"Y'know Serra, you should really take a break sometime." Serra peered over her laptop screen, across the desk, raising an eyebrow at Lucy. The Lucy in question was leaning back in her chair, a broad grin on her face below her flame-red mullet.

 

"I might find that a little easier if you pitched in more - we've got a lot to do to get this psych tutorial ready."

 

"Hey, I did my bit!" Lucy protested, still keeping her voice hushed despite this bit of the university library being deserted. "You're the one who wanted to rewrite it - I've got my own coursework to focus on."

 

Serra panned her eyes over Lucy, lazing in the chair. "Which clearly you're doing right now," she said dryly. Somehow Serra still managed to look adorable even when she was scoring points off you, with her dyed-white hair bluntly cut, and a dusting of freckles across her face.

 

"I'll have you know I'm practicing the 'necessary focus required for self-hypnosis'." From someone else, that might have sounded sincere, but Lucy's sly smile as she quoted their lecturer undermined it.

 

"Suuuuuure, definitely not just recovering from your hangover from last night." Serra dismissively turned back to her computer, hammering at the keys just a little harder. The pale light of the computer screen made the bags under her eyes stand out starkly - it was assignment season, and she'd been burning the candle at both ends.

 

And that was when Lucy Got An Idea. Serra was right, she did need to practice her coursework some more - and they were currently covering therapeutic uses of hypnosis. And Serra was clearly overworking herself, if ever there was a therapeutic use; there was one sitting right there in front of her.

 

As usual, Lucy imagined an angel and a devil popping in on her shoulders like something out of an old cartoon, ready to debate the case.

 

"You can't just hypnotise your coursemate like that! And this isn't even slightly therapeutic, you just want to mess with her!" The Angel said, nervously.

 

"Oh, Lucy definitely can," the Devil grinned. "Remember how easily Serra dropped during the demonstration? And how adorably dazed she looked coming up again? Of course I wanna mess with her!" Lucy could hear the evil grin in her voice, and the edge of a smirk crossed her face at the Devil's thought.

 

"Without her consent? Subject agency much?" The Angel struck back. "Or were you paying that little attention in class?"

 

"Oh, no, I was - enough to figure out how to hypnotise someone anyway. First, Serra's already tired, second, she wants to take breaks but can't quiet her mind enough - and third, we know she's got a thing for Lucy, the only reason we haven't acknowledged it is that it's more fun to use it to mess with her.

 

"But you-"

 

"Here," the Devil cut across. "Let me demonstrate, Angel."

 

"W- what?" For the first time ever, the Angel sounded unsure, her righteous armour cracked. Lucy listened with interest, even turning her head slightly as she imagined the worried form of the Angel wringing her hands in the corner of her eye.

 

"You're as much a part of Lucy as I am, and I bet Lucy would just love to see that sort of thing, right?" Lucy caught herself partway through a nod, before realising she was responding to an imaginary character. "So that means..." the Devil paused, the drawn out silence of someone playing with their food, "you can be hypnotised - in a certain sense it's inevitable. Right?" Lucy nodded again, this time more deliberately, a curious glint in her eye.

 

"So just listen." The Devil's voice grew soft and smooth, like honey, and Lucy was struck with the memory of the hypnosis demonstration a few lectures ago, how she'd also felt herself relaxing. The Devil's voice was so much nicer to listen to than the bored, rote tones of her professor reading off the script though. "Listen, my dear Angel, and just relax into my words, into my control. It must be so tiring thinking of those pesky moral objections, wouldn't it be so much easier to let me do all the thinking for us?"

 

"I- no- you can't-" The Angel stammered, her voice weaker than it had been just a few moments ago.

 

"Oh, but I can - you can already feel it, can't you? How you're relaxing, just sinking into my voice?"

 

"I- y-yeah..." The Angel's voice was so dazed and adorable - Lucy imagined that might be how Serra would sound when she hypnotised her.

 

"And it's so easy to just repeat my words, isn't it Angel?"

 

"Repeat your words..." said the Angel's dazed voice. Unnoticed by Lucy, Serra's eyes flicked up from her laptop for a moment, curious. Then she shrugged and went back to typing.

"Relax," soothed the Devil in one ear, and a moment later- "Relax," the Angel's empty voice echoed in the other - Lucy shivered at the feeling.

 

"Sink" "Sink"

 

"Go deeper" "Go deeper"

 

Wait a second- thought Lucy. But then the Devil snapped and hissed "drop" in her ear, and her thoughts staggered. And then the Angel did it too, and Lucy fell into the deep darkness of trance.

Serra was caught up in the flow of tutorial-writing, already thinking about how she'd go about presenting the material, when a flash of movement caught her eye above her laptop screen. She peered over, seeing Lucy still leaning back in her chair, but with her eyes closed and chin resting on her chest.

 

An amused grin crept onto Serra's face. And here we see the party girl in her natural habitat, recovering all the energy she spent staying up all night. And still looking damn good- Serra cut off that line of thinking as her cheeks burned red. Thankfully Lucy was asleep, or she'd never let her live that one down.

 

Serra was about to get back to it when Lucy's head suddenly snapped back up, her eyes opening but unfocused. And then she blinked, her teeth baring in a sharp grin, a predatory look in her eyes. "Well, hello there, Serra."

"Uhh. Hi?" Serra said hesitantly. Lucy kicked her feet up off the table, standing up and walking around - somehow infused with even more confidence than she usually did. Serra was so transfixed by the change that she didn't realise what was happening until Lucy was squatting down beside her chair and resting an arm across her shoulders.

 

Serra could feel the warmth of Lucy's arm against her neck, and barely suppressed a squeak of gayness. "L-Lucy, what-" then lost her voice as Lucy chucked her chin affectionately, and a huge blush spread across Serra's cheeks. This close, she could see all the details of Lucy's eyes, the vibrant orange flecks around the pupil, the cool blue at the edges of the iris.

 

"Serra," Lucy purred, and Serra felt her cheeks get even hotter - if such a thing was even possible. "You've been working so very hard lately - don't you need a rest?" Serra was about to object, but Lucy nodded her chin for her. "And you know just how easy it would be to rest if you just looked into my eyes."

 

Serra gasped as she realised - finally - what was happening, but couldn't find it in herself to resist. "Very good," praised Lucy, and Serra felt a warm feeling of contentment as Lucy's eyes moved like she was smiling. "You're already halfway there, aren't you? Feeling just how tired you are, how much you want a rest like that lecture the other day. Didn't you like that? Letting your brain be quiet for a while? You can feel that."

 

"And as your mind gets quieter and stiller, your eyes will get so very heavy." The moment she heard the words, Serra could feel her eyelids starting to droop. "When those eyes close, you'll be completely hypnotised and under my spell. Wouldn't that be nice?" Serra's head was nodded for her again, and she didn't even think to resist this time.

 

"Wonderful, so let those eyes close now." Serra felt her eyes close inexorably, helpless even if she wanted to do anything. And her thoughts dissolved. Sitting next to her, holding her chin as it sank towards her chest, the Devil grinned widely.