#to the point that it's something i'm working on in therapy

[angelltheninth]

Kissing to Believe

Pairing: Bakugo Katsuki x Fem!Reader

Tags: fluff, kissing, new relationship, didn't know they were dating, misunderstandings, suggestive, boner, grinding, bad at feelings

Word count: 0.9k

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Ao3

A/N: He needs therapy. Or someone who really loves him. That could work too. Both will help I think.

You and Bakugo have been... something since the start of the new school year. He had no problem pulling you in for a kiss in front of everyone and you had no problem reciprocating. And all this because he kissed you on impulse after the Dabi's attack. At the time he'd been pretty delirious and just happy to, well be alive. Since then he hasn't stopped.

It finally came to the point where, after he'd spontaneously kissed you in the hallway, his hands on your lower back, edging dangerously close to the hem of your skirt, "Hey Bakugo, what exactly are we?" You asked, a little bashful of all the eyes currently on you.

"Huh?" He tilted his head, his good mood quickly replaced by one of confusion and mild annoyance, "The hell to you mean?"

"I mean..." You sighed, not quite understanding what was it that confused him, "Are we dating? Friends? Are you just fooling around or-" The shove was abrupt, the tch audible and his face fully red as he shoved his hands in his pockets and began walking away.

"Don't fucking believe this shit. How the fuck-" You didn't hear the rest as he hurried to his dorm room. You were left in the middle of the hallway, in the sight of everyone, whispering about a lovers quarrel, how they knew that it would end like this, and something about a bet.

Lovers what now? There was a misunderstanding here on a lot of sides.

Quickly you followed after Bakugo, barging into his room and slamming the door closed just as hard. He didn't pay you any mind, laying on his bed with his back turned.

"Stop being a baby." You tried to pull him towards you only to be pushed away by him, "Bakugo! Just tell me what did I do all of a sudden?"

"Being stupid is what you did." What?

"You have a lot of nerve saying that when you're been playing with me for the past month. Now stop being stubborn and look at me." This time he let you spin him around and he used that momentum to push you onto the ground and pin you down.

"Fucking ridiculous." Bakugo growled as he loosened his tie and pushed your legs apart, the position making both of you blush but Bakugo was the faster one, surging forward to kiss you silent. It was so desperate and hungry, the way his lips pressed against yours, the way his tongue demanded entrance, the way his hands gripped your shoulders, the way his hips rocked against yours to keep you still. "Get it now?" Even if you wanted to reply you were too out of breath to do so, "What, did you think I kissed you all these times because I was doing it for the shits and giggles?"

It was your turn to be pissed. You yanked him down by his tie and into another hot kiss, "…Let’s be real, you did have a lot of fun shoving your tongue down my throat in public. Or your hands going down my body, you're lucky I didn't kick you in the-" His knee pressed between your legs hard, making your hips slide upwards, "You... you always do this! You kiss me, you tease me, you touch me, and then you never say anything about it! How the hell am I supposed to know what's going on in your head Bakugo? I don't have a mind-reading Quirk!"

"I shouldn't have to! You think I kiss just anyone? That- that was the first time I- damn it!" Bakugo sat back but still kept his body between your legs, his hand frustratingly raking through his spiky hair, "You know I'm not got with words and that mushy crap. So I thought my actions would be enough to show you. Everyone else seemed to have picked up on it."

"Everyone?" Thinking about it you did hear a lot of talk about you and Bakugo lately, and you did get a lot of questions about how things were going. You assumed this was because they were amused by him teasing you when actually, "We were dating?"

"I hoped we were." Oh. All those kisses, the little late night hang outs, the walks outside campus and the... heated training sessions.

"You should have just told me that you jackass!" You pulled him to the side and got on top of him, trying to ignore the hardness under you, "For your information I don't go around kissing just anyone either, I just thought you wanted to be more free. You'd be pretty popular with the ladies if you weren't so scary."

"Oy! I'm plenty popular!" That was a bold lie and blow to his ego, "And even if I wasn't I already got my eye on you so you better quit this pussyfooting around and tell me: do you want to be my girlfriend or not?!"

Finally a clear question!

"You love calling me an idiot but if anyone's the idiot here its you." Bakugo grit his teeth at you at being called an idiot but you knew how to wipe that snarl off his face, by pulling him into a kiss, the same way he did to you so many times before, just as passionate just as heated, just as rough. "Clear enough for you?"

Bakugo grinned, "Nah. You need to make it more clear for me." His hands settled on your hips, "Really clear." You yelped when you felt one hand sneaking under your skirt before you slapped it away, your face heating up which only made his grin wider.

He might be a hot head but he was your hot head now, and you would make sure everyone knew it from now on.

[akashicrecord]

One thing i've learned after studying and working in mental health for [REDACTED] years is that there are 10 billion acronyms, models, therapeutic techniques, worksheets, and apps that people can use, but getting people to start identifying and processing their emotions is usually pretty simple.

I am in all honesty sort of "work smarter not harder" person and I don't think it's childish, lazy, condescending, or ineffective to ask a client (or myself) to point to their current feelings on a wheel of emotions or draw something based on a prompt once in a while... regardless of what age they are.

Giving someone a very "basic" way to identify what they're feeling can be a jumping off point for exploring emotions and how to deal with them without the person being overwhelmed by things like therapy speak or language that they perceive as invasive or judgmental.

Even asking a client or yourself simple questions that seem reductive like "What does being mad mean to you?" can be a first step toward deconstructing and managing emotions.

Basically what I'm getting at but am too tired and inexperienced to explain is that the psychology & behavioral health field has always been a place for people to showcase their own curriculum and workshops and insist on their effectiveness over the alternatives, but people can become more comfortable and in tune with their own emotions using very basic, no-frills activities. You don't HAVE to buy that DBT handbook your therapist suggested

[villiedoom]

I want to write this as an additional post, just to share some more personal stuff ~

It's no secret that I've been obsessed with Rain World lately - in my personal notes I already wrote a lot of my impressions and thoughts about Rain World and why I fell in love with this game, but most of all, this game just clicked with me in some very personal and unique way, which I struggle to explain. It gives me something very important, something I lack and miss so much, but the only thing that comes to my mind is Experience. The very ability to experience, which was taken away from me by my very own survival mechanisms long-long ago. And so, just an unusual game with sometimes annoying gameplay and an interesting philosophy and lore, accidentally became a strange form of therapy for me, revealing what I was missing by allowing me to experience it.

Touching the grass, going in nature, hanging out with friends, and even just living life, don't work if you can't experience them. I don't remember what experiencing something even feels like, and even my art, my characters, Koties, often feel more like a battlefield full of deaths and overcoming than a safe place of escapism. And the "just touch the grass and take a rest" mindset only made things worse, shaming for not being able to actually do this.

And Rain World finally gave me the Experience, as honest and pure as it is. My survival became the survival of a little slugcat in a world where even just climbing up a pipe can seem like an insurmountable challenge. In a world where so little depends on you, and every step can turn into death simply by accident, and not because you did something wrong. Feels scarily relatable. Usually people are afraid to see the world as random, absurdly unfair, and so they seek control by blaming others or themselves, or just some rest from it (like, in videogames). But I'm not able to, so the feeling of unfair world just as it is has somehow become healing for me, motivating me to learn and move forward in a much healthier way, with no shame of living in it.

And over time, it started to feel better. Starting out as a helpless and clumsy slug, I became someone who seeks adventure and goes to the most hardcore locations simply because I want to explore them, to find some more hidden colored pearls, and to share some of the existential wonder and despair with the local gods and ghosts. This became my own small journey and experience, and I felt and expressed it with all my emotion. To go through all this and break the cycle. I love this game, I love its story and characters, I love its gameplay. I want to save this moment in my memory.

Of course, all this is just my personal interpretation and projection, we all see the world through these even when we try to be objective, but that's the point. Rain World feels like that rare thing that allowed me to go through it and experience it very personally, feeling my reality as valid, regardless of other people's interpretations, their lore discussions and disputes about what is the true canon. Honestly, I don't care. I just allowed this little game to feel like my thing, and I don't even feel wrong or ashamed about it. I missed feeling like that.

I'm not special, and this game wasn't made by or for me, but that's just another story of the unknowing recipient and the reluctant gift.

There is no solution, only a personal yet random path to walk on.

The world is unfair, cruel and random. You will get lost, suffer and die over and over again, giving up and continuing to try and move, sometimes succeeding, sometimes drowning in despair, seeing shelter right before your eyes but failing to reach it. Your greatest happiness is to find some food and a safe place to rest…

There is nothing miserable about it, even if sometimes you feel so. This is natural. Everyone feels that way. The joy of success in survival. The pain of another unfair fall.

But the more successful you are, the further you can go. Including places where no one goes.

A random gift from a random god, and you are no longer an animal, you are something… different.

The one who seeks. The one who asks. The one who listens.

You woke up as accidentally as you were accidentally killed so many times. But now, your cycle has turned into a path, in which you are all alone. No one can hear or understand you, because you heard and understood something that perhaps you were not even made to understand.

You have been used by one and blindly guided by other, and now you are conscious on your path, without even knowing where it leads. You have received your sight while remaining blind. Even the gods are blind.

And…

You found what you were looking for when you stopped looking for it. You will never return to the cycle again. …was it right?

****

Some quick and sketchy Rain World fanart, along with some of my impression/interpretation of it (Survivor's story in particular) ~

[deoidesign]

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[gxlden-angels]

Bro I hate fundamentalists and culturally-fundie parents they'll say shit like "spare the rod spoil the child am I right haha yea my parents used to have to beat my ass with a switch almost everyday but I sure did learn my lesson" but like??? no you didn't??? you were hit multiple times for something you very obviously did not, in fact, learn

Like studies about how harmful even lightly spanking children is aside, you're literally contradicting yourself?? Some even admitted they got worse as they got older cause they wanted to see how far they could push their parents before they got punished

And studies not aside, you're gonna get child raising advice from the same book that tells you to stone your wife if her hymen doesn't break on your wedding night instead of the decades of research we have now?? Just say you're a bad parent and move on my guy. Skill issue

[fishparasite]

today my mom was like "do you know you can come to me for help and support?" well. um. no

[musical-chick-13]

.

[pollen]

i've been diving a lot deeper into adhd symptoms and comorbidities and misdiagnoses and whenever i tell my boyfriend something i learned that sounds like me he responds with something like

[hiddenmoonbeam]

love waiting for a phone appointment and the clock ticks past the set time....... 15 min now.... is her day busy and delayed, will she call in a sec or in half an hour instead? is she for some reason not calling at all but I didn’t get notified? has she forgotten? no idea and there's no way for me to call so I just have to wait.....

[asinglesock]

sometimes the horrible feeling in your stomach is anxiety but sometimes the horrible feeling in your stomach is because you are hungry. and sometimes you are both anxious and hungry. if you eat you might still be anxious but you will no longer be hungry.

[superfluouskeys]

i am literally a hopeless case LOL

[tokyoteddywolf]

22 isn't very much at all, I think.

[that-tall-queer-bassist]

I swear every time i write something - be it a poem or song or fanfic or short story or essay - i learn something new about myself, or reveal something about myself that i don't notice for months or years until i look back and its like a neon fucking sign screaming at me, begging me to notice.

anyways. had some revelations today.

[chronomally]

If we hit Martin Li in the head hard enough, the resulting concussion will make him forget Oscorp's role in his parents' death, defeating the desire for revenge inside of him that fuels his powers as Mister Negative

[fantabulousfelix]

man it's bad tonight huh