#i felt extremely bad and nervous when my friend told me her moms aware of me being kind of trans and that she told her sister too

[pevko]

looking at the last reblog and sighing

[neocrush]

— the girl groups enhypen’s gfs are in !

genre: fluff (angst on jungwon’s part) + established relationship (eventually lol)

pairings: idol!enhypen x fem!idol!reader

note: idk how to title this pls i thought of it while showering

tagging: @jeminiepabo @strwberrydinosaur

you just finished performing and your members were in need of water bottles

you just finished performing and your members were in need of water bottles

you just finished performing and your members were in need of water bottles

but fucking mnet didn’t provide any inside of your dressing room??

but fucking mnet didn’t provide any inside of your dressing room??

but fucking mnet didn’t provide any inside of your dressing room??

so yves told you to ask for some from the artist in the dressing room next to yours

you knocked on the door without looking at the sign that showed who was in there

you asked for some water bottles and heeseung went “i’ll go get it!” and ran off to go get get them

jungwon just chuckled and went “hyung’s a really huge fan of your group, he kept on singing star on the way here”

you nodded at the younger one, impressed at the fact that you were popular among idols

the tall boy came back with a whole box full of water bottles

“there’s 12 of you here right now so i figured why not get a whole box” he chuckled nervously

you giggled and smiled at the nervous boy

“thank you heeseung-ssi, i’ll take this to my members” you took the box in your hands but was taken aback on how heavy it was

“don’t worry i’ll carry it for you”

long after that you started hanging out and boom you became his gf

you couldn’t resist the charms of lee heeseung

once it was revealed that you were a couple, orbits and engenes went INSANE (in a good way ofc)

“wait so y/n DOESNT hate men????”

★ jay - aespa

OMG OMG LEMME TELL YOU ABOUT THIS BBY

you both met at school after you both debuted

everyone was gossiping around about how you were in the same class with the enhas

so like... monster rookies class

usually idols aren’t seated together but the teacher seated you and jay next to each other

causing a bunch of “oooohhhs” from your classmates

there were times were you and the enhas would leave school early due to practice or schedules

and on the way to the school gate, jay would always spark up a conversation with you

you assumed he was just very friendly

long story short he had a massive crush on you

so a few months into your friendship (which the both of you were very open about with your fans), he confesses

you were like “WAIT SO IT WASNT ONE SIDED THE WHOLE TIME”

y’all were just really blind lol pls read between the lines

anyways on to ur lovely bf !!

he’s so bold and brave around you but so shy around your members and seniors

we all know how he really respects nct (along with other sm artists) bc he covered the 7th sense with sunghoon on iland

so one day you were like “oh btw i showed taeyong sunbae you and hoon’s t7s cover”

he was like 😟 to 😧 to 😯

got all shy and was like “oh what did he say..”

you don’t know why he was acting as if he didn’t body that whole performance ????

anyway you told him that taeyong said that he and hoon did really well and that he liked how jay did his part

hid his face on the crook of your neck

“baby we should come say hi to them next time you go to sm”

“NO i will make a fool out of myself”

speaks english and japanese with giselle a lot when he isn’t occupied with you

sometimes you’d even have to ask nct’s shotaro to translate

your seniors (especially exo’s kai) adore him so so much pls protect the boy at all costs

★ jake - everglow

he was an active viewer of produce 48 and (like me) was really attached to the yuehua trainees

especially you

so when you got eliminated just before the last episode, he was devastated to say the least

he awaited your debut and when the time came he supported everglow !!!!

LOVED BON BON CHOCOLAT SO MUCH

does the killing part choreo in his room when no one’s watching lol

dies everytime you do the little “everglow” in songs

right so when he debuted in enha, he looked forward to meeting you as an idol and not a fan

when you shared a dressing room at kcontact, he couldn’t help but introduce himself to you

he mentioned he was a big fan and your heart warmed

cute boy is a fan of you? omg heart go brr brr

your members tease you and you just shake it off

that day when you got back to the dorms, you watched a bunch of enhypen videos bc you were interested in jake

you weren’t aware of how popular you were among people - let alone idols so you were surprised

you fell in love with his personality and started saying hi to him whenever you meet backstage at music shows

not long after, you develop feelings for him

you thought it was just a puppy crush but as you saw him even more, it got serious

you never actually confessed but aisha accidentally spilled the beans when he was passing by

“cmon y/n just tell him you like him because he clearly feels the same !!”

“you like me?”

“AISHA”

“that’s my queue to leave”

so she leaves you two to pour your hearts out to each other

you two become a couple and forevergenes (such a cute name omg) LOVE you two

you’re both the puppies of your group so that makes your relationship 103892x cuter

you met his parents and they adore you and even asked for your autograph

“jake used to talk about how great you are after every produce 48 episode”

“okayyyy i think that’s enough embarassing me mom”

his parents love you like their own daughter but does layla love you?

you were so nervous to meet her and was actually scared she might not like you - knowing how important layla is to jake

at first layla ignored you and jake was like “she’ll come around”

you were convinced she just doesn’t like you, until this one time you were cuddling with jake on the couch and layla comes in

you expected her to snuggle up with jake but she came to you :D

now layla is super fond of you and mrs sim would even send you pictures and videos of layla getting excited whenever you were on tv 🥺

★ sunghoon - itzy

you and the girls were at isac

the six of you were just waving at your fans and making heart signs with your hearts

on your left you saw yeji making hearts with ryujin so you wanted to do that with another member too

you felt a presence next to you and assumed it was someone from your group

spoiler alert: it wasn’t

sunghoon and sunoo were waving at engenes who just happened to be seated next to midzys

so you turned to who you thought was an itzy member, making half a heart with your hand

until you realized it wasn’t 💀

you bowed and apologized when you both looked at each other, you were scared you crossed a boundary

you bowed and apologized to the engenes who were there too

sunghoon and sunoo reassured you it was all good

after that, sunghoon couldn’t help but keep his eyes on you the entire event

when the day was coming to an end, he pulled some strings and ended up having some alone time with you ...in stray kids’ dressing room

don’t ask

ofc skz already left so it was just you two there

fast forward, you both hit it off and he became your bf <3

midzys and engenes love you both sm and love bragging about you two to other fandoms

you two were even named the king and queen of 4th gen kpop

oh also

you already know where this is going

“SUNGHOON HOW COULD YOU NOT KNOW NOT SHY’S PROPER TITLE IT’S YOUR GIRLFRIEND’S SONG” - jay

brags about how he can do the shoulder dance in wannabe

ofc it’s bc you personally taught him

sends you pics of jyp as reaction pics

so you send pics of bang pdnim to him

every once in a while he reminds you of that video of jay why pee trying to hit a high note

“lmao that’s your boss”

PLS you always get super embarrassed so ofc you bring up that vid of hitman bang

“rAp dAncE-“

★ sunoo - stayc

you were his seatmate at school predebut

you came from the same town, same school, same neighborhood, etc

the two of you were extremely close and both shared the same dream

when highup entertainment accepted you, the both of you were over the moon

he was so happy for you

but sad too bc that meant you had to move to seoul :(

you promised him to do your best and that you hoped to see him again but as an idol

and hopefully when he’s an idol too

well what you hoped for came true !!

although you couldn’t see him much as a trainee - which made you quite sad - you got to follow his journey on i-land

you even asked your fellow trainees to vote for him

anyways now that you both debuted, you became close again and became really open with your fans on how close you were

you recommended his songs to swiths and he did the same to engenes

he even memorized the choreo to so bad and asap and lemme tell you this

he BEGGED you to teach him those choreos

“sunoo you can watch the practice on youtube”

“but i want to learn it from you”

he never really realized his feelings until he saw you getting shipped with his other members

you were both on weekly idol and the hosts really seemed to like how you and jake looked next to each other and they just teased you both the whole episode

that made sunoo feel uneasy and he thought it was only bc he was an overprotective best friend

turns out he had feelings for you (wow shocker)

so one day he asks you to come to hybe

after slightly getting lost, you meet up with him in a practice room

he confesses bc he felt like not telling you about his feelings would put a wall between you two

you appreciate his honesty and tell him you’ve felt the same way every since you were classmates

he scolds himself for not seeing it all those years but you just laugh it off bc you were pretty good at hiding your crush

you both agree to secretly date, until you both announce it on your five month anniversary

fans were really shocked at first... but they support you !!!!

engenes will not hesitate to come at anyone who talks bad about you and swiths feels the same way about jungwon

he gushes about you every single time you’re brought up

and you can’t help but love your adorable boyfriend

★ jungwon - iz*one

okay so

he was just an average high schooler when you were introduced on produce 48

his deskmate was watching your audition video and it was the part where you were doing this freestyle

he was SO amazed and he secretly followed your journey on produce 48

always made sure to vote on time and watch the episodes live

once the debut evaluation came around, he asked everyone he knew to vote for you and even bought tickets to see the show live

almost cried when he saw that you were center

ACTUALLY CRIED when you got into the top 13 😭

fast forward to him debuting in enha

he wasn’t able to catch up on you since he was busy with trainee life, then i-land, then debut preparations

but somehow in the middle of promotions he ran into you and BOOM love at first sight

fast forward to you finally dating, he couldn’t believe he was dating the y/n of iz*one

wizones make those “ladies and gentlemen, y/n’s man” edits and engenes make those “ladies and gentlemen, jungwon’s woman” edits

both fandoms love you two so dearly that the only hate you two got were from the delusional ones (who clearly aren’t actual fans)

when your last concert came around, he couldn’t bare seeing you cry when you said “this has been iz*one’s y/n, thank you everyone!”

he got flashbacks from when you cried during the final episode of produce 48 and he’s just.. sobbing bc he couldn’t be there to hold you

so the next day he rushed to your dorms with snacks and emotional support bc you were emotionally exhausted from accepting the fact that your journey with iz*one is finally ending

you felt extremely lucky to be in his arms and he felt extremely lucky too that he’s able to make you feel a little better

★ riki - weeekly

you were both on weekly weeekly idol together

and both you and riki being main dancers, you were asked to do random dance together

a few popular songs played and the both of you did the choreos

until after school started playing and the boy did the chorus’ choreo and you were like “woah???”

bc he was so INTO ITTTT

the song was basically made for him to cover it

and the mcs saw your reaction so they asked him to do it once again but this time with the whole group

after filming, he came up to you and was like “i’m a huge fan of yours” and you’re just like ):&/£]>\**_£]

“woah really???? i rooted for you on i-land”

and his face just lights up bc his huge crush on you developed even more

you became besties since then but he didn’t ask you out until your birthday

he took you out to a puppy café, knowing you were obsessed with dogs

you’d ask him to show you pictures and videos of bisco

“i better meet bisco once we go to japan together”

melted at the thought of traveling to his hometown with you

anyways

once you left the café, he kissed you in front of your dorms

and somehow he became your boyfriend <3

riki as a bf isn’t really a very public person

he’s the “this is our relationship, not the public’s” type of person

he doesn’t wanna risk companies wanting to exploit your relationship

although he doesn’t talk about you two much, he loves to brag about you when given the chance

whenever variety show hosts would fawn over you he’d just look them in the eyes dead and go “she’s mine”

[celeste-clearwater-06]

Hello! I was wondering if you could please write something about how the Fellowship (+ Thorin?) Would help a s/o who's Disabled and Chronically ill. Like she has a lot of symptoms like chronic pain, chronic fatigue, difficulty sleeping, difficulty breathing at times, difficulty walking at times, higher sensitivity to the cold, difficulty talking at times, and anxiety, depression and executive dysfunction?

I've been really struggling with my chronic illnesses lately, namely my Autism, Anxiety, Sleep Apnea, a really bad Overbite, Raynaud's Syndrome, Asthma, etc, so I'd really appreciate an Imagine like this. I have a really weird disorder where one of my legs is longer than the other, and it's been causing me a lot of pain and difficulty walking lately, and people have been bullying me for it a lot too, so I could really use a Comfort Imagine right now. Thanks so much hun!!

It's no problem! I'm glad I can provide some comfort!! For each character, I'll use a specific struggling area, to make it a bit easier!! I hope I got these accurate enough, and of there are any mistakes, feel free to point them out!! You are strong, beautiful and so, so amazing!! Keep being you!! ❤❤

Help (The Fellowship// Thorin x Fem!Reader)

Aragorn (Autism)

Aragorn has known you for a long time, so helping with your autism is not new for him

He's particularly experienced in reading your emotions and meeting your needs, whether it's helping you out of stressful situations or calming you down, he's there 🥺

If there are large and boisterous gatherings in Rivendell, its almost guaranteed that you can become over-stimulated quickly, and Aragorn immediately senses this (spidey senses õoõ)

He's fast to find your hand and give it a gentle squeeze of reassurance

If that doesn't seem to help, he'll instantly stop what he's doing and take you out of the room

If you're someone who prefers lots of space and little physical contact, he is 100% respectful of this and asks if you'll let him touch or hug you (very much gentleman 😌)

If ever you're confronted by someone of importance, Aragorn is right by your side to ease some of the tension

Sometimes there are things you find difficult to say or get out of your system

The king seems to know exactly what it is and will help you out by saying it or asking you simple questions that you can easily answer

And he always reminds you, no matter WHAT

YOU ARE NOT STUPID 😤😡

You may struggle with some parts of your life, but every day, he's constantly telling you that you're very intelligent and kind

His patience is unending and he'll never let you think down on yourself

Overall, Aragorn is always someone and reminding you that it's all going to be okay ❤❤

Legolas (Anxiety)

Most nights, Legolas keeps watch (since elves don't require much sleep) and notices that you jolt awake out of the random

Now, most of the Fellowship notices that you're usually awake and ready to go before anyone else

But Legolas is really the one to address you first

You were a bit nervous to explain, since you didn't want to worry him or the great of the fellowship, amount the other disadvantages you have

He gently encouraged you, and finally, you explained to him your sleep apnea

Yeah, he was very concerned

I mean, his blue eyes widened with terror when you told him that you could basically die in your sleep if you weren't attentive enough 🙃

Legolas, from now on, sleeps directly next to you, or keeps extra careful watch over you at night

Because he could NEVER see his precious mortal friend become injured... Or worse 🥺🥺❤

The other members had noticed a change in his behaviors towards you as well...

Gimli teased him whenever he caught Legolas giving you some extra lembas bread or offered to carry you 👉👈

You really tried to assure Legolas that it wasn't a big deal when you were awake, since you're aware of your breathing situation

But still 😤

Legolas will always bring you comfort and take great care of you, and that will NEVER CHANGE

Because he loves you very much ❤🦋

Frodo (Anxiety)

Frodo is familiar with the feeling of great anxiety, seeing he had a stress-free life while living in the Shire and suddenly was forced to carry a piece of jewelry all the way to giant ass volcano

It's easy for you two to comfort each other and seek refuge in thoughts and feelings ❤

He's not super comfortable with the thought of you having a panic attack though...

Only because he's never had one

It starts to give him a panic attack whenever you have one around him the first time 😳-

Any time you begin to breathe heavy or hyperventilate, halfling boy is hot at your heels, rubbing your back and reminding you to breathe gently

(So many hugs, if you're up for it)

After you calm down, he's constantly checking on you, asking if you need anything etc.

Really, he just wants to know if he can help 🥺

And even with the weight and stress of carrying the ring, Frodo manages to cheer you up somehow

Samwise (Asthma)

Sam has never had to deal with asthma once in his life

He's very nervous when the subject is brought, afraid it might trigger something inside of you 🥺👉👈

But you just chuckle, assure him that it's alright, and you have ways of keeping it under control

And now, he wants to know everything about it, just to have the awareness in case something happens

Sam just wants to protect you forever, and this was a great way for him to start

He constantly reminds Aragorn that you'll need breathing breaks and will convince Gandalf to let you ride on his horse

He'll scold Pip and Merry if they are trying to drag you around and be silly, because as he says

"You'll rouse him/her/them up! We can't have Y/N gettin injured!" 🤨😠

Sam is MOM

As always, he's very kind and always makes sure your needs are met ❤🥺

Pippin and Merry (Raynaud's Syndrome)

Very confused halfings 🤔

Also extremely concerned!

You were eating one of the lesser pleasurable nights

It was cold and rainy, and a fire couldn't be started, not to mention the quiet arguments of Aragorn and Gandalf in the nearby woods

And Pip's eyes widened when he saw the tips of your petite fingers begin to pale upon hearing Aragorn mention Orcs

"What's wrong with your hands?!" He squeaked, pointing towards your now white-colored fingertips

You hadn't even noticed, nor felt, considering they were numb anyways

Merry looked over his cousin's shoulder and his eyes also widened, not with fright, but wonder

They were both fascinated with your condition, convinced that you were casting some spell Gandalf showed you

Although you reassured them it was just an extremely frustrating inconvenience that you had, among other things

So from then on, the disastrobus duo did their best to keep you out of the cold (and stressful situations!!)

As a distraction, the pair will tell you great stories of the shire, doing little dances and skits that always cheer you up 🥴

Sometimes, they can be a little rambunctious though...

Merry will pick up on this fact quickly, and nudge Pippin to get him to calm down

Even though it may not feel the best

They find your syndrome absolutely fascinating!! 🤔🤔

All in all, these two are always up for keeping your beautiful smile on your face and your spirits high!! ❤🌺

Boromir (Depression)

Throughout the journey, Boromir has always found an easy way to make you smile

After all, he himself has a fascinating way of brightening anyone's spirits

Yours included ❤

Boromir may not have great stories from The Shire, like Pip and Merry, but he sure has a lot of positive things to say

He'll often suggest sparring with the two troublemaking halflings, just so you can see him goof up and get knocked over 🥺

If the nights become cold and weary, he'll give you a warm hug or a nudge on the shoulder

And a few words of helpful encouragement along the lines of;

"Don't fret Y/N. You have more strength than you'll ever know."

"Let our spirits never dampen! We've come this far!" 😊

He's also an incredible listener

Boromir wants to hear what you have to say if you ever need to rant or get something off of your chest

And don't think for a second that he would ever judge you 😤

Son of Gondor sees past all of your insecurities and knows you for your beautiful, amazing self ❤❤

Gimli (Walking disadvantages)

As you travel across great plains and mountains, your limp doesn't go unnoticed by Gimli

It may take him a while to open up about it, since he's afraid he might offend you in some way

And once he asks you, you inform him that it's a difficulty that unfortunately cannot be changed any time soon

And where you come from, lots of people tease and bully you about it

He did NOT handle it well 😳

"wHAT BLUBBERING DULL-MINDED PIGNUTS-" 🤬

Although this Dwarf is short and a bit slow at times

He's fascinatingly strong 😳

And so, he makes it his duty to be your designated carrier 🥺

At first, your a tad skeptical...

I mean, he's only around 4 feet tall...

BUT HAVE YOU SEEN HIM THROW THAT HUGE AX AROUND?!

Gimli will happily carry you great distances when you need a break, and even longer

(Sometimes it's just to show off around the others-)

"Gimli, are you sure you don't want a break?"

"Aye lass! The strength of Dwarves is unending!" 😌

*struggling to breathe*

11/10, fantastic dwarf, will never let you down!!

Thorin (Executive Dysfunction)

Another Dwarf??

Absolutely

Thorin himself has trouble keeping composure with his time management (and sense of direction 🙄)

This means that he'll have an undying amount of patience for you and you only

There's just something about you that he fond of, and it fills in that little sassy, brooding place in his heart

Can also relate to you whenever you grow frustrated at the setback of your journey or lack of sleep

Is 100% willing to help you find your lost belongings (and once again, ONLY YOU)

Thorin will literally make the whole traveling party stop so that you can put something in your bag and make sure that you put it somewhere you'll remember

Always happy to give you extra gentle reminders of keeping your pack closed

The company is utterly SHOCKED with how he treats you

I mean, this man has always been extremely stubborn and hard headed

But when you show up, it's another person he can easily relate and share frustrations with

Also a master at organization?!? 🤔

The one thing he could do successfully was organizing the damn journey and traveling company, so ofc he's gonna be good at that 😂

Yeah, Thorin definitely has a soft spot for you

King under the mountain will never run out of patience and kindness for you 😌💙

Sorry these took so long!! I hope you like them!! ❤❤

[adorehs]

12/12/12

Here’s my spooky-ish Harryween fic (a day late, which I apologize for!) This is one million percent not proofread and definitely very rushed and for that I am sorry. 

Summary: Detective!Y/N has trouble cracking Suspect!Harry. But he seemed to have cracked her. (4k words)

Warnings: violence at the end (this includes blood), mentions of death and murder, angst if you could call it that. I am probably missing some but PLEASE do not read this if you are not comfortable with the themes that are portrayed above.

They tried to pin a murder on him, little old Harry who couldn’t swat a fly. Not in his right mind, anyway. 

He was quite confused when they called him in with the intent of asking him questions regarding the night of December 12th. He doesn’t remember anything about that night at all, in fact. He was seemingly blackout drunk in the corner of his best friend’s apartment with a bottle of vodka in his hand and a hat fell on his face as his mouth fell open and soft snores fell out as everyone around him danced into the early morning. 

December twelfth. 

The day his mom died, the day he tries to forget every year, the day he takes off from work, the day he does everything but think.

He sat silently in the room- the walls a bleak grey and the lights dim. There were no windows except the small piece of glass that sat at the top of the textured door and in each corner of the room there sat a small security camera that followed Harry intently. 

His fingers tapped in a calming rhythm of threes and his leg bounced lightly in anticipation for his interrogation. His eyes darted from his hands that were splayed out in front of him to the camera directly across from him as he leaned father back into his chair and stretched his legs out fully. 

He let out a sigh as he sat in silence- he was bored and ready to go home. It was an utter waste of time in his mind- there was nothing he could give away. He wasn’t there, as much as he could match the description of a white male with brown hair with a few extra inches off the top of his head. 

The door squealed as it opened, a woman scurrying in with a folder of files in her arms and a navy pantsuit hugging her figure as she sits down at the table across from him, “Hi, Harry, I’m Detective Y/N Y/L/N,” her hand reached out calmly to meet Harrys. 

He watched her as they shook hands and he pulled his hand back and folded it into his harm, “Uh, just to be clear, there’s a microphone right there,” she gestured across from her where his hands once rested, “It’s quite small and you should refrain from putting your hands over it, unless you want to come back for a day of interrogation,” she chuckled softly. 

Harry nodded silently as she continued to stumble through her opening lines, “There are cameras in each corner so this is being recorded. Do with that as you will,” she sighs before opening her file and sitting up straighter than before. 

“Well, uh, Harry, I appreciate you coming in today. I know it’s a bit harder with cases like this… we try to refrain from declaring someone as, uh,” she paused to find her words. 

“Mhm,” Harry hummed in understanding. 

“As not being alive until we have evidence that they’re not, so we uh, we’re treating this case as an emergence.”

“Absolutely, yeah,” Harry commented with a small frown falling onto his face. 

“Okay so, uh, we’ll be fast forwarding through some details that we would finalize later and we will have this be a bit more thorough of an interview so we don’t have to keep calling you back again,” she trailed off into silence. “Theresa read you your rights earlier and I just want to reiterate that you can walk to the lobby if you ever feel uncomfortable and I will treat you with respect and have the same expectation for you.”

“‘Course,” he nods in understanding. 

“So uh, would you agree that there is a, a connection, uh geographically, with you and your mother Anne’s death and her, uh, supposed murderer Russell Williams?” 

Harry’s face fell slightly, “Uh, sure, yeah, geographically,” he was in a state of shock. He didn’t expect his mother to be brought up. 

“Alright so to be quite frank, uh, that’s a bit of why you were more of a suspect- matched the description from Miss Canaue, uh, Mr. Williams’s neighbor, and uh, your obvious connection with the man,” Y/N informed the man before him. Her eyes met his for the first time since she walked in and he appreciated the contact. He nodded as a response, urging Y/N to continue. 

“So, uh, let’s backtrack. Why did you miss work on the tenth? Your log reported you called in as sick, is this true?” 

“Yes, that is true. I had been getting over a stomach bug that weekend. Called in sick to finish my recovery,” Harry confirmed. 

Y/N nodded in confirmation, “And had you contacted your doctor because you had felt, uh, sick that weekend?”

“Not necessarily,” Harry trailed off, “I called so I could have him prescribe me more promethazine… but besides that, I did not speak to him about my symptoms.” 

“Alright,” Y/N glanced at the file that was open before her, “Were you bedridden for the majority of that day?” 

“No, I went to the grocery store that night and I picked up my prescription from the pharmacy round the corner from my apartment,” Harry explained. He stretched his legs out further, a nervous tick he had developed when in school. Y/N’s demeanor intimidated him- he felt his body trying to move at every opportunity to create distance between himself and the woman before him. 

“And do you remember the route you took to the grocery store?” Y/N asked with a slight quirk in her eyebrow. 

Harry’s brows furrowed at the odd question, “Probably went down Main Street and went to the Publix off 86th. 

“And you’re aware that Mr. Williams lives off of 86th?” 

“Sure,” Harry nods. 

“Alright, and I’m assuming you’re unaware that Miss Canaue saw a man with a similar appearance the night of the tenth?” Y/N’s eyes watched Harry’s carefully as he decided his next words carefully. 

“No, I did not know that, but I go down that route every day. Don’t see how that makes me a suspect.” 

“Yes, but you were sick,” Y/N pressed. 

“Yeah, had a bug,” he repeated. 

“Right, so you were sick and left your apartment once- possibly twice- that day and still managed to be around his home?” 

Harry let out an obnoxious groan and ran a hand over his face, “It’s the fuckin grocery store off the largest street here. If that makes me a suspect better get everyone who has brunette curls,” he argued. 

“Harry you’re not the only suspect. And you’re not on trial.”

He let out a scoff at Y/N’s ironic comment, “Yeah but if you don’t believe me, I will be,” he said, “Falsely,” he muttered. 

-

It was a wonder that he hadn’t taken up the offer to leave whenever he felt uncomfortable considering Harry was repeating a string of curses towards the poor girl in his mind like a mantra. 

He had been sitting in the uncomfortable fold out chair for two hours and Y/N’s posture has deteriorated significantly in their time- though she was just as scary as the first moment she strode into the room. 

Harry was deciding if it was the confidence that surged from her body or if it was the navy pantsuit she wore that made her seem like a lawyer going into the courtroom with a billionaire- she just had a way about her that screamed power and Harry loved it- he was intrigued and distracted by her, though he also wanted to shove her out of the room. 

“Mr. Styles?” she asked with a sharp tone, “On the twelfth you were out partying?” she asked, confused. 

Harry nodded, “Correct.”

“Then why did you take off work?” 

“It was the day my mum- Anne died. Take it off every year and go to my best mates house. He throws a party and I get drunk.”

“Mr. Horan, yes? He’s a suspect as well,” Y/N mumbled. 

“What did he get too close to 86th? Is it because he’s embracing the natural brown of his hair? Told him he should’ve stayed blonde,” Harry snapped back. He was impossibly tired and more than ready to be headed home- he didn’t do anything- that he was certain of. 

Y/N’s eyes trace her file and slowly find Harry’s, “If you don’t want to continue you are more than welcome to come back another day but I do not appreciate the tone you are using. You are not on trial and Mr. Horan is not on trial. We are just trying to find information.”

Harry’s eyes diverted quickly. He felt like he was being scolded by his mum after getting a bad grade on a math test; ‘It’s not my fault my teacher sucks!’ he would defend.

“It just seems like I’ve been here for ages and we aren’t getting anywhere- am I really just a suspect or are you lot convinced I’m the murderer of another murderer?” 

“It seems you have strong feelings towards Mr. Williams and it seems as though we are not reaching when we assume you had something to do with it- whether that be hiring someone or doing it yourself we don’t know,” Y/N sighs out. 

She uncrosses her legs and folds her arms above the table. Leaning into her own body, she comments with just low enough of a volume to be deemed seductive, “Am I incorrect with my assumption, Mr. Styles?” 

Harry mirrored her body language, “Extremely. I had nothing to do with this. Wasn’t even conscious.” 

“Am I incorrect in my reasoning?”

Harry takes a long pause knowing he has to choose his words carefully, “No but that reasoning can be applied to far too many people for you to make a definitive conclusion.” 

Y/N tuts softly while reading over her evidence, “Alright fair enough.” She maintains eye contact with Harry for a short moment before putting the papers back into the manila file folder. 

“What’re you doing?” Harry perks up, straightening his posture and pushes his chair back slightly.

“We have been going in circles for two hours. I think we are in need of a break, no?”

“Uh- sure yeah,” Harry left a pregnant pause before he spoke again, “Do you- uh- do you want to get food?” 

Y/N stood from her chair with a relieved sigh. She checks her watch before looking at Harry, “I think that’s a conflict of interest,” she sent him a soft smile. 

“What if we just conveniently end up at the same restaurant?” Harry asks, “Then maybe our tables are right next to each other so we just decide to sit at the same table to save space.”

Y/N lets out a soft chuckle and glances at the microphone that sat at the table. Harry eyes the microphone and stands up, his jacket dropping on top of it. 

“I’ll be at the café down the road in ten minutes- please don’t be late,” Y/N whispers. Harry sends her a smile before nodding slightly and picking up his jacket, making his way to the door, leaving in a hurried motion. 

Y/N smiles to herself before following him, leaving at a leisurely pace. “We’ll be back in an hour, Theresa. Keep the room open, please.”

-

Y/N was purposefully vague with her location- she didn’t know if he was just fucking around or if he genuinely wanted to have lunch. So, she settled on telling him it was a café- one of four that was down the road from the station. She said not to be late so she knew that if he found her, he was being serious. 

It was an odd precaution to take, but she was not going to allow Harry, a supposed murderer, seduce her into relieving his suspect status. She was careful and calculated for that reason. She wanted to ensure that he wasn’t using her in the many ways he could.

Y/N was a beautiful woman and Harry was not blind to that. She sat prim and proper and wore clothes that fit her body just right. Her face, though seemingly free of makeup, seemed to be the most attractive one he’s seen in ages- though he would never let that slip. As much as he could deny his involvance with the case, he was a suspect and getting lunch with his interrogator is all too suspicious to begin with. 

“You found me,” she smiled once she saw Harry’s curls in her peripheral vision. 

“Honest to god, it was the first place I looked. And I used to come here all the time. Food’s the best,” he said, settling in across from her. 

She looked up from the menu she held in her hands, “Used to?” 

“Am I still under interrogation?” Harry asked while setting his coat across his chair. 

“Are there still cameras here?” Y/N countered. 

“Probably,” Harry shrugged, “You can never be too sure.” He nodded in appreciation as a waiter passed him and handed him a menu of his own. “I stopped coming when my mum passed. We would come here for brunch every Sunday with my sister. Haven’t really been here all too often in the past few years.” 

Y/N hummed in understanding, “Makes sense. I only come here after a long shift. Not exactly my favorite place to eat but it’s close. And good enough.” 

“What do you mean not the best,” Harry’s jaw dropped dramatically. 

“What have you not been to the diner downtown? Maybe three blocks from here?” 

“Uh, no?” 

“Well that’s why this is sufficient for you,” she jokes, “Nothing compares to that place.”

“What does it have sentimental value to you?” 

“A bit. Used to go there all the time when I was in school. I did everything there- studied, talked,” she paused, “ate.”

“Yes, the most important. Eating.” Harry countered. 

“Okay, so what do you recommend from here?” 

“Well, for breakfast, I’d say the tofu scramble, for lunch I’d order the meatball sub- marinara and melted cheese of course,” Harry looked up at the girl in front of him to see she had a wide smile.

“Of course.”

“For a snack I’d get any pastry- they have new ones all the time so I just try what sounds good. They’re always unbelievable. And for dinner,” Harry hums while scanning the menu, “For dinner I liked the french onion soup,” Harry concluded. 

Y/N’s face scrunched together in disbelief, “French onion soup? God, you are crazy.” 

“I’ll be honest I don’t like it from anywhere but here. It’s just done so well,” Harry confesses.

“I won’t take your word for it. Sorry,” Y/N says, “But I will try that meatball sub. Can you order for me? I don’t know what exactly to say,” she trailed off, her lower lip jutting out slightly with that request. 

Harry hummed a yes before getting up to fulfill the request. Y/N’s eyes followed his body diligently. He walked with a sense of purpose and carried his body easily- it was almost scary to the girl who sits across from his empty seat. What was his purpose?

He stood watching the chef make their two identical sandwiches in a comforting silence. He was taken back to his youth where this was a regular occurrence- watching the older man as he puts the subs under broiler so the cheese could melt just right- something he always found fascinating. He could probably make the sub from memory after watching it be made so many times. 

He nodded in appreciation, paying for the subs in exact change before bringing them back to their table, “Two meatball subs with melted cheese and marinara.” 

“Of course,” Y/N smiled, beginning to eat the (surprisingly) amazing sandwich. 

-

Harry ended up going back to a station for another hour before leaving back to his studio for the night. He had a great lunch with Y/N and was filled with a lifetime of regret for not getting her number. He knew if he called the station for it, the call would be recorded and she would get in trouble. So, he was stuck. 

It was less than a day since their last meeting and there he was, sitting in front of a bare wall with his eyes locked on the texture that could be seen over the white paint. He found himself in a fit of fury with himself- maybe he should say he has more information so he could see her again? But he knew that wouldn’t bode well for the case.

He had no way to contact her, but then again, he wasn’t in a position to speak to her outside of the case anyway. He was still a suspect and she was still his investigator, even if she was a funny, uplifting girl who he had found himself thinking about constantly. 

The only way they could make contact would be if she went into his file to find his number, or in other words, their reconnecting lies on the flimsiest threads. And that devastated the man. 

He was apprehensive to go out drinking again. He always seemed to black out; not remembering a single detail from his previous night's adventures. But, he found that not remembering was the key to getting over the girl in the navy pantsuit, so he decided to forget.

He had gone out with Niall, going bar hopping for a few hours before Harry couldn’t stand anymore and he passed out in a bar bathroom. Niall was busy with a girl he had seen when he walked in so Harry was alone. He felt the world revolving around him as he laid against the bar countertop with his head on his arms. 

Y/N didn’t notice it was Harry when she walked into the bar. In fact, she didn’t even see him. His back was slumped over his body and the poor guy seemed to be out of his mind. It was a wonder that she had a feeling she knew the man. 

She stood next to him as she asked for a scotch on the rocks with a twist- her usual. She glanced at the man a few times, trying her hardest to not be rude, “I’m sorry, is he okay?” she asked the bartender who just shrugged in response before moving to another customer. 

Y/N let out a frustrated sigh before gently bringing a hand to his shoulder, “Sir?” she called to him. 

He let out a few grumbles before moving his head up slightly, “I’m alright,” he slurred together before dropping his head back down. 

“I don’t think you are,” she muttered to herself before sitting down in the seat next to his, “Do you have someone who can take you home?”

“I have two working legs.”

“I don’t think they are working very well tonight,” she chuckled at him. 

He groaned before moving his head to look at the girl who was sitting next to him, “My friends somewhere ‘round here,” his eyes shut even tighter than before.

That’s when Y/N recognized the man who sat next to her. Her eyes widened in realization, “Harry?” she asked in shock.

Harry’s eyes opened instantly at the sound of his name. He let out a sigh when he saw it was just Y/N. “Thought I heard my mum’s voice. Don’t do that to me,” he tells her. 

“Why are you here?” she asks as Harry sits up. 

Harry paused before answering, “I have my reasons.”

Y/N chuckled, “Well alright. I’m going to head out. Stay safe tonight, Harry,” she told him.

Harry was quick to reply, “Wait!” he called after her.

Y/N turned around, slightly unimpressed with his timing, “Yes?”

“Can I- can I get your number?” he asks, his syllables hardly pronounced. 

Y/N glanced at her friends who were off dancing before looking back at Harry, “Sure,” she responded. 

Harry’s face was quick to become one of pure excitement, looking exactly like a kid in a candy shop, “Alright,” he fumbled a bit while handing her his phone.

It was routine for Niall to be gone into the night with a random girl- truly it was routine for Harry to be gone too. But, he had a change of heart recently so he began wandering the streets on his own before finding his way home in the depth of the night.

He wasn’t fully sure of where he was going but he knew he would find his way back eventually- just an overpriced uber ride away from his home. He began by walking to his mother's grave. It wasn’t a new thing that he did but it hurt just as much each time. He would go sit with her and grieve silently as the night washed away from him.

Old habits die hard and there he was at the graveyard’s entrance looking to see if anyone was there. It was three in the morning but he knew the night was just beginning. People were still out and people, alike from Harry, were grieving. 

He sat there at his mother's grave for a while, his thoughts racing. He felt as if he wasn’t in control of his own body. The whole world was speeding by and his legs carried him in circles around the town, always leading back to the graveyard, as Harry’s brain was extremely detached from his actions.

That probably explains why what he did next was so shocking to him. 

He wasn’t fully conscious- he couldn’t tell you anything that has happened since he left the bar. Harry was out of it. That was a fact. He stood at his mother's gravestone, a knife in hand (the one he kept hidden under a pile of slowly rotting flowers that he would bring once a week). 

He stood to his full height when he saw the headlights approaching the lot next to him. Out stepped a young man white rich, red hair. He was tall, taller than Harry, and he had a devastated look on his face. 

Harry guessed the man was in his very early twenties. He looked like a university student who got to go off campus for the weekend. There seemed to be another person in the car but it was hard for him to see properly, ‘If I can’t see them, they can’t see me, right?’ he told himself.

Harry watched the man approach a grave a bit farther from where he stood. He waited exactly two minutes before walking towards him with a sinister smile masked on his face. 

The man’s eyes flickered to Harry’s before going back to the grave, “I’m sorry for your loss,” Harry speaks lowly to the man. 

He looked directly as Harry and mustered up a small smile before his eyes widened in realization. Harry’s hand made contact with his chest, the knife slicing through his body readily. The color of the crimson blood made him grin- he felt justice when he saw the blood oozing off another human: first his mum, then her murderer, and now an innocent. 

Harry was very satisfied, ready to walk back to his home and wash the blood off his hands, quite literally, when he heard a few footsteps crunching the dead leaves that had fallen on the ground in the dead of winter. 

And that’s when he heard her angelic voice calling out his name. He could only imagine the expression on her face while her voice, as smooth as honey, called out to him, “Harry?” 

He turned expectantly to the woman he had grown infatuated with, “Hello, Y/N.”

[hypnofur1]

Influencing the Influencer

By Hypnofur

“I have to say, I am loving retirement. This is my first year of being retired and it was everything I dreamed it would be and more. Everyone should retire at 36!” Dan joked into the microphone. The two radio guys laughed harder than they should have. While Dan knew that regular people couldn’t retire at 36, he wasn’t joking about loving retirement. He had been playing football since second grade. He enjoyed a 15 year career in the NFL. 13 of those years were in Cincinnati, but the last two were in Kansas City… where a SuperBowl was won in his last season.

Being part of a Super Bowl team, even as a backup like Dan was by the end of his career, makes you royalty in that city for the rest of time. Heck, ask the ’85 Bears about that. Especially in cities that love their team as much as KC. Dan always wanted to win one for Cincy, the city that he truly identified as home now, but that was never even close to being in the cards.

However, Dan was the only high profile guy from the Super Bowl team to retire after the big win. The rest of the guys pretty much stayed on the team, and were in the Super Bowl again this year. As such, all the KC radio and media people were desperate for a “Chiefs Insider” to talk to. Dan was flown down to Tampa for the week to do radio, tv, etc. He was considering a career in broadcasting, so this all-expense paid trip was a nice little trial run. The only downside of it, was that Casey didn’t come with him.

Dan’s wife was going to go to Tampa with him, and make a ton of Instagram videos and posts from Tampa. She was incredibly excited about it, as was the social media company that employed her to do all these blogs. Her sweetness, honesty, great style, and knockout natural beauty was evident to anyone who saw her, whether in real life or on a screen. She had sort of become “Cincy’s Sweetheart” over the years, so when influencers became a thing, she was in high demand. The Tampa vlogs were likely going to set records for likes. However, Dan’s mom broke her ankle in a fall the week before.

Casey insisted she stay home to help Dan’s mom. This is why Dan was head over heels for her. Yes, she was gorgeous. But she was also the sweetest, most wonderful wife in the world. While all the other players would have girlfriends and hook ups in each city, Dan never did. He was completely and utterly faithful to Casey.

With all this said, while Casey didn’t go to Tampa, she had to vlog about something. Trips to Dan’s Mom’s house during the day to help her out wouldn’t make good content. Such was the topic of conversation as the couple chatted on the phone Friday morning.

“So did you find anything to vlog about?” Dan asked.

“Ugh, I think so. They really want us to push groupon experience things. They gave DeAndra groupon passes to a comedy show, so we are going to do that.” Casey told her husband. She meant to sound a bit more cheery as she did so. She was trying so hard to not show her disappointment over not being in Tampa. She didn’t want to make him feel bad.

“Oh yeah, is Darnell going? If the dude is funny, the sound of Darnell’s laugh when he gets roaring is the only thing anyone in that place is going to hear! Hopefully the dude doesn’t make Bengals jokes. Darnell will get up on that stage!” Dan laughed, as did Casey.

“Did you drink tons of water last night?” Casey asked. She was always concerned about him.

“Hahah. I did. A whole river. I’m doing good. Three more days babe, then I am home to you. I miss you so much.” Dan said, very truthfully.

“Me too. I’ll tell DeAndra and Darnell you said hi” she smiled as she hung up.

Dan missed her terribly, but he was at least pleased that he’d have her vlog to watch later that night. He loved watching those. However, it was Friday night of Super Bowl week. Dan had a whirlwind day. He was treated like a Chiefs Legend because he was wearing that Super Bowl ring. He even got invited to a dinner with Joe Montana! He couldn’t pass that up. Dinner was great. Drinks were had, and not enough water was consumed. Dan passed out when he got back to the hotel.

It was late the next morning when Dan finally awoke. He realized that he had missed Casey’s Instagram vlog. He was surprised he didn’t have a text about that from her. He checked her Insta page. There wasn’t one from last night. That was really odd. He started to get a little nervous.

He texted her. “Hi, you ok? No vlog from last night?”

Fortunately, he got an immediate return text “Just filmed it this morning. Posting now J”

That put him at ease. He took a quick shower, and then grabbed his phone to see his beautiful wife’s angelic face. She was in her car. For some reason, that’s where people filmed themselves. Dan never understood why that was a thing.

“Hey guys, its Casey! Hope you are all having a great weekend! I know it is Super Bowl weekend, and that is super exciting for tomorrow! But, I wanted to tell you guys about a great experience me and my friends had thanks to groupon last night! My hubby is out of town, and I was feeling kind of sad, but then my friends called and said they had a groupon for an awesome experience. Totally changed the course of my weekend!

So we went to Funny Bone at Liberty Center, which is such a cute place! Anyway, my friend DeAndra told me the comedian was actually a stage hypnotist named Arnold Denton, aka The Amazing Hypno-natti. When I heard hypnotist, I was freaking out! Oh, and yeah, I found the name ‘Hypno-natti’ lame as well, but trust me guys, he is soooooo amazing!

So anyway guys, when we got in, I decided to put my fear aside and volunteer. Seriously guys, it was one of the craziest experiences I’ve ever had. Before we were even brought up on stage, we had to sign a waiver that basically said the hypnotist is not responsible for any injuries that may occur and all that other fun legal stuff. Guys, believe me when I tell you that I cannot recall a moment in my in my life that I was more nervous when I was up on that stage. The hypnotist explained to us, and the rest of the audience, that what we were about to experience was extremely different. Some of us would remember exactly what happened, and some of us wouldn’t. In total, there were probably about like twenty five of us lined up in front of the stage and the audience was told to be completely silent.

Right before we began, the hypnotist told us that we would be “under” for about a half an hour, but our bodies would react as if it had been asleep for 8 hours. So crazy! From what I can remember, it went a little like this:

We were told to sit down and just relax. With our eyes closed, we were told that we should feel this ‘energy of relaxation’ that would begin to pool at our feet and then work its way up to our body. All the while, there was this really strange music that was playing and the hypnotist was talking to us. After about 5 minutes he had us open our eyes and raise our arms horizontally and lock our fingers together so that we made a ball with our fists. At this point, we are still not under, so we were all aware of our surroundings and what not. Next thing I know, Hypno-natti is coming straight down the line and thrusting our hands down into our laps and pushing our heads down onto the shoulder of the person sitting to our left. It was about my turn and the last thing I can remember about this part is him yelling “Sleep!”

After the whole intro, we woke up and he was kind of pacing the stage and the audience was giggling and stuff and I can remember being super confused. I seriously thought that the show ended and I was actually asleep the whole time. As he was pacing, he was just casually talking to the audience and then he said “spark” (what I now know is a “trigger word”) and just like that it felt as though the wrath of God had come through the leg of the chair I was sitting in and electrocuted me in the butt! It hurt so bad; not like a long pain, but just like a jolt of electricity. I stood up so fast and everybody in the place was just rolling! I looked around and it was just me and another guy standing and grabbing our butts. He did this a couple more times and then triggered some of the other people and the whole time I just remember being super confused. At one point, I remember crying, because I had fallen deeply, madly in love with him, and he was dancing with someone else. It was soo crazy guys! Long story short, the hypnotist basiscally made us his personal puppets and we were slightly embarrassed, but it was all in good fun. My friends and I totally laughed about it all night after. It was a great experience that was all made possible through groupon!! Swipe up and see what other fun experiences they can save you a ton on. Luv you guys!!!” She concluded with a kiss of her fingers then the peace sign.

Dan loved to see her and hear her voice. He was wishing it wasn’t 48 full hours until he’d get to see her again. But it was. Those 48 hours went quickly at least. Frankly, it was a whirlwind. By the time he walked in the door of his spacious Cincinnati home Monday morning, he was exhausted – but so glad to hug, squeeze, and kiss his gorgeous brunette wife.

“Tell me everything!!” Casey said as she put some coffee on. She could tell by his face that he needed it.

Dan laughed as he admitted he exhausted. It had been quite a week of late night dinners, Super Bowl parties, and media work. It was terrific, but it wiped him out. However, he happily launched into his diatribe. He told her about all the radio shows he went on, and how he even did a couple TV spots. Casey squealed when he told her that he plugged her vlogs on all the local Cincinnati shows.

“ooooh My big media mogul!” Casey flirted. Her big brown eyes gazing into Dan’s. Then her phone beeped with a text, which was a constant occurrence. She grabbed it and checked the text. It was at this point that her expression changed. She became completely focused on the phone. It was like she suddenly forgot Dan was there.

“Who’s that?” Dan asked, realizing this was strange. Was someone hurt? Was something wrong? Casey didn’t answer. She just typed a couple things on her phone, and then walked upstairs, not even addressing Dan as she left. Dan found this very strange, but he also had to pee really bad. He figured he’d see what the deal was, but had to handle that situation briefly before anything else.

Much to his shock, by the time he got up to the bedroom, Casey was naked and wearing headphones. She was sprawled out on their bed, reclining in a mound of fur pillows. Naked and eyes closed with her blue bullet vibrator that they had bought as a sexy toy at their anniversary. Dan understandably figured that this was a “welcome home” sex game. He found himself immediately getting hard.

"I’m going deeper and deeper." Casey said quietly. Dan assumed she was talking about the vibrator going into her pussy. This was unusual sex talk from her, but he was still into it.

She moans, "Going deeper and deeper. I am deeply hypnotized. "

Dan was stunned. She was sooooooo freaking sexy with a nipple in one hand and that toy teasing the other one. But what did she say? Did she say hypnotized?

“Deeply hypnotized and deep under your control.” She whispers.

Dan heard that and got more concerned, but then couldn’t help but notice that he sound of the vibrator changed! She had turned up the setting. Soon, she was pinching her breasts and her hips are starting to rock slowly. She was moaning and purring. Dan was so hard he couldn’t think straight.

Casey turned the toy up to level 3; as fast as it goes. The next 4 settings are just various combinations of the 3 vibration speeds. Her hips were moving faster, her breasts were bouncing and she was having a hard time keeping the toy on her clit. Her teeth were clenched and she could feel the orgasm start to creep over her skin. . Her chest was heaving as she changed the setting on the toy again.

Slow, Slow, Slow, medium, medium, medium, fast, fast, fast

Slow, Slow, Slow, medium, medium, medium, fast, fast, fast

Slow, Slow, Slow, medium, medium, medium, fast, fast, fast

Slow, Slow, Slow, medium, medium, medium, fast, fast, fast

With hypnotic words and commands being fed into her mind, the orgasm raced up her torso and arched her body off the bed. Her neck muscles tightened and her eyes pinched shut as she screamed out loud and held the toy in place right on top of her clit.

"OOOOOOOOOOOOhHHHHHHHHHH, OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! I server Master Hypno-natti!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I belong to Master Hypno-natti!!!!!!!!!!!! OOOOHHHHMYGODMASTERRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Shock from Dan.

Awe from Dan.

Lust from Dan.

Fear from Dan.

Anger from Dan… and anger won.

He grabbed the headphones and ripped them off her. He yelled right into the microphone. “This is her husband, you sick fuck! Stay the fuck away from us, or I’ll rip your motherfucking arms off!!!!”

There was a click, and Dan knew that the person on the other end of that phone was gone. He turned his attention to Casey, who was now glistening with sweat, and still breathing heavy.

“Cay – Cay, wake up babe. Cay” he said, shaking his wife.

She eventually stirred, opened her big brown eyes and stared back at her husband. “Dan, what’s going on?” she asked.

“This is going to sound nuts, babe. But I think the hypnotist from the other night, like triggered you into masturbating for him on the phone.” Dan explained carefully. He wasn’t sure how his Catholic, surprisingly conservative wife would handle this manipulation.

He watched her face as the realization of what happened washed over her. He held his breath as he expected the tears to start rolling. Instead, she looked at him wide eyed. Then her beautiful big brown eyes slowly went down to his crotch.

“I missed you” she whispered, as she stared at her husband’s erection.

Confusion from Dan.

Fear from Dan.

Love from Dan.

Lust from Dan… and lust won.

He went down and made love to his wife. They kissed passionately, like the reunited lovers they were. Dan couldn’t remember the last time he was this turned on. He couldn’t wait any longer, and inserted himself right into his wife’s already very wet pussy. He glided right in. He didn’t last long in there. Within 30 seconds, he had finished. Casey giggled and gave him a loving hug. He crashed on to the bed beside her. Planning to only take a minute to catch his breath and then have a talk with his wife about the whole hypnotist thing, Dan accidentally fell sound asleep. The crazy week of the Super Bowl was just too much. He was out like a light, he didn’t even hear Casey get a text...

Dan slept for a good two and a half hours. He woke up to Casey lovingly rubbing his back.

“Hey babe, if you sleep too long, you won’t be able to get to sleep tonight. Your schedule will be all wacky.” She said lovingly. He knew she was right. She was always taking care of him.

Dan turned around in the bed and smiled at his beautiful wife. She had gotten freshened up, her clothes were back on and she was all together. God, she was so beautiful. Like a brunette angel.

“Hey, try this” she said, handing Dan a cup of tea. “It is a new chamomile tea they want us to vlog about. It’s actually reeaalllly good!” Casey said excitedly. Dan took the tea and tried it. He wasn’t a tea guy, but… anything for Casey.

“Hey, look babe, we have to talk about that Hypno-natti guy. I think he’s like still playing with your head” Dan said. He had always been direct. “When I came upstairs, you were on the phone with him I think, and you were, you know…”

“Playing with myself?” Casey said with a devilish, but so cute grin. She didn’t usually say things like that.

“Yeah” Dan said, surprised she said that out loud. He felt his dick stir a bit.

“Seriously babe, you are going to love that tea” Casey encouraged. Dan took another sip. It was pretty good.

“So, that was hot to see, I’ll admit, but you can’t have some guy like… controlling you to do sex stuff” Dan said, surprised he needed to map it out to her to this point.

Casey nodded. Then she looked at the bed sheet starting to tent around Dan’s groin. She laughed. “Well well, me thinks he doth protest too much” she teased. “OMG, I forgot to tell you. I saw the BEST movie on HBO Max when you were gone!” she said exuberantly.

“HBO Max? Babe, we should really deal with this hypnotist thing.” Dan said, what the hell was going on? His head was feeling a bit tingly. Boy, he must still be tired.

“I know Dan, and we will. I’m sorry, I have just missed you soo much. I saw this movie, and it was like, really sexy. And I can see that you are, you know… turned on right now” she said as she gently stroked his growing hard on.

“We can deal with this hypno stuff later. But right now, I am in the mood, and you are in the mood, and I want to show you the sexiest things I’ve ever seen on screen. Finish your tea and we can check this out” Casey said as she leaned into a sensual kiss with her husband.

Dan was a very smart man. He went to Notre Dame. He knew something was seriously fucked up here. But he was a MAN. And the curiosity of what kind of movie could have been so hot that it got her acting like this was just too curious for him to ignore. Against his better judgement, he let his beautiful wife lead him to their home theater room. He felt his head spin as he stood up from the bed.

“Take a seat in the middle” Casey directed with another long sensual kiss before turning on the surround sound and the media player. Dan’s eyes were glued to her. She was walking around such sexy confidence. He had never seen her like this. What the hell was in this movie???

Satisfied that the AV system was on and playing, Casey sat down in the large velvet chair next to her husband’s. The giant screen was black for a while, and Dan noticed that there was a humming coming from the speakers. The humming was vibrating through this very core. It felt… warm? Was that right? Soon there was a black and white spiral on the screen. What kind of HBO Max thing is this? Dan thought. Then he remembered the hypnotist. Wait, what the fuck? He went to protest, but he was becoming enthralled by the whirling spiral that had become the only thing in the room. He could feel it hypnotizing him, warm waves of relaxation moving out from it into his opening mind. Hypnotizing him. Hypnotizing Casey. Hypnotizing them with the way it spun around and around, always going deeper.

This was how it felt to be hypnotized? Dan thought to himself. He never could have dreamed how nice it was. How good it felt to be under hypnosis, under hypnotic control. He knew who the voice belonged to now, that it was Hypno-natti talking to them as they watched in a deep hypnotic state. Hypno-natti was amazing! Sooo amazing. Hypno-natti was the master of the fascinating, hypnotic spiral that controlled their minds.. He was telling them that it was time to submit their entire mind and body now, to go into a trance.

Dan knew he didn’t want to do that, but he felt a deep desire to obey, an overwhelming urge to submit. Pleasing Hypno-natti was most important. To go into a trance for Hypno-natti. Hypno-naitti’s voice was telling them to prepare to surrender totally to his hypnotic power. The spiral was turning faster now. Dan felt all his thoughts begin to move down into it. He could feel the intense hypnotic influence reaching out for his mind and he couldn’t help but submit. Faster and faster, round and round. He was falling into it. Falling faster and faster. She could see only an endless spiral in front of him now, a deep whirling tunnel that pulled him in as he stared into it. Hypno-natti’s voice was controlling their thoughts, hypnotizing them into total obedience.. There was only the spiral. And the voice. The whirling spiral. The soothing voice. Hypno-natti’s voice. Their master. Dan knew he must obey. Casey knew she must obey her master. They were hypnotized, so deeply and completely.

Next thing Dan knew, he was somehow in the foyer. When had he left the theater room? There was a knock at the door. He answered. There was a small scrawny guy about 10 years older than him standing in the doorway.

“Can I help you?” Dan asked, his head still cloudy.

“I’m the Amazing Hypno-natti” the man said. His majestic voice now very familiar to the former NFL start. “Invite me in” he commanded.

“Please, come in” Dan said immediately, stepping out of the way.

Casey had entered the foyer when she heard the knock. When she saw Hypno-natti, she was immediately overcome with desire. He was soooo sexy. The sexiest man ever born. She immediately felt her pussy moisten and her nipples get sensitive. She flirtatiously played with her hair and smiled at him.

“Hello my darling Casey” he said as he took her in. She was so incredibly beautiful with her gorgeous brunette hair, big brown eyes, and perfect trim figure.

Dan knew this wasn’t right. He could sense the attraction between them. What the hell? She was his wife. “Look buddy, I-”

“Dan, go into trance” Hypno-natti said authoritatively. Dan said nothing, but his hands fell to his sides.

“Casey, I am your Master. You desire me above anything else.” Hypno-natti said, feeling very confident that both parties in the couple were completely under his hypnotic sway.

He moved into Casey, kissing her neck gently. She was too lost in him to look over at her husband, who was still still standing next to her with a glazed, entranced look in his eyes.

At Hypno-natti’s direction, the three went upstairs to the bedroom. At this point, the hypnotist commanded Dan. "Take off your wife’s pants and panties”.

Dan rose to action slowly. "Yes, Sir," he said in a soft, deferential voice as he knelt in front of her and pulled down the black yoga pants and little satin panties that were meant for his homecoming.

“Lay her on the bed” Hypno-natti said as he took off his own pants. Dan complied and then went to stand up against the wall when instructed to do so. All this, despite the 10 or so inches of height and almost 150lbs of muscle that Dan had on the hypnotist.

Hypno-natti descended upon her, his face directly in front of hers. His eyes boring into her own. "Submit to my influence, Casey. Submit to my hypnotic power. Submit to Hypno-natti. Submit to hypnosis” he said as he again rhythmically put his cock against her body.

"Very, very good, Casey. You're blissfully floating, deeply in my erotic thrall, open to all my commands. Feeling so wonderful as you obey me. Realizing now that nothing seems important but obeying me, because it feels so wonderful, so sexual. You want the sexy feeling of obeying me, don't you, Casey?"

"Yes. I want to obey." She repeated happily, lost in lust.

"Very good Casey. The more obedient you are, the more wonderful you will feel. Only pleasing me matters now, nothing else. All you want now is the wonderful, sexual, floating feeling of obeying my voice. All you want is to be deeply under my control and to obey me. Tell me now what you want, Casey."

"Deeply under your control. Obey you."

"Do you want me inside you?" he asked the hypnotized wife.

"Yes!" Casey answered, no longer caring for her dignity, her marriage, or for anything but the prospect of being ravished by her master.

The man poked the head of his penis against her quivering opening, slight hip movements just threatening to penetrate her, but not quite.

"Tell your husband how badly you want me to fuck you."

Casey shut her eyes, ashamed of the words she knew she had to offer. "I want him to fuck me!" she offered to the room.

The man pushed her head to the side, making her stare at her husband, still standing against the wall, his penis slowly inching its way to a semi-erection with the spectacle. "Say, 'Dan, I need Hypno-natti’s hypnotic dick inside me.'"

"Honey!" she mustered. Pausing, unbelieving of her own abandon. "I need Hypno-natti’s hypnotic big dick inside me! I neeeed it!!"

With one sharp thrust, the man invaded her with the full length of his modest cock, and Casey cried out in surrender at the explosion of pleasure. He brought his face down to hers, leaning in as if to kiss her, his breath hot on her face, and slowly slid his dick out, his rock-hard shaft grinding against her achingly swollen G-spot. As she raised her lips to accommodate him, he pulled his face away teasingly and thrust himself violently into her again, eliciting another loud pre-orgasmic cry. For what seemed like an eternity, they kept up this erotic dance of desire and denial, his hands caressing her hair, the almost gentle play of his face so close to hers contrasting exquisitely with the force of his thrusts. Finally, he brought his lips to meet hers and kissed her deeply, the lustiness of his tongue's exploration telling her that he was just as aroused by her as she was by him. His cock driving into her more insistently now, faster, even deeper it seemed.

And she loved it - there was no use denying it to herself. The hypnotic power of his eyes, their entrancing gaze. Now the hypnotist was pulling her head back by her hair as he fucked her, running his tongue up and down her neck. Then unleashing her and licking her all over her face. Making her feel so owned. The pressure inside building now to unbearable intensity, the edge of orgasm too much to stand. "Oh... my... God!" she stammered.

The man now gripping the slats of the headboard as leverage to drive himself into her with as much force as he could. He wrapped his small ams around her, squeezing her to him, her tits pressed against his chest, making her feel what strength he had as he continued fucking her just as hard as he could. She wrapped her arms around her Master, wanting to feel him as much as possible.

“Cum for me now my pet and tell me that you now belong to me!” Hypno-natti grunted.

In a burst of mind-shattering pleasure, Casey felt every muscle in her body violently contract upon his words. Her nerves screamed in ecstasy. A long, wailing scream shaping the breath that rushed out of her lungs, forming finally into words..."

"OH GOD, I'M CUMMMMMIIIIIIING!!!!IIIIMMMM YOURRRRSSS!!!"

**********************************************

A week later…

“Hey guys! This is Casey. We are half way through February. I can almost smell the spring! Anyway, I want to tell you guys about something that I am soooo into right now. I’ve been totally improving myself through hypnosis. You guys might remember one of my earlier vlogs where I talked about a totally fun stage show I went to starring the Amazing Hypno-natti. Well, I’ve been working with him one on one on a ton of stuff and he is totally helping me with his incredible hypnosis skills. Dan too! So, swipe up to learn more about Hypno-natti. He has both sessions and videos available. And you can even find where you can try some of his unbelievable chamomile tea. Guys, it is sooo good! More vlogs coming this week, don’t forget to like and subscribe Luv you guys!!!” She concluded with a kiss of her fingers then the peace sign.

[siriusmuch]

years | lily evans

pairing: lily evans x reader ; sirius black x reader

warnings: angst. lots and lots of angst.

word count: about 4k, my longest story yet!

summary: requested by anon — prompt #91 (in the background, the music plays, a sad tune, full of wistful piano and haunting violin. there is nobody left to hear it.) from this list. you loved a lot of people, but you loved lily evans like you did no other.

a/n: thank you for the request! i hope you like this, i hate writing things with no happy endings but i couldn’t resist. there’s not going to be a part two for this, sorry! there is a part with sirius x reader in this, although it’s not the main ship. you’ll understand as you read on :) sorry that the ending is a bit rushed :(

masterlist here

-

1971.

In your first year of Hogwarts, you remember everything about your first day vividly. Your parents sent you off with a sad farewell, and you promised to write to them often. They shed a few tears, and you almost missed the train by how long your hugs with them were. They peppered your face in kisses, your mother holding onto your father’s chest as you waved goodbye to them the final time. You knew it was extreme, but you were 11, and you were going to Hogwarts.

You’ve been waiting for this day your entire life.

Your parents were the sweetest people you knew. Your birth parents had fallen ill with the Dragon Pox when you were five, and you were constantly around caretakers until they had passed. You didn’t remember them to the extent you would’ve liked. You were put up for adoption, and your parents — who were also wizards — welcomed you into the family without ever looking back.

You were exposed to tragedy early in your life, but that never stopped you.

You ended up sharing a train car with two other girls your age, although the three of you didn’t end up becoming very good friends. Excitement and jitters filled your conversations, although you were all sorted into different houses.

Upon arriving at Hogwarts, you were in awe. You’d heard stories about the beauty of Hogwarts, with their floating candles to the castle-like interior. You’d ever tried reading Hogwarts: A History, although you got bored quickly and opted to play quidditch in your backyard instead.

When your name was finally called, you took a seat and the Sorting Hat was placed upon your head. You beamed, although your leg shook with how nervous you were. Both your birth parents were Gryffindors, although your adoptive parents were Hufflepuffs. You didn’t mind getting sorted in either house.

‘Oh, a (Y/L/N)?’ The Sorting Hat hummed, and you nodded. Although you were adopted, your last name never changed. You appreciated that your parents never did so, because even though you didn’t consider your birth parents mom and dad, at least you had a piece of them with you. ‘Your parents were the greatest Gryffindors I’ve seen, although you have a heart of pure gold. The way your heart swells when you think of your parents show me your Hufflepuff heart. You’d do well in either of those houses.’

You beamed, nerves quickly washing away. You had grown up with Hufflepuff ideals, so you weren’t surprised that you were considered for Hufflepuff. ‘But… I think you’d do better as a Gryffindor. You have great things ahead of you, (Y/N). So…’

Your eyebrows furrowed at what the Sorting Hat meant by “great things”, but before you could ask — think? — the Sorting Hat yelled, “Gryffindor!”

Moving off the seat, you walked towards the Gryffindor table, sitting in the closest empty seat you could find. As more people got sorted, you turned to the girl next to you, a red-head with stunning green eyes, and introduced yourself.

“Hi! I’m (Y/N) (Y/L/N)!” You smiled, not knowing what was in store for you for the next ten years.

-

1972.

By the time second year rolled around, you had befriended the infamous Marauders. You weren’t necessarily as close to them as you were to Lily, but you found them funny. Except when James was asking out Lily — you always found yourself in a sour mood, although you had no clue why. You had came to the conclusion that you were just possessive of her friendship, since you had never been to close to someone else who wasn’t your parents to this extent.

You listened to Lily complain about the Marauders a fair extent. Remus was occasionally included in the complaints as well, although he usually got away with more things than the others did. You hung around Snape as well, although he never seemed too keen to talk to you. He seemed to tolerate you best when you were with Lily as well, although you always joked that being around Lily seemed to bring out your best qualities.

“What does Evans see in Snivellus?” James moaned again, putting his head down onto his textbook before peeking up at you.

“They’ve been friends since before Hogwarts, you know. You can’t separate them that easily, it’d be like if Lily constantly told you that you shouldn’t be friends with Sirius because he’s a Black.” You shrugged.

You and James had this conversation quite a few times. Lily didn’t necessarily approve of your friendship with him, but it didn’t stop you. Especially when you knew that James was a softie behind his egotistic exterior. You tried telling Lily this, although James always seemed to embarrass himself with Lily was around.

“But the point is that Sirius isn’t like his family. Snape fits in with those Slytherins, stupid pureblooded maniacs.”

“Snape isn’t even a pureblood,” you commented, “plus, not all Slytherins are bad. This is why Lily doesn’t want to be friends with you, much less your girlfriend.” You ruffled James’ hair, feeling a bit sick at the thought of Lily being James’ girlfriend.

You didn’t even believe in cooties anymore, and romance was cute. You had no idea why the idea of James and Lily made you feel so… sad. Shaking the thought off, you stood up.

“I should get going, I told Lily that I’ll join her and Snape to study potions. I’ll catch you later, James.” You smiled at him, taking your books and swiftly leaving.

-

1973.

By the time you were in your third year of Hogwarts, the mood shifted. No one was oblivious to this, but some people pretended they weren’t aware. Life became more intense, more stressful — there was a war building outside of the school, and fights broke out more often.

You made sure to accompany Lily everywhere.

You knew that Lily knew what you were doing, and you knew that she was a little annoyed by it. After all, she was independent and a brilliant witch, and more than capable of taking care of herself. But you were scared anyway. Scared for yourself and scared for her and anyone who wasn’t pureblooded.

But you tried carrying on with life as normally as possible, despite the fact that you subscribed to The Daily Prophet and read it every morning as opposed to just hearing news from your parents. You even wrote to them more than normal, and they sent you care packages about once a month. You didn’t need it, but you appreciated stuff from home. It made you feel safer, and you always made sure to share anything you got with Lily. You even tried out for the Quidditch team, having missed out last year. You ended up being their seeker, and you took pride in how happy everyone was in you. Especially how happy Lily was. You knew she was fascinated with Quidditch, despite being terrible at flying.

You grew even closer to James after you got on the Quidditch team, but a part of you always felt sad when you were around him. You still had no clue why, and it only intensified whenever Lily was brought up or associated, and you tried steering clear from the topic as much as possible without seeming suspicious.

There was a part of you that was confused, though. James and Sirius started hanging out at the library, and you didn’t know why. There were no pranks that happened, but they could be seen reading and researching something throughout the year. Peter joined them, although it was normal to see him in the library as well. Sometimes Remus was around, but mostly he was working on his own schoolwork. Whenever he was with the Marauders while they were off researching, he always seemed a bit nervous and exasperated at the same time.

You wondered, but you knew you wouldn’t get an answer.

-

1974.

“Don’t you find it odd that James, Sirius, and Peter always look so tired the day after Remus is out sick or his mother is sick? It’s like when he’s away, they go wild.” You brought up to Lily one day.

Lily shrugged, “They’re always a bit weird, though? They keep so many secrets… I would’ve expected them to be blabbermouths, but they never share any of their secrets. Haven’t you noticed that whenever someone is in trouble they end up at the scene?”

“It is odd… I don’t think I’d ever be able to understand boys,” you joked. Lily rolled her eyes, a fond smile on her face.

The two of you sat in silence at the Great Hall, watching James, Sirius, and Peter’s sluggish movements. A bit later, Remus came to join them, looking just as tired as they did. You exchanged a look with Lily.

Once again, you found yourself hopefully lost in Lily’s eyes. They’re always so vibrant, and you hated when they dulled just the tiniest bit whenever something happened with her sister. You wished you could take all her pain away, to always be there to pick her up no matter what happens. It pained you to be in a state where you couldn’t do anything to help.

“Earth to (Y/N)?” Lily snapped her fingers in front of your face, causing you to blink. “You’re staring again. Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah,” you said, a familiar flush creeping up on your face. You had the littlest of ideas why you kept on staring at her, but you didn’t want to feel this. Not towards Lily, at least. Not towards your best friend, who you could easily lose by admitting these feelings.

Fourth year was the year you started getting suspicious of the Marauders, realized your tiny crush on Lily Evans, and came out to your parents through a letter.

-

1975.

Fifth year was the year you became best friends with Sirius Black.

You had no idea why Sirius had started avoiding the Marauders, nor why they were so aggressive towards him. The entire group was tense, and from what you’ve been told, you knew that Sirius did a terrible prank that was unforgivable. You knew that James was upset that you were hanging out with Sirius, but you had came to the realization that Sirius was rather… lonely, at least without the Marauders around.

There were always rumors circulating at Hogwarts, but as you talked to Sirius, you realized that it wasn’t as true as it seemed.

The two of you were currently out after curfew, hanging out in the astronomy tower. You were smoking a cigarette that he’d passed you, and you just stared up at the ceiling.

“You’re in love with Evans, aren’t you?” Sirius interrupted your silence.

You turned to face him, your eyebrows furrowing. You could feel a sick feeling starting to build in your stomach. No one knew this, even though you had came out to your parents as attracted to both boys and girls.

“Why do you say that?” You hesitantly asked.

“You’re always staring at her. You always perk up when she’s mentioned, not to mention you always get moody every time James talks about liking her. You glare at any people who try and ask her out on dates. Only an idiot wouldn’t know.” Sirius turned to face you.

“Merlin, is it that obvious?” You groaned, “Yeah, I figured out that I liked her last year. But I don’t even know if she likes girls like that. Not many people are accepting, you know? I don’t even know if you are.”

“It’d be ironic if I didn’t accept it. I’m in love with Remus.”

“You are?” You blinked, jaw dropping a bit. You didn’t know if anyone else in Hogwarts was like you, but here Sirius was. “Do you just like guys or…?”

“I don’t know yet. I think both, kissing girls is nice, but with Remus…”

“With him, it’s different.” You finished his sentence.

-

1976.

In sixth year, you hung around Lily a lot more. She was still struggling after what Snape had said to her, and you once again wished that you could take away her pain. She was suffering, and you didn’t know what to do to help her.

You had asked James for a passageway out to Hogsmeade, and you snuck her out despite her poor protests. The two of you drank butterbeer while you let her cry (for the final time, she swore) on your shoulder. Eventually, her tears faded out and all there was was anger. Anger for not realizing just how much Snape had changed, anger for being so dumb, and anger that Snape was becoming just the type of person who wanted her dead.

Sixth year was also the year where James and Lily started becoming friends. It didn’t happen immediately, and they still argued. Their differences continued being highlighted, but as James helped Lily loosen up, Lily was able to reign James in a considerable amount. At this point, you knew that it was inevitable that they were going to date. You felt jealous, but you still suffered in silence. Instead, you started spending more time with Sirius.

It was nice to see everyone in semi-good spirits, though. Especially when the air at Hogwarts started becoming increasingly tense. The Marauders had made up, and although Snape tried to grovel at Lily’s feet and beg for her friendship, things were as good as they could be.

Life went on.

Before the end of sixth year, Sirius pulled you aside.

“I have a question to ask you,” Sirius started. You raised an eyebrow, telling him to go on. “We’re both in love with people who… to put it frankly, won’t love us back. Do you want to go on a date? We deserve better than to pine for people who won’t feel the same.”

You were shocked at the question. You didn’t know what to say, because you’ve always been turning down dates. But you knew that Sirius had a point. “I… Yeah, let’s do it. Next Hogsmeade weekend?” You asked.

And so, you and Sirius started dating. Congratulations started pouring from everyone you knew, and you were sad to see Lily be so utterly happy for the two of you.

-

1977.

Your seventh year at Hogwarts was a weird combination of things. For one thing, you didn’t really expect James to become head boy, but you weren’t surprised that before the new year started that he and Lily started going out.

Your heart still hurt every time you saw the two of them together. They were happy in their own world, light pecks all the time, and you missed Lily a lot more now that she didn’t even sleep in the girls dormitory. You cursed whoever made the heads their own quarters instead of them sleeping with the rest of the year.

You were still dating Sirius too, despite the fact that both of you were still pining over people who wouldn’t love you back. You guys were as happy as you could be, given your position. Whenever the other felt too sad, there would be ice cream and cuddles. You guys kissed, but you knew that there was a low chance that it’d ever get further than that. Both of you knew that this relationship was just a distraction from your true feelings.

At the first quidditch match of the year, right after you had caught the snitch, someone had cursed your broom and you fell right out of the sky. You were in the hospital wing for three days, with a terrible concussion and too many of your bones broken, but you lived. You never found out who cursed your broom, but everyone was on their toes for the next few days. You knew that Sirius and James blamed the Slytherins, and a part of you agreed. After all, there were some Slytherins who made it obvious that they supported Voldemort.

This was also the year where you and Lily were filled in on Remus’ condition. Lily confessed that she already knew that Remus was a werewolf, although never knew why the other boys were always so tired. After reassuring Remus that neither of you were going to stop being friends with him, you begged Sirius to turn into his dog form for cuddles.

Things were as good as they could be.

-

1978.

You broke up with Sirius before the school year ended. The two of you knew it was coming, and it was always a question of who would ask first. The Marauders seemed upset with you at first for “breaking Sirius’ heart”, although Sirius constantly reprimanded them for it. You were still good friends, and you both were more physical with each other than regular friends, but it was nice.

The day you graduated, you cried. A lot of people did, so you weren’t alone, but you knew that this would be the last time you’d be in Hogwarts as a student. You probably would go see Dumbledore a few times in Hogwarts, especially after being recruited for the Order of the Phoenix like your other friends were.

That summer, in the mail, you received invitations to Lily and James’ wedding. You already knew that they were getting married, but this just solidified the fact. Sirius came over that day, and you cried, not that you’d ever admit that to anyone else other than him.

You attended the wedding with Sirius as your +1, although he was invited too. You knew all of your friends were a bit confused about where you and Sirius stood, but you never really gave them an explanation.

Before the end of the year, Remus was sent out to talk to other werewolves to try and recruit them for the war. This time, you went over to Sirius’ place to try and relieve some of the anxiety he felt. You were anxious too — even though you weren’t as close to Remus as you were to Sirius, you knew it was a risk. Everything all your friends did was a risk, and you were constantly worried for them.

-

1979.

Your arm burnt with the Dark Mark.

You were sent to infiltrate the Death Eaters by Dumbledore. The only person who knew of your mission was Sirius, and you feared the day that you’d end up having to fight against your friends as a supposed Death Eater.

You weren’t a hateful person, but every time you insulted muggleborns or said anything even related to pureblood supremacy, you wanted nothing but to hate Dumbledore. You were resilient, and a good witch, and your acting skills were top notch after hiding your feelings for Lily for so long.

Your life was constantly at risk, and you wrote letters to all of your friends explaining everything in case you died. You were building up rank in the group, and eventually, you would be one of Voldemort’s most trusted members. You filled him with lies about who was fighting against him, never actually giving up anyone who was in the Order. You had learnt occlumency so you weren’t as vulnerable.

You barely saw any of your friends that year. You had moved houses when you were assigned to the job. Sirius informed you that he suspected that there was a spy in the Order, and you told him you’d keep an eye out in case there was someone in the Death Eater meetings that you recognized.

“I think… it may be Remus.” He admitted sadly that same day.

“Remus? Our Remus? He’s loyal beyond everything.” You protested. “We already know what mission he’s doing, and I would suspect Remus the least out of almost everyone.”

“But isn’t that the point? He’s been alone his whole life, hating himself for being a werewolf. Suddenly, he’s with other werewolves, and he feels like he belongs. We never see him, and all Dumbledore and Moody say is that they’ve been in touch.” Sirius shoved his face in his hands, sighing. “This war is a bloody mess.”

You shook your head, “I don’t think Remus is the type to submit to his urges so easily. You’ve met the man, Sirius.” You leaned your head against Sirius’ shoulder. “I haven’t seen you in two months, Sirius. Between Remus and I, I’d be more suspicious. I bet some of the other members already are. All they know is that I’m on an important mission and I can’t see anyone. Suspecting each other will just bring our downfall.”

Sirius grew quiet. “I’m sorry, (Y/N). Some people do suspect you, but to be fair, you haven’t been to an official Order meeting in months. I haven’t even seen you for the longest time. Only Moody, Dumbledore, and I know what you’re doing. I wish I could tell them so that they don’t think that way anymore, but I can’t.”

“I hate this so much. Merlin, I need a drink.”

-

1980.

Between pretending to be a Death Eater, working for the Order and gathering intel, and then finding out about the prophecy and how Lily and James were expecting a child, you were running yourself thin. You were utterly exhausted at this point, and all you wanted was a break. Somewhere where this war didn’t exist.

You still hated yourself for loving Lily to this extent. Hated that you still couldn’t let her go, and hated that she probably thought you were leaking information to the Death Eaters.

A part of you wished that you told Lily of your feelings for her while you were still in Hogwarts. Before everything in the world became reality for all of you. You felt stupid for thinking this way, but you ultimately wished things were just different.

War really was draining.

-

October 31st, 1981.

The morning of October 31st, 1981, you were called to a Death Eater meeting. There, Voldemort and a few of his trusted members were waiting for your arrival. There, you saw a man you hadn’t seen in almost a year.

Peter Pettigrew.

Did you two get sent on the same mission by the Order? You masked your expression of confusion, looking at him and the fear evident in his face. You wondered why they would send Peter, of all people. You adored Peter, he was like a little brother to you, although you knew how easily he scared when he was on his own.

“Good morning,” Voldemort started speaking, “For the past year, (Y/L/N) has been telling us insider information about the people fighting against us.” You forced a smile on your face, ignoring Peter’s heavy stare. All the information was fake and staged, although Peter couldn’t possibly know that unless he was informed you were on this mission and you weren’t.

“But, a week ago, Pettigrew was able to tell us the location of the Potters.” Your eyes widened just a tiny bit, “They had tried using a Fidelius charm so that only a trusted person would know where they were, and I’ve been planning on taking down their child in this time. As you all know, the boy who was born in July is the one who is supposedly going to destroy me. I cannot allow that to happen, and Pettigrew supplied me with the information I need while the baby is at its most vulnerable.”

You willed yourself not to react until the meeting was over. The moment you were allowed to go, you left as quickly as possible, avoiding Peter. Casting a patronus charm, you sent out a message to Lily.

“Lily, I was on a mission to infiltrate the Death Eaters and Pet…”

Before you could finish your sentence, you were out.

That night, in Godric’s Hollow, a motorcycle revs as it leaves the vicinity. In the background, the music plays, a sad tune, full of wistful piano and haunting violin. There is nobody left to hear it.

[blackfemmecharacterdependency]

27. A Night to Remember

Word Count: 4517, Content Warning for Sexual Themes. Jammed Beychella/Homecoming, This Song, and Used This Video. 

Previous

Grace woke up on her 23rd birthday, on September 23rd with Hazel in her room, wearing a hat and a tie, with a tray of breakfast and a flower, watching her with anticipation. “Oh! Hazel! You shouldn’t have. What time did you wake up today to do all of this?”

“Don’t get too excited. Everything on this tray is inedible, but I did my best, because this is your first birthday as my mom!” Grace collected Hazel to herself and kissed her on the cheek. This was a very special birthday for her. Grace loved the number 23!

Being born on that day might have something to do with it, but she was also very interested in the fact that it had a lot of significance in various belief systems and there were a few instances of people obsessed with it. Now, she was becoming that age (only for a year), but the first day was very important to her.

She wanted inner peace, alignment, awareness, and everything else well wishers would wish to be manifested in her life.

After she got Hazel off to school, she told Simon that she would visit, to collect whatever gift he wanted to give her. He was in New York for the week (she hoped for something other than trying to give her a birthday gift, but he was very vague about why he was there), and since she still wasn’t keen on him knowing where she lived, she told him that she would stop by where he was staying, but it probably wouldn't be until later that evening, or the next day.

She had plenty to do before getting Hazel after school. Spa day with 23 treats, hair and makeup, fashion stylist, and a birthday party with some of her favorite local musicians performing… Well, the spa day at least was during school hours. Hazel was going to spend her first night since she became a Monroe away from home. Lucy's parents were allowing her to stay there a couple of nights, as Grace would be both celebrating and recovering from this time. THEN, she and Hazel were going to spend the weekend going to an amusement park, a wildlife park and animal sanctuary, and a live filming of The Mighty Tuba and Her Musical Friends. (Because Grace felt guilty about taking 3 days to herself, even though Hazel repeatedly promised her that she wanted her to enjoy those and that she deserved a little break).

For Grace, a spa day was "a little break," she might as well be abandoning Hazel in the woods for this! Surely, she knew that was an exaggeration, but she felt really bad and several times considered not doing her birthday plans. When her mother offered to come there and stay with Hazel to ensure she took a few days, she decided to just let herself enjoy the plans. Besides, she was going to be checking in with Hazel and Lucy's parents had her direct phone number in case of any emergency.

Being pampered to the absolute fullest, styled like a swan goddess, and escorted with a dope entourage of fly ladies to her birthday party, she absolutely forgot about Simon's gift. She didn't remember until all the performances were over and there was something similar to an after party in the VIP and one of the staff asked her if she knew a dude named Simon Lawrence. She looked towards the door and saw Simon outside looking extremely nervous and ready to take off running at any moment. "Let him inside," she said, mostly out of guilt. He probably saw her tagged here on someone's posts. She greeted him with a hug, "Hey, I'm so sorry I didn't stop by! The night got away from me!"

"Don't mention it. I just wanted to be able to say happy birthday to your face because you were able to for mine."

"Cool. Umm…" she introduced him around the circle and with one particular person said, "And you probably remember," (he didn't hear the name), "from Julliard." The woman looked just as suspicious of him as she had whenever he stopped by the school. He guessed they were friends now.

"Simon, what did you get Grace for her birthday?" One of the guys asked. He was a Black ginger with a huge pony puff tail and a braided beard.

"Ummm… I got her a few things."

"Like what?" One of the women asked. Simon recognized her as the woman who claimed to be Grace's best friend on social media. (The same that Grace called to talk to about him showing up out of nowhere, but he didn't know that). She had numerous piercings and a tattoo that stretched seemingly over her entire body of a Phoenix.

"Just some… she'll tell you later, I'm sure. You're her best friend, right?"

"Right," she said, her brown eyes cutting into him. Also seated there was Shana, in all black, with a light skinned woman on her lap, dressed in all gold, with a huge blond afro and glittering makeup.

"Is.. this a costume party?" Simon asked.

"It's an autumn gala," Grace said and gestured to an empty seat near the best friend. He sat down and the only other white person with them shifted a little to make room. "Oh, um… Simon, my friend Tulip is an engineer too! She works at a videogame place or something. You two might talk on that…"

"Simon," Tulip said, "What's your favorite Grace Monroe original song?"

Simon tilted his head. It seemed everyone was going to just ask stuff about Grace. "Stingray."

"Okay. Why?"

"Ummm… it's about me," he said and fiddled with his fingers.

"So is Bastard King."

"So is Have At It Bruh"

"So is You Thought…" Grace let out an embarrassed laugh as all of her friends spoke at the same time. "So, all of you really wanna bring up old stuff?" She asked. "Simon and.i are in a good place now." The best friend made a face that seemed to conflict with that.

"Did you come to New York for her birthday?" Ginger dude asked.

"No, I've got a potential career opportunity, and I came to speak with a company about that," Simon said.

"Like an assignment?"

"No, a permanent position."

"You… you might be living here?" Grace asked. She didn't seem very "in a good place* about it, and she didn't wait for an answer before she got up and walked away. The best friend, Shana, Shana's girlfriend, Tulip and another girl who seemed to be Tulip's girlfriend all got up to follow her. Simon ran a hand through his hair and let out a breath.

.

"Moving here? He thinks he can just move HERE??" Grace asked, ready to cry. "Like it's not enough that my parents had him in their space the last time I was there, now his ass is coming here???"

"Good place, huh?" Her best friend asked.

"You know how she is, Damita," Shana said. “Don’t let him get to you. He would love that. Just make him EAT it. Go back out there, have a good time right in front of his face, then never say another word to him again.”

“She wants to say another word to him. That’s why she said he could come in and sit with us,” Damita said. “What you might as well do is have a birthday hookup, get your gifts, get off, and get on with your life.”

“NO!” Shana squealed. “She can’t fuck him! That’s what he WANTS!”

“It’s what she wants too! She can get it out of the way, and not have to wonder if she’s all caught up because of that itch and just… move on from his ass."

“Can I talk?” Grace asked. They all looked at her. “I like all of these ideas. I don’t think I have an itch, though. It’s more like… I just want to be able to do it without being connected. I feel like the last time I was bamboozled. I wanna… I don’t know… bamboozle him. Because, he’ll think it matters to me again and I’ll be like Boy, Bye.” Her friends cheered and applauded. “But first, freshen up selfies…" They helped Grace refresh everything, then they took photos and posted them before stepping back out. Grace came back out and sat on Simon’s lap. He stiffened up and stared at her, but she didn’t glance at him for a reaction. Instead, she just resumed conversation with her friends. Eventually he relaxed and dared to rest an arm around her waist, but she looked down at it and looked at him, so he removed it, confused.

Shana took to the stage and said, “Okay, so we all know that our birthday girl Grace been partying like it's Beychella in here!” People screamed, particularly the ladies with Grace. Simon winced at the loudness. “Well, you all saw me and her dance and you like it and you love it. You heard some great music, but Miss Thang Thang Boo Boo hasn’t sung yet. So, I would like to request a little song called Figures, it’s by Ms. Jessie Reyez and I just know that my good sis knows it and I’ll bet she sounds better. No shade, no shade. Get up here bitch.”

Grace laughed and stood up. Shana tossed the mic and she caught it. “Bitch… You could’ve hurt somebody!” The music started playing and Grace strutted towards the stage, singing, “Figures. I gave you ‘ride or die’ and you gave me games. Love, figures. I know I'm crying 'cause you just won't change. Love figures. I gave it all and you gave me shit Love figures I wish I could do exactly what you did..” Simon stirred as she headed for the stage. He had been looking up the lyrics to some of Grace’s songs and was glad that she wasn’t going to sing one of those, but… this one was as bad. But, she was in the zone and the crowd loved her. Shana was drunk and rocking against her on the stage, sporadically pointing at him and lipsyncing lyrics.

By the end of the song, he felt shittier than he had whenever he first sat down in the clearly unfriendly environment. He had to keep reminding himself, like the song said, this was his fault… But.. she was wrong about one thing. He would change. He HAD changed and he would do anything to prove it.

Grace passed the mic back and Shana said, “Hey, did y’all know that I can sing too?”

“NO YOU CAN’T!” Shana’s girlfriend yelled across the room.”

“I can’t? Watch this, watch this, watch this…” Grace watched as Shana began a terrible, tone deaf, “I was BORRRRRRRN by the river…” Grace quickly caught on. She knew where this was going. Shana was a fool and sent that video to everybody after it was brought up with one of her older friends… As Shana began the short rap, Grace twerked on the stage and Simon clutched the seat. He had never seen her do that in person before. She didn’t used to do that type of dancing, and it was so much nicer than in the already titillating videos. Shana and Grace hugged and then Shana insisted, “Play more Beyonce. Beyonce and Solange, that’s all we need right now.”

That was the alert for all of the ladies in Grace’s party to rush back to the dance floor. Simon realized that there were only two guys there and they got up and left eventually, hugging and kissing the ladies on their way out. Simon stayed at the table. The ladies eventually made it back to take a breather and to have drinks. Grace only had water with lime and mint, but she was really enjoying herself. He was glad that she wasn’t angry about him thinking about moving to New York. He wanted to be closer to her, but it also was an amazing opportunity for his career.

A song began to play and every last one of the women there bent over and began to shake… Even that girl Tulip was dancing like nobody was looking, up against her girlfriend. Grace and Damita’s shaking was almost directed right at Simon. He sat back, unsure if he should maybe move. Damita moved closer to his lap and made eye contact with Grace. He didn’t know what for, but Damita was practically giving him a lap dance. Was… this some sort of test? Because… she certainly was attractive, but how much of an ass would he be to let this be a problem for him in front of Grace?

Grace hardly seemed to mind. She climbed the chair, threw one of her legs on Simon’s shoulder and began a body roll right in his face. By that time, he was certain that they were trying to kill him. He felt faint, but he held on to her, because this seemed unstable, even for somebody graceful and he was worried that she might fall. He wasn’t trying to feel her up… there just was no innocent way of holding her there. She smelled SO good, he was weak. Damita moved away, to dance with Shana and Tulip. By the end of the song, Grace climbed down and straddled Simon’s lap, her arms rested on his shoulders, staring into his eyes. He looked completely infatuated. “Can I come over?” She asked him…

Like he would have said no under ANY circumstance, much less after 3 full minutes of her grinding her business in his face. He was careful not to move his hands to wrap around her as he nodded, trying to stay composed. She might just not want to be home alone on her birthday or something. She most definitely probably was not interested in doing anything with him.

After a few more minutes, the ladies closed out their tabs, Grace grabbed a ridiculously long fur from the coat room and the others were putting on their coats and stuff. Simon noticed some hand signals and facial expressions, and at the end of all that and the walk to the elevator, he noticed that Shana looked mad. Her girlfriend was trying to talk her down. He heard something like, “She’s worked too hard to let this bullshit start up again.”

“What was that?” Simon asked, a bit defensively, unable to hold back. It was still Shana, to him and he had been taking shit off of her all night. But, whenever he spoke, it was like he’d lit a fire under her ass. Shana pushed passed her girlfriend and lunged with her fist at him. Grace squealed and moved out of the way. Tulip’s girlfriend ducked behind her while Shana’s girlfriend just shook her head, Grace steered clear and Tulip tried to stop Shana. She was punching Simon in the head and neck, much like Grace had on the terrace all those years ago. The only problem was that he had apparently not been able to take a punch as well as he used to since his near death experience… or Shana was extremely vicious.

“Shana! Shana, STOP!” Grace yelled.

Shana only stopped whenever the elevator doors opened and she was yelling at him as Tulip and her girlfriend pulled her out. Shana’s girlfriend said, “I’m sorry. She had way too much to drink tonight. Grace has all our contact info for like bills or whatever…”

Simon shook his head and waved a hand, but he was hesitant to leave the building until Shana’s yelling was far enough away. Grace took a deep breath and checked his head, “You okay? She had on rings. She got a lot of your skin off of your chin and neck.”

“It’s my fucked up side, so that’s fine.” She looked at the old scars, including the big one on the side of his head, where his hair no longer grew.

“I can drive,” she said. He nodded and pulled out his keys. She was able to put the address in her maps and get them there no problem. She felt bad, now. For the plans that she had for him tonight… but, she remembered that when he had the chance to hurt her, he didn’t give a fuck what else she had going on, so they’d tend to those little injuries and she was going to ride his face until she got tired and go home… Maybe some other things, if he played his cards right.

Simon was exhausted and felt terrible, but Grace had her little medical kit and was being helpful and gentle, which just made him want her even more. “Hey… thanks.”

“No problem. It was my friend that busted your ass up,” she snickered when she said it. “I was surprised that you didn’t at least get her off of you.”

“It was a small space and you were right next to me. I didn’t want anybody else to get hurt if it could just be me.” She pursed her lips and finished up.

Whenever she was done, she put her things away and finally took off her coat. The outfit looked even better in the closed space of his bnb rental. She kicked off her shoes, as most of the place appeared to be carpeted and she went into the kitchen. “I’m a little hungry. You got anything?” She was looking before he had a chance to answer and he got up to join her.

“I can make you something.”

“Cool,” she said. “You haven’t cooked for me since… Oh. That weekend.” She looked hurt as her mind traveled back to that time.

“I hate me for that, too,’ he said. He pulled out some stuff to cook. “Do… you want me to get your presents while I cook?”

“Oooh, yes, please!” She said, smiling, trying to forget about thinking about that weekend too much. He took off towards the back of the house and she glanced around the place. He had three laptops on the desk in the living room, the dining room table was covered in what she recognized to be the organized chaos of his work, and he had a cat tree next to the couch, which was white leather, and had earth tone throw pillows on it. She wondered where the fracking cat was. Probably hiding somewhere. She stayed hiding whenever they were younger, and probably did more now that she was hella old.

Simon came back in and had a two tier trolley cart with a huge basket at the bottom and a wrapped box and a bouquet on the top. Grace made an excited sound. She LOVED receiving gifts and she always would. But, the bouquet was an arrangement of blues and purples - hydrangeas, asters, large daisies, bluebells and large pink roses, PLUS, she saw from the tag that he had got them from a friend’s shop (that she realized he probably found on her page, somewhere). He asked, “Can I take photos?”

“Sure.” She opened the box first, because it was closer and when she did, she pulled out a few things… The first was a doll of some sort, dark brown skin with goddess locs, pulled up in a headwrap of flowers (like she would frequently wear her hair to school), a halo crown, and a gold dress with jade jewelry and chartreuse accents… “What the fuck is this, Simon? Is this… me… at our dance?”

He smiled, “Sort of. That’s the prototype of the Idol Princess. I’m going to have dolls manufactured.” Grace didn’t know if she wanted to reach into the box again. The doll was beautiful. The likeness was uncanny and the attention to detail on the dress… she couldn’t even remember that damn dress, but looking at it, everything looked exactly as her brain seemed to be piecing together. “You hate it.”

“I don’t hate it. It’s beautiful.” That was just… a little bit much… a lot much, actually. She set it aside and found a scroll with her name’s meaning, with the backdrop of artwork of her face. Beautiful and sweet. A Libra crystal collection in a very nice box with beautiful accompanying cards. She wasn’t a huge mystic, but she did love the idea of having things that might shift energy or help to feel certain ways near her, so she definitely loved those. There was a book that she had mentioned wanting to buy (officially letting her know that he was stalking her pages again), but she didn’t mind. It felt like old normal but with her new self awareness. It didn’t matter, because she wasn’t doing anything to provoke or tempt him or encourage him… though as she kept pulling gifts out, she missed this. She missed being given so many nice things at once. She missed being given tribute. She missed gifts from Simon. “You paid for all of this, right? I don’t want the police to come snatch it up.”

He frowned, being reminded of things he did always stung, but he knew that she was only joking, making light of one of the things he did to hurt her so that she wouldn’t feel so awkward accepting presents from him. “Everything is legal and belongs to you.” He forced a smile, behind a pained expression.

Grace didn’t notice and he was extremely relieved that she wasn’t looking at him right then. She let out a long gasp and looked at him, her eyes sparkling now… “Did you… did you order ALL of my things from places that my friends and familiars own?”

He smiled brightly, “I knew you’d notice!”

“Did you tell them that this was stuff for me?”

“I did. Everyone was very eager to make sure that an order for you was perfect. I’m smart sometimes.”

“Always have been. Thanks for sending business their ways,” She gave him a hug.

At the bottom of the trolley was a huge basket of natural beauty products and an elegantly decorated bag of treats… stuff she knew he used to like to watch her eat. “Oh my God. Are you still into that?” She asked, knowing she didn’t have to be more detailed.

“I will turn on those videos for hours while I work. I follow several pages that are just that. Which reminds me. I gotta get back to cooking.” he called out while she opened stuff and smelled it or just admired her gifts, “I’m thinking lamb, maybe some couscous and beets?”

“It’s like 3 am, Dude. You don’t have anything quick?”

“Ummm… no. I cook, but I spent most of the night at the party at the club. You… seemed to have a great time.” He smiled, thinking about her performance towards the end of the night. Not the song. He pushed that part from his mind. The other part. He could still smell her if he thought about it. “It’ll take less than an hour for me to do everything. Is that okay?”

“Yeah. I haven’t eaten since brunch,” she said, holding her rumbling belly. She grabbed a honeycomb and some soft cheeses from her bag and posted up on the island. They talked casually about work and holiday plans. She and Hazel were going to be hosting Christmas at her house because trying to bring gifts across the country was going to be stupid. Her parents would mail any gifts and visit if they wanted to see her. “What about the Laurents?”

“I don’t fuck with them. I know that you said the thing about forgiveness or whatever, but the time that I was stuck there, trying to recover was enough stress for me from them… well, from Dad. She wasn’t there. She went back to Grandma’s. Her problem now. I did get to see one of our dad’s boxing bouts though. That was pretty entertaining.”

“Our what’s whats?”

“They took up boxing, seemingly just to be able to punch the shit out of each other every week. It was one of my few pleasures being stuck there." Grace almost choked on her cheese thinking about both of their fathers getting into a ring to fight.

Dinner was served around 3:30. Simon look absolutely exhausted but Grace didn't care about that, that much. He wondered, "After dinner do you want to head home because I can take you or of course you're welcome to crash here if it's just too late?"

"I was thinking that I was going to go home tonight but it's almost morning and I really feel like the trip will be super tiring."

"You're always welcome wherever I am."

"That's a nice thing to say. I'll just figure out what I'm going to do depending on how I feel after the cunnilingus." It was Simon's turn to choke now. Grace smirked as she chewed her food, watching him struggle to get to his water. "I hope that's not gonna be a problem. It IS still my birthday celebration."

He barely got the words out, "Not at all gonna be a problem." He drank more water. "I'm just surprised. Thrilled… but surprised."

"Don't be too thrilled. I'm not looking for love. I just want to get off. I think I deserve it."

"You do."

"I guess I should wash up first," she said, not really wanting to.

"No!" He blushed when she looked at him. "It's good. It's great. You put it right in my face earlier, remember? It was extremely palatable…"

She smiled, "You're nasty."

"You want me to be tonight, right?" He raised an eyebrow. She just smiled and continued eating.

Even with the promise at hand Simon definitely still cleared the dishes, washed them, and put them away before acknowledging what she said was about to go down. Grace grabbed him by the color of his shirt and looked him in the eyes. "I'm in charge tonight. It's my way or nothing,you understand?"

"Yes ma'am," he whispered. "On your knees!" He quickly followed the order. She hadn't bossed him around in a while, and even before it had never been like this. She held out her hands and he offered his, which she slid up her dress to her underwear. "Take them off." He was extremely eager to. "Follow me. Crawl." Simon did as he was told and when they reached the bedroom, she turned and put her foot on his chest, "Your hands don't go anywhere that I don't put them. You'll only be kissing one set of lips tonight, and when I'M satisfied, you'll need to draw me a bath and clean me off, then rub my feet until I fall asleep. And, I'm taking the bed. Understood."

"Fully."

She grabbed his hair to guide him to stand then shoved him onto the bed. "Keep your hands where I can see them," she told him as she crawled up on him, gaining her balance on the headboard. She shouldn't feel guilty for this and she wasn't going to let herself.

Next

[comicgeekscomicgeek]

Their Hero Academia – Chapter 65: Hit the Beach!

Presenting the next installment of my on-going, nextgen, MHA fic! Earlier chapters can be found here

Okay, maybe having rich friends wasn’t such a bad thing.  And since everyone had come along, Isamu didn’t feel like too much of a moocher.   Well, maybe a little.  Even with the seventeen members of Class 1-A, Izumi’s parents, and the butleriest butler to ever butler, there’d been plenty of space on the private jet.  He’d really underestimated Izumi’s family’s wealth.  That wasn’t how the upper half lived.  It was some kind of upper percentage that involved a lot of zeroes after the decimal point.

But laying on a tropical beach?   Yeah, he could get used to this.   Maybe if he got really successful as a Pro-Hero someday he could make enough money to do this kind of thing sometimes.  Mom and Dad would probably appreciate a real vacation too.  

After getting checked into the resort (Owning your own resort on your own island must be nice. They had an entire floor to themselves.), Class 1-A had done a bit of scattering to take advantage of the amenities. Aoyama had begged off going to the beach—understandable with how his Quirk absorbed light—and had instead decided to hit the spa, for which Izumi, Koda, and Tokoyami joined him (Izumi had practically insisted Tokoyami joint them, saying they had a specialist in spa treatments for people with feathers on staff).

Isamu’s gaze drifted out to the water, where several of his classmates were already horsing around.   The water looked extremely inviting, as clear as anything he had ever seen, gentling lapping onto the white sand shote.  Somehow, Sero (wearing the loudest swim trunks Isamu had ever seen in his life and which no-doubt were deliberately picked for how they clashed with his pink skin) had convinced Kocho to fly him out over the water.  Her wings were flapping hard and she was hovering probably a good six feet above the water.

“Okay, okay,” Sero said. “Now let me go!  Let me go!”

“I don’t know about this…” Kocho said.

“Look, you can either let me go, or I’ll squirm out on my own.”

Kocho just sighed. “Your funeral,” she said, and let him go.  She flapped hard and shot straight up, even as he shot straight down.

Sero tucked himself into a ball as he fell.  “CANNONBALL!”

SPLASH

Sero hit the water hard, sending water flying everywhere and utterly soaking Sato, who was filming the whole thing, as well as Ojiro and Tensei Iida, who’d been in the water too. Ojiro was wearing one of those long-sleeved uv protective swimsuits, in bright neon green, which she’d said was for “visibility.”   Which he supposed made sense.  If she was wearing less, it’d be hard to spot her if something went wrong.  She also had a flower in her hair and was wearing large, bright yellow sunglasses, which gave some general definition to where her face was.

Sero popped up out of the water with a laugh and grin.  He fired off a double thumbs’ up. “Did you catch that, viewers?  You’re just been Sero-Bombed!  Boom!”

“TAKUMA!” Ojiro screamed, arms flailing wildly.  “Did you have to do it so close?!  Look what you’ve done to my hair!”

“Aw, c’mon, Kimmie,” Sero said.  “It’s not anybody’s going to be able to tell.”

There was a moment of silence, the air thick with tension.  That had definitely been the wrong thing to say.  As if guided by some kind of primal instinct, Sato and Iida were backing away slowly.  And then Ojiro set herself upon Sero, fists flailing and hitting him upon the arms and shoulders again and again.

“WHY WOULD YOU SAY SOMETHING LIKE THAT, TAKUMA!  YOU KNOW THAT’S NOT NICE!  WHY DO YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO SCREW AROUND LIKE THAT?!”

“Ow!  Ow!  Kimmie, you know my weaknesses is being smacked!  Ow, ow!  Just not the face, okay?  Please, not the face!”

“Don’t worry,” Sato called out.  “I’m getting this all on film!  Kick his butt, Kimmie!”

“I really must protest this assault on my boyfriend,” Iida piped in.  “No matter how misguided his actions were, violence is not the proper response!”

“Guys, I am so sorry,” Kocho called out circling around above.  “I had no idea it was going to be that big!”

Isamu looked over to his left, where Midoriya was occupying another one of the beach chairs. “Should… should we be stopping this?” Ojiro’s outbursts usually ran themselves out fairly quickly, but still…

Midoriya shrugged.  “They’re not hurting anybody, except maybe Sero. And it’s my vacation. I’m off duty and I say let them blow off some steam.”

Well, that was a different answer than he’d been expecting.  Maybe Midoriya was taking Aizawa’s admonishment to have the rest of the class to rely on him less to heart.  Of course, Aizawa had also told him that he needed to step up his own leadership game and that thought was just terrifying.

So he was going to file all of that under things he wasn’t going to think about right now.

Kocho, meanwhile, had flown away from the chaos and landed next to them.  She wore a backless black one piece swimsuit and had explained that while she liked the beach, she couldn’t really get her wings too wet or she’d be unable to fly.  

“Definitely time for a strategic retreat,” she said.  She gave her wings a flick, causing some stray drops of water to fly off, before folding them behind her.  Her antenna flicked up for a moment before settling.  “Sorry I set that off.”

Isamu laughed.  “Trust me,” he said, “that would have happened sooner or later no matter what.  That’s just who they are.”

“Definitely getting that,” Kocho said.  

“Besides,” Midoriya added, “Sero is extremely persuasive.  He even managed to talk me into standing on the ceiling once for some kind of “upside down room” video.”

Okay, Isamu made a mental note to see if that was somewhere on Sero’s Viewtube channel.  Because that sounded hilarious.

“Ooooh, boys,” a sing-song voice called out from somewhere behind them.  Isamu felt a chill go down his spine as he realized it was Mineta.  

***

Despite his words to Haimawari, Toshi’s roles as “Team Dad” and class representative were hard to completely shake, so he did keep an eye on Ojiro and Sero, even as Sato and Tensei tried to pry them apart.

Mineta’s call, however, distracted him from anything else.  He’d head that particular tone of voice often enough over the years, usually when she was feeling particularly attention-starved and was going to hit on someone.  

“Should we look?” Haimawari asked, sounding a bit panicked.  

“She’s just going to keep making noise until we do,” Toshi told him.  

“I take it this happens a lot?” Kocho asked.

“You have no idea,” Haimawari said.

“You all better turn around!” Mineta called out, proving his point.  “I mean, you’re going to want to feast your eyes on me anyway, but Midoriya’s really going to want to see this.”

Oh, that couldn’t possibly be good.

Reluctantly and with sinking dread, Toshi turned to look.  He could hear both Haimawari and Kocho suck in a sharp breath and it wasn’t hard to understand why.  There was Mineta.  And there was a lot of Mineta on display. There was also a cow-print bikini, of which there was not a lot.  Kaminari was standing next to her, wearing a considerably more modest one-piece in yellow and black, and looking vaguely embarrassed.  

“She cannot possibly be real,” he heard Kocho say.

“…Pretty sure she is,” Haimawari squeaked.  As both a frequent target for Mineta’s flirtations and having had some accidental if direct contact with her during the Sports Festival, he was qualified to weigh in on this.  Mineta had a way of getting into people’s heads like that.  

And, well, Toshi had eyes. And he was a guy.  He’d be lying if he said that between her bikini and her b…ody proportions, that Mineta didn’t have an effect on him.  He felt more than a little flustered just looking at her.

“Like my bikini?” Mineta asked, posing so that she thrust her chest out and also somehow emphasized her rear as well.  “I bought it special for this vacation!”

“I still can’t believe you have that,” Kaminari said.  “You’re almost naked.  Hell, you’d probably show less if you were.  Your parents can’t possibly know you have that.”

“Just because you’re lifetime president of the itty-bitty committee, Chi, is no reason to get snippy,” Mineta replied, turning so rapidly that it set parts of her swaying in ways that he felt he probably shouldn’t be watching.

“The hell did you just say?!”  Kaminari’s Cords snapped up, crackling with electricity.  “Say that again, Mika.  Say that again and we’ll see how much fat conducts electricity!”

“Oooh, kinky!”

There was also, Toshi realized, a familiar head of blue-black hair behind the two of them. Sora was taller than Mineta, but between Mineta’s horns and the fact that there was a lot of Mineta competing for attention, he hadn’t noticed her at first. He heard a soft cough.

“Oh!  Right!” Mineta said, switching gears with such suddenness that Toshi was sure he heard the clutch pop.  “I almost forgot the real reason I wanted your attention.”

She made a dramatic gesture with her arms.  “Presenting… the tall, the brainy, the hot, the runner up for best boobs in the class… Sora Iida!”

Mika took a few steps to the side and Toshi got his first look at his girlfriend since they’d split up to their rooms.  He’d asked if she’d wanted him to wait, but had somehow been overruled by Mineta, who’d said she needed to talk to Sora first.  

In retrospect, that really should have been a warning sign.

“Hello, Toshi,” Sora said. She was smiling, but he immediately noticed that it was nervous and uneasy.  Her posture was more hesitant and awkward than usual and in stark contrast to Mineta’s confidence.  “Do you like what you see?”

Sora was wearing a bikini. It wasn’t as small as Mineta’s, but it was definitely a bikini.

Toshi was not a blind man. He was aware that his very tall girlfriend was also very busty.  In reasons why he liked her, this fact ranked very, very low.  Which wasn’t to say he hadn’t thought about that, in late night moments, or when she hugged him tightly and pressed up against him.

“…Why are all the girls in this class so hot?” Kocho said.  “Oh, no, I said that out loud…”

“Not looking at my friend’s girl, not looking at my friend’s girl, I’ve got a girlfriend” Haimawari said, quietly and quickly.  He continued repeating the phrase.

He became very aware that he hadn’t said anything in a while.

“Toshi?” Sora asked, concerned, her own nervousness seemingly forgotten for a moment.  “Are you all right?”  She waved her hands to try and attract his vision.

“See?” Kaminari said, throwing her hands in the air.  “You broke him!  I could have told you he’s too innocent for this!”

“Well, excuse me for trying to help spice up their relationship!”

“No one asked you to!”

“I’m okay!” Toshi yelled, more loudly and quickly than he intended.  He felt his face go red. Either that or he was on fire.  It was hard to say at this point.  “You… you look amazing, Sora,” he said.  

“Mineta said you would like it,” she said, approaching him. He tried very hard to keep eye contact and only failed a couple of times.  Mineta and Kaminari were still fighting, but he tuned them out.  He was also pretty sure he heard Haimawari and Kocho high-tailing it out of there.  “May I?”   Sora gestured to the beach chair Haimawari had vacated.

Toshi gulped and nodded, trying hard not so stare as he she went by.  

“She said that girlfriends “dress sexy” for their boyfriends and that I would be a good girlfriend if I did this for you,” Sora went on.  “She said she wanted to help and had several bikinis prepared for me to try on.”

Toshi buried his face in his hands.  Eventually, he brought his head up.  “Sora, what’s rule one when dealing with anything Mineta claims?”

Sora thought for a moment, then snapped her fingers.  “The same for scientific studies!  Always corroborate with a second source!  Preferably Tokoyami if available.”

He smiled.  “Right,” he said.  “She probably just wanted to see you in a bikini and to give me a heart attack.”   He scooted his chair closer to hers and put an arm around her shoulders, mindful of her Jetpack pipes.  He’d learned the hard way that the skin around them could be quite sensitive. That particular discovery had left him red in the face for quite a while.

“Besides,” he said, “you don’t have to do anything different or special for me.  I mean, unless you want to.”  He added that last part hastily, realizing the gap in what he’d said. Both Sora and her brother sometimes needed extra explanations about proper social conventions.  It was why Mika had been able to fool her so easily. “I like you,” he said.  “I like you in your uniform, in your costume, in your regular clothes.  And I do like you in this.  But do you like you in this?”

Sora frowned. “Undetermined,” she said.  “I am not used to wearing so little.  It seems very impractical.”

“Yeah, there is that,” he agreed.  

“But I am happy that you like what you see,” she added thoughtfully.  “I suspect more evidence is needed.”

Deciding to be bold, he leaned over and kissed her cheek softly.

“Whatever you want, that’s your decision.  I’m not going to tell you how to dress.”

Sora nodded, seemingly satisfied with that.  “I am still learning how to be a good girlfriend, Toshi.  I do not want to get this wrong.  I do not really know what boys want.”

“Hey,” he said.  “I said it before, we’re learning together, okay?”

“Okay.”

And it was.

“Though I did notice you were definitely staring at Mineta…”

***

“Oh, this feels so good,” Mika said, as she slid low into the hot spring, purple hair floating around her head.   She made a very distracting moan.  “I swear, Todoroki, this place really does have everything.”

Chihiro shot her a look. “Do you and the spring need a few moments alone?”   It was a sharper barb that she really should have made, but she was still annoyed at Mika for the “itty-bitty” comment earlier.  It wasn’t her fault she took after Mom or that most of the rest of the girls in the class were more… shapely than her!  And compared to Mika or Iida, everybody looked small.

The look Chihiro had shot her was nothing compared to the look Kirishima-Bakugo gave her.  “If you’re going to be gross,” she said, lips curled back in a snarl, “you’ve got a room.”

“Relax,” Mika said, not looking at her.  “I’m just really enjoying this.”

“When the Yaoyorozu family designed this resort, they wanted to make sure that every luxury was available to the guests and to themselves,” Izumi said, sinking a little lower in the water herself.  Already, her pale skin was beginning to flush from the heat.  “They worked with a geokinetic and a hydrokinetic to craft it according to very exact specifications.”

“Geeze,” Kocho said, “just how rich is your family?”   She was sitting the farthest back, wings kept above the waterline.  “Sorry, that was probably rude.”

It was, honestly, a common reaction when hanging out with Izumi.

“You know that old kid’s manga?  About the kid who could turn stuff to gold and it made his family like, mega rich?” Chihiro said.  

“That would not work,” Iida said.  She’d slid low in the water too.  Apparently her Jetpack pipes were self-sealing.  “It would drive down the value of gold and ultimately make it worthless. Furthermore, any Quirk like that would be highly monitored by the government for misuse…”

“Just go with it,” Chihiro said, trying to avoid a lengthy discussion.  Iida could get too caught up in the facts and miss the actual point fairly easily sometimes.

“Oh yeah, I remember that one,” Kocho said.

“Good,” Chihiro replied. “Triple that.  At least.”

Kocho’s dark eyes went wide and her antenna snapped straight up.  “Ah. Got it.”

“That is,” Izumi began, raising a hand as though to object.  She paused, as if unsure.  She did like magna, Chihiro recalled, but couldn’t remember if she’d read that one. Izumi looked over to Kirishima-Bakugo, who gave her a shrug.   “Not entirely inaccurate.”

“So Kocho,” Ojiro began. She was wearing flowers in her hair again, the only other indication other than a slight ripple in the water around her body, of where she was.  “As the newest member of the class, we have a lot of questions.  Like, are you seeing anybody?  The gossip mill demands to know!”

“Perhaps give her a little space before interrogating her, Ojiro?” Koda suggested.   “Or at least on asking something so personal?”

“It’s fine,” Kocho said, waving a hand.  “I’m single, Ojiro.  Not really looking either.”

“Okay, so that’s means it’s just me, Iida, and Mineta who have boyfriends?” Ojiro asked.  “How is this possible?  Are none of you interested in guys?!”

Ugh, no, she really did not need to hear this.  Chihiro wondered if she could hold her breath and go underwater long enough for Ojiro to stop talking.  She already had spent way too much time thinking about the fact that Monoma had kissed her.  Not that any of the rest of the girls knew, but she really didn’t need Ojiro finding out about it.  She’d never hear the end of it.  She absolutely did not need the invisible girl “shipping” her with Monoma. She didn’t like him, even if she’d ended up feeling sorry for him, and he didn’t like her, and yet…

She hadn’t exactly hated it either.

So of course running away to a tropical vacation had been the perfect way to avoid having to talk to him about it.  

“You do get there’s more than just being interested in boys, don’t you, Ghosty?” Kirishima-Bakugo growled.  

“She’s right,” Mika said, rising up out of the water enough to count on her fingers.   “Wow.  There’s something I never thought I’d say.  There’s also being interested in girls.  And non-binary people.  And non-gender identifying people and…”

“Not the point I was making, Horse-Girl.”

“But she’s right!” Ojiro said.  “I’m open to the gossip mill of all relationships!  I do not discriminate gossip on the basis of sexuality!”  There was a slight shift in the water, as though she was leaning forward.  “So you all better tell me if you get into a relationship!  Not like that relationship hiding hunk Shoji!”

Wait, what?  Like just about anyone attracted to male and possessing a pulse, Chihiro admitted that Shoji was obscenely attractive.   Muscles for days, surprisingly soft features, great hair…  But he kept to himself and she hadn’t had any idea about this!

“What?!” Mika shouted, her eyes wide.   “Nooooo! I was slowly wearing down his resistance!  By graduation, I’d have been all over the Shoji train!”

“No, you weren’t” Chihiro snapped.  Some days, Mika was just flat out exhausting.  She was absolutely her best friend in the world, but sometimes…  “And you already have a giant boyfriend!  You don’t need two!”

Mika laughed as she leaned back in the water.  “Oh, I’m definitely too much woman for just one partner.”   Chihiro didn’t dignify that with a response.

“He does!”  Ojiro said, clapping happily.  “Her name’s Emiko and she’s really cute!”

“He does enjoy his privacy,” Tokoyami said.  Frog Shadow was bobbing contentedly in the water next to her.  “But I am happy for him.”   She didn’t sound entirely convincing to Chihiro’s ears.

“You’re just sad it wasn’t you!” Frog-Shadow offered, eyes snapping open.

“I am not…” Tokoyami started, her voice warbling. The feathers on her head were starting to stand up and Chihiro could swear she saw a little blush under them.  Her hands flew to her beak. “Qui… quiet you!”

“You can’t silence me when I’m right!” Frog-Shadow declared, before Tokoyami shoved her under the water.  She kicked and fought and bubbles churned, but Tokoyami didn’t let her back up until she’d calmed down.

Koda tapped a rocky hand on her chin, a faraway look in her eyes.  “Good for him,” she said softly.  “Shoji is a kind soul and deserves the happiness.”  Mika had said she was having some body image and confidence issues lately.   Of course, Mika had also said she’s had a plan to rectify that.  As someone who’d let herself be talked into more than one harebrained scheme, she had a pretty dim view of Mika’s plans.

It was only then that she noticed Kirishima-Bakugo had her eyes closed and her hands over her ears. Slowly, she pulled her hands back. “Are they done talking yet, Iz?  I can’t tell.”

“I am uncertain,” Izumi said.  She turned back to the group and asked, diplomatically.  “Will this be going on much longer?”  A smile tugged at her lips, obviously amused by, if not particularly invested in the discussion.

“Maybe?” Mika said. “All in favor of talking about Shoji more?”

Even Izumi started to raise a hand at that.   Kirishima-Bakugo gave her a wide eyed stare of betrayal.

“What?” Izumi said. “Even if I am not interested in him romantically or sexually, he is very aesthetically pleasing.”

Kirishima-Bakugo crossed her arms and closed her eyes again.  “…Yeah, okay, he is.”

“…did she just admit to an interesting in something other than violence?” Ojiro asked.  “Isn’t that a sign of the apocalypse?”

“I’m on vacation, so pretend I growled at you and threated you with explosive death,” Kirishima-Bakugo said.

No, Chihiro was still pretty sure that the sign of the apocalypse had been Monoma kissing her, but weren’t signs supposed to come in threes…?

“Okay,” Ojiro said, “we’re all agreed.  Everybody’s attracted to Shoji.  But since he’s off the table, who else are we crushing on?  What about you, Kaminari?  Any guys got your eye?”

“Definitely not Monoma!” she said quickly.  She needed to dispel any idea about that as quickly and loudly as possible.

“We… didn’t mention Monoma,” Ojiro said.

…crap.

***

“Chihiro, you open this door this minute!” Mika shouted, pounding heavily on the door of her friend’s hotel room with her first.

“Go away, Mika!” Chihiro snapped from within.  

“I can wait all day, Chi.” Mika crossed her arms.  “You bolted out of there like you were on fire.”  After mentioning Shiro.   Which was kind of her fault.  And by kind of, she meant completely.   She’d messed that one up by several degrees of magnitude.  But Chi hadn’t said anything about it to her, so she’d hoped it would all die down and she could go back to trying to convince Shiro to date Akaya instead.  

Not that she didn’t want the best for Chihiro of course.  She was her best friend.  And she knew Shiro better than just about anyone; he really was a good guy under some of that bluster.  Probably her best friend after Chihiro, come to think of it, on top of being her ex.

“Look, you want to talk about it?” she asked.  “Or I can get Akaya or Torodoki or, I dunno, Tokoyami?”  …Probably not Akaya, actually.  That conversation might lead down roads she did not want to travel.

No answer this time. Also not a good sign.

Mika pounded on the door one more time.  “Chi… can we talk?  Please. This is actually important.  About Shiro.”

The door opened a crack, revealing a glaring Chihiro.  Sparks danced on the ends of her Cords.  Not a good sign.   But she stepped back enough to let Mika in, then flopped down on the bed.

“I know, I know, I made a total idiot out of myself back there,” she wailed, staring up at the ceiling. “I just let everybody know I maybe kind of have some kind of crush thing going on for Monoma.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Mika said.

“Of course it is! He’s… he’s such a…” Chihiro made gestures in the air, which were copied by her Cords.  “He’s Monoma!  The guy who thinks he’s our hated rival! With that stupid smug face and perfect hair! And now that Ojiro knows it, the whole world probably already knows!”

“She said she wouldn’t,” Mika assured her, coming to stand near the bed.  “I think she was too stunned to make much sense of it anyway. And it’s not like anybody knows he kissed you.”

Chihiro sat up so fast Mika was pretty sure she’d broken the sound barrier.  “How do you know about that?”

Oops.

“Well, you see,” Mika began.

Before she could get any further, Chihiro interrupted her.  “I swear, if the next words out of your mouth are “I can explain,” I will tase the shit out of you.  Because I have been trying to make sense of this ever since it happened and if I find out you had something to do it with…”

Well, that would definitely explain the moodiness and irritability.  She’d been ready to blame it on something else entirely.   “Can I at least sit down?” she asked.

Chihiro shrugged and scooted over on the edge of the bed to make room.  Mika took the seat, but gave her a bit of space.  “Okay, so I can explain—don’ttaseme!”   She flinched, but all Chihiro did was give her an eyeroll.

“So after the Internships, Shiro was feeling pretty depressed.  He was going to quit, as soon as exams were over.  Big blow to his confidence, but not really my story to spill.”

“Yeah, he told me that,” Chihiro said.  

“And you remember Akaya was feeling pretty depressed too, after some of the stuff that happened during her Iinternship, with those mutant-prejudiced assholes.”

“Dumbasses.”

Mika nodded her agreement. People could be real asses sometimes. And somebody as sweet and innocent as Akaya definitely didn’t deserve that kind of treatment.   “But anyway, she was feeling real down about herself and her appearance.  So I had a couple of friends who were both feeling depressed and I ended up working on a plan with Anime that would help both of them…”

Chihiro buried her face in her hands.  “Mika, Fukidashi is the one person the planet with worse plans than you!  I’m not sure she can actually tell the difference between fiction and reality.”

It didn’t look like Chihiro had put all the pieces together yet.   Crap.  That meant she’d have to explain more.

“Sooo,” she went on, “I sent him a text after the exams saying a ‘mutual acquaintance’ was feeling down and maybe he’d like to come by and cheer her up.”   She sucked in a breath.  Chi may have doubted her own intelligence at times, but this wasn’t going to take much to figure out.

Chihiro frowned.  “And there I was when he showed up, depressed as hell because I nearly caused us to flunk.  I thought he was acting funny! Even for him!  No wonder!  He probably thought you meant me!”

Before Mika could blink, Chihiro’s Cords shot out, less than a couple centimeters from her face.  No sparks, thankfully, but that could change in an instant.  “Did. You. Tell.  Him.  To. Kiss.  Her?!”

“Absolutely not,” Mika said.   “He came up with that on his own.  I think you really gave him a breakthrough, Chi.”

Chihiro sagged, her Cords drooping, letting go of some of that agitation.  “What am I going to do, Mika?”

“Well, he did say he was maybe going to ask you out…”

“What?”  Chihiro’s head snapped back up again.

“Give him a shot,” Mika said.  “He’s really not nearly as bad a guy as most people think he is.  He’s just… a lot.”  She gestured at her chest.  “But he liked me even before these came in, so he’s obviously not just in it for the physical stuff.”

She opted not to mention that there’d been an intermediate phase where Shiro had been hung up on Kirishima-Bakugo.  Like Granny always said, sometimes, maybe don’t kick the rattler’s den.

“Ugh, but he’s so… him!  With his stupid blue eyes and stupid fancy hair and stupid little smile…”

Yeah, okay, Chihiro had it bad.

“Look,” Mika said, “date him. Or don’t.  That’s your decision.  But you gotta stop worrying about what people will think about it.  You think I worry about stuff like that?”

That, at last, got a laugh. “No, but you’re shameless.”

“One of my many talents.”

Chihiro shook her head. “Yeah, well… maybe I’ll wait and see what he does.”

“Bonus, if you do date him, I can tell you alllll kinds of secrets.”

“You two were tweens when you dated!  How do you have secrets on him?”

“Because he’s still one of my friends and I still know how to get him flustered.”

She shook her head again. “Going to need you to be straight with me, Mika.”

“I think you and I both know how much I cannot do that, Chi.”

That got an actual smile out of her friend, which meant it had worked.  “Not what I meant and you know it, Mika,” Chihiro said.  “You’d really be okay with me dating your ex?”

It was a good question. They were two of her best friends. But she didn’t harbor any particular plans to get back together with Shiro.  Being “just friends” with a guy was actually kind of nice.  Not that she’d admit that to anyone.  And not that she’d object if he wanted to get back together or even just get a little frisky, of course…

“Look,” Mika said, “I’ve got a buffet table out there.  And one of the most gorgeous hunks of man on the planet.  So if you wanna shack up with Shiro, be my guest.”

Chihiro went red. “Look, just because you’re that fast..!”

Mika laughed.  “Relax, Chi.  But be my guest.  Sounds like you guys kind of connected.  I’m happy for you, if it works out.”

Chi smiled at that, and Mika finally felt a little relief.  “Thanks, Mika.”

Of course, now she needed a new plan to help Akaya.  Maybe she could just bite the bullet and shove her and Aoyama in a closet until Frenchie expressed his super-obvious feelings…

Chihiro poked her with a Cord.  “You’ve plotting again.  Stop that.”

“No.”

“We were having a nice moment and now you’re back to being impossible.  Why are you like this?”

“Just lucky, I guess.”

***

The sun was low in the sky when Class 1-A returned to the beach, this time gathering around a bonfire. Todoroki had volunteered to simply start it with her Quirk, but Kirishima-Bakugo had declared that “cheating” and had proceeded to start one by hand.  For someone who was so angry with everyone else, she was surprisingly soft when it came to Todoroki.  Koharu wondered if there was some kind of history or something there.  At the hot spring, Todoroki had basically said she wasn’t interested in romance or sex, so it probably wasn’t anything like that, but…

Together, they made a big ring around the fire, the flames crackling red-orange in the darkening sky.  She liked twilight, when the day gave way to the night, starting to bring things to a close.  Koharu’s Moth Quirk actually have her excellent night vision, though she didn’t have the problems with bright lights that some of her family did. She had a cousin that was pretty much blind for anywhere up to a half hour after somebody turned on the lights.

The others were already starting to sit together in what she was learning were some of the usual pairs and groups, most of them talking animatedly.  Midoriya was sitting with his girlfriend, Sora Iida.  Next to them were Shinso, Tokoyami and Frog-Shadow, and Shoji.  Then there was Todoroki and Kirishima-Bakugo, Shoji, Aoyama, and Koda, and Mineta and Kaminari.  After that, there was Ojiro, Sero, and Sato.  She took a seat next to them, with Haimawari on her left completing the circle.

“Having fun?” Haimawari asked.  

She nodded.  “I am.  I was a little nervous about coming along.  I mean, I’ve only known Ojiro and her friends for a few weeks, and you and Midoriya for a little less than that, so I don’t really know if I feel like I belong here yet…  But everybody’s been really nice and welcoming.”

Haimawari smiled and nodded. “Yeah,” he agreed.  “They’re like that.  I was the same way, you know, when we started.  They all knew each other, and there I was, the new guy moving into the dorms and being in class with them.  But Midoriya reached out to me and made sure I was included.  Him, Tokoyami, Izumi, and Shinso.  The first friends I had here.”

For a moment, Koharu’s thoughts drifted back to her General Education classmates, especially her best friends, Mogura and Tokuda.  She wouldn’t be living with them anymore and would have different classes.  It would make it harder to find time to get together, though not impossible.  But she definitely didn’t want them to drift apart.  They’d surely understand the differing demands of the Hero Course, but she knew they’d be hurt if they thought she was forgetting about them.

Maybe she ought to try and do something to bring her old class and new class together.

“Trust me,” Haimawari assured her.  “Before you know it, it’ll be like you’ve been here since day one.”

“I sure hope so,” she said.

“You will,” he said. “Trust me.  They’ve got history.  But now that you’re here with us?  You’ve got future.  And that’ll turn into history.”

He made a good point, she had to admit.  

“Hey, look, Kocho,” Sero said, leaning over to show her his phone. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt with a pattern that made her eyes hurt just to look at.  His phone was open to a Viewtube page, showing Sato’s earlier recording of his cannonball and subsequent Ojiro-induced smacking.  It had been titled “Cannon-Fail.”

“Eighty thousand hits and counting!” Sero told her, grinning.  

“So you dropping out of the sky and Ojiro beating the stuffing out of you is hit worthy?” she asked.

“Oh yeah!  Kimiko yelling and hitting things rates really high with our subscribers.  Hope nobody’s getting off on it though…”

Koharu blinked slowly. “I do not get internet fame.”

Sero just laughed. “Don’t worry, I’m an expert at this. Stick with us, we’ll make you a star!”

Before she could make a counter argument to that, Shinso piped up.  “Oh!  Oh! Kaminari!  Are you going to play?  Are you?”  The short boy was practically bouncing with excitement.  “Pleeeeeaaasseee?”

Kaminari had indeed brought a case of some kind with her, what looked like some kind of small, guitar-ish instrument.  She opened it up and Koharu realized it was a ukulele.  She knew the electric girl’s mother was a musician on top of being a Hero, but hadn’t realized that she played too.  She still had a lot to learn about her new classmates!

“Only because you asked so nice, Shinso,” Kaminari said.  She strummed a few chords and made a few minor adjustments to the instrument before she started to play.  “So this one goes out to all of us, for passing our exams, for surviving our Internships, for making it through the first term.  To our Sports Festival winners.  To old friends and new friends.  And to our hero academia.”

“Hero too, I am a hero too

My heart is set and I won't back down

Hero too, strength doesn’t make a hero

True heroes stand up for what they believe

So wait and see

So wait and see…”

[molsno]

I’m skipping the middleman on that trans ask game and just answering all the questions myself <3

this is long so it’s under a read more

1. How did you choose your name?

in senior year of high school, while I was in french class, I was thinking about the word vivre, to live, and how it conjugated. I forget what tense it is, but one way of conjugating it is “nous vivions”, and it dawned on me that the name vivian is based on the word vivre (or its latin origin). of course, I already liked the name due to the character from paper mario ttyd, but knowing that it means life really spoke to me, as I think the ability to live is a precious thing that shouldn’t be wasted. I decided pretty much then and there that I would name my daughter vivian some day. well... then I got the chance to play a character in my friend’s danganronpa killing game, and I thought playing a girl would be interesting. granted, I also already knew I was an egg and saw this as an opportunity to try out my favorite name, so I created vivian tamochi. as you might have guessed, I loved being her so much that I made vivian my actual name

2. What gives you the most dysphoria?

um, hearing recordings of my own voice probably. I always think that I sound very feminine but then I hear a recording of myself and it sounds like a bad impression

3. Do you have more physical dysphoria or more social dysphoria?

more social I guess? actually yeah I think all of the dysphoria-induced breakdowns I’ve had have been because of social things

4. What do you do to perform self-care when you’re feeling dysphoric?

something that helps a lot is shaving, especially when it’s a fullbody shave

5. What was the first time you suspected you were transgender?

this is a bit embarrassing but it was honestly christmas eve 2018. I saw my little cousin (I think she was 8 at the time) wearing a pretty dress and I felt sort of jealous that I never got to do that when I was her age. I was so confused about this feeling that I told my trans friend kyra about it and after asking me to clarify what I meant she linked me to the egg_irl subreddit. that was the first time I seriously considered it

6. When did you realize you were transgender?

I told my friend amanda how I’d been confused about my gender and she offered to take me to goodwill to try on some clothes. I was extremely nervous about it while we were there and I really had to work up the courage to not only pick out some clothes to try, but also take them to the fitting room with me. but once I put on a skirt for the first time I stood there for like a solid 5 minutes just looking at myself in the mirror with the biggest happiest smile on my face. in that moment I finally understood what gender euphoria was. I couldn’t deny I was trans any longer, it was just a matter of working up the courage to tell people

7. What is your favorite part of being transgender?

um, probably that I feel like a person now. also the little things, like seeing my hips get bigger or looking at how long my hair has gotten. just little things to smile about!

8. How would you explain your gender identity to others?

um, I’m girl <3

9. How did you come out? If you didn’t come out, why do you stay in the closet? Or what happened when you were outed?

I mean it depends on who, but I decided to do it on national coming out day 2019, in my discord server with friends. basically I commented on it being national coming out day and reposted my intro in the introductions channel with my new name and pronouns. everyone there sorta saw it coming I’m pretty sure

10. What have your experiences been with packing or tucking?

I’ve tucked a few times in public. it’s uncomfortable for sure, but not terrible once you get used to it. the idea of it made me squeamish at first, I’ll admit. but since I haven’t had much excuse to go out in girlmode the past year or so, I haven’t tucked much

11. What are your experiences with binding or wearing breast forms?

the closest I’ve ever gotten to wearing breast forms is wearing a bra every day for..... almost a year now? it doesn’t serve much purpose other than letting me feel something there, though that is changing since I’ve been on hrt for several months

12. Do you pass?

I mean... probably not? I feel like I’m very visibly trans. there have been like two times where I’ve been gendered correctly in public (one in girlmode, one not) but those are extremely rare

13. What (if any) steps do you want to take to medically transition?

well I’ve been on hrt for 8 months now so that’s one thing. I want to get laser hair removal for my facial hair because that’s one of the biggest sources of dysphoria for me, but yknow. that’s expensive! according to my understanding my insurance supposedly should cover bottom surgery, but I’m honestly in no rush to get that. I don’t really have much bottom dysphoria, but it would be nice to get surgery some day

14. How long have you been out?

it’s been about a year and two months now...... time flies

15. What labels have you used before you’ve settled on your current set?

up until I was like 17 I was incredibly insistent on being cis and straight despite very obvious (in retrospect) signs to the contrary. around 18 I was very confused why all my friends were lgbt in some form and also I kinda started realizing I don’t mind dick, and I thought it would all make sense if I was bi. I identified as cis and bi for like 4 years or so but the longer it went on the more wrong it felt considering I had never once during that time been attracted to a man

16. Have you ever experienced transphobia?

surprisingly not really? the most transphobia I’ve experienced has been a result of automated processes like proctored testing or emails. of course, I’ve seen all the nasty shit that terfs say about people like me, but I’ve never been a victim of it directly

17. What do you do when you have to go to the bathroom in public?

if there is a universal restroom that I can lock from inside then I use that. if not, I sigh dramatically and sadly use the men’s room

18. How does your family feel about your trans identity?

truthfully I don’t know. my mom seems accepting enough, but with the pandemic going on I haven’t talked to her much. I know my sister is aware, and shockingly she seems supportive too, but we haven’t talked about it in depth

19. Would you ever go stealth, and if you are stealth, why do you choose to be stealth?

if I could go stealth I would. I’m sorry but I don’t want to be visibly trans

20. What do you wish you could have shared with your younger self about being trans?

the sooner you start transitioning the happier you’ll be. by denying this part of yourself you’re just making yourself miserable

21. Why do you use the pronouns you use?

she/her makes me happiest. I’ve (against my will, mind you) used they/them and been called molsno in a group that I wasn’t out in, and..... it made me feel..... distant, I guess? it was better than he/him, but it felt much less personal

22. Do your neurodivergencies and/or disabilities affect your gender?

I mean...... yeah? as a trans lesbian it’s very easy for me to hate masculinity given how it’s instilled nothing but negative feelings in me literally my entire life, and being autistic makes it harder to understand how the things I say about gender negatively impact the people around me

23. What’s your biggest trans-related fear?

the fear that I may never be able to believe I can be loved as a woman, probably

24. What medical, social, or personal steps have you already taken to start your transition?

coming out nearly everywhere and getting on hrt!

25. What do you wish cis people understood?

I desperately wish cis people understood even the basics of trans issues. still to this day many cis people don’t even know the right terminology to use for trans people. they think “trans man” and “trans woman” mean the opposite of what they actually mean and that’s just so goddamn frustrating. many of them think transitioning is just bottom surgery and that’s it. like, they don’t know anything about hrt. cis people please educate yourselves on trans issues I’m begging you

26. What impact has being trans had on your life?

it’s affected many aspects of my life but I think the biggest one is that I feel like a person now. I always felt like a robot, or like someone putting on a performance before, but I feel like a human being now

27. What do you do to validate yourself?

ummm... not much really. I guess one thing that has helped is making my character astrid trans? because if I ever think something bad about myself I can stop myself and ask if I would think the same thing about her, and of course the answer is no.

28. How do you feel about trans representation in media?

it’s bad. trans women very rarely get any positive representation. like the only transfem characters that come to mind that I think were handled well were lily hoshikawa from zombieland saga and vivian from paper mario (although even that’s debatable given the english censorship about her gender and the way beldam abuses her in japanese). meanwhile nonbinary representation consists almost exclusively of aliens, shapeshifters, robots, etc. and trans men get literally nothing. like. trans representation is just so abysmal it’s not even funny

29. Who is your favorite trans celebrity?

umm....... I don’t really care about celebrities lol. if I were to answer this question it would be “oh yes I’ve heard of these people”

30. Who is the transgender person who has influenced you the most?

gosh, how could I ever decide? most of my friends are trans so it’s hard to say but if I had to answer.... my friends kyra and modeus were probably the most helpful when I was figuring myself out

31. How are you involved with the trans community, IRL or online?

mostly online

32. How do you see yourself identifying and presenting in 5 years?

I’ll almost certainly still be a woman, and hopefully my transition will have gone well enough that I’ll be able to pass

33. What trans issue are you most passionate about?

healthcare. the difficulty so many people face with getting access to trans healthcare is ridiculous and discriminatory. I’ve written essays for school about this topic and they were the easiest essays I’ve had to write because of how passionate I am about this

34. What advice would you give to other trans people, or what message would you like to share with them?

pick your head up queen/king/royal, your cat ears are falling down

35. How do you feel your gender interacts with your race, disability, class, weight, etc. from the perspective of intersectionality?

well I’m white, able bodied, average weight, and I’m about to get a degree in computer science, so I have a lot of privilege that other trans people don’t have. I fully recognize that. it breaks my heart that so many less privileged trans people, particularly trans women of color, are murdered and never even get the justice they deserve. I wish there was more I could do to stop it, but privileged as I am, I’m only one person. I want everyone to be aware of who the major victims of transphobia are. look out for black trans women especially, they need your protection and support most of all

36. What, if any, is the difference between your gender identity and your gender expression?

not much. I’m a woman with a very feminine gender expression, when I’m free to be. the biggest feminine thing that I don’t do is makeup, but that’s more due to dysphoria rather than a distaste for it

37. Do you feel more masculine, feminine, or neither?

feminine uwu

38. What is your sexual and romantic orientation, and what are your thoughts on it?

I am a lesbian and that is very epic of me. I love girls and seeing girls in love makes me happy and imagining myself as a girl in love with another girl makes me even happier

39. Is your ideal partner also trans, or do you not have a preference?

I always hate admitting this, but due to personal reasons, my ideal partner is cis. this is mostly because I very much want to have biological children, and that’s simply not possible with another trans woman. I wouldn’t rule out an afab nonbinary person entirely, it just really depends on how comfortable said person is with femininity and also how they feel about dating a lesbian. if not for my desire to have kids (which is not something I’m willing to compromise on since it has been my lifelong dream) I would have a lot more options. truth be told, cis women kind of scare me, and it would be so much easier to date someone who fundamentally understands what it’s like to be trans. but biology is cruel unfortunately

40. How did/do you manage waiting to transition?

it was incredibly difficult. thankfully, it didn’t last very long. I only had to wait about 6 months, and most of that time was spent waiting until I was able to bank sperm because I didn’t want to risk becoming permanently infertile after starting hrt

41. What is the place (blog, website, forum, IRL space) you get most of your info on being trans or on trans related things?

ngl...... reddit. the trans boards have many, many helpful resources for transfem people. I don’t really go there anymore but it was immensely helpful in the early stages

42. Do you interact with other trans people IRL?

I mean..... yeah, but not very much anymore on account of the pandemic. I made a few trans friends junior year of college and we still talk occasionally, but it’s been several months since I last saw them all

43. Are you involved in any trans-related activism?

not really 😔

44. Free space! Answer any question you want, or make up your own question to answer.

“Wow Vivi how come you’re so epic?”

I was born this way <3

[ante--meridiem]

(You don't have to answer if this is too personal btw) It's just that I've known for about two years that I'm probably-mostly a lesbian, but I never had someone to talk to about it seriously. I'm almost 19 now and never really tried to get involved with someone romantically because I don't want to weird anyone out or make them uncomfortable. And I know that doing stuff at my own pace is totally cool but sometimes I worry that I'm late to the game or something :/ What were your experiences?

Hi anon :). Don’t worry, it’s not too personal. (I mean, my answer is quite personal, but what is tumblr for if not over sharing with strangers on the internet? :P) I hope my experiences can help you, though if you’re looking for dating advice the most I can say is “don’t do what I did”.

I can empathise with a lot in this ask. I realised that I was gay at about the same time as you, and it felt late to me as well - but going by what I've heard from other lesbians I've talked to, I think it's actually quite average. (I think the reason it feels late to us is because most "common knowledge" about LGBTQ stuff tends to focus on gay men, who just anecdotally seem to realise a lot earlier on average). I'm still not 100% confident in my sexuality - I settled on "lesbian" more by process of elimination than anything else. The only thing I'm mostly certain of is that I'm not straight - I could potentially be wrong about liking girls, or about not liking guys, but there is no way that I'm attracted to men more than to women.

Extensive discussion of my personal life below, feel free to read if you want to.

Getting to identify as a lesbian was a really long, confusing process for a few reasons. I'm the kind of person who tends to overintellectualise and overrationalise my feelings, so it was far too easy for me to convince myself that I felt the things I "should" feel. My immediate environment was never intensely homophobic (...extended family is a different matter, I'm still not out to them because I'm pretty sure my grandmother would react very badly based on arguments we've had about LGBTQ rights in the past), but the possibility of being anything other than straight just wasn't discussed, other than in a "that's weird and inappropriate for children" kind of way, so I ended up with the impression that being gay is such an unusual and distinct experience that it would be impossible not to know if you were. 

In retrospect, there were a some feelings I had for girls when I was younger that would probably count as crushes/puppy love (I made a girl a Valentines Day card when I was 11, for God's sake, and in my naive obliviousness didn't think anything of it) but somehow I never connected that feeling of intense, nervous admiration to what a crush was supposed to feel like. I managed to think my way into believing I liked various boys and had a tendency to confuse mutual respect for romantic love. (Those "crushes" made me sure for a while that I couldn't be gay, because I liked boys, didn't I? It's honestly hard for me to pick out a detail that proves they were fake, even now, but the main thing that stands out is I preferred talking about how much I liked them over actually talking to them.) Later, I had a phase where I rationalised that romantic love was a lie and indistinguishable from platonic love, and I shouldn’t care so much about it - even though part of me very much cared. 

I can pretty much split my realisation into two parts; realising I wasn't attracted to men and realising I was attracted to women. Both parts were difficult, but in their own way. The easiest one (or maybe I should say "simplest" one, since while it was fairly obvious it wasn't particularly easy emotionally - it made me feel even more weird and out of place, which I’d already felt for other reasons) was realising I wasn't sexually attracted to men - except that at the time, I just parsed it as not being interested in sex generally. Somehow the possibility of sex that didn't involve men at all wasn't something I was really aware of. My friends would talk about how attractive various men were, and I'd just feel extremely confused and like I was missing something. Being the pretentious person I was I rationalised it as "sex is meaningless anyway, all I really care about is love". 

The other half was much more confusing, but happened in a pretty cliché way - I fell in love with a friend. I can't actually say how long it took me to realise that because I'd always seen her differently from my other friends, but I put it down to admiration, jealousy and wishing I could be her. I kind of assumed that she was just so special that everyone must feel that way around her. A moment that stands out is when she was telling me about various guys who'd asked her out, and I started feeling weirdly jealous about it but also found myself thinking well I can't blame them, if I were a guy I'd want to date her too. From there it took about a year to realise that the "if I were a guy" clause wasn't necessary. It felt completely different from my other “crushes” - she made me feel happy more than nervous, I wanted things to stay just between us instead of wanting to share them with everyone, she popped into my head unasked for instead of me making myself think about her. I was hyperaware of her presence and couldn’t stop thinking about how beautiful she was - which had never happened with a guy.

At that point I started calling myself biromantic asexual (terms I found on the internet and never actually used in real life - the most I told anyone was that I was bi, which it still took a long time to be willing to do - I think I was seventeen by the time I actually told anyone I might be bi), but I was still very uncertain of it. For a long time I told myself that I didn't really like girls, I just liked her. I was also completely in denial that my attraction had any physical component at all, because I felt like that would make it less "pure" and I was terrified of being creepy. I tried asking my parents for advice, but they insisted that admiring your friends a lot was normal and didn't mean anything, and I couldn't explain how I knew that this was different. (It didn't help that they believed the only difference between friendship and romance is physical attraction, and I couldn’t define any other difference even though I knew there was one). My mom was hesitant because it would be harder for me if I wasn’t straight, which... I know she meant well, but it came off like she thought I was choosing to overcomplicate my life, something I internalised and that made me second-guess things even more.

Even once I accepted that I was probably bi, a part of me felt certain I would end up with a man, but I wasn’t happy about it - every time I thought about it, I felt resentful. It was the kind of thing that felt like a bad kind of inevitability. I was also scared to tell the friend in question I liked her, because the pessimistic part of me felt certain she was straight even though she’d hinted otherwise. Eventually I did though, but only when she was about to move away to study in university, and because I was afraid of freaking her out I decided to phrase it in past tense and downplay it (”I used to kind of have a crush on you”). When she took it well, I gained the courage to say I still liked her, but had been afraid to say anything because I was afraid of how she’d react. She told me I should have told her sooner, that gender didn’t matter to her and I shouldn’t have assumed she’d reject me. We spent the next few months exchanging semi-flirtatious messages and she said she might consider dating me some day, which came to a head when I realised she didn’t really mean that. I asked her to just straight up reject me - which she did. 

During all this time, I’d come to be very close friends with a guy. He understood me better than almost anyone except the friend I liked (or so I thought at the time) and I felt like I could tell him anything. He asked me out (knowing about the other friend who I was definitely not over) and I accepted, for all the wrong reasons - because it was flattering to be liked, because I was afraid no-one else would like me, because I was trying to get over her and didn’t want to be alone, and because I couldn’t find a reason not to. I told him I thought I might be asexual, but agreed to physical intimacy (not sex, mind you, just kissing and cuddling, but it was enough for me to feel between bored and uncomfortable) anyway, for a lot of the same wrong reasons. 

The relationship wasn’t bad per se, at least at first, but it felt - empty. Like ticking off the boxes of what a healthy relationship should be. We had deep, intimate conversations but it never felt like enough. At first, I tried pushing him for more - more depth, more intensity - because I was annoyed with what felt like complacency from him. I couldn’t understand how he could be satisfied - even happy - with what we had. I felt like I was doing something wrong, like I didn’t know how to love right. The first time I tried to break up with him was after I’d introduced him to my former crush, and he noticed that as soon as she was around she had my full attention. I felt incredibly guilty, there was a lot of crying on both sides, but eventually we didn’t break up. The question came up again a few times - he tried to break up with me as well because he sensed I was being distant, and during this whole time, I started fantasising about being with various girls. This was when I started acknowledging that I might not be asexual after all. 

In the end, I decided to call myself a lesbian because it was the hard boundary I needed to draw in order to break off the relationship, and kept the label because nothing else seemed a better fit, but part of me still felt like I was faking it. (I once made a friend laugh by saying I had imposter syndrome about my sexuality). I was out to a few people - my closer friends, my parents and my English teacher - but only started being fully open about it once I went to university. I got involved in various LGBTQ communities and while I never felt I fit in especially well with the other people there, it did make the label feel less alien, to the point where I was comfortable casually referring to myself as gay. I even went on a few dates with a girl, but I could feel myself trying to force feelings that weren’t there again. I’d latched on to my sexuality as an explanation for why my last relationship went wrong, and I think I wanted to prove to myself that I could feel the right things if I were with someone of the right gender. 

After we decided we wouldn’t work out I decided to stop trying to force things. Right now, I’m very comfortable being single and think it’s best I stay that way until or unless I develop feelings for someone else naturally, though the thought of dating a girl someday makes me feel warm fluttery things in my stomach. (I do realise the chances I’ll just fall in love again without looking for it, and that she’ll be into girls and into me, are very small, but I don’t see a better option).  I’m also out to most people who are a regular presence in my life, extended family aside, and the label has stopped feeling just “good enough” and started actually feeling right.

[simplee-sarah]

Lets talk about my brain.

At the age of 8, I had a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist told my mom I had OCD because of my varying tendencies which would range from turning my bedroom lights off and on 5 times to folding the tops of my socks up in my shoe because I didn’t like the feeling of the seam on my toes (I got over the socks and the lights thing by the way). I would constantly wash my hands and feet to the point that my skin got cracked and raw. I especially hated having dirty feet after being at a friends house, so I would wash my feet at my friends house before putting on my socks, folding up the seams, and finally saying goodbye. My mom had to constantly explain why I did this to my friends’ parents because they often got offended thinking that I thought their houses were dirty. I just didn’t like the feeling of the dryness of my feet and the dirt I had collected from just being outside. I was’t afraid of dirt, but I hated the feeling it left on my skin. To this day (not as extreme) I STILL hate the feeling of the residue sand leaves on my feet after being at the beach. I can deal with it, but I don’t like it, even thought I love the feeling of sand between my toes. *insert eye roll at my own self* Most people don’t know that there are varying types of OCD ranging from textures, to germs, to repetitive behaviors, which tends to be the most famous. I would consider myself to have a mixture of texture based and repetitive tendencies. 

And like the great Jay-Z once said, “On to the next one”....

OKAY. Numero dos, and one of the most common, ANXIETYYYY.

Alright, so I was diagnosed with anxiety not long after I was diagnosed with OCD. I don’t honestly remember how my anxiety manifested itself. It was something that I didn’t realize I had until I realized I was getting fat. I am not sure if it was the Risperdal that slowed down my metabolism or the fact that my mom was constantly giving me candy and McDonalds to make me her friend (shes got some issues to). I don’t blame my mom for my overall health, but she had a part to play in the meatball I had become. I was very skinny for a long time, so much so, that some people thought my parents didn’t have enough money to feed me. This wasn’t the case, but before long I had gained a lot of weight and my classmates started to treat me different. What was once me having a great time with all my friends, turned into people not talking to me or making fun of me because of my round shape. I think this is where my anxiety truly developed. I don’t know if it was the main cause but small changes in my life that would occur would trigger me to have panic attacks and cause me to curl up into a ball, lash out at people for no reason, and really take a turn for the worst. I was then prescribed Risperdal which is used to help treat irritability caused by autism (which they weren’t sure if I had), bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. Risperdal really didn’t help me, in fact it made my mood-swings worse and more erratic. So they prescribed me Zoloft to combat that, and eventually took me off of Risperdal. Today, and throughout my life I have made so many great strides (which I will talk about in this blog) towards overcoming and coping with anxiety. 

Last but not least, I got the blues.

Depression. The blues is depression. Like my other mental health issues, I don't really remember when I KNEW I had depression. I am so much more self aware now than I ever have been, so to think of a time when I didn't know what was going on with myself is really hard. Depression was sneaky with me. It hid behind my teenage angst and it seemed like no one understood what was going on with me. When a teenager cries that no one understands them, it's not really taken seriously because that's what most teenagers say when they have all these hormones running through their bodies. But for me it was true, or at least it felt that way.

My depression is always with me. It's with me on good days and bad days. It mixes with my anxiety and it can really ruin a day for me. I have to prepare myself every morning and set goals for myself in order to get through the day. If I am not in the right mindset for the day, it will feel like I'm on autopilot. If I don't have the right mindset, I will give into the excuses my brain makes up for me and I won't do as good a job at work that I know I can do. It's a job everyday to deal with depression. It's like having a job that pays minimum wage and as soon as you start your shift your boss tells you you have to train this new person for the whole day. Except that the job is life, your boss is your logical self, and the depression is the clingy nervous new person.

The one thing I can say is that I'm so happy that I realized that sharing my story and my experiences, really makes a difference. I hope you enjoy reading, and I look forward to continue blogging and bringing you great content. If you ever need someone to talk to, need advice, or just want to vent, please feel free to ask a question.

[tomswifty-fr]

(Explanation: this was for a forum thread where you were supposed to have your dragons tell stories to a story-ghost, but the original poster stopped responding and I’m not about to let 2300+ words of dumb teen adventures go to waste.) 

(My greatest apologies to mobile readers)

“Well, it started with me and Ithaca. We were bored. Square Toe is a dumb place to live, y’know? It’s so small and there’s nothing to do! They won’t let us into Habitat or Leo’s, ‘cuz we’re too young. The desert is just the desert. It’s boring and hot and everyone says it’s full of ghosts, but I’ve never seen one. I wish I had. Ithaca wanted to go flying, but I’m bad at flying. My wings are too short.” She stretches one out to prove it. “My uncle says they’ll get bigger, but I don’t think so. Everything else on me stopped growing a long time ago.

“Ithaca’s my best friend, by the way. She’s good at everything, and she’s really brave and stuff…. We spend a lot of time together. I told her I didn’t want to fly, and she suggested some other stuff. Hang out at the library, sneak into Tom’s workshop, go over to the orchard and climb trees until we got caught and chased out. I guess I was in kind of a crummy mood and kept saying no, I don’t want to do that, that’s dumb. I felt bad about it, but I kept saying no. I could tell she was getting annoyed too, so when she said we should go explore the old part of town I said yes, even though we’ve done it a jillion times before.

“Okay so, Square Toe’s a really weird town. I said it was small but there’s actually a lot of it. I guess there used to be a bunch more dragons living here a long time ago, so the city itself is really big and there’s a lot of empty buildings and stuff. Everyone lives close together though, so the old town is empty and really worn out. I used to think it was creepy until I started going there. You can find cool stuff sometimes, like old graffiti, and once I found a little carved hainu. Ithaca heard there was an old statue garden with lots of weird sculptures and that’s what she wanted to go see…”

Riley sneezed again. It was cooler in this cellar, sure, but there was so much dust it was impossible to see anything. She guessed Ithaca had given up on the statues by now; there’s no way they’d be someone’s old basement.

“Hey, check this out!” Ithaca was bent over the remains of a desiccated wooden crate, her feathered tail wagging fiercely and raising even more piles of dust. Riley stifled another sneeze and came over to look.

It was full of paper masks. Tundras with furry fringe, Guardians with drooping horns, Imperials with yarn whiskers, and even a Talonok with cutout beak. “That one looks like you!” Ithaca laughed, pointing to a Mirror mask with four eyes but only two eyeholes. “I could wear it to the library and check out books on your account.”

“And stick me with all the late fees? No way! I should pretend to be you, so I can eat at your house every night. Harry’s a lousy cook.” Riley snatched for a Wildclaw mask in faded purple, intending to hold it up and perform a scathing imitation of her friend, but the ancient paper crumbled in her claws. “Ugh.”

Ithaca made a half-hearted attempt to force the crate closed, giving up with the lid still open at an awkward angle. “Okay, one more basement? If we don’t find anything good, we’ll give up.”

Riley nodded. “Sure, next building?”

“I was thinking that.” Ithaca pointed, drawing Riley’s attention to an empty doorway on the other side of the room.

“That’s just a closet.”

“No, I bet it’s a connected basement. Feel? There’s air!”

Riley concentrated, then gave up. “I don’t feel anything, but I believe you. What are we gonna do about- ” She instinctively caught the small object Ithaca tossed her, then looked down. “Oh. Where’d you get these?”

Ithaca waved her own small lantern and stuck out her tongue mischievously. “Borrowed them from my mom. I told her we were going camping tonight. They’re magic, so we don’t have to worry about them going out. Don’t drop yours though, okay?” There was just a tinge of worry in her otherwise carefree tone; magic items were expensive.

“What do you think I am, a hatchie? I’m not gonna drop it.” She switched hers on with a sigh. “Let’s go.”

*

“How far apart are these basements supposed to be?”

“I don’t know.”

“Shouldn’t we turn around?”

“You can if you want.”

Riley turned her head, looked at the black tunnel behind her, and turned it back to look at the black tunnel and snappish friend in front of her, who was just as nervous but trying to hide it. “Nah, I’ll stay.”

The so-called ‘connected basement’ had turned into a too-long trek down a crumbling stone tunnel. It wasn’t quite cramped, but she and Ithaca were travelling single file. The only saving grace was that there didn’t seem to be any spiderwebs or even a lot of dust, but the slight dampness under Riley’s feet took away any reassurance she could have got from that fact. Flash floods were a fact of Highland Scrub life; thunderstorms were more common further south in Lightning territory, but rushing water could travel miles and miles and be just as violent with the distance.

Wouldn’t that be a stupid way to die, she thought. Drowned in a stupid tunnel with my stupid friend. At least we won’t have to pay for ruining the lanterns.

After another little distance of silence and worrying, the corridor opened up into another chamber. The two teens almost breathed sighs of relief, before noticing one crucial fact.

“Ithaca? This isn’t a basement.”

It was a large, natural looking cavern, with a ceiling towering dozens of feet above them (Riley realized, a little too late, that the tunnel they’d been going through had been a downward slope). Their lanterns didn’t illuminate very far but were able to reveal a few details: stalagmites jutting up from the floor, water droplets sparkling on the walls, and scuff marks on the ground behind them. The humidity was much higher than either of the desert-dwellers were used to; Riley’s scales itched, and she could see Ithaca’s headfeathers starting to poof up.

Ithaca reached up to scratch her feathers, her eyes getting bigger all the time. “This is so cool.”

“What?”

“No, it’s really cool! It’s a whole cave! And we found it! Do you think it’s connected to Square Toe Cave?”

There was a slightly manic tone to Ithaca’s voice, as if she were overcome by the potential of their discovery. It made sense; Square Toe Cave was the life of Square Toe; almost literally. The underground reservoir was the only thing that had let the original inhabitants build everything they did. Even in its diminished present state, it was all that let the current residents live lives of (relative) comfort in the desert.

“If it is, we didn’t really discover it though, we just found another entrance. They’ll close it off and put another guard up.”

“Ok, so we don’t tell anyone. We keep quiet and have our own cave.”

Riley was trying to match her friend’s enthusiasm, but it was hard. “We’d better not tell anyone. We’d get in trouble just for going through that tunnel.” She mimicked an adult voice, deep and monotone. “Stay out of the tunnels, they’re dangerous, they’re unexplored, they’ve got mimics in them- ”

“That’s for the tunnels in the library. And they just do that because they think they connect to Square Toe Cave.”

“They won’t care. I mean, your dad works in the Cave and he’s always going on about how dangerous it is underground, with floods and stuff and the risk of it collapsing and everything.”

“Yeah, but- ” A scraping sound stopped the argument in its tracks. Suddenly, both teens were extremely aware that they were in a weird cave they didn’t know anything about. Nobody knew they were here. There was something in here with them.

“A mimic?” Ithaca whispered.

“Probably.” Riley breathed back.

It made sense. Mimics lived anywhere they could. The library would have been infested with them, if it wasn’t for constant searching and pest control. This place? Dark, quiet, empty? It would be perfect for them. Mimics were harmless anyway. If you tried to open a mimic book you might get your claws nipped, but that was all. They were scared of dragons. Kimball even kept one as a pet. If it was mimics, it was fine.

The scraping sound appeared again.

They froze.

They waited.

They relaxed.

And suddenly a shape loomed up in front of them. It was large and dark and blue, and smelled like metal and water. Riley didn’t know any more details because by the time she registered the thing, she was already running back up the tunnel, the lantern beam bouncing wildly, strobing the blank walls. Something was running behind her, and she hoped hoped hoped to the Eleven that it was Ithaca.

After what seemed like a long time, too long, she emerged from the tunnel. It was Ithaca behind her. Immediately, in an unspoken agreement, they grabbed the crate of masks and pulled it to the opening, tipping it over and scattering masks across the floor. Neither paid attention to the paper disintegrating under their claws or the sequins and yarn bits bouncing around their claws. It didn’t block the entrance perfectly, but having it there made them both feel a little better.

Outside, Riley wrote ‘BEWARE’ on the building front with a piece of chalk Ithaca found in some pocket of hers. “What do you- what do you think that was?” She was babbling, but tried to concentrate on thinking and writing to soothe her pounding heart. “I’ve never heard of a mimic that big, and it couldn’t have been a dragon. It didn’t- I mean- ” Instead of talking, she pointed to her front eyes, the heat-seeing ones. “It was cold. It didn’t smell like a dragon either. I don’t know what it could be.” Turning to give back the chalk, she saw Ithaca, pale behind her feathers. She was shaking.

“Hey, hey?” Riley took her claw as she handed the chalk back. “We’re okay, right? It didn’t follow us.”

“No, it’s not that.” Ithaca looked sick. “I lost my light.”

“Oh.” Riley paused. “That sucks.” It seemed inadequate.

“Yeah.”

“Let’s head back.”

“And it really just seemed dumb. We just escaped some kind of cave monster and it’s still there under the old city and we can’t tell anyone, or we’ll get in big trouble. I know we should, but I don’t want to. What if we just imagined it? But even if we imagined it, there’s still a cave down there. And losing the light was stupid too. It almost felt worse than, than, whatever happened down there. I mean, it felt more real, you know? But that’s not the weirdest part.

“Ithaca slept over with me that night, because it was already late, and she told her parents we were going camping anyway and she didn’t want to tell her mom she lost one of her lanterns. When she went back the next morning there wasn’t anyone home- she told me this part, I wasn’t there. I guess her dad was at work and her mom and her sister were somewhere, which is pretty normal. But the lantern was lying on the kitchen table. It wasn’t broken or anything. So she gave them both back and didn’t get in trouble, but it was really weird. The whole thing is just weird.

“Anyway, that’s what happened. I guess nothing really bad came out of it, but it was a couple of weeks ago and it’s still weird. Creepy, even. I’m gonna be thinking about it for a long time. She gets up, stretching her legs. “I just wanted to get that off my chest. Thanks for uh, thanks for listening, I guess.” She leaves, in that same loping run as before, not bothering to wait for a response.

*

Some time passes, and another form fades into view. This one is paler and transparent, and if it ever was a dragon, it sure isn’t anymore. “This isn’t even a story, but something strange happened to an acquaintance of mine a little while ago.”

“His name is Davy, and he was alive until very recently. Death’s been a hard adjustment for him, especially since the person he’s haunting moved very recently, so he has to get used to a whole new place as well. He likes to stay underground, in caverns and cellars and so forth. I think he finds the darkness comforting.

“Well, he told me that the other day he finds a couple of kids spelunking, goes over to say hello, and they start screaming like they’ve seen a ghost- which I suppose they had!” She laughs. “He noticed one of them dropped something, so he went to ask if I could return it since I’m more familiar with the town. Been around it longer, so to speak. Well, I recognized the description, there’s not that many kids around that age in town, so I returned it.

“Later, Ripper tells me- he’s another, well he’s not quite a ghost.” A frown. “Well, we stick together, all us not-quite-dragons-anymore. The one kid, the feathery one, has started asking Vince about ghosts. She didn’t tell him what happened, just acting curious, but I just had to laugh. Vince calls himself a ghost hunter, but his idea of trying to catch us is a propped-up box with a string and a peanut butter sandwich! And all the while she’s sitting there, soaking all his nonsense in, Mike is puttering by right in asking distance. Mike knows miles more about ghosts that Vince does; he’s dating one!”

She shakes her head. “Well, maybe that’s not funny either. Time can warp your sense of humor, I’ve heard. I just think it goes to show. I’m not sure what it shows, but it shows something.”

[relbyshock]

Amy Winehouse, Princess Diana, Britney Spears, Marilyn Monroe, Aileen Wuornos, Angelina Jolie, Adolf Hitler, Darrell Hammond, Pete Davidson, Winona Ryder, Vincent Van Gogh, Tommy Tiernan….

What do they all have in common? Apart from being famous figures, they all suffer(ed) or were rumored to have suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder.

Hey, me too.

I’m over the moon to have something in common with Princess Di (apart from our shared plight with bulimia), but I have to say, I’d rather not have anything in common with Aileen or Adolf…..

Borderline Personality Disorder is a confusing term to say the least. On the borderline of what and what? Well, in the ‘30s, it meant you fell somewhere between psychosis (untreatable) and neurosis (treatable).

Great, that’s reassuring.

Come the ‘70s, BPD sufferers were described as being very emotional, needy, difficult, at risk for suicide, and to have an “overall unstable level of functioning”.

Check. *sings “Welcome to My Life” by Simple Plan*

We also have rapidly fluctuating mood swings, unstable self-image, and a fear of abandonment. This disorder wasn’t even recognized by the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) until 1980.

Today, we know far more about BPD – “neurosis” is no longer used in the diagnosis, and BPD is no longer considered a psychotic disorder.

 So what are we then?

Crazy?

Hormonal?

According to my family, yes. But in reality, the problem lies within our brains. Let me nerd out here for a minute:

The Amygdala (Ah-mig-dah-lah) is composed of two almond-shaped parts of the brain, deep in the medial temporal lobe, that regulate fear and aggression. People with BPD have amygdala’s that are noticeably smaller than that of a healthy person. The smaller the amygdala, the more overactive it is.

Like short guys with bad attitudes, or what I like to refer to as “little man syndrome”.

And then we have the Hippocampus – no, not pachyderm college. The hippocampus is responsible for spatial orientation (not falling over), long and short-term memory, and emotional regulation. Put simply, the hippocampus chooses the correct response to environmental events: Fight or flight.

You may be wondering if I was dropped on my head as a child. The answer is yes – frequently – but the chances of minor brain trauma causing BPD are slim.

The causes of Borderline Personality Disorder are unclear. It seems to involve genetic, brain, environmental and social factors. There are rumours that people with BPD have issues with serotonin production, which has been linked to depression, aggression and having a hard time controlling “destructive urges”.

As for environmental factors, those who have been a victim of emotional/physical/sexual abuse, as well as being exposed to chronic fear or distress as a child have a high likelihood of developing BPD. This is because our relationship with our parents and family has a HUGE influence on how we see the world, and how we feel about other people.

Gals are also diagnosed 3 times as often as guys. You’ve gotta wonder if that’s due to the fact that men tend to be more weary of the doctor, therefore avoiding a diagnosis altogether. This is pure speculation.

Shall we take a dive into the “Signs and Symptoms” as listed by Wikipedia?

-Markedly disturbed sense of identity

-Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment and extreme reactions

-Splitting (black and white thinking)

-Impulsivity

-Intense and uncontrollable emotional reactions that often seem disproportionate to the event or situation

-Unstable and chaotic interpersonal relationships

-Self-damaging behavior (ie, substance abuse)

-Distorted self-image

-Dissociation

-Frequently accompanied by depression, anxiety, anger, substance abuse or rage

We are also aware of the intensity of our negative emotional reactions, and since we can’t regulate them, we shut them down completely. What my doctor and I refer to as feeling “flat”.

BPD sufferers are also extremely sensitive to real or perceived rejection. Let’s explain with a meme, shall we:

*looking at an unanswered text from 12 minutes ago*

You: They must be in the shower or just busy, they’ll respond when they have a chance.

Me: Ok well they were active on Instagram 6 minutes ago and they just posted a snap story….they’re ignoring me, why do they hate me? What did I do? Are they mad at me? Should I send another text to get their attention or is that too needy?

If you’re annoyed just reading that, TRY LIVING IN MY BRAIN.

I annoy myself.

I feel grief, overwhelming shame and humiliation where others would feel mildly embarrassed. A minor inconvenience such as cancelled plans takes me from excited to absolutely miserable.

In the past, an unflattering photo on Facebook has caused me to reevaluate my self-worth, and even my life.

The Sickboy podcast explained it beautifully: Borderline Personality Disorder is like having a third degree burn on your emotions. I feel that. Everything hurts me just a little bit more than the average bear (or human).

Why am I telling you this? Because boys and girls, today is Bell Let’s Talk Day here in Canada. I’ll include the link at the bottom. Basically, in 2010, Bell began a new conversation about Canada’s mental health. They’ve enlisted such figures as Howie Mandel, Michael Landsberg, and Clara Hughes to share their stories of struggle and strength in the face of mental health.

I thought today was as good as any other to address the stigma surrounding mental health, but more specifically, the stigma around BPD.

I can’t pretend to know all the answers – I’m not and won’t pretend to be a psychiatrist. But this is what the world looks like through my lens.

If someone honks at me while I’m driving to work, I’m upset ALL DAY. I never want to drive again, I want to pull over and cry, or turn around and go home.

If I get a moderately rude email, my brain fills with cutting, angry, and just plain mean remarks to respond with. “I’m sorry your father never hugged you as a child” is not a suitable response to a professional email, but that’s where my brain goes.

When I make plans with friends weeks in advance and they bail 10 minutes before, I am a heap of inconsolable sobs for the rest of the evening, and even into the next day. This plays into the fear of “real or imagined abandonment”. My BPD brain does not care that something came up or you’re feeling under the weather. BPD tells me that you hate me and you never want to see me again and you were just pretending to like me this whole time and you’ve finally made your escape. My logical brain tries to tell me that it’s ok, and we’ll plan something for another time, but usually, my BPD brain wins the fight.

When I get nervous and start to ramble trying to tell a story and my mom cuts me off with “Anyways.” I want to crawl in a hole and die, but I also sort of want to throw a plate at her face. My mother is a saint, so why do I feel this way about her sometimes?

Let’s get back to the causes of Borderline Personality Disorder. Dad, Mom, maybe stop reading here…or don’t…but here’s your warning. You aren’t going to like this next part.

I was severely neglected as a child. Not physically – I had food to eat, clothes to wear, a roof over my head – but emotionally and mentally. The minor relationship I did have with my father was marked by him coming home from a long shift (as a firefighter) and starting a fight with me about my weight, my shoes at the front door, my marks in school, and more often than not, “why are you always crying?!”. My mom also worked full time at a stressful sales job. So by the time she got home, she didn’t want to have to deal with anyone else’s issues.

So when I would have issues with anything from being bullied at school to just having a ‘bad mental health day’, I had nowhere to turn.

See, my brother and I were latch-key kids. We got home from school at least an hour before my parents got home from work. He and I never got along, so some sort of fight would ensue, and by the time our parents got home, he had made me cry. I was deemed dramatic and sent away to my bedroom, while the 3 of them would eat dinner together (usually something I refused to eat – like meat – which would be another reason to fight).

I’ve voiced this to my mom before, and she remembers my childhood very differently than I do.

As long as I have been alive, I have come second to my brother.

No, honey, we can’t go to (insert activity I wanted to do) because Maxx has hockey/a book report due/needs a ride to the bike track, etc.

Every dinner or event we went to was with HIS friends and THEIR parents, who ended up becoming my parents’ best friends (still to this day). I was always the only girl; so naturally, I stayed with the adults, because the boys wouldn’t have me.

But the adults didn’t want me there either. I felt like a constant annoyance.

Thinking back on it, I realize that I may not have been as unwanted as I perceived myself to be. Remember, BPD brains are sensitive to even slight facial expressions and tones of voice. But, when I voiced this to my parents, that I felt unwanted, and why couldn’t we do things with my friends and their parents, etc. I was told that I was being ridiculous.

Enter: Invalidation

Invalidation is the number one cause of BPD, according to my psychiatrist. Growing up in an environment where nothing you do is good enough will cause you to internalize everything.

I have no memories or examples of healthy emotional behaviour or relationships. In our house, we got the point across by screaming at or just plain ignoring each other. So when I get hurt, or I feel let down, I have absolutely no idea how to deal with my feelings. Further reinforcing my belief that the world is full of bad people who are out to ruin your day and be unkind, because that’s all I’ve ever known.

Research shows that if you already experience these difficulties as a child, experiencing trauma as an adult could make things worse.

Dad - now is really the time to stop reading.

(Sometimes I feel like I live inside the DSM definition of BPD)

At the age of 21 – fresh out of college and trying to start my career in the fashion world – I was sexually assaulted. Cue the downward spiral.

I didn’t report. I didn’t seek help. I confided in a close friend, and was called a liar. But that’s a story for another time.

So I buried that part of me so deep, that sometimes I could convince myself that it never happened. Sometimes.

I reached the end of my rope in 2016. I knew that if I didn’t seek help, I would not survive. I finally went to my doctor and spent hours with her, just sobbing and telling her everything.

She hooked me up with a psychiatrist, and put me in Dialectical Behavioural Therapy, and started me on an SSRI (anti-depressant) immediately.

As of today, it has been 1172 days since the assault. I only told my mother this past summer.

Since reaching out for help, I have begun to repair the relationship with my parents. My mom and I are closer than ever, and my dad and I are working on it.

As I write this, I feel the judgements pouring in. But I have decided that this year, I don’t care. I am not ashamed of my story. I will no longer hide the things I have been through in order to make others more comfortable. I will not keep my pain to myself because it’s easier for others if I stay silent. If bearing my soul can help even one person seek the help they need, then I have succeeded, and all this pain has been worth it.

The long and short of it is SPEAK UP! There is nothing embarrassing about mental illness. If you aren’t feeling right, there are people who care and are here to help you, including me. The first step is to tell someone.

The best advice I can give is to find your people. People who trust you, who lift you up, who validate your feelings, who listen and take you seriously when you say you’re having a bad day. I have spent the past year painstakingly building my support system, because the truth of the matter is, I can’t do this alone. And that’s ok.

Today and every single day, be kind to each other – it’s the only thing that matters.

https://letstalk.bell.ca/en/bell-lets-talk-day

[aggresivelyfriendly]

~Meet Me In The Hallway~

Chapter 30-Walkabout

Eternal gratitude to @nocontrolforlouis for making it readable and to everybody for being patient. I mommed hardcore this weekend, we did Disney, the beach, and rollerskating, plus LA traffic. I’m wiped, be gentle!

As Harry sobbed, I pulled him across my lap. I had heard his sadness and regret on his 10 -song memory trip. I knew we were all over it. I felt like I had a lot of answers to his questions. Not a one of them was good enough though.

"I'm sorry, Harry, I'm sorry, baby!" We were both saying it and he sat up and held my face.

"Im sorry. I'm sorry. If you ever thought I didn't love you, didn't think of you everyday.," he said."Didn't want you every bit as much as you wanted me. That you were less important than me."

I clutched his back, knowing touching him was a bad idea. "I'm sorry I ran. I'm sorry I didn't talk to you. You were my best friend, I should have just talked to you!"

He kissed me then. I think he was just caught up in the feeling of the moment, like I had been earlier. I let him, because we needed a real goodbye, a seal upon our lives and lips. Because I wanted to memorize him one last time, commit him to the mixtape in my head labeled 'Harry and Melly."

I pulled away after a few sips and stood, he needed to leave, before that wasn't possible. He tasted like sunshine and beaches and sausage rolls, and my mom before she got sick, like the home you can't go back to.

Harry let me pull him up and lead him to the door. I was surprised he didn't fight me about making him leave, that he didn't think we had more to say. Maybe he was sure this wasn't the last time. But he was leaving my island, a smaller one this time, and I knew better that it had to be.

I crossed my arms tightly at the door and said goodbye in the same tone. Collapsing back into myself, bringing her back home, the girl he set free.

"Can I at least call you sometime? I promise I'm much better about it now. Heartbreak is a good teacher," he said. The slice in his cheek appeared, his eyes shone through his drying tears and I thought that saltwater cured everything, except for love.

"I don't think that's a good idea, Harry."

His smile fell. "Alright, Alright Melly." He swallowed. "I...I love you, and for what's worth, I'm not mad at you anymore, ok? We're ok?"

I bit my lip and back my tears. "Mmhmm," was all I could get out with a nod. I couldn't cough up the three words he now seemed to say so effortlessly. Or the easy forgiveness, for him or me. I guided him to the threshold of my apartment and opened it onto the hallway. I couldn't even smile when he walked out into that place, our place. Though he was the one outside now, it felt backwards, like a mirror image.

I closed the door between us and sat down right there and listened to him walk away.

His footsteps echoed and I thought about how we don't ever really see our own faces, just reflections and pictures, but our lovers do. How they see us for who we really are. What face did Harry see tonight, when he had been looking at me? Did he see me as the 18-year old girl who he spent nights learning, of the 20-year old girl he knew in everyway, or the 23-year old woman who was a stranger?

I wasn't sure which one I saw either, what reflection would look back at me. I wasn't sure I'd recognize any of those people.

I was still there, on the floor, with a salty face when I heard Milo's footfalls and got myself up and to the bathroom. The girl in the mirror looked younger. So maybe today I was her, my 18-year old self. I'd cried off my makeup and I was in comfy clothes and my hair was up in the messy bun I had always worn at night three or four years ago. I'm surprised she wasn't screaming at me, for letting Harry walk into that corridor and away, onto another country.

It was time to put away childish things.

Milo loved my hair unbound, the waves down my back drew him out like he was a surfer at dawn. Most nights I wore it like that, now.

When we were young, Harry never made special mention of how he liked my hair, but he often gripped my bun. I wore a bun a lot then.

I didn't put make up on, but I washed my face and put my hair down and threw on a nightie before going to Milo.

"Corazon!" He greeted when I came into the kitchen and he was heating up yesterday's takeout. "Have you eaten?" He pulled down another plate and I felt a wave of guilt crest and crash.

"Yeah." I lied. Food sounded like sawdust. I sat at the table to chat like he liked me to do when he had been out late.

"Were you sleeping, Melody? Your eyes are puffy." His finger smoothed my eye and it reminded me of another swipe at the tear stained place too recently. My first instinct was to yank away from the confusing touch. I just adjusted myself slightly farther away.

"I nodded off, Buen Provecho." I nodded at his plate and watched him tuck in. He was always starved after these business affairs.

"I'm starving, How they all live off whiskey I do not know." He happily ate the Thai food I had called in, while we giggled on the living room rug and watched a film yesterday. It felt a lifetime ago. He was talking about his night between mouthfuls and I must have been feigning attention well enough because before long, while I was thinking about the sound of footsteps in corridors, he was pulling me up.

He hugged me and my body felt like I'd been in a car accident, black and blue all over. I was hoping my tiredness would convince him we should just retire. The idea of his hands on me tonight made me tender beneath my skin too. I wanted to word vomit over my shame and was trying to figure out how to tell him. How do you tell a good man he deserves more? When he wasn't touching me I could stay mum and numb.

I hoped he kept his hands to himself while I put on my courage like a poor knight's armor.

He was such a lovely man, I thought as I watched him round the bed. How could I do this? Milo got into the bed beside me and leaned over giving me a kiss on the head and taking my hand.

"Did you pack today?"

My confusion was plain on my face.

He chuckled, "Are you still jet lagged? Mi amor you are out of it." He made an up in space gesture.

I shook my head. Bigger things than sleep were wrong with me.

"No, Corazon, we leave in two days!" He's celebrating and I've forgotten somehow about the three week trip we are about to take. It has been an extremely stressful season at his work place. He's had to deal with some asset inquiries and he was up for review. When he'd been promoted to senior trader he had proposed that we make a trip to meet each other's families.

He picks up my hands then, and kisses the backs of them and then presses his mouth to the empty ring finger on my left hand. "After we tell our families, then you will have no excuse not to wear it anymore!"

He had also proposed.

And me in my delusions that I was over loving Harry Styles and all of the grief that had come with it, had leapt into his arms and accepted.

I'd be lucky to have him.

But we hadn't met anybody back home. I'd never been to Argentina and he had certainly never been to Australia. My parents and my brother were aware of our situation and happy that I'd found somebody after my unspoken, but apparent heartbreak. We had used the tools available to us and my mum had made a few calls where she had cause to make cheeky little comments about Milo because he was shirtless and I was disheveled.

They were happy because I was happy, or at least I thought I was.

No that is unfair. I was happy, and we were supposed to be getting married in six months. Smack dab in the middle of Harry's next tour. A shame I wouldn't be able to invite him.

I had agreed to marry my gorgeous grown-up man, but found a convenient excuse about why I could not wear his ring.

Milo had agreed, that our ex-patriot status made certain things complicated. What if our parents did not approve?

I could not imagine that my parent's would disapprove of Milo. And he assured me that his mother, the lone immediate family member he had, would love me at first sight, like him.

But I was well aware, having loved and lost a mumma's boy before, that her approval, Maria Luisa's approval, would be important. If she disapproved, however, that would be a deal breaker.  I'm sure that Milo would not break up with me immediately, but it would be an eventuality.

Milo had been really nervous about this trip when we had discussed it originally. It was the youngest I had ever seen him appear, while he told me all about his home and all of the things he wanted me to see and eat. The friends that he couldn't wait to introduce to me.

It was more nerve wracking than meeting Harry's parents somehow. Maybe because of language barriers and cultural difference. Milo was totally sure that it would be a resounding success. I was his doll, everybody would love me as much as him, I would see.

Also, it wouldn't have been a deal breaker for Harry. No matter how much he loved his mother, if she didn't like me, he would just given her time and trust his own opinion.

Luckily we never had that problem.

For all of these reasons though, I had been hesitant to wear my ring until we actually met and it went smoothly.  I could just imagine my mum catching the glint off the two carat skating rink Milo had presented me with and knowing her she would scream and cry and be happy. But she would also ask why they didn't know first and why Milo hadn't tried to talk to my dad before. I assumed that was because Milo had no father to speak of, and my parents were surprisingly old fashioned about some things.

Worse would be if his mother saw it and made assumptions about me before she met me. The guera from another world who kept her boy away.

These were the reason I gave Milo when he asked. And they were legitimate.

I felt the need to stall for time, but I had covered my hours of gut wrench by preparing for bed and pretending to be tired so I went to the bed and watched him round the room and close the bathroom door while I put my face into my hands and thought about the way Harry's face had looked while he'd begged me to tell him I didn't love Milo like I loved him. That I was meant for him.

His cheeks were drawn and he looked gaunt and like a cat caught out in the rain. Then he looked aghast that he had revealed himself so nakedly to me.

It reminded me of one of our first major conversations, when he had first stripped himself emotionally and admitted that the constant attention was exhausting  and he longed for anonymity sometimes.

I pulled myself together when I heard the sink turn off after the buzz of Milo's electric toothbrush. When he walks out my feelings of guilt transfer to him.

He smiled at me so warmly and I remembered that he was my sun in a dark place. But I had betrayed him tonight, and would have betrayed him fully if Harry hadn't stopped me. Once again my thief's brain ran away with me, and my thoughts made a getaway from the righteous guilt I should be feeling to wondering about Harry's girl. She must be special if he turned me down.

Jesus I was a horrible bitch. I had no business with either of these honorable men.

Milo smiled at me, and came to his side of the bed, slipping in and flipping to his side so that he could run his fingers up and down my arm.

He wanted me. So I slouched down into the bed and tried to turn my brain off and my body on. Milo made me ravenous and desperate, it was his favorite thing.

It was a hard thing to fake, but I must have done well enough, as he nodded off after. "Mi Alma, mi sol!" he said into my long blonde hair.

Did all men fall asleep like this? Harry didn't even need to be horizontal or comfortable to fall asleep. Milo nodded off as soon as he met the pillow. They were the totality of my experience, so I guess men are better sleepers.

I was not tired. I surfed on my phone.

"Harry Styles girlfriend" went into the search bars without permission and I wondered how to punish my own fingertips, or mind.

There was nothing new, all of the girl's were from two or more years ago. So, she, whoever was standing where I stood and doing it better, was new or important.

Important? That was a weird assumption. And then I reminded myself, that voice who whispered important, that our names were never linked in ink. Only people who we loved knew. We were hidden far away from predatory eyes. I was hidden away.

Or it was new.

I sent up an errant prayer for the latter.

This was ridiculous! I was jealous of a woman I didn't know who got a man I didn't deserve and who I'd thrown away years ago. What I had now was real. And open. And I loved the one I was with.

I stared at Milo for a while and decided that I had to put Harry away. And that I would never tell. If nothing came of it and nobody came, the only reason to tell was to alleviate my own guilt. It was time to put away childish things.

I got up and located my engagement ring, stowed in the medicine cabinet for some weird reason. I closed the mirrored door and looked at the beautiful piece. I took off the ring that had adorned my right hand for years, with it's worn wish and held it.

I stared at myself in the mirror for a long moment and tried to decide who she was, the girl there reflected back at me.

And I put on my ring. But instead of the rock with all of its intentions, I slipped my past onto my wedding finger.

[thebiffbuzz-blog]

Tame the Terror

When I was a little girl I loved using my imagination and pretending to have a life that wasn’t real. A fantasy life of sorts. I would pretend picnics so my belly would be full. I would pretend to be a doctor to fix my own illnesses and help cure my sick baby brother. I would pretend to be LeAnn Rhymes on a stage with a crowd full of people cheering me on. I would make all sorts of pretending dinners with play-doh and leftover taco bell sauce packets (Mild to be exact… still my fav.) I had a lot of health complications. Mentally & Physically that I would keep to myself so I wouldn’t have to go to a real doctor or put that stress on my hostile parents. I thought if I just pretended to cure it myself then all was fine. Eventually, it wasn't fine anymore. My nervous system freaked out on me. Cold air burned my skin and steaming hot water was the only thing that put me to sleep. It would be nice to say that I had the most amazing parents who cared for me and loved me unconditionally who worked together to give me the best life ever. It would be nice to say that  I recovered quickly with zero long-term effects… I wish I could say that that time in my life passed and I eventually healed and we all lived happily ever after. It would be a great ending to my story, right? 

I cant. It’s not true. I somehow made it the truth over the years hoping I could mold my memories into good ones to avoid the reality of it all. That made things worse. The point of this story is to show you all that your past plays a HUGE roll in your future and could possibly be the answer to your problems today. Even those things you cant possibly remember as a child (so many years ago) are the reasons why you are the way that you are as an adult. My questions that cannot be answered are WHY? Why did my nervous system freak out, to begin with? The answer I always get is “no one knows.” Something traumatic happened. Too young for me to remember but enough knowledge seeped through over the years of me trying to remember, to know that it could have been prevented. My anxiety was triggered as a child and it has never been tamed. My stress levels are uncontrollable and always have been. My childhood was awful and my sweet memories are fake. I remember seeing my father scream in my mothers face and then take it out on me when she finally had enough to leave. I remember watching my mom scream and cry because all she wanted was for someone to love her as much as she proved her love to them. I remember good days too but they don’t overpower the bad. I would keep my ‘sickness’ a secret to prevent fights between my parents. I would make pretend dinners for myself to prevent having to tell my mom or dad that I was hungry because I didn’t want them to fight or argue about not having groceries. I would pretend to be famous to escape the fact that my parents couldn’t and would never be able to provide a normal life for me and my one younger sibling at the time. 

After my illness got too bad and outed me to my parents without my approval one night… they fought each other and blamed one another because one of them didn’t see it sooner. Again, another fight that was my fault. They finally agreed on ONE thing. I needed a real doctor. I remember being at UCLA for over a month. I remember the drive to LA. I was sweating and fading in and out of what I thought was a deep uncontrollable sleep. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I woke up for a few seconds a couple of times. Once to my mom telling me we were almost there. Again in an ambulance being poked and prodded while a mask was being forced on my face. My mother’s tears falling on my hand as she held it on her cheek and consistently kissed each one of my fingers on the other hand. I remember my dad and my mom both crying at a window before I was shoved into a huge, loud spaceship looking machine. (I now know it was an MRI). The rest is all black and white. I still don’t know what was wrong with me. I still don’t know why it happened. My dad (to this day) tells me he isn’t sure and even the doctors were baffled. “They had never seen that type of illness before but they knew it was your nerves”. Still no help.

A few years after that incident and a lot of abusive fights later,  my parents separated. I was heartbroken. I didn’t understand. I blamed myself and my sickness. My mom slowly became dependent on drugs to get through her days. She would sleep on the days she wasn’t high, leaving me in charge of managing life and raising my two younger siblings on top of school (Elementary). My father was the same person. Hateful but Loving. Non-existent yet, the Worlds best dad… all at the same time. 

I eventually accepted an offer to move away to another state with my older siblings and start school there for ONE year… My mother encouraged me to go while she sought help. Finally… Life was changing for the better and I was thrilled. Honestly happy that we were finally going to be a normal family when she got better and came to get me after the school year was over. 

 About 6 months after getting away from it all, I was happy, I was doing well in school, made new friends. I was able to be a real KID for once. My mom was finally getting clean, my dad moved on. Then, BOOM. My entire world came crashing down on me. I was told my mother passed away in a car accident. She was never coming to get me. I was never going to see her happy. Which means (what it felt like at the time) I will never be happy. THAT killed me inside. I’m still unaccepting of the situation and I can’t admit that its real. It killed my father. It killed my entire family when she died.                        “What now?”

I did what I had to do. I skipped grieving because I didn’t have the time. I came back home. Got through the funeral. I took on the role of “mom” to my younger siblings once more. I dropped out of school more than once (Before Highschool). I “rebelled” in the eyes of my elders in order to allow myself to play the role I had no choice but to take on. I gave myself no choice because I always came last. My family always came first, to me. I did what I thought I should do considering the circumstances. Its what I had to do for them. Everyone needed me and I wasn’t going to let MY sadness take away from those who needed me MOST. Life went on. I struggled hard. Kept it a secret. Faked a happy that could never exist. 

Now that I am older. More aware. More intuitive. I realize that I needed someone too. I never got that someone… That’s why I have so many problems. Anxiety is UNREAL. Stress is UNREAL. LOVE is almost impossible for me to receive but somehow I have managed. My entire PAST and childhood is the answer and reason behind all of my emotional and mental instability as an adult. My extreme obsessive-compulsive disorder that forces me to make sure EVERYTHING is in place to prevent anything from getting messed up or misplaced…To avoid having to fix it all over again after working so hard to get to where I am. After slowly and painfully accepting it all… NOW I will begin to heal. one. step. at a time. Abuse. Traumatic events. Empathy. Obligation. Anxiety. Stress. Responsibility. LOVE. I have control. It’s mine. I will find a way to tame my terror.

-T

[janeykath318]

Jim/Reader: Starfleet Matchmaking Sequel

After much frustration, I finally got this done! Sorry for the lack of good plot.

Starfleet Matchmaking 3: Jim/Reader sequel

The first date with Jim Kirk went surprisingly well, so well in fact that there was another date and then another and another and pretty soon, the two of you were very smitten. Your shared love of the stars had first helped you click, and as you grew to know each other, you found you complimented each other quite well. Your mismatched heights led to many jokes and people wondering why you didn’t go for someone closer to your height.

You just shrugged it off because Jim was worth the extra neck craning and tiptoeing it took to kiss him. He didn’t act bored when you were talking about work, he knew what jokes were and were not funny, and he was very supportive, completely unlike the negative image people painted of him.

“Guess what, Y/N?” He asked one day, popping into your office unexpectedly. You looked up from your project to see a grinning Kirk standing there, PADD in hand.

“What’s up, Jim?” You replied, wondering what had him so excited.

He touched a button on his PADD and yours dinged, signaling he’d sent you a file.

Curious, you picked up the device and opened the file, eyes widening as you realized what it was.

“Jim! I get a position on the Enterprise for the five year mission? I thought the chances of that weren’t great, considering what you told me last month.”

He shook his head.

“Apparently, another opening came up and Spock felt you had the best qualifications for the job, which means he was really impressed with you. High praise from a Vulcan.”

“I guess all those nerve-wrecking interviews paid off then,” you said with a sigh of relief. You really had been dreading being separated from him for five years, thinking you’d be assigned to the USS Cooper.

“They sure did,” he agreed, looking extremely pleased. You launched yourself out of your chair and into Jim’s arms, gleeful at the fantastic news that boded well for both your personal and professional life. He was tall enough that your head just fit at his breastbone and you relished the familiar feel of the dress jacket against your cheek.

“Bones will be fiendishly delighted,” you commented. “He thinks it’s hysterical that we’re still together and hasn’t let up on his adorable couple comments.”

Jim snorted. “Like he’s one to talk. I heard rumors he’s seeing Amy again on the sly. You might make mention of that next time he tries to give you crap about us.”

Your smile grew wider. Bones and Amy were doing this weird on again, off again dance that confused most people, but seemed to work for them. Leonard seemed to really like her, but occasionally had moments when he got spooked by the reality of being in a relationship again. If they were back together, that was a very good sign and you looked forward to returning the snide remarks.

“I sure will,” you confirmed. “By the way, my parents are still begging me to bring you along for a visit sometime. I think we’d better do it before we leave, don’t you?”

Jim gulped. He was pretty nervous about this, but knew you were right.

“Yeah. So which one’s more threatening?” He asked.

“My dad. Mom is too excited that I actually have a quality boyfriend to get all menacing, but she’ll slip in a passive aggressive warning somewhere, then immediately ply you with offers of baked goods.”

“Doesn’t sound too bad,” Jim said cautiously, perking up at the mention of tasty sweets.

Well, he wasn’t quite so certain when he was sweating under the questions of your interested parents a month later.

“So, Kirk, how did you meet my daughter?” Your dad asked.

You looked at Jim and shared a sheepish look. You hadn’t yet admitted to using the dating service yet and weren’t sure how they’d react. At Jim’s unspoken question, you nodded to indicate he should tell the truth.

“Well, Starfleet has a service to pair up officers with compatible partners and we got paired up, decided to meet, went on a date, and the rest is history.”

Your dad’s face was priceless.

“Really? You’re kidding, right? The Captain Kirk using a dating service? What has the world come to?”

Jim blushed and shrugged.

“I signed up on a whim to try to encourage my friend to do it, since he hadn’t dated in a while and what do you know, I meet a lovely astronomer.”

He bestowed his crinkly-eyed grin on you and you smiled back. Your dad looked stunned.

“That’s….. really surprising. I thought you’d declared you’d never use such a thing, honey,” he told you.

“Changed my mind,” you said simply. “Decided to take a gamble and it paid off big time.”

“Looks like it did, judging by the way he looks at you,” your mom put in. She’d instantly taken to Jim and he’d reciprocated with due praise for her giant cookies.

“And you’re okay with his job, dear? Captains have a nose for danger, you know.” (Especially Jim was left unsaid.)

“It’s not a easy aspect, but he was absolutely made for his role and I’m going to support that, like he does with me,” you said.

“So you’re in it for the long haul then?” Your dad pressed Jim. He was well aware of the captain’s checkered history when it came to relationships and wasn’t going to just let him off easy. You tended up and looked nervously at Jim.

“For as long as Y/N wants me around, yes I am,” Jim answered seriously. There was a silent moment where they held each other’s gaze and then your dad nodded. You took a relieved breath, glad this part was over.

“Well, son, I wish you all the best, but don’t think being out in space will protect you from the consequences should you hurt her.”

“Understood, sir.” Jim responded, not looking offended at all. You were glad you’d given him a heads up about this and he took it all in stride.

“Now that that’s out of the way, how about we eat?” Your mom suggested and you gladly followed her to the kitchen. It was a pleasant time, talking about your hopes and plans for the five year mission and your parents teasing Jim about his towering size, compared to your entire family.

“When Betsy broke, he got me a really nice replacement,” you told them. (Betsy was your old faithful step stool that you’d had since childhood.)

“It’s really nice stained wood with my name carved in it and everything. Folds up for storage so I can take it with me on the ship.”

You showed them a picture and they were suitably impressed. What you didn’t tell them was that it was also the exact perfect height for you to stand on and kiss Jim goodnight with no neck craning. The man was a sly genius, after all.

“What do you think, handsome?” You asked Jim when you were saying goodnight.

“I think you’ve got a pretty awesome family. Had to be to create someone as incredible as you.”

“You flatterer,” you mumbled against his chest. “Love you, babe,” he returned.

You thought about writing Starfleet a thank you note for their impeccable taste in pairing you up with him. This was going to be a fantastic journey and you couldn’t wait to boldly go out into the black with him.

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