010. Breathe Again
Characters: Mattie, Ally & Kumawhat'shisname
Genre: Humour
Rating: K
Time Period: after Awesome Night

The Closeted and the Superhero

"Okay, what about this?" Mattie took a deep breath and puffed her chest out in an attempt to make herself look more confident.

She was well aware of the fact that she was definitely not successful in doing so... "Hey, Mom." She attempted to throw a calm, collected smirk at her reflection. She loved having a full-length mirror in her bedroom. Where else would she be able to awkwardly practice these sorts of things without anyone seeing her?

Her attempt at a smirk looked more like she was in pain, so she hurriedly just slipped into her normal, rather nervous expression. "So...um...this may come as a bit of a shock for you. But, guess what? You're never going to have to worry about me getting pregnant and having to drop out of high school!" Insert pained, nervous giggle.

Pause.

Before turning and throwing herself onto her bed, groaning in irritation. "That was even worse than the last one!"

Kumajimi—or whatever her dog's name was; she could never remember, which was pretty pathetic, considering the fact that she had named him—stared up at her from where he'd been sitting on the rug, watching her humiliate herself with a blank, rather confused expression. Like he wasn't entirely sure who she was...

Why in the world was this so difficult? Her mom loved her. Her sister loved her. It wasn't like they were going to kick her out of the house just because she happened to not be...well...straight.

Ally would probably have a complete freak-out once she found out which girl it was that she happened to be dating. But that would just be because Ally wasn't exactly Gill's number one fan. To put it into the nicest terms.

"Maybe I should just come right out and say it." She jumped up and turned back toward the mirror, setting her hands on her hips in another attempt to look more confident. How in the world could Gill do this all the time? Attempting to assert herself made her feel sick to her stomach. "All right. Mom, Ally, I know that this will come as a bit of a shock to you. But I really want you to support me in this." Another deep, calming breath. "I wanted to tell you that I'm a lesbian."

"Who's a lesbian?"

Insert minor heart attack here. Mattie shrieked at the top of her lungs at the sudden voice coming from her bedroom door—which had been closed up until this point; why in the world did Ally have such a problem with respecting her privacy?—and then whirled around so fast that she managed to completely knock herself off balance. And ended up crashing right onto the floor. Painfully.

"Ally! What part of knock before entering don't you understand?" Her heart was pounding in a panic. How much had she heard? Having Ally overhear her attempting to figure out how to tell the family that she was a lesbian was not how Mattie wanted her family to find out that she was a lesbian...

"Basically all of it. Sooo~" And now Ally skipped inside, glancing around for a moment before she plopped down onto her sister's maple-leaf comforter. Looking up at her with big, curious blue eyes. "Who's a lesbian?"

Apparently she'd only heard the last word... "Nobody's a lesbian."

"Aw, come on!" She bounced a couple times. "You can tell me! I won't tell anyone else!"

Mattie sighed. Why in the world did she have to have such a nosy sister? "It's none of your business, Ally."

"I won't get mad! I don't care if one of our friends is a lesbian!" She kept bouncing, managing to bounce one of Mattie's stuffed animals—a polar bear—onto the floor. Kumafiji turned his head to stare at it for a moment, but then seemed to decide that it wasn't worth exerting the energy to go get it. "Who is it? Tell me! Pleeease~?"

She was attempting to use the puppy dog eyes against her. Mattie didn't really know why, since it had never worked before. She'd long ago grown immune to any of her sister's attempts to be cute.

...Mattie knew that her sister wasn't going to leave until she told her something, though...

It—it might be good to just tell her now, she thought. Let her get used to the idea. They could have a nice, calm talk, sister-to-sister. And then she could tell Mom later tonight. Tell them that she was dating Gillian. Maybe she could bring Gill over for dinner at some point.

Eventually. After giving her pointers on how to interact with people in a way that wouldn't convince them that she was absolutely insane.

"I—I—well—" Yes, she could do this. Ally was still staring at her with interest, hanging onto every word... Okay, just say it... Just say...

"Gill is writing a play and she wants me to play the lead and I was just practicing my lines. That's it."

Not that.

She was just as surprised by her words as Ally, who just sat there, blinking up at her in surprise.

"A play?"

"Y—yes." She sincerely wanted to kick herself right now. "I'm playing a girl. Who's trying to come out to her family..." Hesitant pause. "I was just—you know—trying to think how her family would react."

Ally blinked up at her for a few moments. Seriously, why had she come up with that lie? She had terrible, terrible stage fright. There was no way that Ally would believe that she would ever willingly agree to play the lead in any kind of play.

"Wait, so the albino freak wrote a play and you're helping her with it?"

Wince. "Yes?"

"Dude!" And she was startled again when her sister jumped out of her seat and stomped her foot irritably. "Not cool!"

"Huh?"

"If anyone's going to write an awesome play that you're going to be in, it should totally be the hero!" And here Ally inserted a dramatic finger-point to herself. "I could write a play that's a million times better than anything that the albino freak could write!"

Why did Mattie feel like she had just created a monster?

"It'll be called 'The Adventures of Ultrahero'! Starring the super heroic heroine and her trusty sidekick, Mattgirl! Or something like that. We can come up with better names later. And we'll fight against the Evil Doctor Albino and her henchmen, the Tomato Bandit and the Rose...something... Like I said, we'll come up with better names later."

She'd definitely just created a monster.

"And...and...Artie can be a jewel thief who turns to the side of good after he is defeated by Ultrahero!" She clapped suddenly, apparently having completely forgotten about what she'd overheard. Since she seemed incredibly excited by the story playing out in her head. "And then he is later kidnapped, along with Mattgirl, by the Evil Doctor Albino and her evil henchman! And—and the Evil Doctor Albino will come up with an evil plan, but will be foiled last minute by the Ultrahero!"

...Did Ally seriously not notice that she'd just cast Arthur into the role of 'love interest of the hero'? How in the world could she be that dense?

"Dude! I have to go and write this down!" Apparently she hadn't, since she just suddenly jumped up and ran off. Just like that.

Leaving Mattie standing in front of her mirror, staring at her empty and rumpled bed. Not entirely sure how to respond to what had just transpired.

"Um, well..." Maybe she'd just wait to tell her family about Gill. Just a little while. Just until she worked up the nerve... "I guess... I mean, they don't really need to know right now. Right, Kumahimmo?" And now she turned toward her dog. Not entirely sure why, since it wasn't like he could answer her.

Especially since he'd decided to curl up on her rug and fall fast asleep.

...Typical.

A/N: We're a tenth of the way through! Woohoo! In honour of this milestone, I'm going to be putting up a new poll. Which two of these 10 stories are your favourites? Just out of curiousity. I think I'll probably do the same for every 10 stories in this series. Because it'll be interesting to see which stories people like the best.

Al and Gill are both so ridiculous. It makes me laugh. xD

And that superhero plot? Yeah, I totally have an alternate AU of this AU that involves superheroes and is sort of similar to what Al outlined. A little bit. I don't know if I'll ever actually get to it. But yeah, it's there in my head. Squished with all the other millions of plot bunnies.

And I have no idea how this relates to the prompt. She had a minor heart attack when Ally came in and then could 'breathe again' when her sister managed to distract herself and stopped asking questions?

*shrugs* Whatever. I couldn't really think of anything better. And I've wanted to write this one out for a while.

Next Prompt: MEMORY