you've never seen him smile) He does smile in PLA, but VERY rarely, and uh. it’s like, almost a straight line. That’s the best you’re gonna get.

-Also will show excess emotion in his voice, and on top of that, his volume control is pretty terrible, and he often uses said volume to accentuate happiness or excitement. Will gradually get louder the more intensely interested in a conversation he is in. Will be shouting about Pokemon battle strategies in a diner and not know he is shouting.

- Has learned to mask behaviors because of his personal sense of responsibility.

-He has older sibling syndrome BAD. It made putting aside his autistic needs a priority as a child and he still struggles with it as an adult.

-This can make strangers believe he's the more 'neurotypical' brother, which is bullshit haha. Ingo will still fidget with his hands in private or around Emmet.

- Fidgets include picking the grime out from under his nails meticulously. (Often done while alone, or before bed) Clapping his hands together or slapping his lap/ the wall/ the seat repeatedly when he finds something funny, and touching or adjusting his hat. He will reach for it even when he's not wearing it.

-He will also clasp his hands together and rub his thumb in circles along the back of one hand. Will also do this while holding hands. Or putting a hand on your back or shoulder. Thumb rubs from Ingo are a common side effect of him touching you for any prolonged period of time.

-He will also take and inspect Emmet's or Elesa's hands/nails when they're alone or waiting for a long period of time. (He will do this while they watch TV, for example. This is a social love behavior and is not something he does with anyone else. He might have done it to Akari a few times? To her utter confusion. “Ingo is there something wrong with my hand?”)

-Aside from voluntary hand-touching, Ingo actually dislikes being hugged or held without express permission first. Will often still stiffen up like a board when hugged with permission. Touching can be painful. Doesn't so much have this issue with kids, who he absolutely adores. But kid hugs are rare and don't involve someone squeezing your shoulders or restricting your arms so they're aren't that bad.

-Organized to a fault. Used the calendar app and the alarm app to their fullest potential. Follow the schedules? He and Emmet live by this. Emmet follows Ingo's schedule. They work best that way. His office desk is meticulously organized. No matter what Emmet's looks like, it's always just as tidy as Ingo’s by the time they head home. (He makes sure Emmet cleans up after himself)

-Living situation is the same. Clothes get ironed because Ingo makes sure they do. Chores are ordered by day, week, and brother because Ingo and Emmet need structure, but Ingo's the only one good at Maintaining structure. More on Emmet later.

-Music taste is primarily modern classical. Piano or small orchestral accompaniments like Ryuichi Sakamoto and Andrew Shapiro. Or Orchestral movie scores that emphasizes the grandiose, think the soundtrack of Interstellar. Hanz Zimmer's more classical stuff. Any Gibli movie soundtrack is also fair game. He also likes jazz and certain types of alternative folk. Would probably like Rainbow Kitten Surprise and Mumford and Sons.

-Comically enough, both brother's will willingly tolerate each other's music. Even though they have. Uh. Opposite tastes. They share the same Spotify account even. Ingo will tolerate most average Radio fare, and is probably the most willing to give up the aux. Sort of a music pushover. Is surprised when someone wants to listen to his music.

Emmet:

-Autism and Adhd bundled together into a man that is somehow both the most monotone and most enunciated fast-talker you've ever met. He says everything so abruptly. But you understand every word. He has had A LOT of practice making himself understandable. I've seen some posts around talking about Emmet being nonverbal when he was younger and I wholeheartedly agree with that.

-Emmet's language journey was a rough one, but he's an incredibly confident speaker. I don't believe he's self-conscious about how he talks. To be honest, I don't think Emmet is Aware he speaks oddly at all. If someone says something, he literally has no clue what they could be on about. Yeah Ingo talks kinda weird I guess but him? No. You are wrong actually.

-Is Not Sarcastic. Does Not Know How To Sarcasm. His verrrys are verrry genuine. They just uh... Never sound that way. RIP. He IS a bit blunt though. He has no filter.

-Stimming is far more obvious in Emmet. He is a foot tapper, the sort to rock back and forth on his heels if he's impatient. He claps when he's happy, he claps when he's excited, he claps when something is funny. He is power-walking towards you right now because he can't hold still anymore. :) :) :) Chews his nails, but only while hyper-focusing. Much to Ingo's frustration. Ingo is the only reason his nails have any growth at all. He sometimes makes them bleed without realizing it. :(

- He will twirl or click anything in his hands if he is holding it long enough. He will tear or fold the corners of paper if left holding it for too long. Will scribble on the edges of notes or even on important documents if not given enough stimulation. Likes to draw smiles in the corners and repeated straight lines close together. (The straighter and closer the better!)

-While Ingo has an almost compulsive level of organization, Emmet's forms are always crumpled a little, smudged in places. There's a smiley face next to where he needed to sign his name. A coffee ring somewhere maybe. He doesn't know how coffee got on it. :) He's verrry sorry! It is still a proper legal document thought :) you will take it.

-Contrary to this, Emmet likes things just as neat and organized as his brother, but struggles to plan well and doesn't conceptualize time. His phone has just as many timers as Ingo's, but it includes ones with names like 'eat now' and 'leave with time for coffee'.

-He can struggle with executive dysfunction if left to do a task by himself without company. An issue he sees as a fault. Ingo can do things alone. Why can't he? Why does he have to fight himself tooth and nail just to take the trash out while Ingo is not home? This leads to uh. Some good angst when Ingo gets yeeted lol. Emmet cannot keep a place clean to save his life, and a lack of cleanliness directly affects his mental health.(he tries verrry hard though. Oh god does he try. u-u)

-Is more comfortable with most forms of contact than Ingo, but also prefers to be asked before being hugged. (has stricter boundaries about who can and can't touch him though. He will usually say no. Or ask Why.)

-Likes friendship kisses. 🚫not true kisses!🚫 Will kiss your hand. Will kiss your cut. Will kiss cute Pokemon. Has kissed his Electross's big dumb head before. Actually will also kiss soft blankets.

- Wait scratch that Actually both the boys like soft things. Ingo will rub them compulsively. Emmet will hold things up against his face and feel them against his lips. He will look like he's hiding his face during a scary movie but no he is enjoying a texture. :) (he is not scared of scary movies)

-As far as music, Emmet listens to the grungiest grinding electronic house imaginable. If it doesn't sound like someone tried to hybridize screamo and dubstep into a single song it's not Emmet. His tastes can also jump to more classic house and electronic music, with a preference for heavy beats and drops. He would like some Apashe and Infected Mushroom for example.

-He also likes alt rock, and mentions liking Piers’ music in Pokemon Masters, which is unsurprising. He would listen to Nightwish too lmao. Will usually wear headphones and play things loud as a form of self-regulation. Although he will willingly listen to Ingo's music no questions asked. But it makes him sleepy.

Maybe I will draw art of these two eventually. 😔 Until now, have this long ass post.

#many of these stims are based off one my own or the ones of family #my little sister used to pick up and inspect my hands while we watched movies and it is actually a very affectionate thing to do🥰#i have adhd and autism btw #submas #ingo and emmet #ingo pla #ingo #emmet

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m-y-fandoms · 3 years

Text

COMMISSION: Joker/Akira/Ren x Reader Part 3

This fic assumes Mishima isn't a confidant, the reader is the Moon arcana instead, keep this in mind.

word count: 6.3k words, SFW

- Admin Myah

Over the next few weeks spent with Akira, or… Joker, as he seemed to be called when the situation demanded, you learned that the world was much more complicated than you ever could’ve dreamed. Sure, you praised yourself for being a little less of a sheep than the idle-brained teenagers of your everyday life who thought of nothing but gossip, status and appearances, but now you felt insignificant, like you’d been asleep all this time until Akira, Ryuji and Ann had placed six symbolic hands upon you, and shaken you to life. Layers upon layers, he explained the subconscious world that lay beneath, which ached to be revealed, only to those who’d open their eyes.

＊

It’d been a rush, your first time in the Metaverse. You’d insisted to Akira, though he protested, that you wanted to see what all of this near-unbelievable nonsense he was explaining was all about. He’d never taken non-Phantom-Thief confidants into the Metaverse, and he was hesitant, silent for a long while before deciding that your help was worth the risk. After all, he’d already told you everything, and they had no way to erase memories… yet.

You remember Akira taking your hand, the skin on skin contact. Up on the school’s rooftop with Ryuji and Ann flanking you, Akira had told you it was a precaution, to make absolutely sure that you transferred into the Metaverse with them and landed in the same place. You had to be touching one of them, for your safety, and he’d eagerly volunteered. With the cat in his bag seeming to smile at you over his shoulder (an occurrence which made you feel like you were going looney already) he tapped an app icon on his phone, some scary red little square, and with that, your body lifted, began to float, or so it seemed. Red completely consumed your vision, red and black ink like those blobs you’d seen the Phantom Thieves appear from when this all began. You gasped, stumbling back a step as if you could escape the all-encompassing wave, and Akira, sensing your trepidation, squeezed your hand slightly.

The rooftop faded, and you felt like a character from a videogame fast-traveling to their destination. Almost as fast as it appeared, the trippy red and black sludge subsided, and before you sat a dark, dreary scenery. A castle, one that obviously belonged to a malevolent ruler sat amongst a purple sky and the smell of despair.

“What the…” your mouth hung agape for a second, taking in your surroundings before letting your eyes trail down to where your hand met Akira’s. Assuming you no longer needed it, you shook him off gently, not even sparing a glance his way, and his eyebrows creased just the smallest amount, not that you noticed. You were too focused on the giant cat before you, knee-height, with a round, bulbous head. “Is… are you-?!”

“Much more handsome and dashing in this form, wouldn’t you say?” Morgana - now confirmed - gave you a sly look as you leaned down to his height to run your hand along the fur on his head.

“Wow… so cute!” You cooed.

“Hey! Stop it! Stop it! I am a warrior and to be taken seriously!” he whined, shooing away your hands, his fur on end.

“Ha!” a sharp laugh rang out behind you, and you turned to see that Morgana wasn’t the only one who’d made a drastic change. Ryuji was now clad in some kind of leather pirate’s uniform, his demeanor far more fearsome and a skull mask across his face. Ann donned a skin-tight body suit and cat mask, and Akira wore a lavish long coat, red gloves, and a masquerade mask. He looked like a magician from some fairytale, or perhaps the leader of some band of Robin-Hood-inspired band of vigilantes… although you supposed that was kind of what he was now… either way, he would make amazing source material for your main protagonist. Such swagger, a commanding presence… he didn’t seem to exactly be the same Akira you’d met earlier.

＊

The trip to the Metaverse was almost completely uneventful… almost. Just once, when you’d begged Akira to press forward and show you the inside of the castle, something called a “shadow” attacked, and you got to see the band of thieves in action. It was shocking, leaving chills running down your spine. Here were your classmates, people your age with ghost-like spirits materializing at their backs, flipping through the castle’s corridors, shooting guns and slingshots and magic at terrifying beasts. It was all so fast-paced, so stunning, that your body locked up witnessing the battle. A shadow spotted you in the background, defenseless and clearly not part of the Phantom Thief entourage, and taking the petty opportunity only a sore-loser on the ropes would take, struck out against you. You shrieked, your hands uselessly coming up to defend your face as if it would help. Akira’s eyes widened, his reflexes so much faster in this realm, and turned on his heel, diving in front of you to deflect the blast of frosty energy swirling toward you. It bounced off of the side of his large steel dagger and ricoheted back at the shadow. After assessing the situation and asking if you were okay, Akira decided it was time to return you back to the real world. It was too dangerous for someone without a persona to wander here. The thieves would return later, once you were safe at home.

＊

Anyway, now you believed him, you knew everything he was saying, about Kamoshida and his fucked up mind, about confidants, personas and metacognition was real and very much a serious matter. Now all that was left was to decide just how you could help them, what kind of deal you could strike with the clever leader of the Phantom Thieves. Of course, he didn’t expect you to get something and give nothing.

It was decided that you’d offer your knowledge as a writer to help with negotiation and charming shadows in the Metaverse. You’d turn those golden lines you wrote on the pages into real-life lessons, and Akira would learn to seduce shadows, to out-smart them, to persuade them to give up everything they had: their money, precious belongings, even their very selves. He would flirt, threaten, intimidate, any honeyed word or silver-tongued method he could use to make deals with shadows go along more smoothly. Perfect. It would help him out immensely. But, what did you want, he’d asked again.

It felt embarrassing, now that you were put on the spot, forced to disclose it, but although those “golden words” translated well into lessons for others, you found that you couldn’t as easily take your own advice. You struggled with human interaction in your real life, especially of the romantic kind. You could write a healthy relationship out on paper, create the ideal love interest from scratch for a story, but stumbled along words like some socially incompetent fool once it came time to apply that knowledge. As much as you hated to admit it, these days even getting true, realistic romantic moments down on paper was a struggle. The well was drying up, writer’s block, as you’d explained it to your online friends. It was near impossible to make something from nothing, and you had nothing. No real romantic experience. You couldn’t help but think this was the route of the problem. Your writing, your precious romance novel would flourish, if only it’s author wasn’t completely clueless.

“Date me…” You mumbled, surprised out how your long moment of pensive introspection had accumulated into this clunky statement.

“What?” Akira let out a breath he’d seemed to be holding the entire time, just watching you think on what method of reciprocity was worth your help. Losing your nerve at the incredulous tone of his voice and the raise of his brows, you shrunk back a bit, ready to defend your words.

“W-wait!” You held a hand out between you. “Not really. I mean…” how to word this…? “Like, fake!” He looked even more confused than before. You released a noise of frustration. “What I mean is, you take me on dates - fake ones - stupid little stuff couples do, for my writing, of course…” You looked toward the ground, suddenly extremely interested in your shoes.

“How does that benefit you in any way?” He smiled, a bit forced, a blush dusting his pale cheeks.

“Well I- I’ve been having writer's block lately. I mean sure, I can give you lines and lessons from my previous works, drabble and things I’ve learned, written down in the past, but I have no fresh material. Stagnation is every writer’s downfall, but I have no experience, I need more to go off of… and then maybe I can even transfer what I discern from our… interactions - er… dates I mean - to you. Does that make sense?” You looked up at him hopefully.

“Uh… no,” Yeah, you knew it didn’t, but that’s all you had for him. His hand shook, much less confident as Akira than Joker, and he shoved it in his pocket.

“It’s hard to explain, I just… that’s my deal. Will you take it?” You clutched your bag a little closer to your body. “We don’t even have to tell anybody. I just want to experience it… going out… with someone…” It sounded a little more pathetic now that you were actually hearing yourself. You both stood in silence, Akira contemplating your words. It wasn’t that he didn’t like you as a person… it was just… complicated…

“Give me a day to think about it,” he spoke quietly, giving you a polite send off before parting ways.

That night, anxiety set in as you rolled around in your bed restlessly.

Did you sound like a creep? Were you being unreasonable? Was this asking too much of him? Does he think you’re crazy? You’ll probably never hear from him again. He’d probably rather find a way in that crazy Metaverse to erase your memories so he can forget the awkward exchange ever happened. Maybe he’ll kick your shadow’s ass one day.

You debated going to school the next day.

＊

Akira’s night, though not as horrendous as yours, was not a peaceful one. Like so many nights, he found himself awoken to the clink of a ball and chain, dressed in striped rags as he stood and walked to the bars of his cell. The twins were waiting, as always, anger in their eyes.

“Look alive, prisoner!” Caroline spoke.

“Our master would have a word with you!” Justine chimed in. Akira looked up, meeting Igor’s large grin.

“You’ve forsaken a bond, Trickster. One must ask, why?” Igor’s hands splayed over a deck on cards on his desk.

“Huh…? What do you mean?” Sleep lingering in his mind, and confused as to why he was here this time, Akira replied.

“I’ve told you, the bonds you strengthen over time and the new bonds you form, they will be what wins this fight. You can only complete your mission, save all that is, through the support your confidants provide, so why have you abandoned this bond?” Igor’s fingers folded together, hands clasped, a show of disappointment. “Now is not the time to not try hard enough.” Was that a hint of frustration in his tone? If so, he didn’t show it.

“...I’m afraid I don’t understand.” Akira rubbed one eye lazily.

“You’re not trying to understand, worm! Wake up!” Caroline’s fist banged down across the bars, startling Akira slightly. He looked to Igor again, who held up a single card between two fingers. On its face sat two wolves, both howling up at a glittering moon.

“The Moon.” Igor stated plainly. “Illusion, fear, anxiety, intuition, uncertainty, complexity, secrets, the unconscious mind. A friend, a possible lover, someone unsure of themselves and others. Creativity, shadowed by doubt. Someone who supports others but not themselves.” As he spoke, images of your face flashed in Akira’s mind. Igor threw the card into the air, catching it upside-down, letting the wolves fall into the moon, swimming in its glow. “Reversed: release of fear, repressed emotion, clarity, misinterpretations overturned. Someone who can fix what was upright. But you’ve passed over the opportunity.” Igor swipes his free hand in front of the card, and it disappears.

Scenes play out in Akira’s head. Confrontation with shadows, confrontations with real people, but these aren’t real… or rather, haven’t happened yet.

He receives clarity.

The Moon has more to offer than lessons on charisma, seduction, trickery, persuasion. His intuition will grow, his ability to perceive things before they happen, the ability to read and understand people, and be understood in return. Other bonds will grow, empathy will grow. More friends, closer friends, a flash of blue hair, white uniform, red hair, headphones, then a tidy uniform, a Shujin uniform, gloves, a beige jacket, and finally bouncy curls and a soft, high pitched voice. With your help, the Phantom Thieves can grow. Bonds will strengthen. Complexity, Igor had said. More than meets the eye. Was there more to you? You weren’t too bad, obviously intelligent… a bit odd, but kind enough, and he did find you cute… but pretending, a fake relationship? How could a fake bond strengthen

The card reappears, as if out of thin air, and Igor points to one upside down wolf.

“Me.” Joker whispers, as if guided by an unseen force. Igor points to the other wolf.

You.

He awakens with a start, nearly knocking Morgana off the bed. He has an answer for you now.

＊

He finds you at school the next day, huddled in the library and not where you’d said you’d meet him. You’d been dreading this, waiting for the rejection, your hand trembling slightly on the book in your hands. He sits across from you, a look of determination on his face. Waiting for him to speak was torture.

“I’ll do it.” He holds out a hand, waiting for you to shake it, seal the deal. A contact has been signed.

＊

Your first date with Akira is clunky, unpracticed, unprecedented of course. He doesn’t know much about what to do, either, so he takes you to Le Blanc for dinner. Some coffee and curry, maybe a soda and some conversation on the side? It couldn’t be too bad, right? That’s what dudes do, he thought, bring their... pretend sweetheart somewhere for dinner, right? Sojiro is teasing, of course, wondering who this new person was, why Akira was holding their hand. He smirks like a dad proud of his boy, and Akira, too embarrassed under Sojiro’s scrutiny now to sit down and serve you curry, rushes you upstairs.

After being dragged by the hand up rickety old stairs, you end up in Akira’s room alone. You look around, taking in his sparse decorations, humble belongings. It then strikes you that you are, in fact, alone. Alone with a boy in his room, for the first time in your life. You didn’t know how you got here, and so fast. Maybe you were in over your head. Maybe you just needed to calm down. This was part of the process, right? Real couples did this, to get to know each other. He beckons you over, gestures for you to sit on his bed with him. You’re hesitant, but Akira isn’t making a big deal out of it, and you’re not really alone, with Morgana right there, so you sit, as far from him as you could be on the surprisingly soft bed. Struggling for words and new to dates himself, Akira decides to treat you first and foremost like his friend. That makes this all easier.

He spends the next hour or so describing Mementos, his mentor Igor, the twins. He wants you to know everything, and it surprises him. His other confidants, save for the actual Phantom Thieves, don’t know anything about the hidden world their bonds are healing. He describes the arcana to you, the tarot, the way his soul resonates with The Fool, Ryuji The Chariot, Ann The Lovers. His doctor friend is Death, Sojiro the Hierophant. Morgana here is the Magician, and proud of it. He explains how he feels a bond with them, as he now does with you. They make him feel like he can do anything. You’re included in that now. You feel warmth rise to your cheeks. How could he say that so casually? It wasn’t like it was a love confession or whatever, but you had trouble seriously telling your online friends you appreciated having them in your lives without adding a joke or meme in there somewhere. Why did he even need your help? He seemed well spoken. You said so, voicing these opinions aloud.

“Huh.. you know, I actually don’t usually talk this much,” he smiled. “Must just be you.” He was only half teasing. You looked away nervously, feeling the need to change the subject.

“S-so, what am I?” You began to stroke Morgana’s fur, and this time he didn’t seem to mind.

“You mean your soul?” He scooted a bit closer.

“Yeah.” It didn’t go unnoticed.

“The Moon.” He replied softly.

He spent the rest of the night explaining the levels of Mementos, and some of the wicked people whose hearts he’s had the displeasure of seeing inside, but the absolute pleasure of changing. You say you aren’t surprised so many people are walking around so hurt inside or eager to hurt others. When the “date” ends - neither of you having even gotten that promised coffee or curry downstairs - you’re touching, sitting shoulder to shoulder looking at the moon outside his window with Morgana on your lap. The room seems a little warmer, a little less humble. Akira mentions with a sheepish grin that it’s getting late, and offers to walk you home.

Rank Up!

＊

You sit in your bed that night, Akira now having returned to Le Blanc, and think about if this will make good writing material or not. You had to have learned something, right? There was something to be gained from every experience… but you can’t help feeling like you’ve warmed up to the thought of Akira a bit more… not too much, however. You smiled to yourself at the thought of The Fool, tricked into dating the Moon, for all it can offer him.

He’d been so awkward at your front door when he dropped you off. You could tell he had no clue what to do. He was frantically looking around. People in movies kissed their date at this point, cheek or lips, depending on how the date went, right? He confessed that he’s one of those people who truly don’t know anything about romance, like you’d mentioned earlier in one of your conversations. You tell him it’s fine, that you didn’t expect anything, that you just met the other day. He thought he was being clear, dropping hints that he might want to peck your cheek, just a quick gesture to kick off your fake relationship, but maybe he wasn’t as slick as he thought. The hints seemed to go over your head. Maybe he really did need help.

＊

Your second date comes in the form of you begging to go back into the Metaverse for some inspiration. He fights you, bringing up the last time a shadow attacked you, but you are persistent. He gives in, taking you to the highest rung of Mementos, where the shadows are weak and he can keep you safe adequately on his own. It is a date, after all, no Phantom Thieves tagging along. Mementos is a bit more frightening than Kamoshida’s Palace, you mention, and he eases your fear, promising to protect you here, always. You take in his Phantom Thief uniform in more detail as you walk the long corridors of the realm of the subconscious and decide he looks quite handsome in it.

You watch him battle a demon that is the personification of lust, a succubus-like creature dripping with temptation and love, or so it thinks. Joker uses all that you’ve taught him so far, which isn’t much, and cons the false idol of love out of their money. It was quite comical yet a bit sad to watch the shadows expression fall from a cocky to a defeated one, but preformative love you’ve decided, is doomed to lose. The irony flies over your head.

From this experience, watching Joker fight with speed and grace, you settle on a genre for your novel. It will be a high-fantasy romance. Joker will inspire your main character, of course, but the love interest… was still undecided. You started drafting her to look like Ann, act like Ann, give off the energy and power Ann does. Ryuji was an option at first as well to inspire the love interest’s personality, but he was a bit too brash. You wanted someone strong, but soft and elegant at the same time. These characters were loosely based on the Phantom Thieves, anyway, so it didn’t really matter.

＊

When you leave the Metaverse, though Akira is a bit exhausted, he takes you to a local casual restaurant to make up for the last time at Le Blanc. There, sitting across the counter from you two is an older gentleman. Yoshida, Akira whispers, is a friend of his, another confidant. The Sun. Yoshida makes small talk, asking politely if you’re with Akira, and you feel your stomach clench. You knew this was fake, the agreement was clear, but hearing it aloud, the awkward ‘we’re just friends’ that was coming made you sweat. It still felt like rejection anyway. When Akira confirms that yes, you are in fact dating, your eyes widen, the coil in your stomach releasing. He smiles, taking your hand. This has to be an act, a show to play up the relationship. He’s just performing his duty, his role, holding up his end of the deal in order to simulate a real relationship and give you worthwhile source material… right?

Either way, you appreciate not being publicly humiliated, and smile back. That night, you write down everything, and what it’s like to not be alone.

Rank Up!

＊

Days pass, Kamoshida coming and going, justice being served, and you spend more and more time with your fake boyfriend. Your parents let him come over, and in your room you let him read some of the old poetry you’ve written, some lame pining drabble from your younger years, and some more recent things you’re proud of. He scours your room, digging up old hobbies and photos. You tell him all about them. He tells you he enjoys learning these things about you. You simply smile. It doesn’t seem to be the reaction he was looking for. Not liking the small frown that adorns his features, you pick the conversation back up, asking if he thinks you’ll ever have a persona. He smiles, maybe someday.

Rank Up!

＊

The Phantom Thieves are gaining fame, only more fodder for your writing. The more you hang out with Akira and his friends, the more real it feels. Your online friends can feel it, too. They sense you changing, talking less of writing and more of Akira. They tease you, of course, but they don’t get it. He’s just a main character… just a muse.

This time, Akira walks home to Le Blanc alone, wondering if he should tell you how he feels. He doesn’t like it, holding up this pretense of a fake relationship, pretending the glances and touches don’t matter. He wants to tell you…

...that he’s slowly falling.

You receive a little gift in the mail the next day. It’s a deck of tarot cards. The return address is blank. You call him to tell him all about it, and end up discussing the pros and cons of each card all night. What a coincidence that you should receive your own deck all of a sudden.

Rank Up!

＊

There are moments where you’re afraid you may be falling, too. There was the time that a blue-haired young man stalked you and your friends through Shibuya, turning corners when you did, always on your trail. When Ryuji finally got fed up and confronted the weirdo, asking why the hell he was following you guys, he’d revealed that his name was Yusuke, a student of a painting master, and that he was simply following inspiration where it lead.

“Your friend there, I was drawn to them,” he points elegantly, like some manga bishounen, past Ryuji and toward you. “I beg of you, allow me to paint your form. Something about your normalcy stands out. What I mean is, there is beauty to be found in not standing out, a silent grace in being so plain.” You could tell Yusuke meant no harm, that he simply may be a bit socially inept with his words, as well, but the way he was talking about you set something in Akira on fire. He stood in front of you, shifting until his body blocked yours from Yusuke’s sight.

“They aren’t plain.” He spoke with a dangerous edge to his tone, and you felt your heartbeat speed up. The hint of jealousy in his voice at Yusuke’s request for you to model for him, and anger at him calling someone he found so fascinating plain was evident.

＊

Yusuke seemed to be in denial in the coming days. Though your little troupe seemed to constantly be bumping into him, offering him sound advice and trying to awaken him to the mire of corruption that was the truth behind his mentor, Ichiryusai Madarame, he refused to see reason. He dove further into his art, but you could tell he was hurting. You used your time with Akira these days to teach him how art, much like film and literature, can reflect false truths and influence people. The deception, corruption and shallowness of the media extended to the art world, as he learned after one or two gallery visits with you.

It was then, in a gallery displaying Yusuke’s work, as you sat in a secluded corner alone discussing ways to take down Madarame, that Akira started to flirt incessantly.

He takes your hand, bringing up romantic tropes in movies he’s seen that seem so forced, one-sided, cliche, uncomfortable. He mentions that he would’ve done better, explains how those scenes would’ve played out if he had any say.

“Is that so?” Your brow raises, amused by how animated this usually quiet boy could be when he was passionate about something.

“Yeah! Of course! What, you don’t see me doing that?” he laughed breathily, going on about how the male lead of some high-school romance film Sojiro rented for him was clumsy, forceful, and didn't give his lover time and space to think about their feelings. “I would’ve treated them much, much better… “ his words trail off, as if lost in thought.

“...Is that so?” You ask again, studying his face and asking yourself how you didn’t notice before how beautiful the hue of his eyes were. You sure as hell were noticing now… steely grey, sharp, deep, purposeful. You’d have to write that down… for research purposes of course. When you pull yourself back to reality, no longer lost in the swirl of his irises, you realize he’s staring at you, and has been for some time.

“Do… can I-” he speaks, throat dry, and scoots himself closer. “May I kiss you…?” His voice is soft, so soft, scared.

“...Yes.” You answer, naturally, impulsively, voice just as soft. When Akira leans forward, and softly presses his apprehensive lips to yours, you feel like you’ve been set on fire. Your mind begins to go crazy, while your body is frozen. It’s not that you didn’t like it, some part of you did. You wanted more, but it felt wrong. This wasn’t real. You didn’t truly like him… right? This kiss was fake, for research purposes… to cure writer’s block…

...right?

You were frozen more from guilt than nerves. Weren’t first kisses supposed to feel like little butterflies in your stomach? Did he think he owed you this? Were you taking advantage of him at this point? Did he feel forced to kiss you to keep up his end of the bargain?

Akira deepened the kiss, a hand on the back of your neck, guiding you, begging you to reciprocate. When you didn’t, lost in your own head, he pulls away, a small frown tugging at his lips.

“W-we… we should head home. I’ll walk you…” he sighs. You both stand, make your way back onto the main street from the museum, and are silent the entire walk home.

You think he’s silent because you’ve forced him to think he needs to kiss you, and now regrets his decision. He thinks you’re silent because he’s just forced a kiss upon you, just like some Chad from a movie who can’t understand boundaries. Neither of you know your silence is for the exact same reasons.

Akira drops you off at home with a quiet ‘goodnight,’ and walks home, clearing his head in the cool night air.

“Stupid… jeez… fuckin’ stupid,” he huffs, repirmanding himself. This wasn’t real. You’d stated that from the beginning. This relationship was to benefit your writing, to help him in the Metaverse, nothing else. Nothing else.

Nothing. Else.

It was his fault he let himself develop real feelings. He has no right to be sad, to blame you, to get upset. You’d stated the terms from the very start…

Maybe he really was The Fool.

Rank Up…?

＊

The next few weeks are awkward.

Both of you think it’s your fault.

You go on dates like usual, but they are strictly business. You get writing material, he gets advice, no touching, and certainly no kissing. Yusuke joins the group. Things are great… friendly… strained, tense. Akira wonders what the hell he’s doing, if this bond is even worth it. Weeks pass. He feels your bond with him growing, but not in the way he wishes. It felt like all of his other confidants: visit, gain, rank up, gain power, learn. He wonders if he can keep this up. His heart aches. He wants to touch you more, but can’t, wants to tell you more, but won’t let himself.

＊

One rainy night, he calls you, like he often does when you can’t meet up in person, and tells you he can’t do this anymore. You lie, and say you agree. The guilt won’t let you tell him the truth, that you want to end the farce, move onto something more real. You can sense your feelings for him growing stronger each day, and it’s not fair to him. Without fighting, without the big “it’s not you it’s me you” you’re used to reading about in books, you tell him you respect his decision, and it’s over. When Akira hangs up, he finds himself a bit angry inside. You didn’t even try to fight for the relationship. There was a tiny little part of him that hoped you felt anything for him, that maybe it meant something to you. He cries that night, for the first time in a long time. They are angry tears, frustrated ones.

＊

In your bed, you find yourself sitting upright, dead inside, unfeeling, empty. You feel like a part of you is gone, but can’t pinpoint why. You don’t even notice the tears sliding down your own cheeks as you sift through the pack of tarot cards that mysteriously came into your life. You find The Moon, and play with it, twisting it between your fingers before sending it flying across the room like a paper dart. Did this mean you couldn’t hang out with the Phantom Thieves anymore? Were you losing your only in-real-life friends and… boyfriend(?) all in the same day?

You sifted through the cards and gently set aside the Emperor, the Lovers, the Chariot. Then your hand drifted over the Fool. You held it out in front of your face. A dancing man looking up at the sky with a jesters cap perched upon his head smiled back at you.

The start of a great journey, freedom from constraints. Each day is an adventure. Courage, anything can happen. There is a need to experience new things, to let yourself experience the love you deserve. Be willing to take risks.

A sad, thoughtful smile crosses your lips. You turn the card upside down.

If you disregard the repercussions of your actions, you are the Fool. You cannot see the position you’ve put yourself in. Is everything what it seems to be?

A breath catches in your throat, a wave of nausea hitting you. You scramble for your phone, and dial a number.

Silence, ringing, silence.

“...Yeah…?” Akira sniffles. He’s been crying???

“I want… can we talk… can I come over?”

“It’s late.”

“It’s not, we came home way earlier than usual. You’re just using that as an excuse.” You were feeling a little braver than usual, the spirit of the Fool within you. You heard him thinking, a sigh that came through as static.

“Yeah… fine, I’ll be waiting.” Relief washed over you.

＊

When you knocked on the door after speed-walking to Le Blanc, Sojiro let you in with a warm smile. He obviously didn’t know about your falling out with Akria, yet.

“He’s upstairs,” he gestured, exhaustion evident in his voice. You rushed past, thanking him with a small bow of your head. Only now was the inevitable fear starting to sink in. Akira heard footsteps creaking on the stairs. Sojiro never came up unannounced, and with that realization, his back stiffened. Morgana picked up your scent, excusing himself, passing you on your way up the stairs. He could take a hint.

He stood immediately, stepping toward you, stopping halfway. You shrunk into yourself, unable to meet his eyes.

“Akira… I wanted to talk…” you muttered.

“You said that… about what?” He was more than a little pissed, but he was always one to hide his temper well.

“Can we sit…?” You gestured to his small sofa. It didn’t feel right to sit on the bed. He hesitated, before shuffling over and sitting next to you. “I wanted to apologize.”

“For what?” Oh, there were so many things, but he wanted to know what you thought was worth apologizing over. Maybe he wasn’t being fair, he dialed back his attitude a tad.

“For… making you enter into the agreement in the first place. Someone’s affections, their love, their touch and body… it’s not something that can be forced. It should never be pretend.” You felt like the biggest hypocrite ever right now. His head shook a bit in disbelief, blinking hard.

“I wasn’t pretending!” His hands flew to his hair, mussing it. “That was the problem.” He sighed heavily.

“What?” You couldn’t believe what you were hearing.

“I wasn’t being forced… are you… you must be the most oblivious person I’ve ever met.” He laughed cynically.

“But-”

“Wait, wait, why did you think I ended our” he put air quotes up, “ ‘fake’ relationship.” He needed this clarification, now. For closure, for redemption, to fix things, whatever may come next.

“Because… because I was forcing you to date me! You were uncomfortable?!” You could feel your voice begin to break, tears clawing to escape. You’d never felt so disgusted with yourself as you did right now.

“Are you serious?” He took both of your hands, looking you in the eyes. You nod. “Answer truthfully. Do you have feelings for me? Real ones?” You bit your lip, that feeling of selfish guilt creeping like bile up your throat. You nod again. “This whole time?” Another nod. He releases you, turning away. “Sheesh, maybe I’m the oblivious one here…” he spoke more to himself than to you. You both sat in tense silence, not sure what to do, what to say.

“Akira…”

“It was real to me,” he moved closer, trapping you against the end of the couch.

“Really?” Your heartbeat was going crazy, and he leaned ever so slightly closer, his hand on the back of the couch for support. “I broke up with you because it was hurting me to pretend I didn’t have real feelings for you, and to think you didn’t want me back, not for real. I thought… that you’d always think of me as just some character for your book.”

“No… Akira… had I known you felt this way…” He leaned in further, your noses bumping slightly, clumsily. This time, he felt no discomfort, no hesitation from your side. His heart fluttered in excitement. You could feel his breath on your warm cheeks.

“May I kiss you?” He asked again, a secondary, unspoken question sitting beneath his words.

“Yes.” Your voice was shaky, but you were sure, for once, of what you wanted. His hand went to your back, cradling you into his chest to lay down flat against the couch. With a passion he’d been holding back, he pressed his lips to yours without reservation. You sunk into the warm, plush feeling, tilting your head at a better angle. He kept the kiss soft, shallow, low pressure, looking for you to give him the signal to stop. When your arms reached upward, snaking around his neck and pulling him harder down into you, he groaned softly, barely audible, before passing his tongue over your lips a single time. You parted your lips, allowing him access, and his hand, pale and trembling, came up and found its way under the hem of your shirt, splayed nervously against the smooth skin there.

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