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shyficwriter · 3 years

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Temporary Home: Chapter 16

Guardians of the Galaxy fanfic | Reader x Guardians (With Yondu and Kraglin!)

Summary: Peter takes the ride into town as an opportunity to be extra annoying, but you also finally find out just how he got into space. The prank war continues. Will you finally declare Peter "The Prank Master," or has he finally met his match?

Previous Chapter here | Next Chapter Here Or click here to: Start From Beginning

Author’s Note: This is a long one! Also, for my records this chapter ends on day 29 of the Guardians living with reader. Enjoy!

Word Count: 7,661

Peter's face was still red by the time you finished pulling your boots on. He had just come out of the bathroom and stood near you as you got up from the bench. He had a strange look about his face and when you went to ask, "What?" he grabbed your wrist with a wet hand and said, "Don't ya hate when you pee on your hands?"

This, of course, was revenge for you embarrassing him just a few minutes prior.

Your expression turned murderous and you ripped your arm away. Was he serious? How dare he! What the hell was wrong with him!? Just as you were angrily saying, "I'm going to fucking kill you!" and absolutely looking like you'd actually follow through, Peter held up his hands and said through laughter, "It's a joke! It's just a joke! It's just water! I promise!"

You backed down slightly, anger still burning in your eyes. "You know I don't have to take you, right? Fury said I could take anyone who passes for human." Just then Kraglin walked by and you gestured to him. "I could just take him instead if you want to start out being a little shit."

Kraglin grinned at the two of you and, clearly seeing that Peter had managed to push your buttons already, said, "Nah. I can catch the next one," and continued on his way up the stairs.

You huffed in his direction before turning to Peter in frustration. "Just get in the car. And don't piss me off."

Peter gave a little mock-salute and followed you out.

You could have killed him on the ride into town. The annoyance was constant.

He started by turning up the radio and singly badly along with the songs, made worse due to the fact that most of which he didn't know the words to. Eventually you couldn't take it anymore and you shut the radio off.

He tried to turn it back on a bit later and you smacked his hand away, only able to do so now that your braced arm wasn't in a sling and you could now grip the wheel with both hands.

He then started asking, "Are we there yet?" about every minute. He knew you weren't close.

This was coupled with the classic, "I'm not touching you!" game. You almost didn't notice for the first five minutes, intent on ignoring him and keeping your eyes on the road. When you finally did notice and tell him to knock it off, well, you know what he responded with.

You were fuming when you finally pulled into the post office. You threw the car into park and angrily ordered him to sit quietly and promptly left him.

He was actually starting to wonder if maybe he should cool it for a bit. You did look pretty mad... probably still weren't over the whole fake pee on hands prank. Maybe he shouldn't go through with what he was considering next?

When you finished your business in the mail office and returned to the car you were actually surprised to find that he had behaved. You don't know what you had actually expected him to do- maybe get out and crouch beside the car to make you think he'd run off?- but no. He was still sitting right where you left him.

You get back behind the wheel and toss your mail on the dash, prepared to head to the grocery shop. Peter doesn't say anything.

The short ride over you were a little leery of just how quiet he was being. He was too quiet. When you pulled in park at the grocery lot you turned to give him a suspicious look.

"What?" he asked innocently, returning your gaze.

"You. What are you up to?"

"What ever do you mean?" He wore a face of innocence, but you knew better.

"The whole ride into town you didn't let up with all your annoying shit, now on the ride from the post office to here you act like a perfect angel. I don't trust it."

"Thought you could use a break is all, you seemed really cranky." A grin was starting to crack Peter's innocent façade. "You know... I think I know what might cheer you up..."

Your eyes narrowed. "Peter-" Whatever he intended, judging by his tone you knew it couldn't be good.

Before you could say more his hand darted out to connect with that spot above your knee, which of course made you spasm in your seat and cackle loudly. Whatever you had been expecting, for some reason you foolishly didn't consider that. You really should have though, considering how often you would now get teased with little pokes and squeezes. Unfortunately for you, a good portion of your guests were apparently an affectionate bunch... Or maybe they just liked to annoy you. You weren't sure which.

You smacked and pushed at his hand but he didn't let up. "Peter! Peter stop that this instant!" you scolded through your laughter.

"Come on, cheer up sour-puss!" he teased in a high voice, still squeezing rapidly into the muscle. "Being stuck with me isn't that bad."

"You little shit!" you cried, smacking at him again, your eyes closed tightly as you laughed and kicked to the best of your ability, trying your best not to accidentally lash out and hit the horn. You were effectively trapped by having a car as your surroundings. So unfair. "Stop it! Cut it out!"

Peter finally stopped and grinned at you as you caught your breath, chuckling when you punched him in the shoulder.

"You're such a brat!" you said, residual giggles still slipping out. However, you didn't seem quite as angry as you had been, so Peter counted it as a win. Maybe now you wouldn't be quite as cranky with him when you discovered the prank he had pulled on you. Honestly he was surprised you hadn't noticed before you sat down...

After a moment you spoke again. "Come on, let's get this over- aw shit."

"What?" Peter asked, confused by your sudden change of tone.

"You didn't bring those sunglasses with you this time, did you?"

"Oh..." Peter's eyes widened in realization. Not wanting to have to wait out in the car he thought to reason. "I think it'll be ok. I mean, It's been what- like 26 years since I went missing? And I wasn't even from this area of Earth so I really doubt anyone would recognize me-"

Your eyes widen as big as saucers. "Excuse me?"

"What?"

"Went missing??" Had you seriously heard him right? Did Fury know?Who were you kidding? Of course Fury knew. Fury knew everything.

"Oh... so you didn't know about that... Ha- well it's fine! Honest! I was just trying to let you know it'll be fine if I don't wear some lame disguise like sunglasses-"

"That's not why I had insisted on the sunglasses! It was for any possible undercover aliens looking for you! I didn't know you'd be on the missing persons bulletin!"

Peter could see you were stressed. That wasn't good in his opinion. You'd be no fun to pick on if you were worried, so he tried to smooth it over. After all, it really was fine. "Look, everything's fine. Ok? I was on that list for missing people, Fury told me that shortly after we arrived, but we talked about it and he made sure I was wiped from it just in case."

You relaxed a little, sitting back in your seat. You turn to look at him again. "Twenty-six years... that means you were, what? Ten?"

"Eight," he corrected.

"That's not better." you reply, and then a realization hit you. "Wait- is that how you got into space? Were you literally abducted by aliens?" Yes, you might have been aware of aliens due to your employment by SHIELD, but from the little you had seen of and about them you had come to assume that the whole "alien abduction" thing was a myth crazy people talked about. They just barely came here, let alone had use for random Earth people.

"Like I said, it's a long story." Peter answered, "We should probably get going." he cracked his door open and gestured with his head towards the store.

Remembering yourself, you give a half nod and exit your vehicle so you could complete the shop visit.

As the two of you walked towards the shop you speak up. "Is it alright if I ask what happened? You don't have to answer if it's a bad memory or anything. I'm just curious about... you know..."

"What?"

"Like, you must have had a family? Now that you're here, why haven't you tried to find them?"

Peter looked like he was searching for the right words. "It's kinda complicated."

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have-"

"No, it's fine." he said as the two of you entered the shop.

You grabbed a trolley and looked at him to see if he would continue, but hoping that he wouldn't feel you were pressuring him.

After a moment he did continue. "My mom died right before it happened. Literally minutes before." Seeing the look on your face and realizing what you might be assuming he clarified. "It was cancer. She'd been sick a long time."

"I'm so sorry." You say, leading him towards the haircare section of the store to start knocking things off your list.

He shook his head, trying to vanish the memory of her lying in that hospital bed. "Yeah... me too." He sighed and went on to say how when it happened he was upset, and angry. She was gone just like that and he didn't know what to do. So he just ran. He ran outside the hospital and then just collapsed on the lawn. Next thing he knew there was the bright light of a spaceship right above him, and it took him.

"It just randomly came by took you? For no reason?" You ask, approaching the hair wash section and deciding on a conditioner that you thought Gamora might like the scent of. You turned to Peter for his opinion and he pointed out a lavender scented one before answering about the motives of his abductors.

"No, they had a reason" he said, "Turned out my father was this celestial being and sent them to fetch me. But of course I didn't know that at the time. Like I said, mom had cancer. In her brain. So when she said my dad was this 'angel' composed of 'pure light', of course no one believed her. They just thought it was the tumor."

"Oh. Wow." You didn't know what to say to that as the two of you were now walking over to the moisturizers. Eventually you settled on, "So you've been with your dad then?" Just as you finished that sentence something clicked in your brain, but you thought for sure it couldn't be right, could it? "Wait, do you mean Yondu? He's your father?"

Peter laughed. "Are you serious? Drax thought the same thing. "

You frowned slightly, picking out a decent smelling lotion and dropping it into the basket. "Well, I have heard him refer to you as "my boy" at least a couple times, and you just said your dad was alien. I think you could see why I might now make that connection there."

Peter smiled softly, seeming lost in thought. "Yeah, yeah I guess. But not exactly. You see, Yondu was the guy my father hired to fetch me. He was supposed to take me to him, but he didn't. He kept me."

You gave Peter a confused look as you led the way towards the razors. You knew from Peter's last story that Yondu had been the captain of a faction of space-pirates called Ravagers before joining the Guardians, but this bit was news to you. Apparently Peter was with the Ravagers before the Guardians of the Galaxy, but why had Yondu kept him? Why not just give him to his father?

Peter continues. "I know what you're thinking, but like I said, it's complicated. He kept me to protect me. 'Course, for the longest time he never told me that. Always said he kept me 'cause I was skinny and good for thieving."

"Protect you from... your father?" You asked. How bad must his father have been for a space pirate captain to decide the kid was better off joining the crew? You raised an eyebrow at him as you grabbed some decent disposable razors off the shelf. Upon second thought, you grabbed some refill-heads as well.

"Yeah. Remember how I told you about that time we saved the galaxy from Ronan, and I was able to touch the Infinity stone without immediately dying?"

"Yeah?" You now led the way towards the DIY section. You knew it was unlikely, but hopped that maybe the shop carried some filler so you might finally repair that chip in the wall above the back door from where Yondu killed that spider for you. You would have already fixed it by now, but the tub of filler you did have was long dried up. Kraglin asked about it the other day, stating he didn't remember that being there when they arrived, and you passed it off as the house being old, unwilling to admit what had actually happened.

"Well, word spread about that pretty fast because I shouldn't have been able to do that." Peter continued, following beside you. "My father caught word of a man who was able to hold an infinity stone and live, and knew it had to be me, so he tracked me down."

"And that was... bad?" You asked, turning into your desired aisle.

"Not at first. At first it was cool. He took us back to his planet- that's where we met Mantis- and this next part is really gonna blow your mind, the whole planet was him."

"What? How does that even work?"

"Honestly, I don't even fully get it, but like I said, he was a celestial. He just was the planet. The guy who we met was just like this... avatar version he made of himself to travel and stuff. He had like these magic powers, and he taught me how to use them... kinda."

"Wait, so you have special powers?" you ask, "I had no idea." You were so surprised by these revelations that you almost missed the small tubs of repair filler the shop did carry, but recovered and placed one in the basket.

Peter rubbed the back of his head. "Well, not exactly. Not anymore. You see, they came from his celestial genes- it's the only reason I was able to hold onto that infinity stone and live- but anyway, I don't have them anymore. I um, I kinda had to... kill him. And when he died so did the light, so I'm just a regular Terran now."

"What?!" you gave him a very confused look. "Did you just say you killed your own dad?" You tried to keep your voice low. You had been lucky to avoid too many other shoppers during this conversation, but just then a couple of boys walked by. You eyed them, but they were lost in their own conversation and didn't seem to have heard or cared about what you had said. You continued towards the cleaning supplies, remembering you were dangerously low on various cleaners for the bathrooms.

"Again, complicated," Peter replied. "He turned out to be not such a good dude. Long story short, He had this plan to expand and make the entire universe him, like he would literally be the only thing left, but he needed another celestial to help him- that's where I came in. Apparently he had a butt-load of other kids, but I was the only one that actually inherited the celestial gene. Well, obviously I had doubts about his whole plan. I mean, all my friends would be gone, for one." He chuckled. "But he was... quite convincing. I don't even think I could describe the things he showed me..." He trailed off, and then seemed to remember himself a moment later. "Anyway, eventually he told me he was the one who put the tumor in my mom's head and that finally snapped me out of it."

You were taken aback. "Oh my god. I'm so sorry. That's awful!"

He shrugged. "Nah. Don't be. That guy was a jackass. I mean, who names themself "Ego" anyways?"

"Probably the type of person who wants to literally be the center of the universe," you quipped.

Peter chuckled and nudged you in the shoulder, apparently appreciative of the joke. "Yeah. I suppose it probably was fitting for him..." he stared off for a moment. "Anyway, it's funny that you thought that Yondu was my father, because all that happening made me realize that Yondu had actually kinda been my dad all along."

You give him a quizzical look as the two of you reach the aisle you were looking for, and he just grins knowingly in return. "Complicated?" you say, sure that that would be his answer.

"Yes and no." Peter answered, and then just let the silence linger.

After a bit you asked him. "You said Ego had other children? Do you know what ever happened to them?"

Peter frowned. "He killed them. They didn't have what he needed, so he just killed them. There was a whole cavern on the planet filled with their bones."

You only managed a soft, "Oh." You felt your stomach twist. What kind of bastard would kill their own- You shook that thought away, telling yourself to compose yourself. Not now.

"Yeah. I know. Pretty dark." Peter said, his tone obvious he was trying his best to keep it light. He didn't say anything, but he saw something in you change a little when he revealed Ego just murdered his own kids like it was nothing, and he remembered a previous conversation he had with you about that job you had in Romania and part of him wished he had lied just then. He tried to steer the conversation in a happier direction for both of your sakes. He didn't like to think about it either. "Apparently at some point Yondu had found out what Ego had been doing with all those kids he had him fetch, and that's why he kept me. I think I turned out alright, all things considered." He nudged you and gave you a wide cheeky grin.

You couldn't help but grin as you responded, "I dunno... depends if any of that contributed to how annoying you are." You located the toilet cleaners and plunked a couple bottles in the trolley.

"Hey!" Peter mock-pouted, but he was glad that the mood had been lifted again.

The two of you walked in silence towards the tub cleaners when Peter suddenly says, "Oh hey, you dropped something."

You stop and look around for whatever might have fallen out of the trolley, asking him what you had dropped.

Peter grinned and said, "Your speed."

You roll your eyes at him. You weren't sure if you were more annoyed at the lameness of the joke, or the fact that you fell for it. "Really? You're gonna start that again?"

"Yup." Peter grinned.

You just shook your head and continued down the aisle to grab some disinfectant wipes, but little did he know you had a trick up your sleeve.

The wipes were just before the air fresheners and after you grabbed the wipes and were walking past you picked up a refill at random and said, "Oh hey, you should smell this."

"Nice try, I'm not falling for that." Peter said.

"Falling for what?" you ask innocently.

"I bet it smells like crap, you're just trying to get me back for the other day."

You roll your eyes dramatically. "It says on the package it's 'Blossom and Breeze.' Here," you smell it yourself to prove to him it wasn't nasty. "See? You're so paranoid. They wouldn't sell these if they smelled bad." You offer the item back to him with an unimpressed look.

Seeming mostly convinced he hesitantly takes the item from you and slowly brings it up to sniff it. Then he looks confused. "I don't smell anything?"

You knew he wouldn't, it was encased in plastic, but that wasn't the prank. "Oh, you might need to breathe deeper, they put the scent in the cardboard bit so people can test it before they buy it, it can be a little faint." This was a blatant lie. Sure, this could have made a decent prank on it's own, but it still wasn't the prank you were going for. It was more of a distraction until that group of pretty young women you clocked entering the aisle earlier when grabbing the wipes had made their way close enough, which they would in 3... 2... 1...

You snatched the item away from a now very confused Peter.

"These don't go in your mouth! How many times do I gotta tell you!?" you ask, acting exasperated.

Peter opened his mouth but seemed at a loss for words. Then he noticed the handful of pretty women walking by who were now staring at him and giggling to each other behind their hands as you said, "They're not gonna taste like how they smell, we've been over this!"

His cheeks started to redden and he turned his attention from the departing group of young ladies to you, his expression switching from wide-eyed and embarrassed to unamused, having now understood what you did.

You were giggling now and he narrowed his eyes at you. "Not cool, dude!"

You tossed the item back on the shelf and, still giggling, said, "But it sure was funny."

Peter just grumbled and followed you to the grocery section.

You spotted some brownie mix and asked him if he thought his friends might like to try brownies.

"Probably. And if they don't like them, more for us." He punctuated the sentence by taking the box from your hand and plopping it in the trolley, making you shake your head and giggle at him.

You then grabbed the couple snacks that had been requested as well as a few things you'd enjoy, including some ice-cream since you found the guys had eaten all of it when you returned from your last trip into town.

Just as you were dropping the ice cream in the trolley Peter decided that would be time for his revenge. There were several people about doing their shopping in that particular aisle when he suddenly said out loud, "Hey, is that rash still contagious?"

You looked at him, mortified, and you noticed the people start to quietly but quickly clear out of the aisle. You give him a glare, but just sigh and say, "Well played."

"I thought so." Peter replied, looking proud of himself.

"Still not 'The Master.'"

"We'll see," he chuckled.

You finished up the trip, and headed home. Gratefully, Peter wasn't nearly as annoying on the return trip.

You supposed the whole trip could have gone worse. It really was too bad you didn't get a chance to go alone though. You might have been able to grab some glitter for... nefarious purposes. Though, you supposed you could always order it online. Oh well, at least you managed to pick up some jelly. He wouldn't be suspicious of jelly... until you used it against him, that is.

***

It wouldn't be until you had been home for a little bit that you would discover what prank Peter had pulled on you in the car. Or rather, Kraglin discovered it.

You were getting a glass of water when Kraglin cleared his throat and awkwardly asked you why there was blue tape on your bottom.

You raised and eyebrow and reached back while Rocket snickered and teased Kraglin, asking him why he had been looking at your ass.

Kraglin began to stutter. "I-I wasn't! It's just- The tape is bright blue! Her pants are black! How was I not supposed to see it!?" He was blushing now and decided to just leave the room. Why did the rat have to be such a dick?

You peeled the strip of blue tape off your butt and looked at it with a half frown before looking up at Peter who was standing with Rocket and grinning. "You have anything to do with this?" you ask accusingly. Who were you kidding? It's not like you just happened to sit on blue tape. Of course he had something to do with it, but how?

Peter grinned wider then pulled the rest of the roll out of one of his pockets. "I put a piece of this sticky side up in your car seat before you got out of the Post Office." He then tossed the roll to you. "Found it in one of those drawers," he said, pointing to the drawers behind you.

"I see you fancy yourself the Artful Dodger," you say in annoyance to his confession that he had knicked the tape with the sole purpose of annoying you. You also realized this meant you had walked around the whole shop with blue tape on your bottom. Well, you supposed there were worse things... like what you were sure to do with that blue dye tonight.

"I have no idea what that means." Peter replied.

You roll your eyes at him, but not altogether surprised he didn't get the reference. "Nevermind." you say, tossing the tape back in the drawer. "Childish..."

Peter just chuckled and left the kitchen.

***

If you hadn't been set on using that food dye to prank Peter the past few days, you definitely were now.

Sometime after discovering the blue tape, you went upstairs and thought you might put one of your sticky notes to use. You stuck with the classic, 'kick me', sign, and thought it'd be a good idea to sneak up behind and jump-scare him and use that as a diversion to stick it to his back. It worked as expected.

It took him less than half an hour to find it. Or rather, Mantis found it, and asked him why he had a sign telling people to kick him on his back. She plucked the sign from his shirt and he turned to see what she was talking about. Taking the sticky note from her, he frowned in annoyance for becoming victim to one of the oldest tricks in the book, and then shouted your name.

You, of course, didn't answer. Just smiled behind your book in your room, of course not realizing that your prank had technically failed.

In revenge, Peter decided to bring up a video on YouTube he came across the previous day titled, "Broken TV screen 1 hour" and set it to play on full screen. Then he went to fetch you.

***

You were in the kitchen when Rocket startled you by jumping up to climb up your back without warning. He had managed to climb all the way up to your head when you let out a startled yelp and asked, "What are you doing??" as you jerked from the unexpected sensation of being climbed on.

"Hold still, will ya? Just needed a boost up to reach up to this cabinet, don't get your panties in a bunch," he said with half a chuckle, balancing himself on your head as he opened the cupboard.

"You never needed one before now!" you said, irritated. That was the cupboard you kept the glasses in, and you'd seen him get up there just fine plenty of times without needing a human ladder.

"Eh. You were there," he said, amusement in his voice. It was seemingly clear he had only done this to annoy you.

"Will you hurry up and get down!" you said, trying to keep the giggles out of your voice as his tail was flitting over your ear.

"What, ya got somewhere to be?" he asked sarcastically.

"Yes! Anywhere without a rac- a furry little beast sitting on my head!" you replied through gritted teeth. You were still trying- and mostly failing- to hide your giggles. Yes, maybe you could have told him to cut it out with the tail twitching, but you didn't want to admit that it tickled. Last thing you needed was to reveal a weakness for the raccoon to exploit.

Rocket heard how you almost called him a raccoon, but let it slide because you stopped yourself. Mostly. He'd allow you to live, however, he stayed up there a couple moments more, pretending to take his time deciding on a cup and grinning as he continued flitting his tail over your ear. He knew exactly what he was doing. The little shit.

He finally grabbed a cup and closed the cupboard, teasingly scolding, "Hey, hold still!" when his tail "accidentally" brushed your neck on the way down and you jerked your head to the side from the sensation, and then twitched when he hit a particularly sensitive area of your shoulder blade on his descent. That one actually had been an accident, but he still logged it away for later. Knowing Peter's tickle spots had proved useful as a payback method, he was sure yours would too if needed.

Rocket had just touched down on the floor when Peter sheepishly came in to tell you to come into the sitting room because he needed to show you something. Having a feeling it wasn't going to be good, you sighed and followed him, leaving the raccoon behind.

He was dismayed, however, when your only response to seeing the "broken" TV was to just sigh and say flatly, "Well, I hope you enjoy reading then. Like I told you before, I'm not replacing it."

He blinked. "Wait- you're not mad??" This was not the reaction he expected. He was sure you'd yell at him. You yelled at Rocket when he spilled tomato sauce all over the kitchen, surely you would have had a similar reaction now?

You just stare at him. "While I'm frustrated that you can't respect other people's property enough not to break it, I barely use it anymore since I'm always- well, I was almost always gone for work. Soon as you guys leave it'll be the same. No sense in rewarding bad behavior by getting another for you guys to use when I doubt I'll be using it much once you leave."

Peter rolled his eyes and picked up the controller. "Ugh, you're no fun!" he complained, turning off the video and revealing the TV wasn't actually broken.

"Wait, so that was a prank?" You say in realization.

"Well, yeah!" Peter said in frustration. "It was supposed to be!" Honestly, he was hoping you world have been mad. It would have been funny to reveal the lack after you lost it. But no, of course you would have just hit him with some version of "I'm not mad, just disappointed."

"You know, for someone who keeps claiming to be 'the prank master,' your pranks are kinda lame." You grinned at him. Sure, maybe not all his pranks were lame- the broken screen on might have been a good one had he done it to anyone else, but you'd still say they were to annoy him.

"Oh yeah?" Peter said with a mischievous grin before lunging forward to aim a squeeze-y tickle attack on your sides, making you let out a squeak as you jumped back and smacked him out of reflex.

Giggling, you scold him for being a child and turn to head out of the room, only to bump into Kraglin who just said, "Hi there," before tweaking your ribs.

You laugh and push him away, telling them that they played too much before heading upstairs.

The two men watch you leave and then share a grin. Little did you know, the TV had only been Peter's diversion prank. Not the one that finally made you fully resolve to use the food dye on him.

***

To get him back for both the TV prank and the tickle attack you decided to take a thumbtack from your desk and use it to poke a hole in a can of fizzy drink that you knew only you and he really ever drank. You placed the hole near the top so that when he took a drink it would dribble down onto his shirt and then positioned the can in the fridge towards the front so that he'd grab that one first. It was a clear drink, so you were sure it wouldn't stain. You weren't a complete asshole.

This consideration could be considered ironic, considering what you'd do to him that night.

You grinned from your room when you heard him loudly cursing your name sometime later.

To get you back for that he made use of a few pieces of macaroni pasta he found in the pantry. He went upstairs and placed them under the toilet rim so that when you sat down the sound of them crunching would startle you. It wasn't a foolproof plan, but he knew you were reading upstairs, and most everyone else was downstairs, so he rolled the dice that you'd be the next person to use that toilet.

Awhile later he heard you shout his name in frustration from upstairs and he chuckled in victory. And no, this still wasn't the prank that sealed his fate, although that one was currently in progress...

Sometime later you were in your room on your laptop doing some research and contemplating what a suitable prank might be to get Peter back for the macaroni thing when Mantis came into the room to retrieve something. You switch away from the tab you were in researching tunnel maintenance to one you had open of tumblr and offer her a short greeting.

She returned the greeting and went about her business behind you for a couple minutes.

Then, out of the blue, you felt her fingers skitter up your side. You nearly jump out of your skin from both the startle and the ticklish sensation and a startled laugh escaped your throat as you jerked away in your seat and squeaked out a giggly, "Mantis! What are you doing?!"

She stopped tickling and just giggled in response before jogging out of the room.

You stared after her before returning to your work with a shake of your head. 'Awfully playful bunch tonight,' you thought.

***

A bit later you decided to go out back for some fresh air. When you do, you notice Yondu already out there, leant against the stone of the house and just looking at the clouds pass by.

Not wanting to disturb him you just nod in his direction and say, "Hey," before walking by towards the garden. He returns your greeting and leaves you to it. Or so it seemed.

You reach the garden and stand there in the peace and quiet, glancing over the plants for any sign of insect damage. It's not too long, however, before Yondu walks up behind you and shouts, "Boo!"

You jump right out of your skin and turn to face him. You frown, but before you can ask him what the hell that was for, he starts to tickle your stomach. You laugh out a protest, but he only switches to tickling your ribs instead. You laugh some more and latch onto his wrists to push him away and he relents. Residual giggles still coating your words you scold him. "Jeeze! What was that for?!"

Yondu just grins at you like he was privy to some joke you weren't in on, shrugs, and turns to head back inside without explanation.

You watched him go, beginning to wonder what had gotten into everyone.

***

Turned out it would be Drax who would spill the beans on Peter's prank.

You were minding your own business, washing the dish you had just used for your supper, when you are rudely interrupted by Drax spidering his fingers over your ribs, causing you to laugh out loud and drop the dish in the sink. Luckily it didn't break, but you quickly turn off the tap and spun around to scold him and ask what the big deal was.

You knew something was up now. Rocket might have done it on accident. Peter and Kraglin- well, they just routinely did stuff like that to mess with you. Yondu could also fall in the category of "just did it to mess with you." Mantis- she was playful and it wasn't out of the realm of normal for her to randomly decide to do that just to make you laugh.

Drax, however, though friendly, hadn't shown himself to be the type to just randomly up and decide to tickle someone, namely you, without reason, or ever.

And all of them deciding to do it in one afternoon? No. Something was up.

Drax looked almost confused by your annoyance. "Well the note-"

Your eyes narrowed. "What note?"

"The one on your back."

You quickly reach behind you and feel a piece of paper. Peter. You rip it off and look at it, but find you can't read it. It was written in some alien text. "What's this?" you ask Drax.

"It's the note you taped on your back?" He answers, confused.

"I didn't put this there! I can't even read this! What does it say?" You hand it out towards him, but he doesn't take it.

Instead a look of realization comes over his face and he says. "Oh! This must be one of Peter's practical jokes! Haha! That's a good one. No wonder you looked so surprised!"

"Drax-" you say, your tone frustrated.

"What's going on here?" Gamora asked, having just moments prior walked in on the scene. She walked up to the two of you, concerned she might need to stop a fight before it began. You'd never be able to take on Drax, but she could almost see you trying if he made you angry enough.

You thought that maybe she'd be more help. "Could you tell me what this says? Apparently Peter taped it to my back."

Gamora took the paper and read it. Then she rolled her eyes and huffed a short laugh. "This note reads, 'tickle me.'" It was indeed written in Peter's handwriting, but of all the things he could have written, at least this was innocent enough.

You look up to the ceiling, unamused. You meet her gaze again and say, "Thank you, though respectfully, your boyfriend is a brat."

Gamora smiled. "I'm aware."

You then start towards the frontmost doorway of the kitchen, dish forgotten in the sink, and yell, "PETER! I'm gonna kick your ass!"

This was then followed by the sound of Peter laughing, the sound of running footsteps, and then the sound of the front door opening and slamming shut.

You stop in your pursuit. "Coward." you mutter.

You knew you might be able to catch him, but decided there was better things you could do with your time. Like refine your plan of counter-attack. You change course and head upstairs to lie in wait.

Unfortunately for Peter, his running away ended up giving you the perfect opportunity to strike.

***

Peter spent his time outside walking about the property and listening to his Zune, which he luckily had in his pocket when he fled from the house. He was almost surprised you didn't try to track him down, but he brushed it off, satisfied with his prank and how well it had apparently worked/ how long it took you to realize what he'd done.

He knew it was bold to try and get you back with basically the same prank you had just attempted to pull on him, and so that's why he paid Rocket to pretend like he was climbing on you to reach something so he could be the one to plant it on you. You would have absolutely suspected Peter if he came patting a sign on your back right after you had just pulled that prank on him. The other pranks he pulled were mostly just to cover his tracks. And because it was too fun not to pull them.

It was getting dark by the time he came back in and was late enough that everyone else had apparently already gone to bed as no one was downstairs. He was getting pretty tired himself and almost considered skipping showering that night, but decided against it. Big mistake for him.

Once he got upstairs and gathered his things to go shower he headed for the bathroom. Upon getting closer to the door you emerged from the room and seemed to jump back, startled to see him.

Peter snickered. "Did I scare you?"

You roll your eyes and turn towards your room. "No," you answer.

"Uh huh, sure." He grinned smugly.

"Oh, just go wash your stinky ass, already." you call back as you walk towards your room.

Peter gasped in mock-offense. "I'll let you know my 'stinky ass' smells like a pretty flower!" he joked.

You turn back at your doorway and retort with, "A corpse flower, maybe."

Peter scrunches up his face. "That's not a thing. You just made that up!"

"No, it's totally a thing. Look it up," you respond, laughing. You shut your door before he can respond further.

He shakes his head and enters the bathroom, muttering, "That's so not a thing."

***

You stayed up to hear the aftermath, and it didn't take too long.

Maybe ten minutes later you hear Peter curse your name, followed by, "What did you do?!"

You couldn't help yourself. You stand up to go peak out your door, biting your lip to hold back giggles. When you look out you see that Peter is now standing outside the bathroom, and that his outburst had also prompted the others to look out their doors as well. Kraglin was the first to start laughing.

The prank went better than you might have hoped. Peter only had a towel around his waist, allowing you to see that he was stained in an uneven coat of blue. Most of it was around his head, chest, and shoulders. It seemed to get lighter the further down his body it went, but it was more than enough to satisfy you. You hadn't been fully certain it would work.

When Peter didn't come back until after most everyone had gone to bed, you realized you had the perfect opportunity to carry out the prank. You did still have to wait until everyone else had finished showering though. You didn't want anyone get caught in the crossfire.

You waited for the second you heard him come back inside, just in case, and then you made your way into the bathroom with the vial of food gel. You unscrewed the shower head from its hose, squirted the whole vial in the head portion, then carefully screwed it back on. You were sure he'd take his shower before bed like always and felt safe to boobie-trap the shower head now since everyone else had already washed up for bed.

You did see his bottle of shower gel in the bath as you set up the prank and realized in hindsight that you could have just put the food dye in there instead so you wouldn't have needed to time everything so perfectly. On the other hand, you also didn't quite want to ruin his whole bottle of soap, so it was probably best you went for the shower head method instead.

Either way, it didn't disappoint.

You bit back laughter as you said, "Feeling a little... blue, there, Peter?"

He shot a look at you and responded with, "You massive turd! What did you do?!"

You feel Mantis come to look over your shoulder and she starts giggling at the sight of Peter. "Did you play a practical joke?" Mantis asks you. "That's so funny!"

Peter looks like he's about to storm over to you when Drax can be heard saying, "See! I knew Yondu was his father! Quill's finally starting to grow into his color!"

You couldn't tell if Drax was joking or not, but his comment started off a new round of giggles from Mantis, Kraglin, Rocket, and little Groot.

Peter just glared at him.

Yondu was standing next to Kraglin in the doorway of their room looking both contemplative and sleepy.

"Hey, Quill," Yondu said, getting Peter's attention. "Remember how ya rigged those dye packs up in my dresser drawers as a boy? Looks like ya finally got someone to give ya a taste of your own medicine." With that he made a sleepy retreat back to bed. His comment earned a laugh from Gamora, which made Peter pout.

A slight blush over Peter's cheeks appeared violet through the blue dye. He looked at you again and said, "You're so gonna get it!"

This of course prompted you to quickly usher Mantis back so you could shut the door and flick the lock, laughing as you did so.

It was totally worth it.

#gotg #gotg fanfic #gotg fanfiction #guardians of the galaxy #x reader #yondu udonta #peter quill #starlord #pranks #rocket raccoon #mantis #kraglin obfonteri #drax the destroyer

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passivenovember · 3 years

Text

Thinking about Steve’s glamorous southern Grandmother teaching him haircare and the ways of men.

Louisiana Girl.

On wispy Saturday afternoons she sat under the hooded dryer in a world made of candy.

Bubblegum walls upon which pastel images of women in shiny blue makeup oversaw the hustle and bustle of women in Eden. Magazines open in their laps, gum smacking between cherry red lips, talking a mile a minute about the intricacies of life.

Husbands and kids away at college, building a world that Steve hoped he could understand someday. And, in that twangy southern drawl that he knew came from this same place his mother did; Louisiana, where women were spun of gold the color of corn fields, his grandmother shared her secrets.

She was called Boo Boo because it made her feel young, and that was the first lesson Steve learned in his life. Women should always be made to feel young and beautiful. His mother’s mother was not nanna, or grandmama, or even Cheryl, which the ladies at the beauty parlor disclosed to Steve with smiles on their bright pink faces.

She was Boo Boo because she looked like Dolly Parton and smoked Marlboro golds like Johnny Cash, and always said that Steve was her greatest love.

Everything about her was plated in gold, from her strawberry ringlets down to her heart.

Boo Boo never had much of a taste for Midwestern life.

She thought of it as some special sort of hell Steve’s mother had been exiled to when she married Patrick Harrington. A desolate wasteland far from the molasses bayou's of the promised land. Displaced from the twangy guitars of Crosby Steels and Miss Lorette Lynn.

Boo Boo never understood why Delilah couldn’t bring Steve home, to New Orleans. Why she insisted on keeping him in the world of men, content with a life devoid of magic.

Everything about Hawkins confused her. The way women wandered the streets with flat hair and unpainted nails was somethin’ else, she said, curious how they went without their armor.

That was one of Boo Boo’s best kept secrets; women need their chainmail when they go out into the world. Any southern lady worth her weight in hairspray wouldn’t be caught dead with chipped polish, and she taught Steve how to be a southern woman through and through after the first time she caught him playing in his mother’s high heels.

Boo Boo called it what it was, from the very beginning. “Got to look pretty for your man someday, baby doll.”

Steve watched as she slipped one long, golden finger nail under the hooded dryer, checking highlights trapped under waves of aluminum foam. “Daddy says I won’t ever get a husband.” Steve said, frowning. “Daddy says--”

“That man thinks Lemon Pepper chicken wings come wet, darlin’, I wouldn’t listen to a word he says.” Boo Boo smiled down at him, her long eyelashes fluttering. “Pretty little thing like you? I bet the boys will be swarming like honey bees in the springtime.”

Steve shook his head. “I’m not pretty. My knees looked like baked potatoes.”

“Potatoes?” Boo Boo declared. “I don’t think so, you just gotta grow into that figure. And you will, someday.”

Steve never found it much use to argue, never found his footing even as the stylist came and removed Boo Boo’s hair from the dryer and they migrated, as all birds do, south for the winter.

To the mint green chair in front of the big mirror where the spells were cast, boxing them into that perfect little dollhouse wonderland.

Steve watched in awe, leaning against the palm of his hand as Boo Boo grew more and more beautiful by the minute.

He wished that could be him. He hoped, someday, it would be.

Boo Boo said that being a lady lived in more than just the spray that went on in the morning.

It was easy to be beautiful. To paint yourself up like a Barbie doll and gain attention of all kinds from good and bad men alike, but it was harder to keep a level head. To do the right thing, the way God intended.

He took her word as truth. As he grew up, Steve realized a lot of girls would never be ladies and it was evident, Boo Boo said, in the way they treated each other. Always tearing the next one down to make room for themselves, providing compliments that sting and bite back, taking chunks of invaluable flesh with them as they go.

That was the mark of Cain.

The undoubtable truth that they would never grow into something worthy of respect.

When Boo Boo came to town for Christmas the year Steve fell in love for the first time, he had to know.

“How do I get girls to like me?” He asked, posted up in front of his mother’s vanity as Boo Boo went to work on his hair. “I mean. How do I get them to understand that I don’t want to hurt them, and I’m not a threat to them--”

“Why would you be a threat, baby doll?”

Steve thought of Billy.

Billy Hargrove, who made his bones turn to pudding cups and his heart burn red with fire and heat under the light of eyes so blue Steve felt like Dolly probably wrote that song about him.

I can see the light of a clear blue mornin’--

“There’s a boy.” Steve said.

Because. “There’s always a boy.” Boo Boo began mixing the bleach in her little green bowl, smiling to herself. “And these girls feel threatened by you?”

“He likes me.” Steve thought of Billy’s lips, so pink they tasted like strawberry bubblegum, pressed against his under the bleachers during fifth period. Before he could stop himself, Steve’s fingers brushed his bottom lip, remembering.

Feeling the way Billy’s teeth had pulled that sensitive flesh, almost like he wanted to--

“I think he likes me.” Steve shook his head. “And they’re mad at me. Like maybe I took Billy from them, or something.”

“As long as he wasn’t kissin’ some poor girl while he’s kissin’ you, I don’t see how they hold any claim over him.” Boo Boo said, pinning Steve’s hair down as she added highlights to his soft brown locks. Highlights the exact shade of her own. “Real women see strength and they applaud it. Tearing other women down ain’t gonna get you nowhere.”

Steve knew what she meant. He wasn’t a woman, he was old enough to know that now, but in the matter of love?

Steve might as well have been a thirteen year old girl, the way he wanted to fight for this boy. The way he’d develop that killer instinct, to take what was so clearly his. What Billy had given to him.

“If they try to tear me down first, what do I do?”

Boo Boo took a drag from the cigarette between her lips, fingers never stalling as they wrapped Steve’s head in aluminum foam. “If they’re weak enough to go after what’s already done, they aren’t worth your time, darlin’.”

Steve thought about his mother. His shining star. He thought, too, of Mary Bell. The pretty redheaded girl who sometimes held his father’s arm too long at the office.

He thought of what his mother was always saying on the phone, to other women her age, a glass of wine in one hand and a funny smelling cigarette in the other.

She’s trying to take my man. Delilah Harrington, who was just as pretty as a magnolia in may and who was tough as steel, crumbled with the weight of that sentence. She’s gonna take him.

Steve stuck his lip out in thought. “What if they try to take Billy away from me?”

Boo Boo cackled, lifting her perfect fingernails to snatch and snub the cigarette into a pretty pink ash tray. “Honey,” She said, smiling. “I don’t care if that girl is God’s gift to this Earth, she ain’t woman enough to take your man.”

#Harringrove #I have this incredibly self indulgent hc that Steve will sing that song #you ain't woman enough #at any given opportunity #and Steve's grandmother is a southern belle #you can't change my mind

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prettyboyporter · 3 years

Note

First Kiss Idea: Post S3 Hoodie wearing Billy, has just started to open up with Steve. Maybe Steve is over at his house, in his room and bumps into something which spills like a TON of drawings of Steve and Billy is dying inside while Steve is floored and proceeds to give Billy all the loves *sigh* Softness.

30 First Kisses: Day 10

In celebration of Ossoff and Warnock’s win in Georgia, I’m writing 30 days of first kisses for harringrove <33

~*~

“It’s nice,” Steve said as he poked around Billy’s bedroom. “Looks better than before.”

Billy sat on the edge of his bed watching Steve from under the hood of his sweatshirt. “You been here before?”

“Yeah. You were in the hospital. I came and grabbed some of your tshirts and sweatpants.” And underwear, Steve didn’t say. He didn’t want to spook Billy too badly -- he’d only just started to come around, emerging from his shell like a roly poly hiding from a storm.

“Right,” Billy said.

Steve walked over to the vanity -- now Billy had a proper one, not just some milk crates stacked on one another. Granted it was more like a desk with a mirror, but it was nice enough with dark wood and an oval mirror. Billy’s haircare products and colonge stood lined up neatly along the left side.

On the right side was a sketchbook. Steve touched the cover. “Didn’t know you drew.”

Billy shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t really, Just kinda, I don’t know. I just kinda fuck around. Doc Owens said it might help-”

Steve picked up the book and flipped open to the first page. On it was the Camaro, wrecked in front of the steel mill. Next was the lifeguard stand, followed by the Scoops Ahoy counter. Steve huffed a laugh.

“Ah shit those are dumb,” Billy said, standing. His voice was raised a bit. “I suck. I mean I’m really bad at drawing so like you might not want to-”

Steve waved Billy off. “Dunno what you’re talking about man -- these are fantastic. You’d give Will a run for his money.”

About ten loose pages spilled around Steve’s feet. With one glance he could see -- they were all of Steve.

Steve behind the counter of Family Video. A side portrait of Steve smiling. Steve wearing headphones, eyes closed. Steve in his swim trunks by the pool.

He bent down to scoop them up and something welled up as realization dawned on him -- as he realized what all of this could mean his heart caught up in his throat. “You-”

“I was bored, Steve. I didn’t have anything to do for two months in that hospital and I needed to draw something.” He stood in front of Steve, hood up, talking down toward his socked feet.

Affection, warm and heady, spread through Steve’s chest at the thought of the drawings, at Billy’s apparent crush, at the how cute his feet looked in those gold-toed socks. “Billy.”

Billy looked up -- his blue eyes were still breathtaking.

Steve reached out tentatively and touched the edge of Billy’s hood.

Billy stood still, but didn’t stop Steve, so Steve continued on and pushed the hood down.

Billy’s curls stood out wildly from his head, and a honey blonde beard lined his jaw. He looked at Steve, curious, not backing down from Steve’s touch.

Steve’s fingers ran lightly over Billy’s soft curls. “It’s me,” he said quietly, glancing down at the drawings.

Billy smiled. “Pretty boy,” Billy said, turning his face to press a kiss to Steve’ palm. “It’s always been you.”

Steve kissed him, and Billy kissed him back, slowly, tenderly.

It was a light press of the lips, because that’s all that Steve thought was needed in this moment - a sign. A promise of more to come.

#harringrove #soft fic for hard times #soft times at ridgemont high #my fic #my writing #30 first kisses #lissieisspacey

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likecastle · 4 years

Text

In which Jaskier cuts Geralt’s hair

Well, folks, I was inspired by Geralt’s slightly wavier wig in the new S2 promo photos to write a story in which Geralt finally gets some proper haircare and it brings out his natural curl pattern. This somehow turned into 7,000 words of Geralt musing about his own terrible self-image and Jaskier tenderly negotiating a haircut.

Credit for Geralt’s 3-in-1 shower products goes to @exrayspex, with my thanks for their enthusiasm about this exceedingly soft concept!

I’d like to put this up on AO3 at some point, but the title has me stumped, so if anyone has a suggestion, please let me know.

“When are you going to let me cut your hair?”

Geralt snorts, incredulous. “I’m not.”

Jaskier fixes Geralt with a pleading look. The streaks of peacock blue Jaskier recently added to his hair really bring out the color of his eyes—all the better to beguile him with. “Come on, Geralt, don’t you trust me?”

“No,” Geralt says, trying without much luck to keep his attention on the TV screen. Suddenly he has to fight the urge to tuck a stray strand of his hair behind his ear.

“It would look so nice if you just took proper care of it,” Jaskier wheedles.

“It doesn’t need to look nice.” Geralt can feel his shoulders creeping up towards his ears, and he wishes Jaskier would look at something else besides him. “It’s just hair.”

“But—”

Geralt jabs the remote in the direction of the TV. “Are you going to let me watch this or do you want to go home?”

“Fine, you grouch,” Jaskier says, returning his attention to the screen.

It must not hold Jaskier’s interest, though, because he can feel Jaskier’s gaze returning to him periodically throughout the rest of the film—which in itself isn’t all that unusual, since Jaskier watches even movies he really likes with one eye on his phone. Except that when Geralt meets his gaze, Jaskier’s looking at him with a wistful, almost sad expression. Geralt doesn’t let himself wonder what might be on his mind.

Later, Jaskier yawns wide and says he’d better be going if he doesn’t want to fall asleep at the wheel on the way home. It’s just a dramatic excuse not to help clean up, Geralt knows, but he can’t help smiling at the way Jaskier rubs at his eyes, smudging the faded remnants of his eyeliner. Geralt walks him to the door, and for a moment Jaskier just stands there on the porch, looking at Geralt thoughtfully.

When his hand reaches up, Geralt freezes. He thinks for a moment that Jaskier’s about to cup his cheek and drawn him down—but he just takes a strand of frizzy hair that’s come loose from Geralt’s ponytail and twists it around a finger.

“I thought so,” Jaskier says, with a private little smile.

Geralt’s sure Jaskier must be able to hear the way his breath’s gotten jammed up in his chest. “Thought—?”

“Nothing.” Jaskier digs his hands into the pockets of his jacket and starts down the front steps. “G’night, Geralt.”

As Geralt tidies away their takeout containers and empty beer bottles, his mind keeps wandering back to Jaskier’s offer. He knows Jaskier’s just trying to be nice—or trying to fix him, the way he tried to “liven up” Geralt’s wardrobe early in their friendship and tried to set him up on dates after he split up with Yen last year. But the options he tries to push on Geralt—the overpriced bomber jacket Jaskier bought him that’s still sitting at the back of his closet, the gorgeous chestnut-haired nurse Jaskier introduced him to—always seem to reflect more about Jaskier’s idea of Geralt than they do about Geralt himself.

Because the thing is, he’s not brash and stylish like Jaskier, who’s all eccentric colors combinations and flashing rings that accentuate his expressive hands. Jaskier knows how to construct an outfit that tells the world exactly who he is at any given moment, from his ever-evolving hairstyles to his painstakingly-sourced vintage clothes. Geralt, on the other hand, is just—nothing, an absence of style. His idea of a good outfit is one he can forget he’s wearing, one that will make everyone else forget him when he’s wearing it. His relationship to his appearance is as estranged as his relationship to his ex-wife. Being in his body, making use of it when he’s lifting weights or hammering a nail or swinging Ciri up in his arms—that makes sense to him. But thinking about his body is the opposite of that. He doesn’t like being looked at, even by himself. He avoids the mirror on his medicine cabinet as much as he can and starts feeling close and queasy if he so much as looks at himself in a dressing room mirror.

Before he goes to bed that night, he shakes his hair out from his ponytail and makes himself take a long, hard look in the mirror. All he sees is the sallow, tired-eyed face of a man who can hardly remember how to smile anymore, a face scarred from carelessness and creased from years of worry. His dull white hair, which Jaskier had twisted so carefully around his finger, is somehow greasy and dried out at the same time, limp around his face but bristly at the ends. He can’t find any sign of the potential Jaskier seems to think is there. He suspects it was never there in the first place—a mirage visible only to well-intentioned flatterers like Jaskier—and he feels foolish for looking.

No, Geralt decides, he’s not going to let Jaskier cut his hair, or do anything else to him. Better not to bother at all.

The next time the topic of Geralt’s hair comes up, he’s brought Ciri into Jaskier’s salon for an emergency haircut. Ordinarily, Yennefer handles things like haircuts and clothes shopping, but Saturday night, Ciri emerged from the bathroom with the front her hair lopped off somewhere around her eyebrows and a dawning expression of anxious regret on her face. Geralt had reassured her that everything would be OK, while texting Jaskier frantically for help and silently panicking about what Yen was going to say when she came to pick Ciri up on Sunday night. Thankfully, Jaskier was able to squeeze Ciri into his schedule this afternoon, and he promised to fix Ciri up.

So now Geralt is sitting awkwardly in the waiting area, hunched on a squeaky vinyl-upholstered chair. He’s been to Jaskier’s salon plenty of times—to meet him for lunch or a post-shift drink, to drop off something he left at the house or to give him a ride home—but he rarely does more than stand uneasily just inside the door. The relentless pop music and the echoing acoustics never fail to overwhelm him, as does the muddle of scents—clouds of different hair products and the pervasive smell of something sharp like ammonia. The abundance of mirrors unnerves him, too. Nobody can possibly need to see so many views of their own reflection, can they? Between the curious patrons peering at him in the mirrors and passersby staring in through the plate glass storefront, Geralt feels like he’s on display. And to make matters worse, he keeps catching glimpses of his reflection, his own hunted expression looking back at him from unexpected angles.

Ciri, at least, is having a great time, chatting happily with Jaskier as he snips away at her hair. The last time Geralt took Ciri for a haircut, it was at one of those children’s salons where the chairs looked like toy cars, and now here she is, sitting beside grown women almost like she’s one of them. It scares him, sometimes, to think of her growing up—more than sometimes. There are so many ways the world can fail her, and he can only do so much to protect her. There’s going to come a time when she’s going to get into some kind of trouble he won’t be able to bail her out of, and he’s not sure what he’s going to do with himself when that day comes. But for now, at least he can pay Jaskier to fix her disastrous home-brew haircut.

“What d’you think, Dad?” Ciri calls, and he looks up to see Jaskier removing her cape with a flourish. When he turns Ciri’s chair around to face him, Geralt’s heart catches in his throat. How grown up she looks, he thinks, but what really makes his chest ache is how much she’s coming into herself—becoming someone with her own unique taste in clothes and books and music, who won’t compromise about the bullshit dress codes at school and is brave enough to try something new even if the results are atrocious. He doesn’t know where she gets it.

“You like it?” he asks, not trusting himself to say something that won’t embarrass her.

“Yeah, I guess,” she says with a shrug, and hops down from the chair.

“We could do yours next, Geralt,” Jaskier offers, sweeping up the little blonde fragments of Ciri’s hair from the floor around his station.

“Ooh, yeah!” Ciri grins up at him. “I bet Jaskier would give you a really cool haircut.”

“I’m sure he would,” Geralt says mildly. He doesn’t want to quash Ciri’s enthusiasm or impart his own discomfort to her. It’s one of the things that keeps him up at night, the fear that he’ll pass down all his insecurities. He tries so hard to keep that shit buttoned up, to shield her from his own shortcomings—and he knows it’s inevitable that he’s just going to mess her up in other ways, but he wants to do better for her, has to do better. “Maybe some other time.”

“So you’ll consider it!” Jaskier says triumphantly, coming over to tell the receptionist the total for Ciri’s cut.

Geralt notices Ciri looking at herself in the big mirror behind the front desk, fussing self-consciously with her new fringe. Jaskier must notice, too, because he gives Ciri a big hug and says, “You look great, kiddo. Right, Geralt?”

“Definitely,” Geralt says, surrendering his credit card to the receptionist to pay a frankly staggering amount. He tips a hundred percent.

“You should take him up on it,” Yennefer says that evening when Geralt concludes the story of Ciri’s haircut by telling her about Jaskier’s offer to cut Geralt’s hair.

Geralt blinks in surprise. “Really?”

She glances back to where Ciri is waiting for her in the car. “Jaskier did a good job. She and I are going to have a serious conversation later about when to ask for permission and when to ask for forgiveness, but I have to admit it suits her.”

“It does,” Geralt agrees. He realizes he doesn’t know what it would be like, to feel his appearance suited him. He’s never tried, really, to make his exterior reflect his interior, wouldn’t even know where to begin.

“Besides,” Yennefer says, gesturing to his haphazard ponytail, “you really do need to start taking better care of yourself, now that I’m not around to make sure you’re presentable anymore.”

Geralt’s eyebrows shoot up, a smile twitching his lips. “Is that what you were doing? Looking after me?”

Yennefer lifts one hand to tug a lock of his hair, the gesture so similar to Jaskier’s that it makes him shiver, for some reason. “No, but somebody ought to.”

He ducks his head, hoping to hide the ache that washes through him—a longing for something they both wanted but never quite managed to find together. “If you keep Ciri waiting much longer, she’s gonna make a break for it.”

“She would, too,” Yennefer says affectionately. “Take care of yourself, Geralt.” She surprises him by brushing a kiss against his cheek, then turns to go.

Geralt waits until Yennefer’s car is out of sight before he goes inside. As he loads the dinner dishes into the dishwasher, he thinks again about Jaskier’s offer. He’s never been good at asking for things, let alone holding on them once he has them, but it’s been especially hard since he and Yennefer split—even the littlest things feel like they require an effort it’s not worth making. It’s so easy to tell himself he doesn’t need anything—a fancy haircut, a new jacket, a reassuring glance, a gentle touch. But sometimes, maybe, it’s enough to want them.

Wiping soapy water off his hands, Geralt pulls his phone from his pocket and texts Jaskier. Does your offer to cut my hair still stand? Only if you’ve got time.

OMG YES!!! comes the immediate reply. I can be there in 20. Then, a moment later, Jaskier amends, Shit wait make that 40 need to run to get some supplies

Geralt huffs out a laugh. Have to get up early tomorrow. This weekend?

All booked up this weekend but I’m off on Tues so I can come over to your place in the pm if that works for you

He’d hoped to give himself a few days to cancel, just in case he changes his mind, and in this respect Tuesday’s almost no better than forty minutes from now. But he does like the idea of doing this at home, instead of in the salon. He types out OK and hits send before he can think better of it.

Don’t chicken out before then

No promises, Geralt answers.

Jaskier responds with a string of emoji that Geralt finds completely inscrutable, but which make him smile nonetheless.

Jaskier arrives on Tuesday evening with a six-pack of cold beer and bag crammed full of supplies.

“I thought you were going to cut my hair, not outlast a siege,” Geralt says, trying to ignore the way his stomach twists with nerves over this impending ordeal. He should have cancelled. He should never have said yes to this ridiculous idea.

“Oh, none of this would be remotely useful in warfare,” Jaskier replies. Then, contemplatively, he says, “Well, maybe some of it. But first, I thought we could have a drink.”

“So you can cut my hair drunk?” Geralt asks.

Jaskier rolls his eyes and brushes past Geralt into the kitchen, dumping his bag into an empty chair at the table. “So you can relax a little for once. And so we can talk.”

Geralt feels the knot of anxiety in his stomach tighten even further. “What is there to talk about? It’s just a haircut.”

Jaskier lets out a long-suffering sigh as he rummages around in Geralt’s cutlery drawer in search of a bottle opener. “Geralt, have you not listened to a single word I’ve said about my job?” He pops off the caps of two bottles of beer and hands one to Geralt. “No, don’t answer that, I know you haven’t.”

Geralt takes a sullen sip of his beer, but he doesn’t dispute the accusation.

With a nod of his head, Jaskier gestures for Geralt to follow him into the living room, and flops down on what Geralt has come to think of as his side of the couch. Geralt sits at the other end, turned to face him. “You need to know what you want going into this, or you won’t get good results.” Jaskier fixes him with a gaze that makes Geralt take another swallow of his beer. “Have you ever given any thought to what you like, or don’t like, about your hair?”

“Not . . . really,” Geralt mumbles, wondering how angry Jaskier would be if he called this whole thing off now.

“Well,” Jaskier says patiently, “why do you keep your hair long? I always assumed it was because you liked how it looked, but I’m realizing now I’ve never asked about it.”

Geralt takes another sip of his beer and tries to think of answer that’s not Because I do. He’s worn it long since high school, when it was primarily something to hide behind. It felt like a kind of fuck-you, an off-putting choice to keep people from looking too closely at him—and to help him forget about other people, too. “It’s easier,” he says finally. “Don’t have to get it cut every few weeks, and I can keep it out of my face.”

“OK, that’s good to know.” The calm, encouraging tone Jaskier’s taking should feel condescending, but Geralt finds he doesn’t mind—or maybe it’s just the beer starting to relax him a little.

“You don’t always tie it back, though, do you?” Jaskier goes on.

Geralt shakes his head. “When I’m working, yeah, but the rest of the time . . .” He shrugs. It depends—on who he’s around, how comfortable he feels with them, hell, how hard the wind is blowing. Sometimes he can’t stand the feeling of it in face, and sometimes the pressure of the hair elastic at the base of his skull is enough to make him want to rip it out.

“Can I . . . ?” Jaskier gestures to Geralt’s hair, and Geralt inclines his head. It’s inevitable that Jaskier will have to touch him if they’re going to go through with this, so there’s no point in being shy about it. Jaskier scoots forward on the couch, and Geralt holds very still, letting him reach back and undo the tie holding his hair back. A sheet of frizzy white strands spills around his bowed head, almost obscuring Jaskier from view.

He can feel Jaskier, though, running his fingers through his hair. The touch makes Geralt’s scalp tingle and a shiver runs through him that he tries and fails to suppress.

“OK?” Jaskier asks, and Geralt nods.

“You’ve never told me when you went grey.” Jaskier’s voice is hushed, almost as if he’s afraid of startling him. He continues to card his hand through Geralt’s hair—with professional curiosity, Geralt realizes, but the touch is so gentle it also feels like a reassurance. Geralt closes his eyes, grateful to be shielded from Jaskier’s view.

“Started in high school,” he says. It’s been a long time since he thought about how, when those first thick streaks of white were coming into his dark hair, kids at school would call him skunk and Cruella de Vil, shit he knew better than to respond to but that just made him even more self-conscious. It occurs to him now that most of his memories of being looked at—really noticed—are colored by other people’s derision for things he can’t help. “It was all like this by the time I was twenty-one, twenty-two. Someone told me once it’s genetic, but . . .” He shrugs again. He’s got no one to ask about a family history of premature graying, no photos of distant relatives to compare himself to.

Gentle fingers tuck his hair back behind one ear, and Geralt looks up to see Jaskier smiling at him. “I would pay good money to see pictures of you in high school. I bet you were so surly.”

“You wouldn’t have liked me,” Geralt says “I was insufferable.” Miserable and ungrateful and roiling with self-righteous anger all the time, hardly able to string a civil sentence together.

Jaskier rewards him with a snort of disbelieving laughter. “You’re insufferable now and I like you just fine.”

This is true, Geralt thinks. His anger has banked down somewhat since those days, but he’s no less difficult to be around, and Jaskier’s never seemed to mind his rough edges. If he’s being honest, he wouldn’t have been able to appreciate Jaskier in those day. His constant talking and absurd jokes would have grated on Geralt’s nerves, back then. They did when he first met Jaskier, in fact. He tried, for a long time, to keep his distance, sure that there was nothing he and Jaskier could possibly have to say to each other. But Jaskier kept turning up, kept surprising him, kept being kind to him for no damn reason. Geralt’s glad he did.

“So,” Jaskier says, pushing the conversation back in his desired direction, as he always does, “what I’m hearing is, you like wearing your hair long?”

Geralt considers, taking another swallow of his beer. Liking doesn’t figure into his thinking much, but it’s not just out of habit that he keeps it this way. “Yeah.”

Jaskier’s nod is solemn. “Anything you don’t like about it?”

Again, Geralt has to give this serious thought. “There are, uh . . .” He gestures to the wiry flyaways that tend to form around his head by the end of the day. They tend to tickle his face unpleasantly as he works, which is irritating when he doesn’t hand a hand free to brush them away.

“Yeah, it’s a little dry,” Jaskier says. “But we can fix that up.” Geralt knows exactly how soft Jaskier’s hair is, and he can’t imagine his own ragged hair could ever come close. “Anything else?”

Geralt shrugs.

“OK,” Jaskier says, “enough with the interrogation. I think I’ve got everything I need.”

Jaskier gets up and retrieves another beer—not for himself, but for Geralt. Jaskier’s fingers brush his as he hands over the bottle, and it gives him the same little shiver that he felt when Jaskier was combing through his hair. “D’you want me to tell you what I’m thinking, or just surprise you?”

Geralt’s gut instinct is to make Jaskier tell him what he’s got in mind, so that he has the option to veto it and put this whole thing to a stop. But he thinks of Jaskier’s teasing question the first time they talked about this—Don’t you trust me?—and how he’d said no when the answer is really yes. So he takes a deep pull of his beer and says, “Surprise me.”

The look of glee on Jaskier’s face is worth the knot of dread that immediately forms in Geralt’s stomach. He takes another drinks and reminds himself that it’s just hair. It’ll grow back.

“You’re not gonna regret it, I promise,” Jaskier says, and then his warm hands are urging Geralt up and off the couch.

It takes them a while to get everything situated to Jaskier’s liking—the bathroom is too cramped to accommodate a chair, so Jaskier has Geralt drag one into the kitchen, covering the floor in newspapers to catch the stray clippings. Then Jaskier sends Geralt to wash his hair while he sets up the rest of his supplies. When Geralt comes back downstairs, his hair soaking into his t-shirt, there is a truly staggering array of equipment spread out on the counter, Jaskier’s own little traveling apothecary kit, with everything from dangerously sharp scissors to brightly-colored bottles of product to some kind of instrument that looks like a bowl full of dull spikes, which Jaskier says attaches to his hair dryer.

“Rule number one,” Jaskier says, grabbing the towel out of Geralt’s hands. “No more regular towels on your hair. Your hair deserves to be treated with care.” Geralt snorts, but the towel he hands Geralt is pleasantly soft, with finer knap that’s soft as fleece in his hands. “And don’t rub at it,” Jaskier scolds. He steps closer, wrapping his hands around Geralt’s to guide him, his hand moving in a gentle squeezing motion. “That’s good,” he says, and Geralt feels his cheeks flush.

Once Geralt’s hair is toweled dry, Jaskier maneuvers him into the chair, and combs out his hair with a wide-toothed comb. Jaskier is exceedingly careful not to yank on the knots, but even so the gentle tug sets his skin tangling. Geralt knows his scalp is sensitive—he can remember fighting back tears while Vesemir struggled to brush out his unruly hair as a kid—but it’s never felt like this before. Of course, that might have something to do with the fact that ordinarily, when he finally breaks down and subjects himself to a trim, he just asks Eskel do come over and cut it with the kitchen scissors. Even with someone he trusts as profoundly as he does Eskel, it’s still an uncomfortable ordeal that makes him unaccountably tense. But this isn’t painful, or unnerving at all. It’s . . . nice, embarrassingly so. He can’t help wondering what it would feel like if Jaskier were to drag his nails along his scalp—and then he has to force himself not to think about it, because even the thought of the sensation sends a shudder through him.

Thankfully, Jaskier is busy fiddling with his phone, and a moment later he puts on a playlist he likes to call Geralt’s Sad Dad Rock mix. Geralt appreciates the background noise—familiar songs he can tune out if he wants to, quiet enough that the music’s not intrusive.

“OK,” Jaskier says, snapping a cape around Geralt’s throat. His hand comes to rest on Geralt’s shoulder and he leans in to speak almost directly into Geralt’s ear. “Ready?”

Geralt suppresses another chill and says, “As I’ll ever be.”

Jaskier gives his shoulder a reassuring squeeze and gets to work. Geralt’s grateful for the lack of mirrors, because it means he doesn’t have to see what Jaskier’s doing, but at the same time it leaves him without much to go on—just the touch of the comb, Jaskier’s hands carefully repositioning his head, his fingers pulling this or that lock of hair taut to snip at them with the scissors. Eventually, Geralt closes his eyes and lets Jaskier’s voice wash over him. Jaskier often accuses Geralt of not listening to him when he talks, but in truth it’s easy to get lost in the lilting cadence of his speech, like hearing a song but not its lyrics.

“. . . and the thing is,” Jaskier’s saying, though Geralt lost the thread of his rambling long ago, “the more you do it, the better your results will be. You just have to help them along . . .”

He can see why Jaskier’s clients like him so much, how nice it is to fall into the pattern of someone else’s words, especially when that someone has as nice a voice as Jaskier. He’s often grateful for Jaskier’s conversation, which fills silences Geralt didn’t even realize were empty until he came along.

When Jaskier says, “OK, you’re all done,” Geralt is surprised by how quickly the time has passed. “We can just leave it at that and just let it air dry, or . . .” Even though he can’t see Jaskier, he can picture the hopeful expression on his face.

“What?” Geralt asks, twisting around in the chair to look Jaskier in the eye.

Jaskier bites his bottom lip, looking almost nervous. “Or I could show you how to style it. If you wanted. Nothing over the top, I promise.”

Geralt thinks it over. On the one hand, there’s no way he’ll ever bother repeating anything Jaskier shows him how to do, but on the other hand, he wouldn’t mind having Jaskier’s hands on him a little longer. “All right.”

“Really?” Jaskier’s eyes go wide. “Nope, never mind, I’m not gonna second-guess this. No take-backs! You’re committed now.”

Which is how Geralt finds himself being hustled back upstairs and into the bathroom. Jaskier pulls back the shower curtain and is about to start issuing instructions when he lets out a squawk and staggers backward.

Geralt looks around in alarm, expecting to see a giant spider in the tub. It’s only belatedly that he realizes he’s thrown an arm out in front of Jaskier, as if that will protect him from whatever nonexistent threat he was reacting to. “What?”

“Geralt, for shame!” Jaskier exclaims, pointing to the bottle of 3-in-1 shampoo/conditioner/body wash on the edge of the tub. “Is that yours?” He says it with all the breathless horror of someone discovering a murder weapon.

“Uh . . .” Geralt has the distinct feeling he should try to deny it, but there’s no point in trying to pretend. “Yes?”

And then Jaskier is laughing, but it’s warm with delight, not mocking or cruel. In fact, he looks up at Geralt with such fondness that Geralt almost can’t bear it. “Oh, you poor man,” Jaskier says between gusts of laughter. “No wonder your hair is so dry!”

“. . . It’s efficient,” Geralt mutters in a half-hearted attempt to defend himself.

“It’s like washing your hair with dish soap. But don’t worry,” he adds, pressing a hand to Geralt’s chest, “I’ll get you sorted out and then your hair will be so soft it’ll be completely irresistible.”

“Hmm,” Geralt says dubiously, but Jaskier just grins at him.

“OK, this next part is going to be a little awkward. Ordinarily you’d do it by yourself in the shower, but I’m gonna take a wild guess and say you’d rather not jump in the shower with me right now.”

Geralt very much does not acknowledge the wave of heat that rolls through him at the thought. “Probably wouldn’t fit, anyway.”

“Eh, I’ve made it work in smaller spaces than this,” Jaskier says, with such casual confidence that Geralt’s mouth goes dry. “But luckily, you’ve got one of those detachable showerheads, so we should be just fine. Might be easier, though, if you, uh, take off your shirt off.”

Geralt’s already come this far, and, besides, it’s not like Jaskier hasn’t seen him without his shirt on before. As Geralt strips off his shirt, Jaskier puts a towel down on the floor and beckons him to kneel down at the edge the tub. He’s careful to get the water to a comfortable temperature before he puts a warm hand on Geralt’s bare back, guiding him to lean over, his head bowed.

The routine Jaskier directs him through is more complicated than Geralt could ever have anticipated. There’s a thick, dark purple shampoo that Jaskier instructs him to use only once a week—he has another shampoo he’ll give Geralt to use at other times, but really, Jaskier insists, he should only be washing his hair a couple of times a week, anyway. Jaskier shows him how to rub the shampoo into his scalp only and let the water draw it down through the rest of his hair. The pressure of the spray on his scalp makes his skin tingle, as does the press of Jaskier’s body against his side. When Geralt doesn’t apply the conditioner to Jaskier’s liking, he adjusts Geralt’s hands with his own, smoothing their joined fingers through Geralt’s slippery hair. And when it comes time to rinse the conditioner out, he shows Geralt how to cup the water in his palms and press it into the wet mass of his hair.

“You’re doing great,” Jaskier tells him, and Geralt is grateful his face is hidden behind ropes of his wet hair.

Finally, Jaskier pronounces himself satisfied and turns off the water. Now that they’re done the task of washing his hair, Geralt’s awkwardly aware of his chest dripping with water in the cool air of the bathroom—and of Jaskier standing less than an arm’s length away from him.

Jaskier, on the other hand, is nothing but professional, rubbing a series of products into his hands and then smoothing them over Geralt’s hair. After each application, he gathers Geralt’s hair in his hands and presses it up toward Geralt’s scalp, just like they did with the water. It’s a bizarre motion, like nothing Geralt’s ever seen before, but it seems to be having the desired effect, because the strands of hair hanging down in front of his face are slowly forming into thick coils, and Jaskier keeps making little satisfied humming sounds with each new application. Jaskier finishes by wrapping Geralt’s hair up in another one of those extra soft towels.

“And now we wait,” he says, hopping up onto the sink.

Geralt pulls his shirt on again, careful not to disturb the towel on his head, and he might be wrong but he thinks that he catches a little disappointed frown cross Jaskier’s face, but it’s gone before he can be sure.

“Thanks for indulging me,” Jaskier says. “I know you don’t really like this kind of stuff, but I’m having a great time.”

“It’s not as bad as I thought it would be,” Geralt replies. But that sounds worse than it did in his head, and he hastens to add, “I mean—it’s nice—when it’s you.”

Jaskier’s smile is something Geralt can’t quite get to the bottom of—fond and wry and maybe a little sad, too. “Well, I’ve been dying to do this pretty much since the moment I met you, so, you know, thanks for that.”

It’s strange to think Jaskier has been harboring private aspirations where Geralt is concerned. But then Jaskier’s always been full of surprises when it comes to him—immune to his ill temper, amused by his rudeness, tenacious enough to bully his way past his silences. He’s never understood what Jaskier sees in him, and he often feels he offers a poor reward for the hard work Jaskier puts in to being his friend. Because it’s not easy, Geralt knows. Plenty of people have decided Geralt was too difficult to get to know, or too prickly to stick with. Even Yennefer, who’s loved him better than he could possibly deserve, struggled to make inroads against Geralt’s defenses. It never seemed to matter how much he loved Yennefer, he could never bring himself to relax around her. He was always on tenterhooks, waiting for the other shoe to drop—until, in time, it did, a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. He can’t blame Yennefer ending things. She wants things he doesn’t know how to give. He couldn’t figure out how to change himself into the sort of person she deserved.

“D’you want another beer?” Jaskier asks, nudging Geralt’s knee with his bare foot.

He wouldn’t mind another drink, but he’s loathe to puncture the peaceful little moment that’s grown up between them. “Let’s just stay here.”

Jaskier nods, and a moment later Fleetwood Mac comes on over Jaskier’s phone speakers—one of the only bands they can agree on—and Jaskier treats him to an inspired rendition of “Dreams,” his voice turned otherworldly by the chill acoustics of the bathroom tiles. Geralt watches Jaskier dance on his perch on the edge of the sink and wonders, with an ache in his chest, what it would be like to be so uninhibited, so comfortable in his own skin. He can’t imagine it, but sometimes he feels like he’s maybe just a half-step closer to knowing when he’s around Jaskier.

When the song fades out, Jaskier hops down from the counter and says, “OK, time for the last step.”

Jaskier sticks that torture device attachment onto his hair dryer and lets Geralt’s hair down from the towel. Jaskier lets him stay seated, and starts drying his hair. He doesn’t pull Geralt’s hair taut with a brush, as Geralt has seen Yennefer do when styling her own hair. Instead, he gathers it up a section of hair in that little torture device accessory and holds the dryer still, letting the air work around the strands. Geralt closes his eyes against the noise and sensation of the air against his scalp. It lasts a long time, Geralt bracing his arms on his thighs as Jaskier moves the hair dryer around his head. The noise of the dryer makes conversation difficult, and Geralt feels strangely distant from Jaskier all of a sudden, even though he’s standing so close Geralt could press his face to the soft flesh of his stomach if he wanted to. He knots his hands together between his knees to keep himself from just reaching out and pulling Jaskier close.

When Jaskier finally switches off the hair dryer, the silence it leaves feels big. It’s probably just the heat from the hair dyer, but Geralt feels flushed and a little rubbed raw.

“All right,” Jaskier says, fixing him with a considering look. “Let me just . . .” He reaches out and grips Geralt’s hair in both hands. He doesn’t so much tug as gently crush the strands, but the pressure is enough to make Geralt’s mouth fall open, and he doesn’t exactly make a noise but something happens in his chest like his lungs kickstarting. Jaskier glances down at him with an inquisitive smile. “Sorry, too hard?”

It’s all Geralt can do to shake his head.

“All done,” Jaskier says. When he lets go, Geralt immediately misses the touch. “Wanna take a look?”

Geralt stands up and turns to regard himself in the mirror. To say he doesn’t recognize himself would be an overstatement, but the sight of his reflection is a surprise. The cut doesn’t seem all that different in terms of length, but the ragged edges are gone. The dingy white of his hair has turned a gleaming silver, and it hangs around his face not in its usual lank tangle, but in softly curling waves. It’s almost . . . pretty, a word he’s never associated with himself in his entire life. The new brightness of his hair makes his face seem clearer, more open somehow, and the gentle curls offset the hard lines of his face in a way that make his features look almost delicate, or in any case less roughly hewn than usual. He reaches up to touch it, and to his amazement, it’s just as soft as Jaskier promised it would be. Maybe not as soft as Jaskier’s own hair, but much nicer than he can remember it ever feeling before.

“You like it?” Jaskier asks, and in the mirror, Geralt can see he’s looking at him with a hopeful expression. It makes something twist in his stomach—longing, and at the same time a rejection of what he wants, the certainty that he can’t possibly hang onto anything nice for long enough to enjoy it.

“You know I’ll never go to all this trouble,” he says, gruffly, and immediately regrets it when he sees Jaskier’s smile slip from his face.

“No, I know,” Jaskier says, and starts packing up his supplies. “I just wanted to try it. I’ll still leave you all the products, just in case you change your mind, or—”

“Jaskier.” Geralt swallows hard, and puts a hand on Jaskier’s shoulder. “I—”

Jaskier looks at him with such a searching expression that Geralt hardly knows how to look at him. He’s never known someone who’s so much all the time, expansive and loud and demanding and generous and so goddamn bright.

“What I should have said,” Geralt says, against the tension threatening to stop his throat, “is that I wouldn’t have tried this if it weren’t for you. It’s . . .” He’s not sure how to answer Jaskier’s question. Does he like it? He looks so unlike himself that he honestly doesn’t know what to make of it. He can’t tell if it suits him or not, because he still isn’t sure what that would mean. But he likes the idea that Jaskier’s uncovered this version of him, that this might be how Jaskier sees him in his mind’s eye. “I’m glad we tried it. Thank you.”

“I am, too,” Jaskier says, quietly. “Even if you never do it again, I’m glad you trusted me enough to try. And for the record?” The twist of his lips is almost pained, but it’s a smile all the same. “You look fucking gorgeous.”

Geralt ducks his head, his shoulders inching up. “Jaskier . . .”

“No, I’m serious, Geralt.” Jaskier sounds annoyed, almost angry, all of a sudden. “I know you don’t care about superficial stuff—”

“That’s not—”

“—but take it from someone who spends a lot of time looking at people and doing my best to make them look as good as I possibly can: you’re objectively really fucking good-looking.” Jaskier lets out a harsh, reckless laugh. “And if you don’t care about my professional opinion, I also happen to think you’re the most attractive person I’ve ever met in my entire life, so there’s that.”

“I—”

Now that Jaskier’s started talking, he can’t seem to stop. “You’re the most incredible person I know, Geralt,” he says, in a breathless rush, “and I’m not talking just about your looks—although you are genuinely so ridiculously handsome that it’s really not fair. You’re kind for no reason and incredibly devoted and, OK, sort of a dick sometimes, but also so goddamn careful with other people and so fucking hard on yourself, and I just—I wish you could see yourself the way I do. I wish I could show you, even for just a second, because—”

“You did,” Geralt says. Jaskier stares at him, stunned into silence, and Geralt takes the opportunity to continue. “You do. Not just tonight.” He’s breathing hard, and he tries not to think about how dangerous this feels, like standing up on the top of a tall ladder or walking the line of a roof that might collapse under him at any moment. “When I’m with you, I feel like I could be that person you see in me, maybe. I just . . . don’t know how.”

Jaskier laughs again—softer this time. “You dummy,” he says, “you already are. You’ve just got to believe it.”

“Oh, is that all,” Geralt says.

“Yeah, no big deal,” Jaskier says, waving one hand dismissively. “You’ve got me to convince you, after all.”

“Oh, yeah?” Geralt can’t help the smile spreading across his face, despite the shivery feeling still simmering under his skin. “How’re you gonna do that?”

“Well . . .” Jaskier takes a step towards him, and then another, settling his hands lightly on Geralt’s hips. “I’d probably start a little like this . . .”

The first touch of Jaskier’s lips on his is like a breath of clean air after a storm, and Geralt can feel something that’s been knotted tight inside him for a long time unfurling itself. It doesn’t feel dangerous anymore, that buzz under his skin transmuting into a golden glow. He knows it’s not as simple as it feels—he can’t expect Jaskier to change him with a single kiss—but for the first time in a long while, something feels purely, unequivocally good, and he wants more of it.

In time, Jaskier’s hands creep up Geralt’s sides to his back, even as Geralt’s own hands drift down past Jaskier’s waist. When Jaskier’s hands slip into his hair, Geralt wrenches himself free with a shiver. “You’re going to undo all your hard work,” he says, teasingly.

“D’you really care?” Jaskier asks, and scratches his nails along Geralt’s scalp, wringing a whine from deep in Geralt’s chest that should be embarrassing but isn’t.

“Not really,” Geralt gasps, his whole body pressing closer against Jaskier’s. “You can always do it again.”

Jaskier’s smile is wide as he bends to kiss him again. “That’s what I thought.”

#the witcher #witcher modern au #geralt #geralt of rivia #jaskier #yennefer of vengerberg #cirilla of cintra #geraskier #geralt x jaskier #geralt/jaskier #gerlion #some background yennalt here #i've got 99 problems and aus are all of them #hairdresser!jaskier #i can't believe i wrote modern au witcher fic and still wound up writing a bath fic #the witcher fandom loves baths apparently #somebody please help me title this thing #i need a title that isn't when the rain washes you clean you'll know

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atopearth · 3 years

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Collar X Malice: Unlimited Part 7 - Adonis Route

Honestly, I find the way Ichika joined Zero's side to be pretty iffy even back then in the original game, so I kinda hoped something like Kazuki dying would have changed here but I guess not.. I feel sorry for Kazuki that they reconciled but she still ended up joining Adonis alongside Akito, it must be a pretty big shock having to deal with that. (EDIT: guess he is gone..) Ichika being at the top and training people in marksmanship and stuff is very interesting lol. She looks all right with short hair but yeah, I agree with Zero, I liked the long hair more. Anyway, Zero wants her to find out if there's a traitor amongst them before the next X-Day (since the one 2 years ago failed) in 30 days. Anyway, it seems like you go through each of the Adonis' executors' stories so that's interesting. I'm just going to go from the ones I least like to the ones I like the most haha, and then leave Mikuni for last I guess. Well, Hana's story first then~

Kobayashi Hana

I guess Hana is as bright as ever. I quite enjoy seeing her try and dress Ichika up and make her cuter lol. On the other hand, seeing her mercilessly cut through that panda cake was pretty hilarious. One thing I enjoyed insight into was hearing that Hana has been avoiding going to Isshiki's concerts to avoid causing any trouble to them with the police just in case they come to crash it because of her or something. Honestly, I was pretty impressed. Like, she's always been pretty selfish, and she's always prioritised her love for Isshiki above everything, but to see that she could stop herself to protect him was nice in its own way. Even though she's a pretty ruthless killer, and even though she's obsessed with Isshiki, I guess she does think things through a bit so that Isshiki won't ever have to suffer because of her. Hmm Ichika seemed to reminisce about Kazuki, does that mean he died? Anyway, these investigations are short? Are they really just segments of story for Ichika to become friends with each person? Lol. I mean, Ichika literally did nothing but talk about random stuff with Hana lol. I actually find it rather endearing that Hana and Ichika can fight so openly about their feelings and understand that they actually do want the best for each other, it's kinda nice how they became good friends under such circumstances.

Soda Manabu

Honestly, I kinda wish we could just pick one character and continue until the investigation completes because it's sooo annoying having to press on each one like 7 times just to get a couple of lines of story each time Zzz. Anyway, gotta admit Ichika is pretty judgmental towards Soda, and actively tries to "fix" him and thinks what he does is "wrong", which is pretty annoying tbh. Just because she doesn't understand games, she thinks it's useless to Adonis, and then judges him for his eating habits? Lol. Anyway, at least she tried playing his game though lol, and even got lessons from him haha. I see, I can understand why Ichika would go to Zero for "revenge" but not sure about the "sadness" thing if that's what she's going for tbh. Losing Yanagi, Enomoto, Shiraishi, Okazaki and Kazuki is a big hit and I can understand it shattering her world, but going to Adonis is basically breeding everything that killed everyone important to her. Anyway, Sasazuka's pained voice telling Ichika not to go to Adonis really hurt. I'm sure he's really hurting over the fact he didn't notice the weapons that ended up killing everyone, alongside survivor's guilt of being the only one who survived out of the group, and then now not even being able to stop Ichika from going over to the other side.. It's painful to see. Anyway, lmao, Soda is probably a tamer little brother than Kazuki. His words are harsh but you can tell he only talks like that to protect himself, so any time he swears, I don't bother taking him seriously, he's a hurt little kid. It's cute how Ichika mixed his hated eggplants into the gratin and he didn't even notice, but he ate the whole thing happily🤣 He's so adorable lmao, especially when his face went red and he told her he'd eat her stuff again (even though she shouldn't hear it), and then he ran off🤣

It seems like Soda regrets his actions much more than I initially thought. He was able to get revenge, but now he's even more scared of death because of what he had done, and now he's just in this never-ending cycle of fear, needing to have Zero's power to protect himself, doing his bidding so that he won't die, but at the same time being so scared of his life that the only time he probably feels "safe" is when he plays his games. I love how happy he was when Ichika gave him a SS tier rare item and he put it on, locked it and kept it in a special box🤣 That's so cuteee. Definitely enjoyed Soda's mini part more than I thought hahaha, he's such a cute little kid, which makes it kinda sad lol. Soda blowing up and getting mad at Ichika for playing solo and saying she didn't need connections when she made him realise he wanted to start building connections because of her was really...heartwarming. Soda gave up on people and a lot of things thinking that he could never have them because that's how it was considering how people are, but he changed his mind after Ichika so insistently barged into his life, and now to say that it's practically useless would be extremely hurtful to him. I was really impressed with Soda, and I'm happy that he even told Ichika that she can rely on him more, he's such a sweet boy🥲

Uno Suzune

Lmaooo poor Shion, the woes of a big brother. I found it hilarious how Suzune would give him the green peas she doesn't like even though Shion hates them too, definitely something siblings would do🥲 I superrrr agree with Suzune about handwriting diaries instead of writing a blog! I mean, I have both obviously, but I definitely have different feelings when I read my blog and when I read my writing in my diary. Through my blog, I can easily read my exact thoughts and get to the gist of what I'm talking about, but with my diary, I can see stuff like when I started getting tired of writing, when I felt like changing my pen, and a lot of other feelings that can't be seen or portrayed properly in a typed blog, and yes, the memories of me writing all this usually comes back better when I've written it, mainly because I either say it in the entry or because I can actually remember sitting there and putting time into writing about my life/day.

Guess Suzune's pretty yandere for her brother if any kind of possible romantic interest from Ichika gets her other self to come out and threaten her about it lol. Anyway, it's cute how she’s starting to kinda think of Ichika as a big sister. Suzune willingly taking Ichika to Shion and calling Ichika Chi-chan is probably the biggest improvement you can get considering she could stab you as the worst case hahha. Well, Suzune was definitely cuter than I thought and seeing her so vulnerable, shy but wanting to protect Shion and getting out of her shell for him was sweet. Are there endings for each executor? Well, anyway, Suzune saying she would be sad if anything happened to Ichika was really sweet.

Sugawara Rika

Lmao, I forgot Sugawara is obsessed with Zero, this is going to be fun I guess. It's kinda funny that getting a 50,000 yen strawberry entices her lol, I'm surprised Zero approved it as an expense, like dang, can I have one too, I'm curious lol. Lmao when Sugawara wanted to keep the strawberries as a memento instead of eating it😂 She should have been convinced when Ichika said it'll become a part of her hahahah. LOL when Sugawara started lecturing Ichika about dressing better in front of Zero, and then tried to get her makeup to make her look better, but then Ichika runs away😂

Okay, I loved the girls dress up night with Hana, Ichika and Sugawara. It was so funny how they started arguing about what Ichika should wear and then became fast enough friends to recommend each other stuff and then wear it for fun. I loveee that they had a CG for their new outfits because they're all so pretty, I love them! I think Hana's is my favourite because it's so simple but cute in a different way from her usual. I guess it's kinda cute how in Hana's investigation, Hana focuses on Ichika's clothing fashion, but Sugawara takes it further or I guess mainly focuses on skincare, makeup and haircare haha. I guess it's nice that Sugawara is definitely much more open about standing up for herself and other women when it comes to men who try to objectify them or think of them as "lesser". She's become stronger. I think it's kinda sad to see that amongst all the other happy mini endings with the other executors, Rika's one with Ichika is actually pretty sad because it was through them bonding that Rika noticed Ichika's true intentions of revenge, and that's why they can never truly see eye-to-eye and be friends.

Ogata Tomoki

I guess I didn't expect Ogata to be the type to go to batting cages, but I even more didn't expect him to reserve sweets to make sure he can get them hahaha! It's nice that he enjoys wagashi though, I definitely should have tried it when I went to Japan, but I completely forgot😭 Aww, Ogata had such a sweet daughter! Whenever his wife wasn't looking, she would eat his hated tomatoes for him! Such a kind kid😭 I've never heard of monaka before, so I googled it and they look nice!! Kinda like an ice cream sandwich but not with ice cream and has red bean paste and other stuff inside I guess? I would totally eat it. Lmaoo at Ichika's impression of the typical salaryman😂😂 It's true though, I can't imagine Ogata going home to watch comedy shows with a beer in his hand🤣 Aww it was so cute how Ogata did an impersonation of a character in a drama because he got so used to doing it for his daughter. But lmao at Ichika though, telling him what he can improve on since Adonis might have end of the year parties he could use it for, imagine a bunch of terrorists partying for something so normal like the end of the year hahah😂😂

It's actually really sad how Ogata feels like he can't be a father anymore because he knows that he prioritises his current ideals and dreams more than his daughter. And I guess considering how long they've been separated and how much he has changed, it would probably feel awkward to try and be a normal father, but I guess at least through Ichika's encouragement, he's willing to try and reply to his daughter's letter of wanting to meet him. I think the reason why I've always liked Ogata is because he doesn't regret his actions. Like, he knows that he's killed people and that's why he doesn't want to see his family and get them involved with what he's doing right now, because he knows the gravity of his actions. But at the same time, his hatred for Fujii, the police and the whole mistaken arrest that led to such injustice for him and changed his whole perspective on life is something he can't let go of, and that's why it led him to Adonis and to fulfill his "new" ideals. He knows it's a path that will not necessarily have a "good ending" but he's willing to sacrifice everything for it, and I think that's what makes me attracted to his character. Anyway, LMAO at how insistent Ichika was on seeing young Ogata with a buzzcut playing baseball, absolutely hilarious when she was ready to tie him up with a rope and search his room😂😂 It's pretty sad to see that Ogata wanted to be like Isshiki and save people with his justice without faltering in this cruel world but he just wasn't able to do it because hatred was what fuelled him to move forward and not forgiveness or hope. But I'm glad he encouraged Ichika to listen to Isshiki's song and hear Kazuki's guitar, because seeing Ichika show her emotions again, even if just a little bit was nice...

Uno Shion

Aww, it's cute how much Shion cares about Suzune, but also so cute how he's embarrassed to say he likes chocolate🤣 It's nice that he's more cooperative than Suzune I guess hahaha. I never expected Shion to like to paint though, that's interesting. Anyway, it's pretty sad to think that the "outside world" was much more unforgiving to the Uno siblings, and that it was only after they joined this terrorist organisation did they get to feel safe and secure that they have shelter and food without people going crazy on them. In that sense, it's understandable how much more comfortable Adonis would be for them. Aww Shion and Suzune getting excited over a chocolate cake is so adorable. Them saving up to buy a home for themselves is so heartwarming, it makes me really want to cheer for them. I'm dying from how cute they are trying to feed Ichika the chocolate cake too because they really like her and think she's really kind like their mother was before. Shion buying a cheese tart for both Ichika and Suzune was sweet, she's like a part of his thought process when buying stuff for his sister hahaha. Lol when he just shoved it into her mouth instead of giving it to her like a normal person🤣 Lmaoo when Shion drew a portrait of Ichika stuffing herself with cheese tart🤣 To think that Shion was so serious about drawing that he's actually thinking about a future with it after the X-Day stuff..it’s so endearing.

Sera Akito

It must be difficult for both Akito and Ichika to talk to each other. Just seeing each other's faces would make them remember the past and compare it to the present, making their whole encounter just...painful to watch. It's so like Akito to hide that he dislikes shiitake mushrooms so that it wouldn't inconvenience Ichika and make her remove it from the cooking menu. Lmaooo at Akito being so scared of bugs, enough that Ichika has to call cockroaches dark fairies to make him feel more at ease🤣 I'm sure Akito must be hurting too, but his consideration for Ichika above himself really makes my heart feel so warm. Awww, my heart swooned when Akito said his ideal type was Ichika! If only there was an Akito route~ Anyway, I didn't expect Akito and Soda to really interact but lmaoo at Soda having spent millions of yen on in-game stuff, Soda is right though, gacha rates are cruel😭😭 Aww, it was so cute how honest Soda was about wanting to have defeated the boss with Akito instead of dumping him and killing it himself, since what Soda values is playing together with other people. So, Kazuki was stabbed by a guy who was influenced by Adonis into taking revenge against his bullies or something, and I guess Kazuki was killed when he tried to step in? Honestly, I feel terrible for Akito. He was already feeling doubts and guilt over getting revenge for his sister, but after experiencing Kazuki's death, he must hate his choice for joining Adonis even more than before. It honestly broke my heart to see Akito break down like that not knowing how he could atone for his sins in causing Kazuki's death. His heartwrenching screams really cut me and made me tear up from all the pain Akito must have been bottling up all this time. Akito will always be my favourite side character, I think his pain, his feelings and his emotions were portrayed so well.

Sanjo Keisuke

Aww, Sanjo's favourite food being ramen is very him, kinda hahaha. I can't imagine a 7kg bowl of ramen and having to finish that in 30 minutes😱 On the other hand, Sanjo being into arcades is kinda unexpected, lmaooo at Ichika thinking he would play the crane games😂 I didn't think about the fact that Ichika is a former cop just like him now, I wonder how he feels about that or whether he even cares😅 Lmao at Sanjo seriously answering Ichika what his type of woman is and then even describing the body shape with sound effects😂 I can't believe Ichika just tickled Sanjo and made him laugh like crazy, I would have liked to see that😆😆 I think it would have been so nice if Ogata was Sanjo's boss, I feel like their values and ideals of justice back in the day would have matched well since Sanjo probably desired something "pure" back in the day and hoped to be a part of an organisation that helped people, and Ogata was always helping people already, so they would have worked well together. It's just sad that they both got betrayed by their ideals of what the police should have been to them and others.

The idea that you can't feel any fear because you don't value your life is a pretty interesting and saddening thought. Maybe because I get that feeling sometimes. I agree with Sanjo, Zero definitely doesn't truly care about those ideals of saving the weak that he keeps spouting, he's not like Mikuni, and that's also imo the reason why Zero believes that he and Mikuni will never truly understand each other. Ichika and Sanjo eating ramen together is so cute lol.

Mikuni Rei

Lmao at Zero calling Mikuni an old man for liking fish, disliking carbonated drinks and other junk food because they're not nutritional hahaha. Otherwise, nothing much to say tbh, Mikuni has always been a rather bland character to me? I like him, but at the same time I don't because even though it's interesting to see that he actually has "noble" goals compared to Zero, the fact is that Mikuni as he himself said has been told that he's a "saviour" of sorts, and I think that really exemplifies the type of person Mikuni is. Someone who believes that he can and wants to "save" people in his own way as if he is someone above them all, but at the same time, he is very apparently flawed exactly because he is like that. He's not someone who truly understands the people "below" him and he also doesn't seem to perceive that as something that can be helped, and that's why even though his goals are "noble", he's not really noble at all. But it doesn't really change the fact that Mikuni is kind in his own way though. Mikuni eating shrimp crackers is so cute😂

Saeki Yuzuru

To be honest, I've always liked the chill policeman Saeki, and I personally think Zero likes that version of himself too. I feel like he always enjoyed just talking about stuff with Ichika during their drinking charades, and had fun visiting her. But at the same time, I feel like because of the existence of Adonis and Mikuni, Zero never really allowed his negative emotions to be "accepted" in order for him to move on, so instead it just continued piling up inside to the point of indifference towards the world and others imo. Anyway, it's sad, seeing Zero and Mikuni happily play chess together. They really look like two brothers just having fun in their own way. Hearing them say that they've been doing this since they were kids makes it all the more saddening when they realised that despite how "close" they were to each other, they never really understood each other. In a sense, I feel like in the end, both Mikuni and Zero use Adonis as a way to get the things they want and feel like it's one of the only ways they can do it? I mean, I do feel like Mikuni treasures his relationship with Zero more than Adonis or anything else, because when it comes down to it, I feel like he tries really hard to understand Zero by trying to see things from his perspective and hanging out with Ichika, the one that Zero thinks understands him best and the one Zero likes the most. On the other hand, Zero seems to use Adonis as a way for revenge of his mother and as a way to vent those emotions and scars he got, but at the same time Adonis also granted him Mikuni (a brother), and it gave him opportunities and power.

Zero definitely loves Ichika in an obsessed way, probably the only way he thinks he can love someone, since he doesn't want to become "weak" like his mother was. So if he felt anything like love, he would prefer it to be a love that would destroy him, because in a sense I think I can understand that sentiment of wanting the person you love to solely focus on yourself and no one else, whether that is hatred or whatever emotion doesn't matter, because being the entire focus of someone else's is a sort of "love" to enjoy, so I don't blame Zero for his twisted "love" lol. Especially since you can tell how much he has always enjoyed his after work beers and just chatting with Ichika. I quite enjoyed their little date walking around reminiscing the past and discovering new things they missed out on, now I really want to eat crepes🥲 The ending where Ichika kills Saeki is pretty sad though. Seeing Saeki the most relieved and happy he has ever been is probably what made me kinda happy for him though. He still sucks, but like Ichika said, I can't hate him, because it was true that he did reduce the sadness of many (whilst creating sadness for many others too though) and at the core, he was like in a sense a guy who consumed so much sadness from everywhere around him, always in pain, always sad despite his appearance, and thinking that makes it difficult for me to truly hate him.

Overall, I like the Adonis route! Initially, I was a bit sceptical whether it was really necessary and whether it would be interesting at all but I really loved bonding with all the executors. Seeing more of the human and emotional sides, seeing them warm up to Ichika and become friends with her really made me enjoy the "what could never be" part of it all. I think I especially loved Akito's because of how emotional it was tying into Kazuki and everything. But I also really enjoyed seeing the different sides of all of them. It really makes me wish Ichika got an individual route with like Akito and Sanjo and Ogata because I loveee them🥲🥲

Overall Review

I definitely enjoyed CxM: Unlimited much more than I thought I would! In the beginning, Sasazuka and Okazaki's routes kinda made me wonder whether I really wanted to continue this, but I'm so glad I got through them because I enjoyed Enomoto's, Yanagi's and Shiraishi's routes a lot! If I ranked them, I probably liked Shiraishi's the most, then Yanagi, Enomoto, Okazaki and then Sasazuka. It's definitely what I wanted in a fandisk, which is more fluffy romance and just bonding with all the guys even more, and I absolutely loveeee the potential romances with Yoshinari and Minegishi, they were so unexpectedly nice. Definitely no plot but that's okay since it's a fandisc and I think it fulfilled really well what its goal was when it comes to more romance in the story haha. 8/10! I'm definitely going to miss the characters, I'm so attached to Enomoto and them lol.

#collar x malice unlimited

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justjessame · 3 years

Text

Starting Over Chapter 15

I put off sleep for as long as I could, bookmarking any and all shopping sites that I thought looked promising after I found the first group. It wasn’t because I thought delaying the inevitable would somehow change it. Being MORE exhausted didn’t actually change shit, trust me, I tried that tactic too. I just found virtual shopping more entertaining than I expected, and then I got caught up in it, then I wanted to see if Bucky would surprise me with a call or text, but none came.

Finally sleep was calling my name, loud and clear, and I couldn’t put it off any longer. Putting my phone on charge, but NOT on “Do Not Disturb” for the first time in a LONG time, I set my laptop on the stand under it and turned off the light. I clicked on the television, thinking that at least the blue light seemed to do SOMETHING for me, and I drifted off to what was routine for me now.

Once I gasped awake, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling trying to decide what I was going to do. Not only with my day, which was as open as the everyday that I’d had since I came back, but with my life.

The ad agency job that I’d been muddling along with before I got Snapped by the big purple asshole was the first company that called with a job offer after interviewing me that also offered a wage that I felt would add to the family budget enough to give Mom and Dad some breathing room. I know that they gave the line about being too social to give up their jobs completely with such conviction that I could mostly swallow it whole, but I’d overheard them discussing the not so blessing that having a college aged kid so late in life - some would call that a burden - had wrought on their financial situation.

The house was paid for, their pensions were generous, and they’d taken precautions so I’d be comfortable in the event of their untimely demises, but - I would have to find SOMETHING eventually. The problem was WHAT?

While I wallowed in indecision, my phone finally made a noise. A chirp followed by a ring. Grabbing for it, I was happy that I managed to wrap my hand around it and NOT knock it off onto the floor. A glance told me the text was from Connie, but the call was Bucky.

“Hey,” my lips were already curling up, but they wouldn’t stay that way for too long.

Bucky’s news wasn’t that he was on his way home, because he’d already warned me that he was heading toward God only knew what, instead he wanted to tell me that he MIGHT not be in contact at all until he was closer to home. “I just don’t know if I’ll be able to, Brooke,” he sounded so - I wasn’t sure what, honestly. “I’m about to do something,” his sigh was louder than any noise I’d heard him make so far, and it scared me. “Incredibly stupid probably, and I’ll have to go off the grid.”

I bit my lip, thinking about how Bucky could keep me from climbing walls with worry and from scanning the news and internet for glimpses of him. “Pineapple,” I blurted it out and knew it made no fucking sense to him. “The emojis on your phone, or any phone really -” I stopped and went back fifty fucking steps. “The little pictures in the text box?” I waited until he made a sound that seemed like he might be following my scattered logic. “There’s a pineapple in there. Send it to me from any cell phone and I’ll know you’re alive.” Not safe, but alive. “Please?” Needy again, clingy most definitely, but I couldn’t NOT hear from him for who fucking knew how long.

“OK,” he took a deep breath and then said it again, stronger and more like a promise. “I will, Brooke.”

“You’d better, Buck.” I sighed. “You and me have a gold star to earn, and if it takes a ton of pineapples to get there first -” His chuckle was quiet, but it was a better way to end the call than the tension we filled the heart of it with. “Come home.”

“I will,” muffled voices were in the background and I knew our time was up. “Bye, Brooke.”

“Bye, Bucky.” And then silence, not even Sam’s teasing came for a respite, but another chirp came as soon as the call ended and I was sure that Connie was wondering why I hadn’t answered, but my smile creeped back when I saw a pineapple beside Bucky’s name.

Connie wanted to see if I was up for another day at the salon. I told her I’d be by around lunch, and if she was sweet to me I’d supply the actual food for it. I got a smiley emoji, a heart, and a devil just to be clear that she’d come for me if I didn’t follow through.

I took my time getting up and ready for the day. I cleaned the house a little, dusting even though it was the ONE chore that both me and my mom had hated beyond measure. I took out the trash and mopped the floors. Vacuumed the carpets and did the laundry before picking up my phone and calling our favorite takeout place, a place that I KNEW was still open because it had been one of the first places I’d ordered from when I poofed back into existence.

I knew Connie, and her mom’s, preferences as well as I knew my own. Ordering our lunches and confirming that I’d be picking them up myself, I glanced at the clock to make sure I had time to shower and dress. I had just enough time for a very quick shower, tossing on some clothes, sliding my laptop into a messenger bag, I slid my feet into my shoes and was out the door with time to get to the diner before our food died.

“Praise be,” Mertle greeted me as I walked in balancing our food and drinks, with my messenger bag banging off my hip. “Food’s here,” the chairs were miraculously empty of customers and Connie was sweeping up the hair that was the only sign that there had been any.

“Thank God,” my bestie sighed. “It’s been a nightmare,” she took a deep breath, leaned against the broom and it looked like she might be rethinking her career choice. “I swear, every one of our customers wanted the same haircut.”

I shot a look to Mertle and she nodded her agreement with Connie’s assessment. “Strange, but true.” I felt a cringe growing as Connie’s mama helped lighten my load by taking my messenger bag off my shoulder. “Come on into the breakroom, Brookie. Food makes everything better.”

“God we can hope.” Connie prayed, crossing herself for good measure and following us as she sidestepped the pile of mixed colored hair.

We were crowded around the small table in what Mertle jokingly referred to as the “breakroom”, but was the catchall room in her salon. It housed the overflow of supplies, be it cleaning or haircare, and the refrigerator, table and chairs. Takeout containers open, plastic utensils doing their job to keep our mouths mostly occupied with eating, we were enjoying the simplicity that came from sharing a meal with friends that had crossed the line into family.

“You brought your laptop,” Connie finally managed to point out as her meal was almost as gone as I’d been for those five years. “Am I sensing a project you want to rope me into?” She was squinting at me, but her lips were quirking as she forked another bite in preparation to be devoured.

“Maybe,” I shrugged, causing a snort to erupt unlady-like from Mertle and getting a chuckle from me. “I’m considering a surprise welcome of sorts -”

“For who?” Mertle looked far too curious for anyone who was clued into my latest development, so I knew Connie hadn’t spilled the beans to her mom. I bit my lip and she grinned. “Brookie, did you meet someone?”

I could almost feel Connie vibrating with the urge to tell it now that I was here and the news was THIS close to being spilled. I was actually a little shocked she hadn’t told her mom. Mertle knew almost every single scrap of every single thing that we’d ever gotten into, just like my mom had. I sighed and nodded my agreement for her to just go for it and she was OFF.

“She didn’t meet just ANYONE, Mom -” And I was shaking my head and taking another bite of my lunch.

#bucky barnes/oc #the falcon and the winter soldier #alternate universe #slow burn #fluff #eventual smut

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nomazee · 4 years

Text

Designated Driver (2)

☆ akaashi keiji x reader; bokuto koutarou x reader

word count: 1700+

content: themes of unrequited love, personal development, angst/fluff

cross-posted on my ao3

PART ONE

(here’s the second part!!! sorry for taking so long with it, the week’s been a bit hectic for me.

i think this is up there on my list of favorite things i’ve written (which is....unsurprisingly, very short). i really hope you guys like this final part, and feel free to tell me about anything you liked/didn’t like!

ALSO!! reminder that requests are open!! please read my request rules before sending one in <3

happy reading!!)

☾.:°∗★.:☆:.★∗°:.☽

You told Akaashi that night over the phone that you would talk to him tomorrow. That was a blatant lie.

The day after the party was one of those days where you didn’t share any lectures with him, so you didn’t naturally bump into him at any point throughout the day. On top of that, you were a little bit frazzled with reviewing the coursework of your weakest class to allot any time to text Akaashi and the male himself hadn’t done so, either.

You let it be. All things happened for a reason. And having a break from him for a little bit would be beneficial to you, you figured.

On the other hand, you and Bokuto grew closer and closer by the day. Neither of you were great with tutoring, but studying separate subjects in each other’s presence was good enough for both of you. Any free time that you were willing to lend him was spent either going out to newly discovered diners or cooking (very chaotically) at the chosen person’s apartment of the night. (Though, on top of this, Bokuto made sure to let you have time for yourself, careful not to overcrowd your schedule of just him all the time.)

It was a bit new, adjusting to this temporary lack of Akaashi Keiji in your life. But Bokuto was a really good friend. You were surprised (and a little disappointed in yourself, to be honest) that you didn’t allow yourself to get as close to him before this whole thing happened. You two were still friends before--you, Bokuto and Akaashi could be considered a sort of “friend group” but you were significantly more comfortable with the latter than the former. You had times where you hung out with both of them and times where you only hung out with Akaashi, but until now you’d never individually spent time with Bokuto.

Neither of you had addressed it out loud, but you knew Bokuto was really doing his best to try and take your mind off of what had happened at the party. Occupying you with things distinctly unrelated to Akaashi, trying to fill up time spent alone with his presence--all of that was his attempt (successful attempt, at that) to make your mood better.

And to make you stop relying on Akaashi so much.

You hated to admit it--who liked admitting their own falsehoods?--but you really were reliant on Akaashi for a good majority of your happiness. You always seeked his validation and used the time he spent around you to assure yourself that, ‘yes, I am a likeable person, and him being my friend proves it!’

You cringed a bit just looking back on your old mindset, though the flinch of your inner thoughts was easily subdued by the mental comparison you made between how you lived with Akaashi constantly present in your life and how you lived now, with a different person and a different mentality.

Bokuto was sure to not turn into a sheer replacement for the hole Akaashi left in your head. The time he allotted for you to spend by yourself was entirely intentional--something that was, yet again, an unspoken intention but one that you were both entirely aware of. Emotionally intelligent as he is, Bokuto ensured that you didn’t build up yet another reliance on an individual person. Every time you spent a night by yourself, he’d make sure to send you a text, like, “take some time and just relax tonight! use the bath bombs you got for your birthday! :)” or “i’ve watched that movie before! i think you’ll really like it” before telling you to turn off your phone and enjoy yourself.

It was very different, now that you thought about it. The time you used to spend alone, without Akaashi, was always a bit empty for you, no matter how many new dishes you tried out or what series you decided to marathon. Now it was much more fulfilling--you knew how to divide your time fairly between social events (read: cooking spaghetti with Bo) and individual relaxation.

Reminiscing on your mindset made you feel a mix of emotions. It was a bit sad how tightly you latched onto someone you weren’t even in a relationship with. You were relieved you could move past that phase, though. Here you were, developing a sense of individuality in only a few weeks of time. It was a drastic change, but one that you were proud of. (Bokuto was proud, too, though he never outright said it and preferred to show it in the small gifts he gave you from time to time.)

You did occasionally wonder if you should text Akaashi, but left that up for the black-haired male to decide for himself. You were content either way, no matter how much your old conscious resurfaced and nagged you to text him back.

It was a bit of a shock to hear a knock on your door on a late Saturday afternoon. You and Bokuto promised to meet up somewhere, so he wouldn’t have shown up at your apartment like this.

Your expression turned curious from your place in the kitchen, where you’d been sipping on water and scrolling through your phone while waiting to leave. You placed the glass down and walked over to your door, opening it.

You were right in thinking it wasn’t Bokuto. But you really weren’t expecting Akaashi to be here, either.

Surprise was evident in your expression. Akaashi met your eyes before looking at your doorframe and shifting his weight from foot to foot nervously. You took the initiative to start talking.

“Hey, Akaashi. I wasn’t expecting you to come over. What’s going on?” He looked at you properly now, lips fluttering open and closed in an attempt to grasp cohesive words together.

“Can I come in?” Was what made it out, and you obliged to his request. He seemed a little jumpy in your presence, only making you more concerned as time passed.

“Did you… need something?” His hands clasped together and he began picking at his cuticles habitually. You couldn’t help the downturn of your lips at the action.

“No, I’m fine. I just wanted to talk with you. And see if maybe you wanted to hang out today?”

Oh, you thought. That was nice of him. Though he could’ve texted you first before showing up at your house spontaneously. (You tried not to read too much into that fact.)

You gave him a gentle simper, happy that he was finally beginning to try and reconcile with you after everything. Better late than never, right?

“I’m glad you’re talking with me again, Akaashi.” His expression softened at your words, mirroring your own smile. “I can’t do it today, though, but I should be free next week if that’s okay?”

The expression of elation on his face faltered the slightest bit at hearing you were occupied today. “Yeah, that’s fine. You’re going somewhere right now?”

You checked the time on your phone--five minutes until you should leave. You nodded at him, “Yeah, I’m going to that new diner downtown with Bokuto. We heard good things about it, so… we figured we should try it out.”

Akaashi’s expression--you could only describe it as owlish. His eyes widened and he blinked at you questioningly. “Oh. I didn’t know you were both so close.”

A fond countenance appeared on your features at the mention of your bond with the male. “Yeah, after everything… happened,” you couldn’t help but flinch after bringing it up, assuming the wound may still be fresh on his part, “we just started hanging out a bit more. He’s really nice.”

You said that last part as an afterthought, really, but Akaashi noticed how it came so naturally to you to describe his friend in that way. He felt like he was overthinking, but it seemed like you were doing just fine without him. Like you didn't miss him at all.

“Are you guys dating?” Internally, he chastised himself for being so straightforward. A beat of silence passed, and he was preparing himself to apologize when you spoke up.

“No, we’re not.” And that was it. A simple answer, no elaboration, nothing to further clarify--vague enough to let Akaashi continue his overthinking.

His eyes flitted up to yours. Your ears were tinted with a soft pink. An ache persisted in the back of Akaashi’s throat at the implications of your expression. Fuck.

You checked your phone again. It was time to leave. You relayed this information to Akaashi and let him walk you down to the parking lot so he could leave at the same time.

Making your final steps to your car, you turned around to face him and say goodbye when you were pulled into a tightened, warm embrace.

A sound of surprise left your throat, and Akaashi pushed his forehead into the crook of his shoulder, like he was searching for comfort in the cotton of your cardigan and the floral smell of your skin. He felt like he was choking in your body wash, but thought that wouldn’t be a bad way to die.

Instinctively, your hand reached up to the crowd of his head and tangled itself in the depths of his hair (unruly, you noted, like he hadn’t bothered to really keep up with his multi-step haircare process that you always teased him for).

“I’m sorry, [Name].” His words, genuine and painful to release on his part, buzzed through the skin covering your trapezius and you suppressed a shudder at the feeling. “I’m so sorry.”

The crack of his voice made a similar attack to your heart. “Akaashi… it’s okay.”

Both of your words were simple, but they were heavy. The head on your shoulder turned to stone and you felt the need to rid yourself of the weight before you succumbed to your old routine. You released the arms you wrapped around him in return, and gave a gentle push against his shoulder.

Glassy blue eyes stared back into yours. You nearly drowned in them, but stopped yourself before you could. You thought that wouldn’t be a good way to die.

“I’ll see you.” With the lack of response on his part, you gave him a gentle smile--as reassuring as you could get it--and made your way into your car.

Akaashi watched you give him a parting wave from behind the tinted windows of your car. He struggled to reciprocate, but did so nonetheless.

You seemed happy enough. It hurt that he wasn’t there to see it. But he figured it would be a good way to live, for both of you.

38 notes · View notes

ladylillianrose · 3 years

Text

Damn right you should be embarrassed Selin! Walking out that door was the smartest thing you've done!

Thank god she finally knows the truth!

As much as it hurts him that she's in pain and furious with him, she's right.

He knew telling her the truth would lead to something like this. 😢😢

Go Eda, go after the man responsible for this mess!

*side note* Damn that is a 🔥🔥🥵🥵 jacket (I have a weakness for men in jackets) and the jeans 🥵🥵🥵🔥🔥🔥 Don't get me wrong I love the suits, but mmmm there is just something about a well fitting pair of jeans!

Damn straight he isn't responsible for his father's actions! Make him see that Aydan!

Ugh it hurts Serkan so much to see her in this much pain 😢😢😢

He doesn't deserve forgiveness Eda, don't try and ease Alptekin's guilt.

Ugh the thunder and rain as both their hearts break, perfection!

Yes girl time is exactly what Eda needs, she needs the support and love from them.❤❤

Lmao at Fifi being Ayfer's favorite and Melo being offended🤣🤣

Aydan speaking the truth, and being supportive of both Serkan and Eda 😭😭🥰🥰

Serkan is not pulling his punches with Alptekin and I am 100% here for it!

Yaaaas Serkan finally laying into Selin too!! OMG I literally gasped when he told her they are not friends! *standing ovation* It took him long enough but he finally said what needed to be said all along to her!

Of course Seyfi is on Eda's side, he's always been.

I love that despite all their issues Aydan and Ayder are friends, they're hilarious together and they're good for each other.

Melo still wanting Eda and Serkan together and believing in true love🥰🥰😭😭

The fact that Alptekin just gives up so easily and walks out the door proves he is not worthy of Aydan or Serkan!🤬🤬🤬🤬

The fact that Serkan sleeps on the opposite side, because Eda sleeps on the right side. 😭😭😭

Poor Serkan, a week long inside being depressed 😭😭😭

Random Selin haircare commercial 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Bless Leila's heart she's so loyal to Serkan, I love her!!!

WTF Selin? You don't want him to be happy while you're unhappy? Was he not fucking clear enough? He doesn't want you, he has never wanted you, and your behavior has made it impossible to even be friends.🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬 You've now officially entered psycho ex territory.

Even Piril is wary of what you are saying!

If it didnt work with you it shouldn't work with Eda? Narcissistic bitch!Serkan and Eda are going to need file some restraining orders!

Seyfi and Aydan are all of us fans 🤣🤣🤣

Lmao Piril and Engin need some popcorn if they're going to watch the Eda/Serkan meeting.

Ugh the way he looks at her🥺🥺🥺🥺

The fact that he signs it without reading it because he trusts and loves her so!😭😭😭😭

Making him take off the ring that he hasn't taken off since the engagement😭😭😭😭😭 Very cruel Eda.

She's going to trust and like you even less Efe since you're setting her up for a meeting with her grandmother....🤬🤬🤬

I love Leila and Serkan's relationship!🥰🥰

Don't get any ideas Selin, they are only temporarily off their fingers!

Are you fucking kidding me Selin? Way to burn all your bridges and show your true colors🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

Lmao at Engin and Piril's reaction to Serkan signing Eda's contract without reading it!🤣🤣🤣🤣

Those rings are going to constantly be in his pocket🥺🥺🥺😭😭😭

Oh Serkan, don't worry your mom will do everything short of locking you two in a closet (because of Eda's claustrophobia) to make sure you end up together!

I'm curious as to what Eda's punishments for Serkan are😉😉😉😈😈😈

Damn Ferit's aunt just won some points for that take down of Selin

Seyfi and Melo spilling the tea! Give us more of them together!!😍😍😍

Serkan sweetie you are too obvious with your ploys!🤣🤣

Lmao Leila trying to be sneaky by putting the paperclip on the wrong side as a way to signal and talk to Serkan 🤣🤣🤣 007 she is not, but I love her!

"The whole situation is here now"🤣🤣🤣🤣 Their whole interaction is gold!

Lmao Engin no one ever wants Erdem 🤣🤣

I don't know how much more of Selin I can take!🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

Omg Serkan slipping her ring into her pocket 🥺🥺🥺🥺😍😍😍😍

The look on his face when he asks what happens if he intentionally violates the contract🥵🥵🥵🥵🔥🔥🔥🔥 That smirk *swoons*, he's already thinking of the best ways to tease her!

And Eda can tell because of that slight hitch in her breath

I knew he'd have to apologize to Erdem 🤣🤣🤣

Eda looking like she just got the world's best gift!🤣🤣🤣

Serkan's face, throughout this whole scene 🤣🤣🤣🤣 I almost woke my husband up laughing. I'm crying! His hand during the hug 🤣🤣🤣🤣

I love Eda's idea for the school desks ❤❤❤

And as always Serkan is in awe and impressed by Eda🥺🥺🥺🥺

Not so unaffected by him are you Eda?

Melo working for Engin🥰🥰🥰🥰 Yes let's get all of the pro EdSer people together!!

Selin deserves to be miserable🤬🤬🤬🤬

Whenever he scoops her up *swoon*🔥🔥🔥

Serkan always wants to take her to the doctor because he cares so much, and even Eda knows.

"You were always there for me. This time I'll be there for you."😭😭😭🥺th🥺🥺

I'm so glad Ayfer has Fifi to help her with the business stuff.

Ferit you messed up, not as bad as Selin but still pretty bad.

Eda needed to have that moment and I'm glad she did, hopefully it helps her heal.

Serkan desperately wanting to hold her while she cries, and Eda wanting him to hold her.

Oh Ayfer you don't know how much worse these women are than Aydan.

Oh Ferit, you are helping for the right reason, but also hoping that Ceren will hear about it.

Um Selin your job is literally to do PR, which is all about image!!

Lmao Leila saying she would definitely leave Erdem if he got fired and had no money.🤣🤣🤣

Fifi watching the video of Eda and Serkan and even she can't deny how much he loves her.

Eda finding the ring and smiling❤❤❤

Seyfi assuring Aydan that she has him at least🥰🥰

No Selin you won't do anything, big difference!

Ayfer is so happy to be cooking, doing something she loves!🥰🥰

Yaaass Sirius is there to see his Mama!!!

Ugh he just loves and cares about her so much😭😭😭😭

Go meet them in the park Eda! Do not let your 4 legged son down!!

Oh Efe you are going to be the next to face Eda's wrath!

Serkan always giving Eda rides, because he wants to make sure she is safe.

Fuck you Alptekin, as if we needed more reasons to hate you.🤬🤬🤬

Lmao Fifi and Ferit's interaction.

"There is nothing that I would not do for you,"😭😭😭😭😍😍😍😍🥺🥺🥺

Serkan is not sorry to see you go Efe and neither am I!

Serkan watching and being so proud of Eda during her speech, and giving him hope🥺🥺🥺

That look in the mirror🥰🥰🥰

The passing of the ring 🤣, this will continue until it's back on her finger, where it belongs!

At least Ferit knows he messed up.

Melo refusing to give in to Ayfer's hypnotism 🤣🤣🤣

You know Melo is right Ceren! Ferit messed up, and much like Serkan he is trying to make up for his mistakes!

Oh Eda don't write it now, Ayfer will show up and make a scene!!

You know he is right Eda! You shouldn't be so rithless.

So many Pride and Prejudice parallels with Serkan and Ferit doing it only for the women they love.

Aydan knowing Serkan can't say no to Eda🤣🤣🤣

Uh Eda you need to come up with the $$$ and fast!!🤣🤣

Seyfi you've been working for Aydan for so long that you still question her schemes?

Yaaas Serkan with the grand scheme!! You know you need to go to dinner with him!!

At least we know where Serkan gets his subtlety from 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Tell me Serkan is going to also buy this dress because it is only worthy of Eda!!

You will stumble and fall if Serkan looks you in the eyes?😍😍😍😍

Of course he'll be there to catch you, he always does😭😭😭😭😭

The fact that Piril thinks Selin is being ridiculous says something.

You don't think you deserve Eda's scorn Selin? Are you really that stupid?🙄🙄🤬🤬

Damn Fifi and Melo🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

Engine's face when he sees Piril😍😍😍😍😍

Oooooo Ferit you know you're gone!

Serkan can't breathe watching Eda🔥🔥🔥😍😍😍😍😍

Seriously Selin? I'm so beyond done with this crazy woman!!🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

Do more stuff like this then Serkan, its good for you and everyone ekse.

Just drive her to the restaurant with you, that will guarantee that she is there with you!

I'm going to murder Selin because you know Eda wants to go!!🤬🤬🤬

Aydan showing no mercy to Alptekin! He deserves every inch of her scorn!🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

Nooooooo!!!! Of course she goes to the one Selin put in the envelope!!😭😭😭😭🤬🤬🤬🤬

They had better talk to one another about this misunderstanding!!!!

Call him!!! He would never stand you up Eda!!!!😢😢😢😢😢

Ugh my heart hurts for them!! 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Throw some water on Selin and see if she melts that witch!!

#sen cal kapimi #serkan bolat #eda yildiz #eda x serkan

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gethealthy18-blog · 4 years

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321: Detoxification, Mitochondrial Health, Biophysics, and Figuring Out Your Optimal With Caleb Jennings

New Post has been published on http://healingawerness.com/news/321-detoxification-mitochondrial-health-biophysics-and-figuring-out-your-optimal-with-caleb-jennings/

321: Detoxification, Mitochondrial Health, Biophysics, and Figuring Out Your Optimal With Caleb Jennings

Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.

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This episode is sponsored by Wellnesse, a new company I co-founded to create safe, natural and obsessively tested products for families. You’ve heard that much of what you put on your body gets absorbed and goes into your body. We turned this idea on its head, creating products that aren’t just safe to put on your hair, skin and in your mouth, but that are beneficial. We started with the toughest first, creating the first of its kind natural toothpaste that is free of fluoride and glycerin and that contains ingredients like green tea, neem and hydroxyapatite to support the mouth. Our haircare is free of harmful ingredients and contains ingredients like lavender and nettle to support healthy hair! Be the first to try it at wellnesse.com

Katie: Hello, and welcome to the Wellness Mama Podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com and this bio-hacking episode is filled with practical tips that you can use to improve your mitochondrial health to slow aging and so much more. I’m here with Caleb Jennings who is considered a professional holistic bio-hacker, and he actually coaches people on a lot of the things we’re going to talk about today. He’s a former pro-athlete with over 10 years of training. He goes into his pretty elaborate and incredible story of recovery from an injury he sustained while being an athlete. And he now has all this training in nutrition, peak performance, evolutionary systems of biology, and he helps train athletes, CEOs, and entrepreneurs to reach their health and fitness goals. And he shares a lot about the ways he does that today. So using a combination of ancient practices and futuristic technology he guides people along this. And we go deep on a lot of things, including one of my favorite pet topics, which is mitochondrial health, because basically if your mitochondria are healthy, so much more in your body is healthy and happy as well. So stick with us, it gets pretty science-y but very, very fascinating. And let’s join Caleb.

Caleb, welcome. Thanks for being here.

Caleb: Hello Katie. Thank you so much for having me.

Katie: I am so excited to chat with you today, and there’s so much that I can’t wait to cover with you. But, knowing a little bit I do about your background and what my husband has told me about you, I think the best place to start is with your story, which is pretty incredible from the little bit I know of it. So let’s start off with how did you get into this world?

Caleb: Oh yeah. It was, you know, synchronicity and just beautiful timing I call that. I essentially got a 2 by 4 in the sky. It was a life-changing event, background in professional snowboarding, acrobatics, gymnastics, a lot of very high adrenaline, high intensity, also flow-based sports, very active in that sense athletically. So I didn’t pay attention to diet and health as much because my body was just knowing what to do. But that divine 2 by 4 knocked me out of the sky, drop me about five stories onto my neck, my back, straight onto ice basically. So I over-rotated a couple of times, you know, trying one flip to a few rotations turned into a few flips, and dropped me right on my neck and my back.

So I’ve broken various different aspects of my neck and cervical spine there towards the top and mid. And then actually broke many different bones from, you know, collarbone to ribs to collapsing both my lungs. It was a really intense life-transforming event for me at that time. It completely changed my life in a sense that it…you know, to me from a 180 of looking for the fame and the fortune and all the wonderful things, the MTV “Cribs” lifestyle back then of the snowboarding world essentially. And it really got me into healing modality of just recovery in that sense because I’m in a full-body cast and a neck brace, the whole nine yards, and I was on numerous pain killers and muscle relaxers. So my mind was in a very weird, fuzzy space, but also very open.

And my mom is so incredibly supportive that, you know, she helped support me in the sense of she would love to read, and she you would set stacks of books on my bed. And long story short, through that, I just got into some the gateway gurus, you know, Deepak Chopra and so many other wonderful people that just help me realize that it wasn’t all about me, it wasn’t all about just my experience in this life, that there’s other people out there. And it seems fairly obvious, but sometimes we lose sight of that, and that really turned me around. I realized there’s so much suffering in the world that is unnecessary to a degree. There are ways that we can help each other and help ourselves, and help our loved ones to achieve optimal health, to have the most joy in blissful experience as we possibly can.

And so at that moment in time in my healing journey, I completely shifted my entire experience to focus on service to others. At the time, I didn’t know how that was gonna be, but through that healing journey, realizing how intelligent the body is naturally, I chose not to go with the intense surgery that the doctors, you know, essentially scared me into and attempting just to see, okay you can’t run anymore, you can’t jump anymore, you’re not gonna snowboard anymore, basically your life is over. And you’re gonna have two years of rehabilitation and rods and pins in your back. I just at the deep core gut level, I knew it was wrong and I knew that my body had more intelligence in that sense.

And my mom was very supportive of that. She’s like, “You could do the surgery or you can heal naturally.” And I chose to go the natural route. I’m so glad I did because I came back stronger than ever from that in all forms, from the sports I played it, but also with this new profound fascination and obsession with optimal human health and how nature so intelligently designs from evolutionary process, how we keep iterating generation and generation, and we support that in the various different ways we have access to so much in this world from natural supplements to medical biotechnology and beyond, you know, the entire spectrum. Yeah, just led me down this path of diving in deep into cellular metabolism, mitochondrial function, biophysics, biophotonics, how light affects biology, DNA epigenetics, on and on. There’s just so much to it.

And so it led me to the creation of holistic biohacking, which is a framework that just brought all of these different world experiences and brilliant masters and scientists, and practitioners, and spiritual leaders just kind of bring it all together in a way that we can essentially upgrade and optimize our lives. No matter where we are at in time, no matter what kind of lifestyle we lead, where throughout the world, there’s always something we can do to improve and better ourselves whether it’s psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, or physically in the biological sense through health specifically.

And that journey has just been an incredible one to work with so many people over the years, learned so much in these spaces, and really start piecing things together. It’s a never-ending journey, but I’ve been able to help incredibly so many people through the entire process. It’s so fulfilling to see the results on the other end whether it’s a program that I produce or, you know, private coaching I do with high-level clients and working with Olympians, CEOs, celebrities, athletes, whoever it is, it doesn’t matter. It’s that they realize they can live life at entirely new levels they weren’t able to even imagine before that, and just to see that transformation, and also, you know, see the results from laboratory testing and diagnostics. I’m a data geek for those things too to drive performance. And so it’s just been such a wonderful adventure to help, and teach, and coach, and essentially just help people live their best lives they possibly can, no matter where they’re at in their lives or in the world, there’s always a way.

Katie: Wow. That is a really incredible story. And I’m guessing, you said, you didn’t even really have a background in the nutrition and health side as much, you are just much more of the athletic side. So I’m curious what that looked like when you started really delving into it, and how you were able to determine which things were having an effect and which weren’t. Because my own journey over the last couple of years, I’ve realized more and more just how individualized and personalized so many aspects of health are, and I think we’re each responsible for figuring out those things that work for all of us. And I think there are universal things that are beneficial in some way, but how did you start evaluating that and how did you know when something was having the desired effect?

Caleb: That was really, you know, I had the background with my mom being a crazy health nut, little more from the woo-woo world and very metaphysical spiritual in that sense. So I grew up in sweat lodges and with, you know, different ceremonies and, you know, Indian tribal leaders and incredible experiences all around. And my mom taking so many pills, she would take so many supplements, sometimes a couple hundred pills a day. She just had every supplement under the sun. And I just thought to myself, I was like, “You know, Mom, I love you so much and you load me up with zinc lozenges and echinacea and goldenseal anytime I have a sniff or potential cough and got, you know, honey and ginger tea for gargling and salt wash for, you know, neti pot. So she really brought me up in that natural health dynamic, which I absolutely love and appreciate. But that combination of so many things at once, I wasn’t too into.

And so moving away from that as I grew older and got into the studies deeper, I realized there’s more of a synergy that we can get into with understanding how these different bioactive molecules work. Whether it’s in the food we eat or even the cleanliness of the water that we drink, detoxification is a huge aspect of that. So figuring that out intuitively was the first step. And then I got deeper into the data side, and that’s where my brain really lit up, you know, studying neuroscience and human behavior and seeing the data points from laboratory tests whether it’s, you know, hormone testing, or blood level testing, or micronutrient testing.

And one of my favorites is we can see what we have too much of and not enough of, but we really noticed how we feel and also how we look. So this common sense of, you know, from the invisible you and the visible you, and then invisible you inside, you know, there’s all these inner workings of how the body connects and operates at such an intelligent level that we don’t think about. But then we do think about how we look and we also think about how we feel. And so if we’re tired and we’re groggy in the morning, and we don’t have enough energy to get through the day or, you know, if you’re a mom with kids and you have this busy lifestyle, and you’re making food and making smoothies and doing all these different things, getting them to school, you’re not seeing enough time for yourself in that.

But if you can tap into your own intuition of feeling, how each little change does make a difference for you, whether it’s your energy, whether it’s your sleep, whether it’s, you know, if you’re running or working out in the gym, CrossFit, wherever it might be, there’s always a way that you can tell for that. And some people have a deep intuitive sense of that naturally, and others have to be trained and conditioned for that in a sense, which everyone has a capacity for. And so my initial, you know, I just looked at it internally of, you know, if I had acne and hormonal issues, and I was tired, and I wasn’t sleeping well, had insomnia, and I had a lot of digestive upset issues as well. I was gaining some weight when I moved away from the sports world into more, you know, business world of sorts of sitting down behind a computer and doing technical things. I wasn’t as active and so that caught up with me really quickly.

And I realized that, you know, the issues I was having when I would eat certain foods, I would stop eating those foods for a couple of weeks, I realized I felt better and I would have less mucus or I wouldn’t be sneezing or my digestion was more calm, or I wouldn’t have as much gas or bloating, and all those are indications. So the body is always speaking to us constantly, every single day, every single moment. And if you learn to listen to the signs, listen to understanding what your body’s trying to tell you, you can reverse engineer and kind of track back a little bit further, okay, maybe I had something on Monday that is not making me feel good on Tuesday and Wednesday.

And if you can see what those things are, you can play around with it. You know, maybe dairy, you’re a little sensitive to dairy, you can’t process that. Then you want to try to take that out a little bit and see how that makes you feel. And so I got into crazy guinea pig-like experiments all the way from, you know, super raw vegan for years as an experiment, all the way to nose-to-tail now farm-to-table carnivore style as well and everything in between. Ketosis being one of the most incredible ones that I noticed overall that I’ve actually done a lot of different courses and trainings on, you know, a biohacked ketosis training for understanding how these things all connect, and also how you can feel and sense it yourself.

And if you pair that with, for example, laboratory diagnostic testing, which isn’t as available to everyone as I’d like it to be, I really am hoping for incredible technologies to allow us to have those answers right in the palm of our hand, right in the phone. You know, we have this incredibly intelligent technology that can read our saliva or urine or whatever might be eventually to blood droplets. And in that sense, you can know if your vitamin D levels are low. And you know that’s connected to so many different aspects of health. Your magnesium is low, that’s a huge one we are chronically deficient in, and working towards getting more sufficient and overall. Those micronutrients are key to that.

So if you notice, okay, I’m low in vitamin D, maybe I can go outside and get some sunlight on my eyes, on my skin, get my feet, you know, clear, grounded to the earth, get that rejuvenated recharging connection that helps your body stimulate the rejuvenating stem cell type elements to rejuvenate the cells at a deeper level to help cleanse and detox these elements out of you, you can see that in the mirror. You can see your eyes brighter, you can see your face slimmer. You can see a little bit more radiant glow, you literally put off more photons of light, you are radiant in that sense. And you’ll hear that feedback from others, you know, around your loved ones, your community. They’ll say, “Wow, look, you know, Katie, you’re glowing today, what have you done, you know?” And you could say, “Oh, I just did this, this, and that, and it actually helped really, really well. I’m sleeping better, and I have more energy as a result.” And then when you have the data back into that too, we do before and after type testing in terms of client work, we see you’re very deficient in these elements and we can supplement those in various ways.

But there’s other aspects you can touch on that will help your body naturally regulate those functions because, again, our DNA is the greatest data storage device in the known universe, so far as we’ve discovered. And it has all of the answers and information from all previous generations, all the way back, spanning all the way through time, that know what will help us survive and reproduce in that sense from an evolutionary perspective. As everybody knows us, we have resistance to various different challenges from bacterial to viral or otherwise. But when you could tie that together with your internal intuitive feeling of “I’ve changed X in my life and I’m getting Y result”, that’s a very good experimental framework for you to start thinking and feeling and operating within because that will lead you to clear answers, each new thing you try and each new experiment you run, and it shifts it to be more fun perspective.

So instead of thinking, “Oh, no, I have to do this diet, and it’s not gonna be that fun and not that tasty,” you can really have fun with, “Wow, that really transformed my energy. I really liked that I’m gonna stick with that.” Or, “You know, that actually didn’t help me. Maybe it helped my friend, but it’s not for me, so I’m just going to, you know, retire that aspect and move on to something new,” because there’s always something more. When you pair that data-backing element to it if you can to laboratory testing with the practitioner you’re working with, you can see the changes in your hormones, your blood levels, your micronutrients, and even your mitochondrial function.

And understanding that at a core level helps you understand that you literally have the answers within you, and now it’s just up to us to work within this modern society to detoxify and get nutrient efficiency levels in there to a degree that you see those performance changes. And you’ll see it in the mirror, you’ll see it in reflecting from others around you and you’ll feel it internally. And you can also have the data to back it.

Katie: I love it. I am a big data nerd as well, and I run labs often and track them in spreadsheets just to see trends over time. So I’m curious, what are some of the labs that you personally like to track and what do you look for?

Caleb: So detoxification is the number one place I start with everyone that I work with across the board. You know, we live in a very toxic modern society where, you know, you have rubber burning off from tires, and exhaust fumes from cars, and dense urban environments. So there’s heavy metals like lead and cadmium and mercury. You have mold toxicity, which is just one of the biggest challenges so many people face, especially in Pacific Northwest and other areas. You don’t even know you have water damage sometimes that mold can stick around and really harm you in those ways. There’s VOCs and different, you know, fluorocarbons. There’s different things floating in the air that you can’t see with the naked eye, but you’re breathing in or they’re getting on your skin, or the cleaning supplies you might use to clean your kitchen. That’s why, you know, green eco-friendly cleaning supplies are fantastic. To the bedding that you’re sleeping on, you know, the type of materials that could off-gas.

So there’s all these different elements that are sort of attacking us almost every day. And our bodies have internal detoxification systems naturally, but we need more support than ever in that sense. And so going through there, I usually start with mold lab panels, I start with hormone panels. I go through, depending on people have heavy metal toxicity. Oftentimes, an inverse relationship between heavy metal and mold toxicity, so if you have one, and you see a test result showing that you most likely often have the other. And it’s good if you can test everything, but if you just get a few key ones, figuring out the toxins that are getting your body’s way of naturally knowing what to do, and your DNA is really trying to work every single moment to optimize your health on a constant basis. And these toxins just get in the way.

You know, they just do so many terrible things within ourselves that we don’t really know what’s going on until it almost gets too late until you start really feeling bad. And we just want to feel better in that sense. So if we get that stuff out of the way, we detoxify, you know, whether it’s infrared sauna, you know, the niacin sauna protocols when I highly recommend to do, you know, ideally with a practitioner, understand the protocol very specifically.

But if you see that before and after of you have high mercury, high lead, high cadmium, any of those, and you do that before test, you go through, let’s say a gentle, you know, heavy metal chelation process, you know, recommend you, for example, Dr. Chris Shade in Quicksilver Scientific, they’re phenomenal on that front with both Lyme mold detox, people with Lyme tend to get more mold and heavy metal susceptibility. And so all of those things connected together when you start removing those from the system, safely, naturally, gently you go through that process, you’ll notice so many other aspects of your health, your energy, your sleep improve across the board.

And mitochondria are the key to that. We really need to help fuel the mitochondria and help them repair and rejuvenate in the best way we possibly can. And there’s very simple ways you can do that, but having these tests and understanding where your hormones are at. You know, for example, as women, you go through this beautiful hormonal cycle is fluctuation throughout each moon cycle in that sense, each menstrual cycle, and it’s so beautiful. And us men, we tend to be…we have our fluctuations, but we tend to just, you know, kind of go along at our own pace, and we might have peaks and drops at various stages or ages.

But with a beautiful feminine cycle, you have to really look at, for example, there’s one called diagnostics panel. And now it actually tracks salivary hormone analysis from all the way through your entire period, not just a snapshot. That’s one thing I see a lot of clients gonna be like, “Oh, my estrogen is fine, my testosterone is fine, estradiol is fine, it all looks good,” and yet they’re experiencing all these hormonal disruptive changes. So I usually have them go through and do this test. And they see the fluctuation throughout the entire moon cycle, and they understand, oh, so it looks fine at the snapshot, but a couple of weeks later, a different part of the cycle, it’s different, and there’s a kink in the hose of the hormone channels.

And if you’re not producing hormones properly, you’re not utilizing them properly, you’re also not metabolizing or excreting them properly, those are three different key areas to look for those kinks in the hose and unravel that. So everything flows very beautifully to give it the fuel to produce the hormones, to have the ability to utilize that in proper ways, and have the ability to excrete it properly in that sense. And, you know, my wife is a fascinating example, both in the hormones and also heavy metal toxicity. You know, she’d actually gone blind for a couple of years from deep mercury and lead toxicity. And she healed herself naturally through that entire process with an array of wonderful things from colonics to coffee enemas to glutathione and beyond. It really transformed her entire life and regained her sight, and regained her health in that sense. And the hormonal connection was a key to that.

And she didn’t know about this test before we had met so I’d had her run that test, and we helped her with that. And we checked out mold and we checked out heavy metal panels. We’ve been monitoring that ever since. And also the base nutrients, you know, the micronutrient sufficiency panel is one of my absolute favorites, I recommend SpectraCell as a lab from that. And they go through and they look at so many different elements, vitamins, minerals, and nutrients to omega fatty acids. You can really see what you have too much of, what you don’t have enough of, and what you’re just right in. And that’s really the spectrum you want to look at.

And then support through the most natural ways possible, through diet, through lifestyle, exercise, supplementation if it makes sense for you, and it will help support that aspect and, you know, deeply, deeply healing on the mitochondrial level. Because the mitochondrial level really spirals all the way back up through every emerging system of organ health in the body as a collective unit, that integrated holistic approach. So detox panels, hormone panels, micronutrient sufficiency panels are some of my absolute favorites. And there’s some like the organic acids test, for example, or the DUTCH test, those give you really incredible aspects of details for adrenal fatigue to, you know, different aspects of hormonal burnout.

And when you start just tweaking those things just a little bit, even just, you know, one or two tests will give you a really good insight into how you can start optimizing your health naturally in this fashion. And you can do another test, you know, whether it’s two or three months later and compare and, you know, are you doing better, are you not? Have you stepped forward with growth or is your body stepping back into safety? And really understanding how you can get out of that fight-or-flight response in the nervous system and calming the brain in that sense.

You get those adrenals recharged and rejuvenated, you get that jing flowing, you know, from traditional Chinese medicine, you know, philosophy. You see that across the board, and you’ll really notice that the smallest adjustments to your diet and lifestyle and your environment will totally transform your health in that sense because the environment shapes us. If the environment’s toxic, we need to support and bolster ourselves in that and help support our body’s natural detoxification systems. And that’ll help all the way up the spiral of every emerging system and your mitochondria are gonna be very happy and your body overall is gonna be stellarly fantastic and loving life to the fullest.

Katie: I love that. And I know my audience is typically much more educated than average, and they probably understand these concepts already. But for anyone who it’s a new concept to, I wanna just go a little bit deeper on the idea of mitochondrial health. So can you explain at a broad level for anyone who’s not quite familiar like what the mitochondria do, what they are, what they do, and then any other ways that we might be able to support them? And, especially, I’m thinking for the parents listening for our kids who are typically hopefully not recovering from a health crisis, but how can we support their mitochondria from an early age?

Caleb: Oh, it’s a beautiful question, Katie. And it’s, you know, so fascinating. You know, it’s a fun thing, I call it mother is mitochondria and the liquids of life. It really ties into this connected chain of mitochondrial function. And so I’ll get a little bit more geeky complex aspects of mitochondria, but first and foremost, we inherit our mitochondrial DNA from our mothers. So if you’re a mother listening, you have your mitochondrial DNA you inherited from your mother and so on so forth, but you also pass that along to your children.

And it’s very fascinating how evolution chose like, you know, let’s stick with mom, let’s pass that down through there, and dad contributes great, you know, genetic material. And it takes two to tango in that sense to produce this magic of life that we have as human beings on this planet. And it’s so incredible to see that following through the chain all the way back to the beginning of time. Again, that information, those answers are there. And that is really training and programming the next generation for having more resilience and more success in reproduction and survival. In that sense, you can live life to the fullest, and go on and continue that cycle. It’s just a never ending hero’s journey cycle of humanity and all of biological life really.

Then mitochondrial cells at the core, they are, you might remember is the powerhouse of the cell. You know, they produce ATP, adenosine triphosphate, which is, you know, essentially the natural cellular energy of our bodies of our biology. It’s not like caffeine or coffee where you get that central nervous system stimulation, which you get a bit of a peak and you get that buzz and it’s great and fantastic, tastes wonderful. But you might, over time, experience adrenal fatigue or you might experience sleep disruptions because overstimulating the central nervous system really can just confer some challenging issues in that sense.

So if we can go through and focus on the core cellular energy of the body, which is what the mitochondria produce, you know, they’re shuttlers of electrons, right? Everything we eat, we take in, enzymes break it down, there all these beautiful complex processes. But the goal of it, really the end takeaway for understanding how mitochondria work is that all these little pieces break down into little energy units of electrons. And these electrons are passed through a few different phases in, you know, the mitochondrial complex. And there’s, you know, one through four, one through five, depending which research you look at, but at the end of that whole process, you’ve taken the electrons you extract from food and then you process it through, which then produces, you know, easy water, what’s called exclusion zone water. You know, Dr. Gerald Pollack’s research in “Fourth Phase Water,” and it’s different than the water we drink, which I can touch on a bit too.

But then you spit out ATP, the adenosine triphosphate, which is that energy that fuels every other aspect of our being and really animates us to be alive in that sense. And it also spins off oxidative elements too that can be damaging, you know, it’s kinda like a car burning gas, you know, there is exhaust that comes out of that. Mitochondrial functions in the same way. And when you have really awesome mitochondrial function going on, that is literally giving energy to every different cell and every different part of our bodies. And when you optimize mitochondrial function because we discovered…you know, Dr. Douglas Wallace, for example, has incredible research on this and he’s really tied together just about every known chronic disease disorder or challenge that we humans face in health and life and he’s really tied it back to the foundation of mitochondrial function, there always a connection of the mitochondrial function level in there.

So when you focus on that, it’s what I call like a high-leverage strategy because you’ve been focused on supporting your mitochondrial function, and that shuttles electrons more efficiently, which means, also too, when you’re processing electrons through mitochondrial function more efficiently, you’re not storing that excess energy in the form of, guess what, fat. And if you’re having excess weight challenges, there’s water weight and there’s fat weight, but that is all backed-up stored energy is a survival mechanism.

And if your body is in a stress state, your mitochondria are just, you know, dysregulated, not too happy, and they’ve been bombarded by toxins and a lot of different aspects that will break them down, that means you’re producing less energy in the form of ATP, you’re storing more of that energy in fat cells and, you know, all around your body, and you’re also producing more oxidants in that sense, we know about antioxidants, how awesome they are for health in various ways. But if you’re producing more oxidants and less energy, that’s not really a good combo, you know, that’s a car that’s having trouble. You need to take it in and get it checked and tuned up and see what’s going on.

And when you optimize the mitochondrial efficiency, you can get much, much more energy out of much less input. So you might actually eat less food and feel more satiated and you’ll be losing weight and burning fat as fuel for your brain and the rest of your organs in that sense. And that’s where, you know, ketosis can come into play as well if you practice that. But overall, regardless of how you eat or how you live, mitochondria are at the core of what is driving every aspect of a biological function from an energetic perspective, like a physical biophysics energetic perspective. And the cool thing behind that as well is that light, light itself is actually what makes all the switches flip on or off from a genetic level, from an epigenetic level, and for the genome of mitochondria as well.

And so we get proper light that is supporting all the way through. So it’s driven by light, mitochondrial optimization will produce more energy from less input. So you can basically have a way better return on your investment from a biological perspective. And then every other cell can get what it needs. And that cellular hydration, cellular water, we call it exclusion zone water, which very simply means that it keeps the bad stuff out and lets the good stuff in. And when that is really optimal, then you are truly hydrated on the inside of your body, every cell. And metabolic processes can continue and hormones can be produced and utilized, which are all powering your experience.

You know, we are chemists, we have a pharmacy in our brain and in our body and we produce neurochemistry that makes us happy or sad. And different experiences on the spectrum of life, they’re all, you know, adjusted here and there by different aspects. And so the more energy you have, the more repair your body can do, and the more repair your body can do, the more it can upgrade and optimize, and you can build strength, and you can build optimal health in various ways based on your desired outcomes and your goals. And mitochondria are the key to that.

Katie: I love it. So I’m curious with all of your experimentation and research in this area, what diet you’ve personally settled on at this point and what you follow, or maybe it varies, but what do you typically do?

Caleb: So that’s fine, you know, I’ve been through again that the spectrum from super hardcore raw vegan with all the superfoods under the sun and giant Vitamix blender-fulls of, you know, kale, green smoothies, and everything else. And all the way to, you know, the carnivore nose-to-tail type approach. And it’s very fascinating, you know, the original raw approach for me was really fantastic the first year-and-a-half I was doing it, and I lost over 60 pounds, and I just cleared up brain fog, and my skin cleared up. I had great energy, it was fantastic. You know, isn’t sort of the heyday of when raw was starting to take off.

I felt amazing with that, but over time, like the last year-and-a-half of that experiment, I ran for about three years, you know, I actually had quite the crash in health. And I, you know, kinda noticed it when I was in the parking lot of a grocery store in California, and I was munching on some cactus jerky. And one of my back molars just cracked and crumbled in my mouth. And I’m in the backseat of the car, and my friends driving, all of a sudden, my blood’s just pouring out of my mouth, like what just happened here? So I raced to, you know, get to an emergency surgery to take care of that. And that really was an indication that this diet was no longer serving me.

And long story short, I did a lot of research figured it out, and realized that, you know, the high oxalic content of the greens I was having and the lectins and different anti-nutrients to a degree that disrupt some processes within health from a dietary perspective. You know, my methylation pathways, my genetics, they just were not suited to that. And so I had a decrease in bone density, and my testosterone plummeted, you know, I did not feel like a man at all at that time. It was a challenge. I was very happy and very spiritual in that sense, but my body was not happy because it wasn’t able to get the nutrition from what I thought were the most nutrient-dense foods possible into my system, into my cells, and to support my mitochondrial function as best as it could.

And so that led me to diving into biophysics much, much deeper and realizing that the micronutrient sufficiency aspect is a real critical key. And there’s also biological competition, you know, vitamins and minerals sometimes compete within the body. And iron is a good example of that. So if you’re having iron in a multivitamin, it doesn’t really make the most sense, because it actually can compete with at least 18 other vitamins and minerals and nutrients. And that happening in the body is not so fun, you’re essentially, you know, just not utilizing what you think you’re putting in to help in your health in that sense.

And so from there, I switched gears. You know, I’ve had a lot of head injuries over the years, I’ve had over 28 concussions ranging from mild to severe, and done a lot of work on my brain in various ways, brain scanning and all these other really cool aspects to see what’s going on and how I can optimize that function. And I realized that the ketogenic aspect of dietary lifestyle was really powerful in a number of ways. And so I dove into, you know, from the raw days, I jumped into ketosis, and I got into fasting, intermittent fasting. And I started realizing that it was actually quite simple to shift a few things. You know, if I stopped eating food a few hours before I went to bed that my energy levels were much better and my digestive function was much more enjoyable. I didn’t have gas, I didn’t have bloating, I didn’t have these issues.

My brain was much clearer and my sleep quality was just off the charts, and something I tracked on a daily basis and have for many years, I could see that that translation there. And my brain was just on fire in the best of ways. It was clear, it’s focused, you know, struggled with ADD most of my life, but thankfully don’t need medications for it because I’m utilizing dietary aspects and supplements accordingly from nootropics and beyond to essentially optimize each different aspect of that in my brain function. And so from the ketogenic lifestyle, you know, that really turned things around for me and getting into fat as fuel, and just really understanding how the body can utilize these different nutrient elements, and put them to work in the cells and keep the mitochondria happy.

And I went through and after I did that for some years and I put together a large course on that topic, helped a lot of people in that sense of, you know, doing ketosis properly, there’s sort of a good way to do it and there’s some ways that are less than optimal that you’ll see differences in over time and you’ll know how you feel because you might feel great in the beginning but make sure that that’s sustainable for you.

And then I shifted into seasonal cycling of foods. And the concept of it was a really great book, I believe it’s called “The Jungle Diet.” And basically a very simple concept, the author was a genius scientist where she basically just took people she was working with and ran their genetics and found out where they were from, and just switched them to a natural diet that matched where their DNA had the most time spent. You know, if you were from Spanish countries, it would be more to that degree. If you’re Mediterranean, it would be more Mediterranean style. And there’s nothing really fancy about this. It was really just getting on the original foods that the DNA had the most experience with over time, encoding that knowledge of how to use those nutrients in those foods for health. And that radically transformed people’s health across the board.

And so when I looked at where I lived and, you know, the type of light I received, and the type of seasonal cycles, I would switch my food to keep with the seasons. I go to the farmers’ market and get everything fresh and put it together. I love to cook, I’m a crazy foodie geek chef, so I love cooking with new fresh ingredients all the time. And I realized the more in tune with nature I got, the more energy I was able to produce, and the better I was able to sleep, and the more focus that I had.

And from there, I switched over to doing another experiment in the carnivore space. And the carnivore diets are really fascinating when you do it very, very particularly and ideally, a nutrient-dense carnivore aspect. You know, Dr. Paul Saladino is a great speaker on this topic. And I believe he has a book coming out very soon if it’s not out already that’s all about this and the various ways to do it. And the nose-to-tail approach of having the bone marrow and the bone broth and the collagen, and having the organ meats and, you know, heart, kidney, liver, spleen, thyroid, and you can get so many different ones that are from grass-fed animals that are very sustainably produced that are very clean and don’t have any other contaminants in them.

And you mix that in with a carnivore diet, it was really fascinating because I was teaching people ketosis all these years, and some did incredibly well and some had challenges. And after my experiment, you know, it just transformed my health, I got lean and ripped and shredded and it was fantastic, energy was off the charts. I just felt incredible from that. And my lab testing that I do on a regular basis was showing that, you know, lower CRP, lower inflammation markers, higher energy, more nutrient density, you know, a more even harmony across the board of ratios of fatty acids, for example, like omega 3, 6, and 9.

And all these other aspects of, “Okay, there’s something to this here,” and getting to the aspect of biophysics, not to get too deep and geeky with this, but there’s deuterium and deuterium is heavy hydrogen and tying back to mitochondria. When you have, you know, something that’s twice as big and twice as heavy and you try to fit it through one hole that’s not that big and need something of different weight, then it breaks things. And it breaks the nanomotors in mitochondrial function, at the end, it spits out, like, we talked about that ATP and that cellular water and the oxidants that come out as an exhaust aspect of that.

So you’re literally breaking these nanomotors and the mitochondria cells are dying. And deuterium concentrates highly in plant foods and in carbohydrates, for example. And that was what I found fascinating of switching it up a little bit with clients I was working with and training. I was like, “Hey, you know, let’s go and do a carnivore type approach for a short duration of time, sort of like as a prep,” and it was fascinating because carnivore and ketosis are very similar in various ways, but the key to them is that they actually help you deplete the deuterium in your tissues. You need a little deuterium, it’s not the most bad stuff ever. You need it to drive growth in a lot of different ways to maintain health, but we have way too much of it these days.

And when you deplete that out naturally, that’s actually the fundamental underpinning of the biophysics of why and how ketosis works and carnivore as well. So when you get these rich, nutrient dense, you know, high-fat, great quality grass-fed meats across the board and nutrient-dense organ meats, your body really knows what to do with those because that’s what we have always historically, you know, for the most part and anthropology noted that we’ve eaten, and helped us form the brains we have, and the bodies we have. When you give your body those nutrients, they’re the more bioavailable and more bioidentical. And since your body knows what to do with them, your DNA is a code, a program that says, “I see the nutrients in liver and I can use those nutrients for what I need to do and build inside of biology.”

And that was really fascinating because there’s a much easier approach to help people get into a ketogenic lifestyle, and then more of a cyclical fashion, you know, especially women, you need to cycle things more. Men can get away with just being kind of hardcore carnivore and hardcore keto for a while, but women have, again, that beautiful hormonal cycle you must support. And carbs are necessary for some people in various forms, especially if you’re an athlete in training, you do need to cycle those out too. And so that carnivore connection there was really fascinating and very counterintuitive, you know, coming from this extreme raw vegan type approaches and experiment all the way to, you know, the most opposite you could possibly get of the carnivore approach. But the results were fantastically clear across the board from laboratory testing from how I felt.

And also everyone I worked with, I was just seeing them transform in ways that I didn’t even know we could achieve in that period of time. And it’s just a consistency through and through that the body again knows what to do. And when we get those nutrients in, it connect those up, it’s really fascinating what can happen. And so now, I really cycle these things out. So I’m primarily ketogenic, I do a lot of carnivore, and I still occasionally love to have my cake and eat it too. You know, I’m gluten-sensitive, dairy-sensitive in various ways, but I’ve optimized my digestion to a degree that I can enjoy certain things.

You know, fun little treat, for example, I love Mexican food and tacos, and they have these churros, which are sort of a deep-fried, glutinous, sugar-covered thing with a dulce de leche caramel sauce, and they’re fantastically delicious. I’m not able to have them all the time because they would kind of KO me for a few days, very sensitive to those things. But really, again, just how we go back to realizing what’s working, what’s not in anything we do, and anything we change in our lifestyle and health, we realized that, “Okay, if we improve digestion, we can actually handle a little bit more of the things that we may be sensitive to outside of that.” And so that was kind of a test for me after the carnivore experiment was how good is my gut health, you know, strength and resilience in my gut, how’s that doing and how am I digesting things?

And so I had those churros at the taco place, and it was so delicious. It was wonderful. But the craziest thing it is that it did not affect me negatively at all. You know, the first time, I was like, “Wow, actually, I can have this and enjoy it every now and then,” but it’s not a consistent thing. And so when I stick to the real foods and certain ones cooked, certain ones not cooked, you want to have a mix of those things. The enzymes are a really critical, important part of that too. But again, that nutrient density giving the body the healthy fats to burn as fuel, that upregulates mitochondrial function. You have more energy, you have better digestion, you can absorb more nutrients in the gut and beyond. You can produce all those chemicals that all lead to joy and bliss in daily life.

Katie: I love that. And a couple of key takeaways that really resonated with me is, like, you’re explaining this in a framework of people being able to figure out an experiment and figure out the things that work for them. Because I’m sure, like you’re in the health world as well, I often get the question, you know, what do you do in this instance, or what specifically do you take, or what does your typical day look like, or what do you eat? And I always say, that’s the wrong question because I’ve only figured that out for me. And each of us has to begin that process and figure out, and it’s always changing.

That’s the beauty of it is even if you figure it out, it changes seasonally, it changes, like you said, hormonally for women. So we’re in a constant journey and evolution of this. I’m also a big fan of cycling things and not doing anything all the time. I’m personally a big believer that the body can adapt very quickly to things, and I don’t want mine to get used to getting any supplement every single day, or getting any food every single day, or even getting food, in general, every single day. So I mix up a lot with diet and supplements and fasting and that’s something that you do as well.

And you also mentioned, I wanna go back to the idea of fight-or-flight and sympathetic versus parasympathetic because I think that’s an important key that a lot of us miss. You could have everything else dialed in, and this was me for years, you can have your diet dialed in and perfect. You can be exercising, you can have sleep dialed in. If you don’t address whatever the stress whether it’s cellular, whether it’s emotional, whatever it is, if you are in fight-or-flight, you’re not gonna see the biggest benefit from any of those things. So I’m curious if you have anything that you have found or any series of things that have been helpful with that or any tips for people adopting the mental framework for being able to make these changes and to remain in parasympathetic?

Caleb: Absolutely. Yeah. And part of that is exactly what you just said, tying in the nervous system, is taking those breaks and cycling things on a regular basis. I do the same, you know, I take a break from all supplements. I can take a break from all food, you know, the fasting periods, and you cycle that through. And that is something that is really key and critical for giving your nervous system when it needs to relax. And there are so many simple things you can go from very simple to, you know, just laying down and getting horizontal. You know, with my wife that was actually one challenge that she had of these chronic sneezing fits because her body was sort of locked into this stressed state in the nervous system. It was always thinking it was under attack and under, you know, some sort of threat at all times.

And I just noticed that she had the sneezing attacks, and I said, you know, “Honey, if you just lay down, just lay down.” She’s like, “What do you mean?” She’s sneezing, you know, intensely, and it’s really challenging. She can barely talk, her eyes are watering. And I just told her lay down, and she laid down. And when you lay down, your vagus nerve sends a signal that’s essentially like, okay, we’re laying down, that means it’s safer than standing up, very simply. And that laying down her sneezing texture disappeared, they just stopped entirely. And I had her stand back up and they came back.

And so, again, that clued me into realizing, okay, there’s a pattern here. And that pattern is that your nervous system thinks and believes it’s in fight-or-flight right now. That’s a very stressful state to be in, very high cortisol state, which is very oxidative and very stressful on the cells and the rest of your body, and your mitochondria working overtime to try to support that. And you can all the way go to, for example, the biomedical technology world. There’s one incredible one which is called microcurrent therapy, and it uses electricity, again, one of the natural forces, electricity, magnetism, gravity, pressure, all these natural forces of physics of what govern our environment that shapes us and how our bodies operate, and also how the nervous system ties in.

And with that, they actually go through and they can help your nervous system essentially calm down and relax and using electrical stimulation to tell the vagus nerve in other parts of your body, whether it’s your gut, or whether it’s your brain. Various different people have different challenges there, they’ll put you into the same state. And a technology like that, which is a bit more advanced, but they can go through and do a few sessions on you and your body actually is like okay, yes, I can relax and I can, you know, let go of that stress. And a lot of it’s very mental and psychological too.

So, you know, if you don’t feel appreciated, if you don’t feel loved, if you don’t feel supported in various ways, whether it’s your partner, whether it’s your family dynamic, whether it’s your friends or community, the work you do, there’s many different angles of life that affect us in these ways. And any of these aspects that stress us out, it changes everything from our breathing to our heart rate variability to our nervous system response to what it’s thinking, threats or not. And so really creating however you can in your environment safety in a safe place. And a great place to start is the bedroom. You know, make it pitch black dark as you can, lock the door, if you have to. You know, if you have wonderful, furry pets to sleep with, that’ll actually help you sleep better as well because they act as a guard, they’re able to hear things and sense things before you can. So you can actually sleep deeper and they’ve done some fascinating studies on this.

And you can see how these different connections all together create a comfortable environment for you to sleep and relax and recover. And that’s one of the highest leverage areas you can focus on is optimizing your sleep cycle and your sleep protocol in that sense. And getting that nervous system out of fight-or-flight is really key. But, again, going out and getting light in your eyes, light on your skin, your feet grounded to the earth, breathing so many deep breaths, you know, you can breathe in for four seconds and breathe out for six seconds. That’s a very simple one that anyone can do to calm your heart rate down and increase your coherence.

And the coherence level of your heart rate variability is what is gonna allow your body to realize that it is safe to operate, it is safe to rejuvenate repair. And you don’t have to be in this chronic stressed state of fight-or-flight or what’s going on here. There are so many angles to it. If you need to go walk in nature, go walk in nature. You know, if you wanna relax and watch a movie, you can watch a movie. Really, it depends on where you are, where you live, you know, how you live your lifestyle. But there’s always a way to figure out even if it’s as simple as laying down flat for 15, 20 minutes, you know.

And another great one is to lay down flat on your back and put your knees up onto a chair. And you’re kind of sitting in a chair but laying backwards. And when you’re doing that, you’re allowing the blood flow to circulate in a way that lets your body calm down and relax and get that response back into that rejuvenating stimulatory in a positive way. And not overstimulated in a stressful response of the nervous system being like, “Oh, no, what’s happening?” We wanna get out of that and we want to get into the rest and relax, and the rest and digest, you know, some people refer to it as, and that that calm, stable, resilient sense of you can handle anything at any time, no matter what life throws you.

Katie: Such good advice. And I’m curious if there’s any tips you would give for those listening who are hopefully not dealing with a major health crisis but want to, for instance, put off aging as long as possible. Are there any practical takeaways or tips that you would give for that?

Caleb: Oh, for sure. So, you know, really, again, you know, going from the bottom of the hierarchy up on the spectrum of, you know, really getting your diet adjusted to your lifestyle, what you need. Having that real, whole food, having, you know, whether it’s carnivore ketogenic, how you choose to play around, just really nutrient-dense foods, organic when possible, having the grass-fed, grass-finished meats. You know, going through, get that nutrient density from the bone marrow, the organ meats, you know, all that stuff supports methylation as well and detoxification pathways in addition to that.

And you’ve got supplementation, you know, there’s supplements out there. For example, like marine phytoplankton is almost like pure ATP, it’s like sunshine in a bottle. You can actually take a supplement like this, which is what helps whales grow to the size and strength that they are in the oceans, and you can really see how your body can utilize that as pure energy put in, doesn’t cost much ATP in your body to use the ATP that is produced in a supplement like that. It’s from a whole food source. And there’s many other versions of that and good high-quality oils and good high-quality fats across the board dietarily, and shaping your environment, and really just getting that safety, like we talked about, however you can. Start in the bedroom if you can and move out from there.

You know, technology is another big stressor across the board. So if you can block that blue light and you can calm your brain down, calm down your eyes and your mitochondrial cells so they can focus on that optimization is really critical and key. Again, you know, the breathing habits and dialing all the way through to even advanced technologies you can get into from CVAC pods to the NanoVi device is a fantastic one that, again, is based on biophysics and health and light in that sense.

And all the way through just figuring out how to stop eating as much, intermittent fasting-wise, like we don’t need as much food as we think we do. So fasting is one of those critical keys that we have is a built-in program. And even if you stop eating a few hours before bed at night, you’re gonna notice dramatic changes to your weight, to your energy levels, to how radiant you show up, and how much light you shine. Getting in nature, all the way across there, there’s so many different aspects.

You get into the anti-aging longevity aspect of how psyllium metabolism works. There’s a few that are very popular now, so like NMN and NR, for example, nicotinamide mononucleotide is NMN, and nicotinamide riboside is, you know, subtype of B3 vitamin that supports NAD+, NAD function in your cells. And that’s a really critical one. You can go straight to the NAD+ patches, you know, they have these electrophoresis patches with a battery you slap on, it’ll actually help you absorb it transdermally. You can do IV-based therapy with that too, but it is a very intensive therapy that not everyone has access to just yet.

But really getting those key nutrients, getting connected with nature, getting in tune and in touch with your own intuition and connecting with the natural cycles of light, of time, of geomagnetic location of where you are in the earth, and ideally aligning that to your genetics and also to what’s available in your local foodshed and having that clean water as well. You know, it’s spring water, you know, ideally, just good, clean, fresh water across the board help heal you in that sense all the way through.

And you can go through from, you know, hot and cold therapy, you know, if you get the sauna, you got that great detox and the heat stress and heat-shock proteins and great detox effects from that. And you can go through Wim Hof style, you can get in the cold. You know, if it’s wintertime where you are, you can do a cold plunge. You can go to a spa that might have a cold water pool you can get into, and that training, even a cold shower for five minutes in the morning will have so many great benefits for you and help build willpower and build resilience and build strength. You know, if you can do that and get up in the morning, and breathe and meditate if you like, have some good food, or not at all if you’re intermittent fasting, have a cold shower for even a few minutes at a time, all those little steps add up to much, much bigger compounded wins and synergies all throughout life.

And all of that confers to longevity and the sort of anti-aging type approach because we have the intelligence to do that, we need to get out the toxins, and we need to get in the nutrients, and we need to get in the light, and we need to keep that stimulation of stem cell proliferation and psyllium metabolism optimized. And, again, mitochondrial health is super key to that and light is what’s driving all of that from genetics all the way up the chain.

Katie: I love it. This has been so much information and so practical and actionable. I’ll make sure that I will link to…I know you have information on a lot of these topics, and I also do, those who will be linked in the show notes at wellnessmama.fm. So if you guys are listening, make sure to find all of them linked there. Another question I love to ask at the end of episodes, if there’s a book or a number of books that have really dramatically impacted your life, if so, what are they and why?

Caleb: Oh, so, you know, one of them is gonna be the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, funny enough, it’s about 16,000 pages long. So, maybe not everyone’s personal read or very accessible, but one that is, that is a really huge game-changer for understanding how light affects health is a book called “Health and Light” by John Ott, J-O-H-N O-T-T is his last name. And he actually was a time-lapse photographer and cinematographer. And he actually worked on “The Secrets of Life” documentary with Disney and did segments for that back in 1956, the year my mom was born.

And I got into that book and I’m studying mitochondrial function, how light affects health, and he just noticed it from observation. You know, even all those years back he sees that, wow, if I have this type of lighting, this tomato grows bigger or smaller. And he worked with full-spectrum lighting and he’s like, “When I just put it in the sun, it grew larger and stronger. So what about me as a living being, like if I get more light, will that help my health?” And so he really goes through and breaks down very simply how light affects health in those various ways. And we’ve learned so much more scientifically beyond that. So I highly recommend “Health and Light” by Dr…he’s not a doctor, but cinematographer John Ott. It’s a huge, huge one.

And then, you know, another one “Iconoclast” by Gregory Berns is a fantastic one from a neuroscience perspective of just how you can live a great life and really have these iconic thinking moments, no matter where you are. But it’s such a powerful influence to think bigger and go bigger, in a sense, that you can do so much more with your life if you want. And wherever you are, you can be happy and be still and be at peace within yourself. You know, the work of Byron Katie, for example, on the psychological aspect of, you know, the stories our minds create, you know, are they true, are they not? Her work is very profound from a psychological wellness perspective. And again, that nervous system, calming the nervous system down from the mind is a key.

And there’s so many more, I could go on and on, but again, understanding evolutionary psychology and biology is really fun. If you’re a geek and you want to get into it, all these things tie together, and you’ll see the patterns coalesce. And you’ll start seeing, you know, essentially the code of the matrix of really how you can make different choices big or small, along the spectrum and identifying how you can live the best healthiest, happiest, most joyous and blissful life possible, and still be productive, and rock and roll and have so much fun, and also support and take care of those you love and those you serve.

Katie: I love it. Caleb, we’ll have links in the show notes, but where can people find you to keep learning?

Caleb: Yeah. So I have some information at calebjennings.com, I’ll be updating that soon with some more details. As well as, you know, you can go find some more intel, I’m going to be producing a lot more content through Activation Products. You can go to activationproducts.com/wellnessmama for more intel and details on that. And we have some really great content coming out to help educate about these base elements. And, again, all these aspects of biohacking, the holistic integration of how you can optimize health in various different ways, like we’ve been speaking about here, to supplementation, nootropics, all the way to advanced medical technologies and beyond.

But it’s all interconnected, and we’re all connected in that sense. So if you approach life with that, with, you know, just joyous mentality and having fun experimenting, trying new things here and there, getting outside your comfort zone, that’s where growth occurs. And that’s what I encourage you to do on a daily basis and just have so much fun with it.

Katie: I love it. Caleb, thanks so much for the time today.

Caleb: Absolutely, Katie. Thank you, it was a blast.

Katie: And thanks as always to all of you for sharing your time with us today. We’re so grateful that you did, and I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of the “Wellness Mama Podcast.”

If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.

Source: https://wellnessmama.com/podcast/caleb-jennings/

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crystalleon74-blog · 4 years

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#tryittuesday #haircare #marcanthonyhaircare #mauimoisture #herbalessence #hairmask #haircareproducts #haircaretips #haircareroutine #hairgoals #hairlove #haircareinfluencer #haircarelover #haircareaddict #crystalleon74 #discoverunder20k

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princessbrivee · 7 years

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Publicity of the Rich and Famous [Chapter Two]

So I promised more chapters to this fic that I wrote for @docholligay fic party back in June, and I decided to finally write more!

Harumichi / Sailor Moon

Tagging: @rocketonthemoon @thatgirlwiththedeepblueeyes @haru-michis @sittingoverheredreaming

Michiru and Haruka arrived at the latter’s establishment within no time. Haruka’s driver escorted the two to Haruka’s door to ensure that they arrived inside safely. Sure, he was no body guard, but he was a rather built man and he could do whatever necessary to ensure his two passengers made it into the house. Luckily it was mostly bombarding of flash photography and various tabloids trying to ask the two questions. Michiru responded by slamming the door in their faces, with the most gracious attitude that she could.

“Your place is small.” Michiru said, kicking off her heels by the door where she saw most of the blonde’s shoes. “I’d alert your help to close the blinds and what not. Those creeps will surely hang around outside.”

“I actually, uh, it’s just me here,” Haruka said, “but no worries I usually close the blinds before leaving anyway.”

“How very fascinating.” Michiru commented, sarcastically, as she made her way to the blonde’s living room. “Wall to wall carpeting?”

“What’s so bad with wall to wall carpeting?”

“Most people only have wall to wall carpeting when either they fucked up their floor or the previous home owner did.” Michiru pointed out, placing her purse on Haruka’s couch. She took a moment to look around her, one of Haruka’s trophy cases coming into her view. “You won all of those?”

“I suppose you’re not a big fan of car races.”

“And I suppose you’re not a big fan of classical music.”

“No, you’d be surprised.” Haruka said, though she decided to answer Michiru’s first question regarding her trophies. “But yes, I won all of those. The display in here is outdated, however. I keep my most recent ones in my room.”

“Impressive.” Michiru said, taking it upon herself to view the trophies up close. A small one caught her eye, it was in the center of the entire display. “This one is from 2010? You’ve been driving for that long? How old are you anyway.”

“Twenty-six.” Haruka said. “That was actually my first race. Junior champion, the youngest to win that particular race actually.” The blonde said, walking toward where Michiru was standing. “This trophy is actually the reason I have my current manager. He met me shortly after that race. Asked me who my manager was, and when I said myself he laughed.”

“You won your first race?” Michiru asked, her tone changing from sarcastic and stand offish to impressed and curious.

“My first big race.” Haruka pointed out. “I’d been participating in races since I got my license. Hell, even before that it was go kart racing.”

“Ah.” Michiru nodded, eyeing the case once more, than turning her attention to eye the blonde next to her. Very attractive, she thought to herself. In all honesty, she wouldn’t mind getting to touch her eventually. “So do you mind showing me your room?”

Haruka’s entire face went red when Michiru asked her that. She saw the way she’d been looking at her the entire night. She also saw how Michiru was looking her up and down just now. However, she still ended up to muster out, “Y-yeah sure.”

Michiru followed along behind the blonde up the staircase. The first floor had some more rooms that Michiru had yet to see. However, part of her just wanted to see Haruka’s room to see the trophies she had been talking about. When her manager set her up with this car racer, she didn’t expect someone of such caliber. There was only two rooms on the top floor. The master bedroom, with the master bathroom attached. Haruka opened the door, leading to a rather large room. In the middle sat the blonde’s bed, a king size adorned in a monochromatic color scheme of blankets and throw pillows. The floor was wood, unlike the downstairs which was carpeted. On the left side of the bed was an end table. On the right was a shelf with some trophies. Michiru took it upon herself to walk to the shelf, which caused Haruka to sigh of relief.

“Which is your most recent?” Michiru asked, eying the shelf in attempts to find it.

“This.” Haruka walked over to Michiru, pointing toward a shelf near the bottom. “Last week. Second place, after coming off of nine wins in a row.”

“And you still put it on your shelf?”

“Why not?” The blonde shrugged. “I won it didn’t I?”

“Yes, but it was a loss.”

“Second place isn’t losing.” Haruka pointed out. “If they give you a trophy it’s not a loss is it?”

“I guess not.” Michiru said, looking to the floor. She never thought of second as losing. When she thought of anything other than first, it was a loss. Sure, her industry was not competing, but she knew what it was like to lose. She didn’t make it to where she was by losing, after all.

———

The night progressed slow at that point. Haruka had given Michiru some spare clothes to sleep in. The blonde allowed her to shower and freshen up before bed, giving her the space she needed. Michiru walked out of the bathroom in Haruka’s teeshirt and her own pair of underwear. A towel was wrapped around her head. The hairspray she used this afternoon was not going to settle well if she slept with it. However, her hair would be frizzy without her haircare products, but such was fate.

“You look beautiful.” Haruka commented, half teasing and half being genuine.

“There’s no one else here.” Michiru stated. “No need to flirt with me.”

Haruka couldn’t answer. Sure, she knew this was all a publicity stunt. Though, Haruka was a sucker for romance. It was like she was living one of her romance movies that she enjoyed to watch on the couch with a tub of rocky road ice cream. Part of her wasn’t acting.

Eventually, she got up from her spot on the bed. “I’m gonna shower. Feel free to fall asleep if you’d like.” And with that, she walked into the bathroom.

Perhaps this would be harder than she thought.

#harumichi #sailor moon #haruka tenoh #michiru kaioh #fanfiction #Publicity of the Rich and Famous Fic Series

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gethealthy18-blog · 4 years

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303: Gabby Reece on Parenting, Creating Strong Relationships, and XPT

New Post has been published on http://healingawerness.com/news/303-gabby-reece-on-parenting-creating-strong-relationships-and-xpt/

303: Gabby Reece on Parenting, Creating Strong Relationships, and XPT

Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.

This episode is brought to you by Beekeepers Naturals, superfood products from the hive that help support your family’s best health. Right now, their Propolis has been a lifesaver with all of the sniffles and coughs going around where we live. Propolis is a resinous mixture that bees make in the hive and contains over 300 compounds including polyphenols and compounds that are antibacterial including one called pinocembrin that acts as an antifungal. Some studies have shown that propolis can speed wound healing. It’s antibacterial and antifungal properties also make it great for fighting the sniffles. At first sign of any sniffles, sore throat or coughing at our house, I spray propolis in the throat and it almost always helps us bounce back quickly. I also use propolis before flying to avoid picking up anything on the plane. You can save 15% on propolis and all Beekeepers Naturals products at beekeepersnaturals.com/wellnessmama with the code wellnessmama.

I am so excited to finally be able to share a top secret project I’ve been working on for years…this episode is proudly sponsored by Wellnesse… a new company I co-founded to create safe, natural and obsessively tested products for families. You’ve heard that much of what you put on your body gets absorbed through your skin and goes into your body. We turned this idea on its head, creating products that aren’t just safe to put on your hair, skin and in your mouth, but that are beneficial. We started with the toughest first, creating the first of its kind natural toothpaste that is free of fluoride and glycerin and that contains ingredients like green tea, neem and hydroxyapatite to support the mouth. Our haircare (shampoo and conditioner) is free of harmful ingredients and contains ingredients like lavender and nettle to support healthy hair! Be the first to try it at Wellnesse.com

Katie: Hi and welcome to the ”Wellness Mama” podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com and this episode is with someone who I personally look up to. Gabrielle Reece, otherwise known as Gabby Reece is not only a volleyball legend but she’s also an inspirational speaker and leader, a New York Times bestselling author and a wife and mom of three. She’s a former professional beach volleyball player and Nike’s first female spokeswoman. And she to me represents both athleticism and beauty and also is very inspirational as a parent and in her 20-plus year marriage as well as in all the outreach that she and her husband Laird do in the health world and in their community and in fostering strong fitness and community around the world. And in this episode, we go deep on raising teenagers, on body image, on ways to nurture strong relationships and about her new fitness system that she does with Laird called XPT and which I’ve tried and love. So I hope you will enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed recording it.

Gabby, welcome. Thanks for being here.

Gabby: Hi. Thank you for having me.

Katie: I am so excited to chat with you because I have known about you and Laird for a really long time and you are such an inspiration both in business and fitness and also as a parent and in your relationship. And I have so many directions I can’t wait to go with this interview, but I’d love to start off with a little bit of the fitness and body side because I’ve gone on my own kind of journey the last couple of years of learning to accept and love my body as it is. And I know that you were named one of the top five most beautiful women in the world and that you obviously are a very beautiful woman, but I also know that you’re taller than a lot of women. And I’m curious, have you ever struggled with body image issues because of that or if not, how did you avoid that?

Gabby: I think, I didn’t always live with my mother, but my mother, I moved sort of back in with my mother when I was seven and she’s quite tall. She was about 6′ 2” and a half, let’s say before gravity started doing its thing. And I don’t think I ever had an issue with being tall. I think what’s hard as a young person is getting unusual amounts of attention. I think that’s hard for any adolescent person. So if you asked me if I struggle with that, maybe I struggled there and also struggled just kind of realizing really early that, you know, like I wasn’t gonna be, it sounds so silly now, but like you know, you’re not gonna be wearing the same fashion as other people because a lot of things don’t fit. And also what could be on-trend sort of looks ridiculous on you because you’re so tall. And so I think I just came to a level of acceptance.

And then I just did the normal amounts of torturing myself as a woman. You know, whether it’s in your teens wanting bigger this or smaller that or straighter this. And then in your 20s picking yourself apart, oh, is that cellulite? You know, whatever weird things that we do to now, you know, this time of my life it’s like am I gonna look a little closer for lines and all the imperfections. So I think it’s been within reason, a reasonable amount, but I think my height just forced me to get to accepting things quicker.

Katie: That makes sense. I can see the blessing of that for sure. And you have daughters as well, I think, how old are your daughters?

Gabby: I have, my youngest is 11 and my middle has just turned 16 and we have a 24-year-old.

Katie: Got it. So you are, like I said, I look to you for kind of mentorship and advice in this realm because my oldest is only 13 and then I have an 11-year-old daughter as well. And I feel like we’re just on the cusp of all of these things as a parent, and facing it as a parent is so different than facing it as a teenager myself. And so I’m curious if you have ways that you have worked with your daughters to build that body positivity or that self worth and that self-love from an early age.

Gabby: You know, every kid is different and in ways that they’re similar, which is they sort of don’t listen to their parents or believe their parents, but yet they’re watching and they’re probably taking what they like and leaving what they don’t. And so I don’t think it’s on purpose. I just, by the nature of how I try to live, I just try to model behaviors that I believe in and that aren’t self-destructive. It doesn’t mean I don’t have them. I just try really hard that they’re not really… that they’re not a part of my everyday life. And also the other women that I’m around. I think that that’s a really important thing, which is we can’t be all things to our children. And so if I can have a powerful meaning, intelligent, or kind and loving and, or physically stronger or, you know, or all of the above women that I’m drawn to, my daughters are getting, you know, in Hawaii they call them aunties. It’s like they’re getting impacted.

And what’s so great about young people is they are so very clever. And so let’s say you’re around a female who is just nitpicking every little bit of herself. Oh, I’m, you know, I’m this age or my waistline or you know, young people, they may not have the words for it, but they see very clearly what’s happening. So I think when you model confidence and hard work and self-care and some of the things you can be in charge of and also self-love I think that’s our best shot.

Katie: That makes sense. And something that I’ve tried to consciously do with my daughters, and I’m guessing probably came naturally to you, is to set examples of how amazing the body is for what it can do and not focusing so much on what it always looks like. And as an athlete, I’m sure that was something your daughters saw from you at a very early age was the amazing strength of the body and the incredible things it could do. And I know that that’s very much still a part of your lives, but I’m curious, is that something that they’ve picked up on and how you integrate that as a family?

Gabby: Yeah, it’s funny. I especially, I’ll see it in the older ones. You know, the young ones back you when they’re, because you know, they don’t really have as much freedom, right? So they’re looking for self-identification or freedom more than in a way they stop, they push less as they get older because they have other freedoms. But I always, once I was sort of playing sports and sort of developed this relationship with my body as a tool and having an appreciation also for it as this gift, this tool, you know, the avatar that kind of takes you on the adventure. They pick up on that as well and develop in addition to I’m a female, how do I look? What size am I, what colors my hair and eyes, you know, Oh, what can this avatar do and where can it take me and what experiences can I have with it and am I gonna appreciate when it’s very powerful and it can, you know, lift something or jump in the air or what have you, conversely to like, you know, getting them to connect to with their intellect and their spiritual side.

And one of my daughters, well, two of my daughters are actually very artistic and enjoy painting. So there’s another sort of expression of the inner self and using the avatar to do that. So I think it’s the more we can do that in sort of saying, you know, I’m not really my body, right, like it’s my essence and my spirit. And then, you know, just trying to manage that human side of insecurity and being critical, self-critical and things like that.

Katie: I’m so glad you mentioned the freedom side because that’s the thing that I only understand conceptually because my kids aren’t in that like driving phase yet. We’re not quite there. But I know it’s important for kids, like the work of a teenager is actually to start psychologically separating from their parents and to gain independence. And that sounds easy on paper and I’m sure much harder when you are actually going through that with your child. But I’m curious, are there ways you’ve facilitated that with your daughters that have seemed to really work? And I’m definitely asking this somewhat selfishly is I’m about to be there myself.

Gabby: I think as parents, you know, the temptation to wanna be in control. Because if you think about it, when you have a new baby, they’re so tiny and helpless and you sort of really do have to be in charge. It doesn’t mean you can control when they cry or stop crying or when they wanna sleep or don’t sleep, but just, you know, you really do have a high level of control of what’s happening. And then as they grow and us being protective and not objective and kind of all these things, it makes it harder for us and maybe even more with daughters than sons, I’m not sure. But it’s sort of really learning to let them go. And listen, I’ve done that with all of my daughters and at times it’s not that I regret some of it, but you sort of think, okay, I’m gonna do everything I can to keep them safe and put them in good environments and around good people, but I’m not gonna, like I don’t have on my kids’ devices. I don’t have everything. I’m not tracking every move and things like that because my whole thing is I’m trying to teach my children to manage themselves versus I’m controlling them. And I’m also hoping to avoid some major kind of snapback. Like they finally get to college and then they flip out. But I will say that we’ve had experiences where I was like, Oh, I regret not being sort of more of a controlling parent. Having said that, I sometimes feel like no matter which way we approach it, kids are gonna go through things. They’re gonna choose things we wouldn’t choose for them. They’re gonna make bad choices like we’ve made. They might even, I don’t wanna say get hurt, but might be in situations that you know, you thought you could control but you couldn’t.

And so I have been really humbled by this idea of being, I’m not relaxed or have a lax sense of parenting, but I’m definitely not micromanaging. Because I just think in the long, long run, especially with the kind of people Laird and I are, that we would have kids that would really get radical. So it’s a natural thing to wanna fight, letting go of the control, but it’s so necessary. And also when things don’t feel like taboo, it’s actually not as sexy for them to go through it.

Katie: Yeah. That’s such a great point. And to circle back to what you first said about modeling it versus forcing it, and I think that’s just such a different mindset and focus. And they feel it so much differently when we’re modeling but not forcing and then they feel like they actually do have that freedom to make the choice. I think a lot of times, I mean mine are still young, but they tend to actually want to make the choice that we would have probably chosen for them anyway if we were controlling the situation. But then they have the autonomy of having done it themselves, which brings that ownership that we would want them to have as adults. And I’ve seen this with my background in nutrition. I don’t even like if my kids are not in my house, I don’t control what they eat. I’m not micromanaging their food intake because I know they’ll be fine if they eat something that wouldn’t be what I chose for them once in a while. And at home, we eat clean and we cook healthy, but I’m not micromanaging their food choices because like you said, I don’t want them to go to college and fast food was always taboo or sugar was taboo and then that’s all they want. And I think that applies to so many aspects of parenting like you said.

Gabby: It’s human nature, you know, even us as adults, I see it with myself. Like, let’s say we decided to do like a very short fast, like two days or something. I am already pissy and rebellious by lunch the first day, even though if it was just a normal day and I wasn’t fasting, I could blow through that no problem to midday and not even thinking about food, but because someone has said to me, okay, we’re not doing this, all of a sudden now I’ve kicked into like rebellion mode and I don’t. And I think that that is a big part of humans and, you know, I just think getting people to understand their reasons why they do or don’t do things is more powerful than forcing them. And even though your daughters are 11 and 13, you know, 13 is a defined human being with a point of view and opinions and likes and dislikes.

And so we’re better off trying to ride that out and help them, you know, drive their own vehicle than say like, well, I’m gonna drive it for you and try to be as appropriate as possible. Because you know, they’re gonna get there and they’re gonna know stuff and see stuff and better to, you know, make it an open door policy where there’s real communication and dialogue. And then if you show them, you know, how it works for you in your value system, chances are they really do take a lot of the good stuff.

Katie: Yeah. I think you’re so right about that. And I’m curious as far as keeping that open door communication and giving them chances to facilitate that conversation, are there anything that you’ve noticed over the years, things that have worked well in encouraging them or letting them feel like they have the freedom to come talk to you about stuff if it’s hard, without feeling judged or those kind of more sensitive things?

Gabby: It also depends on the kid. You know, I have one kid that it’s not that she doesn’t care what I think, but not as much. Like I have one of my daughters, I can look sideways because I have a million things on my mind about work and she’s very sensitive and takes things personally. So I just, I find that, first of all, it’s dealing with each individual person. But also being like very straight forward as a parent, meaning not using guilt or manipulation, which is hard to do because sometimes that’s easier. And also being willing to say, okay, I’m gonna give you the choice in this situation and I’m going to accept if it’s not what I would have done or wanted you to do, but I’m gonna do it in a way that supports and loves you. Because if you can’t do it that way, then don’t give them the choice because it’s almost worse saying, Oh, you have the choice and now I’m gonna, you know, sort of torment you and with my disapproval the whole time.

And so if you’re not prepared, then you have to go, well then this is the way it is. And I know that you don’t love that. But that’s how it is because that’s more honest. So I think it’s like there’s so many dynamics. It’s like their personalities, you know, sort of what are we talking about? If it’s like Cheetos, who cares? If it’s like going in a vehicle with somebody out later than you want, that’s another conversation. So I think it’s also what’s the scenario? And that’s why almost giving them small freedoms all along the way and teaching them sort of the power of that and how it’s actually better for them. And then so when they do move into these bigger choices and bigger freedoms and bigger decisions, they’ve had some practice.

Katie: That makes sense. And I’m curious, maybe this applies more to when they were younger, but how you as a mom navigated them taking risks and especially like getting to make their own choices when they were little, when it came to things that were probably good for them, but also maybe a little bit scary. I know with Laird being a surfer and you guys do so many outdoor activities were there ever times when it was hard to like let them do an activity and to have to like calm that mom reflex, you’d be like “oh” and I’m curious how you navigated that. Because I’m a big believer that kids need to climb trees and they need to be outside and they need to take risks to learn. It’s like an important part of psychological development. And I’m curious how you guys navigated that.

Gabby: You know, I wish it was just the physical risks. For me, that’s so much easier than some of the nuanced emotional things. There were times where Laird could put them into a situation more comfortably and safely than I would. And so what I also have learned is that kids oftentimes learn fear. And so it doesn’t mean some are not more naturally fearful than others, but they also learn it. So the other thing I would do honestly is if he was in charge of it, I would just walk away. If it was something that really it was just too hard for me as the mother to watch. And also I have a great deal of confidence in his, the way he chooses to do things. So I’m like, they don’t need to see me because they’re gonna learn from me versus, you know, learning the freedom of calculated and intelligent risk from their father.

Katie: That is such a great point too. You’re right. And I’m sure he has a unique talent of being able to do that, but I love that you brought up Laird because you guys, I also look to you as an inspiration of a long and successful and seemingly very happy marriage. How many years have you guys been married?

Gabby: At the end of the month we will have been married 22 years and we’ve been together for 24 years.

Katie: That’s amazing. Congratulations. I’d love to hear firsthand from you some of the ways that you guys have really nurtured a strong marriage over the years because it seems like there are some definite waves, kind of a pun intended or roadblocks that come up. And I feel like I’ve encountered some of those, even in my own life in the last couple of years, just that come with time and with changing as humans and with raising kids. So are there some things that you guys have done over the years that have really nurtured your marriage?

Gabby: You know, I think weirdly both Laird and I are sort of selfish in a way so that, what I mean by that is, we’re very upfront about sort of our own personal needs. So for example, we’re both willing just to serve the greater good, the family and everything that falls under that umbrella. So work and maintenance of where you’re dwelling, kids dropping off and picking up, whatever it is, right? But neither one of us is unselfish enough to, you know, sort of lose ourselves in that. And so what’s good about that is we’re both kind of squeaky wheels, me less than him, but it’s instead of like 20 years going by and nobody sort of said what they really needed or wanted, it’s sort of like a constant form of checking in because it’s like, Hey, I need more attention. Or Hey, I know you’re stressed out, but the way you were talking to me, I just don’t love it. Hey, I wanna sneak away and be alone with you.

So, I think that is very helpful because it keeps, you know, everything is transparent and out there and you always can deal with, you know, everything that’s in front of you instead of guessing or got put under the carpet or it’s been so many years, you don’t even remember, you know, the original impetus for the situation or the tension. And even sometimes just having an open dialogue. I’ll give you an example. So yesterday, for example, we both realized that we sort of have this small window, maybe we could connect and it got you know, we had a miscommunication and kind of Laird was aggravated and I was like, well, yeah, okay, I’m aggravated too. But in the meantime I’m doing 50 things and, you know, kind of, don’t take your crap out on me. But you know, and this is very unlike us. We don’t bicker. So it was unusual and yet it went through the whole evening. Like the evening was stained with that disappointment or that whatever, domestic frustration, whatever, however it finds itself.

And I just remember thinking when it was happening that I was aggravated, but I also have enough experience to be like, well, the good news is, is that, you know, it’s always identified and it gives us a chance to work on it and we might have to do it tomorrow. Both of us might be too tired or weird right now to actually get it done tonight. And so I think that is very helpful. I think we both take care of our personal happiness, so I’m not looking or reliant upon Laird to sort of make me feel fulfilled nor do I do that with my children. And I know Laird is the same. That is very helpful.

I think figuring out how to be, you know, whether it’s, even when my kids were really little, like 15 minutes, I always found the way to take care of myself. And I know that is a luxury to me, having had a job and have a job that’s sort of around fitness, because there’s plenty of people who they commute, they go to the office 8, 9, 10 hours, they come home, they don’t get those minutes. So I really understand that. And I think we have a level of respect for one another that is very high. So it kind of keeps everybody on their toes and on their best behavior. There’s not a lot of like careless things that are said back and forth to each other. And I think also we have and I’ve said this many times, I think Laird and I have a very natural chemistry, so this is not something that no matter how great we were at communicating or whatever, I think that chemistry is helpful.

And those are just some of the things I think that have been helpful. And it’s a maintenance, right? Like I love when people go, Oh, marriage is so much work. It’s like, well, it’s sort of just how life is. It’s like training is a little bit every day, you brush your teeth every day, you make your bed. It’s like marriage is a little bit like, Hey, we gotta tend to the garden, we’ve got to clear out the weeds. We’ve got to deal with it. It’s not just gonna run on its own. And I think that that is something that we’re both pretty diligent about.

Katie: I love that. And it seems like from at least what I know of you guys and what I’ve read from both of your work, that you’re both very much strong individuals and have pretty strong personalities. So I’m curious, has that ever like caused tension or caused butting of heads and if so, how do you balance that in a relationship? Because I know you also have written about your views on relationships and feminism and then taken a kind of alternative view of that. And I’ve seen that on different news outlets. I’m curious how you balance that in your marriage?

Gabby: You know, maybe I, you know, when I said it, I said something about submissive in the book. And, you know, there’s some things I learned out of that. That word for really obvious reason provokes a lot of people because it at a time when things were not fair or environments it’s not fair. That word is sort of an anchor. And I think the way that I intended it is of service. And so, for example, in my family, like everybody who’s in a family, whatever kind of family and whatever your role is in that family, we are all of service in that family. People are participating. And what I also was communicating is being, you know, I think a pretty strong female and one would call an alpha in the everyday world. I liked the dynamic of taking on the feminine role inside the house. And even if you’re in a same-sex relationship, someone takes on the masculine and someone takes on the feminine.

And so that’s not to say that the female can’t take on the masculine and the male takes on the feminine. Just in our dynamic, I was playing in that feminine role. And so I think a lot of people were uncomfortable by that. But I presented it and do it as a choice that in ways I’ll be honest, is probably harder in the way that my brain works and what I’m interested in getting done is so very different than Laird. And so in some ways more comes on my plate on a day-to-day because I’m better at doing all the tasks and the mega lists. But like for example, last year the fires came through Malibu, I’m not the one who stayed and fought the fire with the pump and saved my house. That was Laird. So I think it’s also kind of saying, what are your strengths and what are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? What are your weaknesses? Can we work together? And you know, you do that when you play sports and you learn to start to understand how to do that.

So I just, I think I felt comfortable talking about that because I also recognized it as a choice. No one’s telling me what to do. Laird is a very loving and kind husband, but it was just talking about this very specific dynamic between a husband and a wife or a couple, let’s say, any couple. And how does that work? Because you can’t have, you know, two masculine energies or two feminine energies. You know, people are taking different roles and sometimes it switches. But I think we do a pretty good job of being both very strong within our spaces. But what I say is that we both leave our swords at the door. So when I come in, my main objective is how can I make it better for Laird? How can I help him? And I feel that coming from him. So what you have is you have a level of cooperation versus, you know, antagonizing one another and slowing each other down and encumbering the process. I think both of us believe separately and together that it’s just a lot easier if you come with the attitude of service.

Katie: That’s beautiful. Yeah. Having that attitude of service versus look like and what can I give versus what can I get that changes the whole relationship even I’m sure with your kids or in any relationship. And you mentioned you guys have a beautiful natural chemistry, but after over 20 years, are there things or ways that you guys have found to make sure you keep your connection strong? Is that something you regularly have touchpoints for or date nights or any tips on navigating that?

Gabby: I mean, honestly, and it obviously has different temperatures at different times because if you have a newborn baby or like two little kids running around or whatever, I think, you know, you have different types of schedules, but quite frankly it’s just having a regular intimate life. And so you’re priming that pump and that’s a language between the two of you that is thriving as well. And again, I sometimes maybe oversimplify things, but I do feel, at least in the case of Laird and I don’t think it’s unique. Laird’s language of love is they’re pretty straightforward. I think Laird wants to be encouraged to pursue his passions. I think he likes to feel, you know, respected. I think he really enjoys us all gathering and eating food and being a part of that.

And one of his other languages is sex and intimacy. And I think with women, you know, we’re tired and it doesn’t occur to us sometimes some of us, as much as, you know, maybe as the, you know, maybe it doesn’t occur to me as much as it does to Laird or I have like, would I rather finish off the last 13 things on my checklist, then sneak away. And I just think it’s realizing that it’s a very simple, natural, healthy act. And it’s something that makes things very fluid between us. So as far as forced or you know, like Wednesday’s date night, we don’t do that. I just think that we’re both mindful of, Hey, it’s been a while since we’ve connected and that’s gonna be treated like a priority.

It doesn’t mean, you know, you get these huge romantic windows, sometimes that’s not practical. You know, it’s like you’re sneaking into a closet if your kid’s taking a nap when you have little kids. It is what it is, but I think to ignore that part of the connection or to not take care of it. And I know it’s hard, especially with people’s busy lives. That for us seems to make parts of it easier. But it’s also like we sit in the mornings between like 6:00 and 6:30. We connect, we talk about something we’ve read or the day or there’s just a moment, even if it’s just a few minutes that we sort of are connecting as human beings. And then you’re getting to see your partner as like someone you really appreciate and value and respect as an individual human being and just kind of do the best you can. There are days like maybe you’d wanna even be with them and you just know there’s no window. And sometimes just saying, Hey, you know, I thought about it and, you know, I know there’s no window sometimes even for your partner to know that it’s important to you that it can be even valuable.

Katie: That makes sense. And another thing I think you guys model beautifully is the importance of community and strong friendships and strong relationships in that sense as well. And you mentioned your daughters have other strong role models and women in their lives. And at least from what I know of you guys, it seems like this is something that you’ve done a really good job of is building a really strong community around you of friends and relationships. And I think this is in the modern world, something many people struggle with because the more technological things get and the more we move into this kind of divided areas and we aren’t as much in human contact with people, we lose that. So are there things you guys have done intentionally to build community or to foster those relationships?

Gabby: I’m not sure if it was so deliberate. I think maybe when there’s a practice, you know, for example, when Laird was surfing in the early 90s, they had a crew there that they called Strapped. It had about eight or nine guys and they were sort of working together to create a sport that they could all enjoy. And each person contributed, had different input about ways to improve the sport, things like that. So me playing on a team when you start to realize, you know, the power of community maybe organically, then you might subconsciously seek it out. So I think both of us experienced the power of community very early and then just said, okay, well what can we contribute because we all have something to contribute, each and every one of us. And can I give that to my community or my tribe?

And then from there, you know, if you have no expectation, it usually works out, you know, really, really well. And there might be people you kind of have to kick out of your community. There might even be people in your community that you don’t hang out outside of let’s say one activity and knowing that that’s okay too. Like we’re not best friends with every person that comes to train at the house. It’s an agreement. We’ve all agreed to gather, to help one another to push each other towards this positive goal and then we might go on with our lives. So I think that that’s how he kind of stumbled upon it.

Katie: Gotcha.

Katie: And to switch gears a little bit. I’d actually love to talk about the training side a little bit because you guys have something called XPT, which I’ve been doing pretty regularly in my own life. And I think it’s a really cool and unique method of training. So to start off, can you explain what that is?

Gabby: Yeah, well the pillars of XPT are move, breathe and recover. And you know, it was, we always say like, nobody’s really doing anything different. It’s just how you’re putting it together and just, you know, your kind of take on it. And so XPT was just a natural extension of some of the training we had been doing for many years and getting great results from. And so we work with a woman named Jennifer and Jen, who I’m very close to was like, you know, we should figure out way to share this and both Laird and I were like, oh my goodness. Like, you know, how are we gonna do that? Because we had people, you know, whatever 10, 15 people coming to the house and we were doing it as this very small group. And so anyway, so breathe, move and recover is sort of based on some pillars that we think are important. So breathing, which we were really in, you know, kind of inspired by Wim Hof and then since then had kind of added some things.

So there’s a book by Patrick McKeown called ”The Oxygen Advantage,” which talks about the real scientific reasons why we should all just be nose breathing unless you know, you’ve just done a hundred-yard sprint and even if you’re sitting in your office or how you can use the breath as a tool to up or down-regulate oxygenate your system, get ready for sleep, whatever it is. And I always say it’s, you know, it’s free and you can do it anywhere and it’s the most essential thing we do. So breathing is a huge cornerstone. We actually have an app that has many breathing routines on there. And then move, which, you know, our bodies are meant to move and people sometimes probably think, Oh, Laird and I, all our training is just killing ourselves. And that’s not true. I think real functional movement and then getting your heart rate up in a significant way twice a week, I don’t think it’s about killing yourself. I think it’s just about trying to move and move correctly, consistently and then recovery.

And so instead of just saying, Oh yeah, I take a day off, active recovery. So using the breath, maybe using heat and ice. We have an underwater pool training that we do where, you know, you’re able to do some pretty rigorous training, ballistic training and not smash your joints. But also there’s a way to use the water for recovery. So XPT kind of tries to encompass some of these thoughts and there’s different levels. You know, the pool is a little more you know, kind of regulated and who gets to teach it and things like that because it’s pretty serious. But it’s also pretty eye-opening and pretty fantastic. So XPT is just an extension of some of the training that we were like, Oh, this is really good.

Katie: And when you guys do it at your house, the XPT, you have an element of cold often as well, is that right?

Gabby: Yeah. So we have the heat and ice. And so our saunas are about 220 and then obviously a 32 degree ice tub. And you know, I always tell people with ice, if you go to lift weights, you don’t wanna ice close to lifting weights. You wanna let that tearing and that inflammation and that swelling, you wanna let that happen. Heat is always good. Now, if I was let’s say a basketball player and I’d have time for some reason, if I could get in an ice tub for a few minutes, that would help my performance. So it’s understanding where to use these modalities in ways that they support you. So, obviously, they’re both great for recovery. Ice is good for hormone regulation, mood enhancement. Heat has all kinds of benefits that people wanna look at the work of Dr. Rhonda Patrick, she has a lot of studies talking about the benefits of heat and the recovery and things like that. So, we definitely use that in a pretty rigorous way.

And what I tell people is, you know, Rubbermaid has giant, you know, kind of tubs with a drain. It’s like you and your friends all got together and sort of contributed ice two times a week. There is a way to do it and I know it’s not that easy, but it does make a big difference. Or even if they just take, you know, 30-second as cold as they can showers at the end of each day, there’s benefits there as well.

Katie: Yeah, for sure. And what I’ve seen in the research, like you said, saunas, there are so many benefits for cardiovascular and I’ve read that using it after exercise for instance, can also be beneficial to improve the effects of exercise. And with cold, I’d love to go a little deeper on that because I think women especially tend to resist the idea of cold because it seems so awful when you first do it. And it’s a regular part of my life as well. Like several times a week, I’ll spend time in the cold plunge. But I’m curious like talk a little bit more about why the cold can be so beneficial and how to start that if it’s something that seems really scary to you.

Gabby: Well, it is scary. I mean I think, you know, people have to realize it’s a primal fear. The number one thing you could do is when you get into whatever cold you’re in obviously a lot of people during cryo, so that’s a different thing. But if you get into it, I always say hold your nose slight under and let the cold pass over your face because now what you’ve done is you’ve actually triggered your body to be prepared to be in that environment. It’s actually weirdly easier. So if they’re using ice, if you’re sitting in ice and let’s say after a few 10, 15 seconds, your toes because of all your nerve endings or your fingertips are burning and you think, I can’t stay in here. What you could do is slide them out until you start getting used to that environment.

The other thing people can do that really does help you is nose breathe 7 seconds in and 7 seconds out. And what you’ll do is you’ll put yourself, the first 30 seconds is the hardest. You put yourself into your parasympathetic, so you’ll override your primal impulse to get the hell out of cold because that’s what it is. I mean, you see people have like a visceral response. So you’ve got hormone regulation. If, you know, for girls there’s a lot of discussion around brown fat and cellulite that it can improve all of that. And quite frankly, mood enhancement is a big one for the cold. I think based on studies that the heat is still the king of all, I do, based on overall health benefits, but the ice is something that when you can touch, what I say about the ice is in a way it’s meeting yourself. I’m uncomfortable. I’m afraid, I’m gonna find the way to calm myself down in that state. If you can take that tool to everyday life, then I think that this is what the benefits of training is really about. Training is not about like, Hey, I have 8% body fat and wow. It’s, “Can I make my organism function better in everyday life?” and the cold certainly does that. And again, it’s you having to deal with you and you can’t hide and then you go, Oh, I found the way, I found the way through my breath and through calming myself down to manage that stress.

Katie: I 100% agree with that. To me, the cold, it’s never, I wouldn’t call it fun, but it is the easiest form of meditation I know how to do. Because when you get in that cold, it’s easy to have a singleness of focus with your mind on just your breath and you’re not worried about your to-do-list or what you need to meal plan or any of those things. You’re able to just calm and focus. And I think also what you said is so important about training and being able to do something that’s difficult. Getting comfortable with the discomfort and stretching our minds’ idea of what we’re able to do. And for me, that’s the same reason I love to start every year with a pretty extended water fast is that when you go without something even as simple as food that you would normally eat every day, it teaches you about a toughness that’s in you that you may not see every day. You may not always encounter. And I think that has a rollover effect into parenting and into business and into relationships when we find that kind of like inner strength. And obviously you can speak to that much better than I can as an athlete. But I think that’s just a beautiful analogy that you’ve presented.

Gabby: Yeah, I mean I think for me at this point in my life, if everything doesn’t feed everything, then it’s probably not worth doing overall. Like, so what books am I reading? What food am I eating? What exercises am I doing? Who am I spending time with? If all of this for the most part is not, you know, feeding the greater good and my ability to function at a higher level, which would mean hopefully react less, love more, be less fearful. And again, meeting yourself in a pure way. You know, having 90 things to do in one day and being super stressed out and getting it all done, that’s a different kind of challenge. And I think a lot of us confuse that with actually stripping everything away and going, okay, now I’m in a discomfort that is actually good for me. That’s the other thing is I’m looking for positive stresses in my life, things that they’re stressful but they’re actually positive. And I think those are important to have a few of them.

Katie: That’s such a good point. And I’m also curious, I’m always fascinated by highly successful people and you manage parenting and a successful relationship and multiple businesses with Laird. I’m always so fascinated by people who achieve at that level and what their day-to-day looks like and what the non-negotiables are that make your daily or pretty regular list of things that are important enough to be part of your life. So to whatever degree you’re comfortable, can you just kind of share what a normal routine looks like for you?

Gabby: Yeah, sure. I think, you know, I also think, you know, people go, Oh, can you have it all? It’s like, well, I don’t know if you can have it all, all the time. I think you can have it all spread out differently. And I think that that for me is first your perspective. So my perspective starts with my expectation is not to be perfect. My expectation is not to believe I’m in control. I have, I try to be, you know, have a level of order and try to be as in charge and organized as I can be, but I’m not delusional any longer thinking, Oh, I’m in control and I’ve faced all my fears and all that. It’s like, yeah, no. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. So I think I come with a pretty practical perspective on things.

And then you have buckets, right? Like you have your family buckets, your self-care buckets, your work buckets. And I would put my relationship bucket almost separate from my family bucket in some ways because it is sort of in some ways a very different language, you know, a little bit. And then I just pick off what is the most important thing at that time. So I wake up in the morning, obviously Laird’s up before me because he just is, he’s kind enough the dishwasher gets unloaded. So when I come down, I deal with girl’s breakfast and just get ready the girls to school. Oftentimes he’s the one who will take them in the morning. Then we train. And having said that, if I have a shoot or a meeting, sometimes my training might go by the wayside on that day. But typically I train right away. Yesterday, I trained at 7:30 in the morning. And then it usually goes into, you know, sort of a good chunk of hours towards work and then back to family, kids, dinner, preparing dinner, cooking dinner and then maybe, you know, sort of another 45 minutes of responding to emails and what have you. But again, this is the overall set.

And what I do is I have flexibility and understanding like, Hey, my day is shot today, I have a shoot and three meetings. I’m not gonna get to train. I may not even be the one picking up my kids and I’m gonna just chill out and relax in that. Because I think what people make a mistake is when things get shifted or they have to adapt or it’s not how they want it, they really get stressed out. And I think that the powerful thing is to have acceptance and be like, well this is what’s happening today. But I’m very good about focusing on one thing at a time, but many of them in the day.

Katie: Such a good point. Yeah, you can’t have everything all the time, but you can have it all sometimes. I think that’s such a good perspective. And often for moms it does feel like we have to try to do all the things all the time. And so taking that step back and that deep breath is a really helpful perspective. A question I love to ask for the end of interviews is if there’s a book or number of books that have really dramatically influenced your life, if so, what they are and why?

Gabby: Well, I don’t… I mean, I think it’s always a combination of things that, you know, depending on where we are, like in our lives you know, I recently read, I won’t say it completely changed my life, but I read… I’ll just share with you some of the recent stuff I’ve been reading. ”Becoming Supernatural” by Joe Dispenza. Sometimes for me, I’m very analytical and also I go back to very old habits of survival. So when I was a kid, I didn’t have a particularly secure childhood. And so, you know, he’ll sort of say you’re living in your one, two and three, your lower shockers, right? Which is just really about survival. It’s like food and shelter and it doesn’t really allow you to get into the mystical, right? And even though I’m a big dreamer, I am, sometimes I recognize I spend too much time in that weird low, my lower self.

And so reading that just kind of reminded me even having emotions of anger or being, having things when I’m having it with people, you know, he calls himself limiting emotions. It’s like when they start to bubble up and I go, okay, that is actually gonna hurt me, so it’s not even worth it. And I think that that at this time in my life was a great reminder. I recently read Ryan Holiday’s book on stillness and I have to always, you know, I’m trying to be more still. I’m trying to think of like a book that just blew my head open and sort of made me look at everything different. But I think it’s just been a constant accumulation of, okay, now I’m ready to receive this message at whatever time in my life. And so those are the more recent because I’m really trying at this phase in my life to not try to control everyone’s feelings, to being comfortable that not everyone’s gonna like me or agree with me and that I might be the bad guy sometimes, to trying to drop information off regardless of other people’s reactions, but to be in love. That’s the other thing though is like how do I try to stay in love because I can get…mean is comfortable for me because that’s connected to fear.

And so I have to really always manage that. And just, you know, try to keep stripping it down and taking ownership of the things that are triggering me. That was a big one. I read a book last year by Byron Katie and it’s like if I’m in a situation and you say something to me and I respond strongly, not only is it probably true, but it’s a trigger for me because it’s something that I recognize I’m trying to deal with. So I think there’s been some stuff recently where, you know, you just keep looking back at yourself in the ownership. And if I had a new baby, there was a book called I believe it was like keep your…”Hold Your Children as Close as You Can.” What was it called? And it basically said, you know, like until your kids are like 11 or so, you have the grit, that’s your time to influence them because then their friends will start to influence them. And that was a really ”Hold Onto Your Children as Long as You Can,” I believe it was called. That was a very good book as far as parenting. But yeah, I don’t know that I’m a person who would like be going along the road and read a book and then we’d switch. But right now those books continued to help, you know, kind of impact my thinking.

Katie: I love that. I’ll make sure those are all linked in the show notes. And I think what you said about triggers is so vital as well. I have a friend who says never waste a trigger, meaning like triggers are a really good insight that there’s something going on there. And so rather than like lean into that anger or lean into whatever it is, use that as an opportunity for self-reflection and to figure out what’s going on because it really can be a gift if you let it kind of teach you versus letting yourself just fall into the anger of it. And it’s also interesting what you said about fear and anger being an easier state. I can totally understand that and see that and that’s a beautiful point to stay in, love and kindness, instead of that. I think there’s also a perfect place to wrap up. I’ll make sure all those books again are linked in the show notes as well as all the resources we’ve talked about. But if someone wants to stay in touch with you and follow your work and learn more about XPT, where can they find all of that?

Gabby: XPT is xptlife.com. And like I said, we have a breathing app that, you know, it’s hard to meditate on your own. So one of us either Laird or myself or Mark Roberts or PJ, Nessa who’s, you know, they’re incredibly talented movement and programming people that we are fortunate to work with. They’ll run you through. It can be short or longer depending on what your realities are. And I’m on Instagram, it’s just Gabby Reece. But, you know, I always encourage people that, you know, it’s also the reminder that kind of everybody is doing the best they can. But, you know, even though life is scary and having kids is scary and all of that, I think sometimes when we learn to surrender into it, which is incredibly challenging, believe me, there’s something that happens that’s easier and I have really learned that in the last few years about, I can’t make it different than it is. So can I sort of surrender to certain things? And even with your kids, you know, that’s a big lesson. If you sometimes can surrender or not put up the resistance, whatever it is that they’re going through, especially that you don’t like, they usually will get through it faster if you don’t put up resistance.

Katie: That’s a great point and a perfect place to end. Gabby, I know you’re very busy. Thank you so much for spending time today. This was so much fun.

Gabby: Thank you. And I hope everyone is making sure, even if it’s for a few minutes just to take care of yourself first because I find that to be the best first line of defense.

Katie: Absolutely. And thanks to all of you for listening and for sharing one of your most valuable resources, your time with both of us today. We’re so grateful that you did, and I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of the ”Wellness Mama” podcast.

Source: https://wellnessmama.com/podcast/gabby-reece/

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