A/N: Several days ago, something life changing happened. I stumbled upon Pluralpedia dot org. This is a Wikipedia-style website that lists and defines terms commonly used by the plural community. I first learned that the plural community existed several years ago, and it made me very happy. That community has always seemed so relatable. But I did not have an entry point into it, until now.

The plural community is the community of everyone whose identity is more complicated than "I am a single individual." This includes people with alters (commonly referred to as multiple personalities), people who switch between distinct states, and others. While doing a deep dive on Pluralpedia, I found the term "neuronarration." This describes a kind of immersive daydreaming, different from regular daydreaming in that it involves connecting to a paracosm and may result in the formation of paratives. Regular daydreaming is something that the daydreamer has complete control over. They decide who appears and what happens, down to the smallest detail. The daydream lasts as long as they want, usually is goal oriented, has no or a very simple plot, and can be tossed away and forgotten about once it's no longer needed. Neuronarration is different. A neuronarrator doesn't have complete control over their daydream, and they can't possibly. The daydream is too big. It is the size and complexity of a whole separate world - a paracosm. It has an enormous, detailed, and realistic plot. The people in it have unexpected depths, appear out of nowhere, and do unexpected things that the daydreamer cannot stop them from doing. They may realize that they are in an imaginary world and escape from it to become an alter - a parative.

I've known for years that my inner worlds, which are the source of my writing, are not under my full control. I have wondered why that is. For years of my life, I've been asking questions here and there and keeping my eyes peeled for something to explain why my writing is different from other people's writing and my characters are different from other people's characters. They're in no danger of becoming paratives - I do not currently have a system of alters for them to join, and anyone who's read this far knows they're perfectly happy to stay in the story. But I always knew my writing experience was different, and I couldn't explain why or even how it was different. Finding these words is a life changer for me. And one of them led to a Tumblr blog (Autistic Worlds) where the author frequently talks about her experiences traveling among her inner worlds. I found a word for it and a way into the community. Perfect.

I share this in the hopes that anyone who follows this story this far has a good chance of being able to relate to my writing process. To you I bestow these words.

.

Kisame

Kisame had to turn off the sound on his phone. He did check to verify that there was nothing life threatening going on first. He only saw people debating their world's status as fictional, non-fictional, or something else, with a dash of metaphysics and parallel worlds thrown in. Itachi must be having a field day. I'll probably hear all about it later. He went about his work like normal. As soon as he thought about the shark tank, he remembered that Samehada would have things to tell him. He grinned. Check in with Same, then Itachi. Then maybe have a nice gossip session. When did I become a social butterfly?

Anticipation must have made him move faster than usual without realizing, because he finished his duties just as the janitor lady was starting her rounds. The last time he'd done that was when he was racing to rescue Samehada from the tank. How long ago that was. "Hey," he greeted her.

"Hey." She kept her eyes on the floor.

Didn't she look at me as if she liked me once? Why so unfriendly now? "See ya 'round." He shrugged it off and walked out.

As soon as he pulled into the parking lot of the hotel, he broke out into a huge grin. He parked and raced inside. "Where's my favorite shark?"

"Watching Hidan play a racing game," Itachi said.

Kisame knocked on the door of the game room before opening it. Samehada squealed and raced toward him, climbing up Kisame's legs and onto his chest before Kisame could even try to pick him up. "I'm glad to see you too," Kisame told him as they hugged. "I want to hear all about your adventures."

"If you need me as a translator, call me," Hidan offered. "But try to do it yourself first. You're his human, not me."

Kisame took Samehada back to his room. They sat on the bed together. "Alright. I'm here and ready to listen. Tell me."

Samehada chirped and wriggled back and forth. Then he began to tell a story. Kisame could tell it was a story because Samehada used his head and tail to indicate traveling to different places. Things, probably other creatures, moved. There were a lot of sounds, many of them not created by animals but rather river or wind sounds. Kisame could not have translated the story into words, but as he listened and watched he got the impression of moving through a living place filled with fellow creatures and things to delight in. The sheer…livingness of the forest could not have been translated by anyone. Samehada's sounds described it perfectly. At the end of the story, Kisame was surprised by a burning sensation inside of him. It was envy.

Samehada rumbled happily. But it wasn't long before he tasted the air, and when he did he started to whine. He nudged Kisame's leg. "It's okay," Kisame told him. "I'm just incredibly jealous of you."

Samehada started to growl. What's going on? Then Samehada let out a roar and bit the air angrily. What the hell? "Are you okay?" Kisame asked.

Samehada pointed his tail at Kisame. This time, his meaning was unmistakable. Are you?

"Uh…"

Samehada jabbed his tail at Kisame again and opened and closed his mouth repeatedly. It didn't look like biting the air. It looked like speaking.

"...About what?"

Samehada growled.

Oh! He understood me. I'm jealous that he can tell that kind of story, so he wants me to try and tell that kind of story myself. He's going to teach me how to do it. Kisame raised a hand. "Okay, okay. Just promise me you won't laugh."

First, he had to think of a story that could be told that way. He needed something that could be described mostly in sensory experiences. Kisame realized he did not have any memories that consisted mainly of sensory experiences. He didn't remember things that way. Every event that happened to him was connected to some kind of concept and filed away as a series of ideas, not images. In order to tell a story the way Samehada told it, he was going to have to retranslate his memories back into their original form.

"I talked to a friend today," he muttered. "Um…" What did I see, what did I hear, what did I smell? "She looked happy to see me. She smiled. There was water on the floor, so I cleaned it. The, uh, stingrays were swimming around peacefully, moving their wings like this as they circled around the pool." He mimed the motion with his hands. "They didn't make a sound. No way they spilled the water. And there was no human around but her. She made it up just to have a chance to talk to me."

Samehada's tongue lolled out. He was loving the story so far. I can't be doing too bad.

"She talked to me while I mopped. I didn't see her, but I could hear that she was smiling. She asked for my number so we could call each other and share gossip. We had a short talk about what gossip's good for. Nobody disturbed us. It was just me and her in that open hall, talking a little quietly, but we didn't have to whisper. The stingray pool's very open. It's not in an enclosed room. Anybody could just walk right in. But I didn't think of that. I didn't feel exposed. It was like we were in our own bubble. I felt safe."

I felt safe? Kisame had never noticed that before. All he noticed was his paranoia, the times he didn't feel safe. He noticed it because the ideas didn't coexist harmoniously - feeling unsafe while nothing dangerous was happening made no sense. Things that made sense - feeling secure while talking with a friend - he did not notice. The feeling of security was getting filed under the idea of Nothing Interesting. Hold on a second. I am very interested in that, actually.

Samehada cheered and flipped back and forth, propelling himself right off the bed. He got back on the bed and continued cheering. Kisame blushed. "Yes, it was a good idea. No need to make that big a deal out of it. It's not like I rediscovered relativity."

Samehada pointed his tail somewhere at Kisame's upper body. That's as high as his tail can go. Is he pointing at my head? He growled and bit the air, shaking an imaginary piece of prey back and forth before ultimately throwing it far away. Then he pressed his snout into Kisame's chest and rumbled in that soothing way of his.

"I have no idea what you just said," Kisame told him. "Something about my head?"

Samehada nodded. He gripped Kisame's hand gently in his mouth and tugged on it. Kisame followed him back to the game room, where Hidan was teaching himself how to perform flips in a racecar. "Yahoo!" he cheered as he landed wheels down. He paused the game and turned to them. "Alright, whazzit?"

"He pointed at my head and then acted like he was attacking something," Kisame said.

"Did you do it? Did you break the mind trap?" Hidan asked Samehada.

Samehada nodded.

"Mind trap?"

"Yeah, you know, that thing Sasori told him about where people are unhappy because of imagined problems," Hidan said. "Sammy hates it and wants to destroy it."

"He asked me to tell a story based in the senses," Kisame said. He looked at Samehada. "You did that in order to pull me back to reality?"

Samehada cooed and licked Kisame's hand, then nuzzled his leg.

Kisame knelt down so he could hold Samehada's head in his hands. "Thank you." Samehada curled up in his lap for another hug. Kisame felt on the verge of exploding from gratitude. A simple "thank you" was not nearly enough. How do I show how I feel?

Hidan purred. "You guys are making me swoon," he said. "I think you're kicking out enough of a lovey-dovey aura that anyone would."

Aura! Right! Kisame gave Samehada his hand to suck on. Samehada tasted some of his chakra and let out a high pitched sound that straddled the line between joyous and painful. The possibility of pain set Kisame's nerves on edge. He hugged his shark closer. "I love you, Same."

Hidan made a bunch of incoherent sounds before falling over. He lay on the floor with his eyes rotating. Samehada went completely still, then relaxed completely, melting so that he nearly slid out of Kisame's arms. Kisame chuckled. I've never said that before.

.

Eventually, the moment had to end. Samehada was still melted and Hidan still lay on the ground like a stunned cartoon character, so Kisame had to pick up Samehada in both arms and carry him back to the room. He then asked around for Konan, and found her interrogating Yahiko in the lobby. "When you're done with that, you might want to check on Hidan in the gaming room," he told her. Then he went back to his own room. Samehada was so completely relaxed that it was impossible to tell if he was asleep or not.

Kisame shut the door for privacy, then pulled out his phone. True to her word, Tammy picked up after two rings and told him he was on speaker. If he heard sizzling sounds, that was why.

"You're on speaker too," he told her, then put her on speakerphone. What the hell. I want Same to be part of this. "I don't know how to chat, so you start."

"Tell me who those people were that I met when we were doing the thing."

"Huh. Who was there that night…" Kisame gave it serious thought, then realized he was wasting his energy. "They were members of this giant friend group I've become part of. There are ten of us, I think. We live together and do stuff." When I actually say "we live together" out loud, it sounds so weird.

"Ooh, there has to be exciting drama. Sitcoms would kill for that kind of setup." She was practically panting. "Are any of them dating?"

"The group has two members who act as co-leads. A guy and the only girl. They're dating each other, and he's also dating another group member, and the group member that he's dating has unrequited feelings for another."

"Oh. My. God. I want to know all the details."

"Those are the details."

"No, like, the details. When did they get together? Is everyone really okay with this one guy dating two people? What about the guy with unrequited feelings? Does his crush know about them?"

Kisame answered her questions as best he could. But no matter how thorough he tried to be, she would find more questions to ask. What stage were they in - casual dating, serious dating, angling for marriage? Had they said their "I love you"s yet? The two people he was dating were brother and sister? And they were both completely okay with sharing him? Did Kisame know this for sure? Like, had they explicitly said so?

"For the last fucking time. This arrangement is completely normal. Of course they're okay with it. It's totally normal. You're acting like there's a scandal, but there isn't one."

"Are you kidding me? Your friend group is headed by a polycule. How could I not be fascinated?"

"A what?"

"Nevermind. So that's one drama down. Come on, there has to be more. Grudges? Old rivalries?"

"No, we all get along great. Or, well, we do now. I should probably tell you all of their names." He did so, and identified who he had already told her about. "Do you think you can keep all those names straight?"

"Yeah."

"In the beginning, Konan and Yahiko had this huge beef."

"Because Nagato was crushing on him?"

"No. Konan has like PTSD from some freaky shit she went through, and Yahiko hit all her buttons. He drove her literally crazy. Literally. She did a bunch of wild things, like run away if he got too close to her and attack him this one time when he did something that triggered a flashback."

"Oh." Tammy didn't sound nearly as interested in this as she had been in minor social dramas. "But you said they get along now?"

"Yahiko grew up and stopped being such a neurotic mess, which means he stopped pressing all her buttons. You want to know something crazy? He doesn't resent her at all. Not even for attacking him. He's totally devoted to her, her best friend."

"Seriously? Not at all?"

"He doesn't know how to hide his feelings. If he resented anybody, it would be obvious."

"What about Nagato? On the one hand, she's his sister. On the other hand, she attacked his crush."

"No tension there," Kisame reported. But why not?

"Seriously? Your friend group has the material for twenty seasons of a sitcom, and you're just wasting it!"

"Hey, sitcom characters can afford to waste all their time on petty dramas. They barely have jobs, rarely see family, and never seem to have lives of their own outside the cameras. We've got other shit to worry about."

"Like what?"

"Philosophical matters. Religion. The meaning of life. What it means to be an adult. Mental health concerns. That kind of stuff."

"...You sit around discussing the meaning of life?"

"Yeah. It's not weird. It is very relevant to our current real-world concerns."

Tammy laughed. "You have the craziest friends! Half sitcom, half study group for philosophy majors." She laughed again. Kisame pictured her bent over her stove, trying not to faceplant into a frying pan.

"You've got it all wrong. A third sitcom, a third study group for philosophy majors, and a third group therapy session. Maybe a quarter of the first two, and half group therapy session."

"Darn. Does that mean the best drama is covered by HIPAA?"

"No, this is a HIPAA-free zone. I can tell you everything."

"Good. So, any other grudge matches?"

"Hidan and Kakuzu have a mixed dynamic…"

Time passed. Kakuzu realized it was time to find and consume food when his stomach growled. He also noticed his eyelids were heavy. "Dammit. I would love to tell you more, but I have to eat and get to bed."

"Oh, shit, it's late. Go, go!" Tammy ended the call.

Kisame let his hand, which was a little sore, fall into his lap. Samehada chirred. "That was fun," Kisame realized. "I really enjoyed that." Samehada licked his head. He hauled himself to his feet, groaning. "What's happening to me…"

Yahiko

Yahiko went to bed with mixed feelings. On the one hand, he had been ordered to play video games. Best orders ever! On the other hand, he hoped that wouldn't ruin his enjoyment of it. He liked to meander around exploring all the side questlines. And on a third hand, there was the completely unrelated matter he was stressing over. Should I actually do it? Show up to a group meeting in my other form?

This scenario had never been anything more than a hypothetical, a tool that he used to measure his overall comfort with his gender. He had never thought of actually doing it. Where this new idea had come from, he couldn't say. It just appeared as Konan was interrogating him. He couldn't stop thinking about it; it was simultaneously frightening and very, very tempting. I think I know what everybody's reactions would be. But I need to know for sure. And it might be less stressful to get it over with all at once. They might welcome me in like they did when Kakuzu got his cloak. He concluded that he would do it at the next available opportunity and went to sleep happy.

The next morning, he woke up happy, too. He buzzed out of his room and down the halls to mingle. He saw Konan doing the same, though she probably called it patrolling. "How's Hidan?"

"He is fine. He suffered from an acute emotional overload. Before you ask, they were happy emotions."

Yahiko grinned. "The best kind!" He continued on to the kitchen. Just before entering, he heard hushed voices. He stopped.

"I guess most people would be," Nagato said inside the kitchen. "But I'm a very relaxed person. I don't like to get angry, and I'm not any good at it."

"It's odd that you're not even uncomfortable," Kisame said.

"Why are you asking about it now?"

"...I might have told a coworker who I get along with some things about my friend group. She likes gossip. She pointed it out."

"Hold on. Excuse me. You gossiped?"

"Hey -"

"No, no, I'm not being accusatory. Sorry. It's great that you were comfortable talking with about us with someone else. But since when are you that comfortable?"

"Since a long time, actually."

"...Who are you and what have you done with Kisame?"

"No, I'm being serious. Same made me tell a story the way he tells it, where everything is described from the senses. As I was describing what I saw and heard, I remembered feeling safe. I hadn't noticed that I felt safe before because it made sense. I notice my paranoia because it doesn't make sense. If all the memories I have where I didn't notice anything were ones where I felt okay, then I'm one hell of a lot less paranoid than I thought."

"Huh. Well, keep it up. I'll tell Konan, make sure she's on board with you talking about us to an outsider."

Yahiko leaned around the doorway. "The way you were keeping your voices down activated my ninja instincts. Sorry. I'll tell her."

He found Konan patrolling the other hallway. "Itachi is putting together a search plan as we speak," she told him.

"Kisame has a new friend who enjoys gossip. We wanted to make sure it's okay with you to talk about this group that way," he told her.

Konan tilted her head. "What sort of gossip?"

"Uh…"

They went back to the kitchen, where Kisame and Nagato were boxing up their lunches in silence. "Hey Kisame, what kind of gossip does she like?" Yahiko asked.

"Gossipy gossip," Kisame answered. "The sort that teenage girls like. She loves talking about who's dating who, grudge matches, that sort of thing. Sitcom-style drama. When I mentioned a serious mental health issue, she got bored, and I don't think ninja stuff is relevant to anything she's interested in."

"That is acceptable," Konan said.

"What search plan is Itachi making?" Yahiko asked.

"He is inventing ways to search for and identify other fictional worlds."

Nagato turned around. "Kisame, did you get the news? Yahiko found concrete proof that another fictional world is infringing on this one. But get this: he knows it's fictional because he can interact with it as a fictional property. So it's both real and fictional at the same time."

"Holy shit," Kisame swore. "So any movie or TV show we watch could potentially be real? Or become real?"

"That is the possibility that Itachi is investigating," Konan said.

"Wish me luck," Yahiko told Nagato. "I've been ordered to play video games. I'm going to show Konan the major characters and questlines today."

Nagato looked at Kisame. "Foreign girl, from another place and culture, getting introduced to our culture through video games." He looked at Konan. "What are your opinions about video games so far?"

"They're beautiful," Konan answered. "Your advanced technology has been used to make stories and art come to life as living beings that a person may interact with. That is the most wonderful use of advanced technology that I can imagine."

"What about ending world hunger?" Kisame asked.

"That is something anyone can think of, and it does not require advanced technology in order to do. This was a stroke of divine inspiration."

"If your friend doesn't love that, she's nuts," Nagato told Kisame.

"I'll find time to tell her," Kisame promised.

General

News of Kisame's new friend spread rapidly throughout the group. Everyone knew of her by the time they had to leave for work. Nagato was not the only one to take inspiration from this. Kisame received at least half a dozen suggestions for things he should gossip about. Even Sasori approached him! "What the hell is going on here?" he finally snapped.

"I want to find out what a normal person thinks of it when they think we're normal too," Sasori answered. "Laurie has known we're ninjas from the first day I talked with her. It changes how she treats us. Being an NPC doesn't stop that."

"So everybody wants me to gossip so that they can be treated like normal people? I don't get it. We are treated like normal people when we hang around town."

"No NPC other than Laurie sees us as a group, though. I might be treated like a normal person, but my dynamics with you and with Kakuzu and Deidara aren't. Your new friend is the only NPC to be interested in our group life and see us as normal." Sasori got a dreamy look in his eyes. "What might it be like, if we were normal?"

Samehada made sad sounds. Kisame glanced at him. "You guys just want to feel…ordinary?"

"To be treated as ordinary," Sasori corrected. "When you get back, I want to know everything. How easily she compared us to other people. How quickly she dismissed something. What she thought was important. All of it. Laurie thinks everything we do must be special and amazing. What does she think?" He went around Kisame to exit the lobby, since he had to go to work.

"Ordinary friends," Kisame muttered. "Not a ninja group. Not a bunch of clones whose originals used to work together. Not a giant group therapy session. Just ordinary people who spend time together because we enjoy each other's company and for no other reason." A pause. "I've never had ordinary friends." Another pause. "I want to know what it's like too."

Samehada made supportive rumbles as he went out to his car. As Kisame buckled the seatbelt, he said, "I always assumed you would be worried or threatened if I got other close friends. But you're not. You're happy for me and for everything I can do with their help. I was projecting my own fears onto you, wasn't I?" Samehada made a trill that sounded like agreement. "I was a big fraidy cat. Especially because I couldn't admit that I was."

Everyone agreed; it was a great start to the day.

.

A/N: I read a book recently about teenagers. It was called The Teen Interpreter. It had at least one chapter where it talked about the value of gossip, and why teenagers tend to enjoy it so much. In brief, gossip is a way of putting together and managing a social map, a map you keep in your head of who's connected to who and in what way. Young children don't have extensive social lives. In order to prepare for the adult world of communities several hundred strong and politics and complexity, the teenage brain focuses almost all of its energy on learning how to build these social maps. Gossip is an essential resource, and learning how to participate in it is an essential skill, for typical adult socialization.

Before I read that, I couldn't see the point of gossip. I thought of gossip as a bad thing, which is how it's typically referred to. My understanding of how to socialize has taken a big leap forward.

This was an important week. Sadly not every week can be like this, but I will always treasure this one. See you all next time!