Sonmi's Couples, Characters and Writing - Posting Welcome

[Sonmi-451]

Selena. Thank you for coming.
Thank you for having me.
You may begin whenever you like.
The sole love of my many lives is a woman who happens to be my cousin, or my cousin who happens to be a woman, dependent on which evil you view as greater. I know what you're thinking: this is repulsive and unnatural and what the hell is wrong with me, and you're not even a social conservative. Well, trust me, I didn't choose this for myself – after all, who would ever choose to love someone they knew they could never have? – and, if I could have chosen to love Carl, I would have, a thousand times over. But I wasn't able to – who you love, in terms of both gender and identity, is something you have no say in, apparently – and so here we are.
The vast majority of my early memories include Kasena and, despite the fact that I always knew her as my cousin, that I always recognized the fact that we share a pair of grandparents, the revulsion for romance that is natural between blood never occurred between her and I. In a sense, I suppose you could say I never truly learned that it wasn't okay to love her romantically, or perhaps I realized that and my heart simply didn't care; the reason for my love of Kasena doesn't really matter now.
I think I was around twelve the first time I realized I was looking at Kasena the way she was looking at Sean, and everything from there on out for me went downhill, to use a common cliché. At first, I had hope that perhaps Kasena felt the same way, that we could ignore the fundamental problems with a relationship between us and live out a 'happily-ever-after' of sorts by ourselves, away from the judgmental public eye. The fact that Kasena would date boys but quickly became disinterested in them, like she was restless and looking for something, fueled my fantasies, because I believed that maybe she was like me, that maybe deep down she liked women too and she simply didn't want to admit it to herself. Her asking me to become her blood-sister when she was sixteen and I was fifteen nearly sent me over the edge and made me confess everything, because I viewed that as an admission of her love for me, but I – wisely in retrospect – kept my mouth shut and simply accepted her offer, the whole time loving and hoping from the sideline.
When she was eighteen and lost her virginity with Sean, I was totally devastated. What I had been fearing those last five years had finally happened: I had indisputable proof that Kasena was straight, that she would never be mine. I suppose I probably knew that fact all along, ever since I became old enough to truly notice interactions and saw that Kasena treated men like I wanted to treat her, but the reality finally setting in was excruciating. I spent many nights after that awake with worry over what I would do if Kasena found serious male company and – God forbid – actually got married; essentially, I wasted so many hours fearing what would happen if I lost Kasena completely in terms of potential romance. Kasena, being my blood-sister, of course sensed all of this inner turmoil I was experiencing but simply thought it was stress about going off to college. You know, she has one of the best pairs of warrior's eyes I have ever seen, but when it comes to seeing and understanding people she can be very nearly blind, and it is because of that that my attraction to her wasn't discovered earlier. The fact that she didn't really understand love or know what love felt like also let me hide for a little while longer.
There was a string of one-night stands after Sean for Kasena, all of them done in the hope of discovering a cure to her terrible insomnia – well, really it's more of a compulsion with being awake, but either way anything that drives her to not rest for ten days is dangerous, and Kasena recognized that just as well as the rest of us. Despite the fact that I knew she was simply trying to help herself, each night I could feel Kasena with a man cracked my heart a little deeper, and by age twenty I had officially given up on any hope of Kasena ever being mine from a romantic sense. That capitulation, of course, didn't do anything to solve my problem of loving her, but nothing in nearly three thousand years has done anything to affect that.
I began searching for someone to ease the pain of the hole Kasena had drilled in my heart, someone to hold me on the nights Kasena was with someone else and no amount of alcohol could drown out the sensations in my mind, and that was how I met Carl.
I hate to interrupt, but you seem to speak of Carl very fondly, despite the fact that I remember Kasena mentioning that he cheated on and eventually left you.
It is true that Carl did cheat on and leave me, but don't take that as a reflection of his character. He was a wonderful man who loved me in vain for nearly thirty years as well as an excellent father to two beautiful children.
Anyways, I remember the night we met vividly: I was at The Bolt, a bar downtown where I could always get free drinks because the owner Mark absolutely worshipped my mother, and I was sitting in the stool in the corner that was always reserved for 'Lizzie's daughter.' I was drinking a Scotch – one of many questionable habits I learned from Kasena – when I heard someone next to me and looked up to find a young man about my own age sitting in the seat next to me and smiling over at me.
“Do you maybe know of any good drinks in this place?” he asked me, and I remember being struck by the way his hair curled against his temples and the way his eyes twinkled behind his glasses.
“Well, I'm currently drinking Johnny Walker Scotch, but I honestly think it tastes like horse piss and the only reason I'm drinking it is because my best friend loves it,” I answered, and he laughed, and it was then that I fell in love with Carl Magnus Salans' laugh.
“How about I get you another drink then?” he said, and he called Mark over and got us both Heinekens. That was also the night I fell in love with that wonderful green bottle.
When Carl and I finally parted ways that night, we had exchanged phone numbers, and he promptly called me at seven o'clock the next evening and asked me out to dinner three days from then.
We had gone on ten dates when I finally brought him into my bed, and that was the first time I had been with anyone, male or female. I never really planned on being with anyone, much less a man, but Carl was a welcome distraction from Kasena and he was sweet and gentle and incredibly nice to be around. Six months later I found myself married to Carl, and the morning after our honeymoon I was finally consumed by guilt and told him everything: that I was in love with my female cousin, that I had never really meant for things between him and I to go this far, that all of this was essentially an accident, and he was far more accepting and understanding than I would have thought possible.
Instead of becoming wildly angry or demanding a divorce on the spot or being repulsed by me, he simply responded that he had suspected there was something between Kasena and I from the beginning and that the only thing he wished I had done differently was tell him earlier. When I – more shocked by his reaction that he was by my confession – asked him what he wanted to do about it – as in, whether or not he wanted a divorce – he told me, “Selena, I married you because I love you, and I think that you could come to love me too, and I will wait expectantly until that day comes.” Then he kissed me on the mouth and pulled me back into bed.
I think that, from the very beginning, I shared Carl's sentiment: I think that I always believed that, at some point, my heart would realize how wonderful and good for me he was and I would forget about Kasena and love him. Unfortunately, that never happened, and after thirty years of waiting for me, Carl finally realized that I would never come around and so, for both of our sakes, he went about forgetting me, which involved cheating on me and leaving me. He never really stopped loving me though, just like I never really stopped loving Kasena.
Kasena said earlier that you and Carl were actually separated for a month before his death.
That is correct. He and I both took painstaking measures to make sure that no one would discover the fact that our marriage had deteriorated, because doing so would force me to explain the fact that it never had a truly solid base to begin with. You see, even after I had essentially betrayed him for thirty years, Carl still wanted to help me. He was such a wonderful man, the kind of man that you only run into once in an eternity.
I apologize; I am getting needlessly nostalgic. Anyways, yes, that is correct. His death was – dare I say – at a convenient time, because keeping up the charade was starting to become increasingly difficult, and his death gave me an excuse to release all of the sadness I kept bottled up inside of me.
Sadness? Are you inferring that you did in fact love Carl?
That is a common misconception many people have that apparently you do as well: the fact that I did not want Carl from a romantic perspective didn't mean at all that I didn't love him. In reality, I loved him more than I have ever loved another person besides my children and Kasena, but the affection I felt for him was solely platonic.
Because of this, Carl's death greatly affected me. I had just lost one of the most important people in my life for the last thirty years, and I found myself suffering from withdrawals of his presence. I missed his smile and his laugh; I missed the way there was always something on his glasses, no matter how many times a day I wiped them; I missed the way his mouth felt on mine; I missed his quiet, gentle strength; I missed his arms around me every night. For the first few days after his death, I curled up with a few borrowed bottles of Kasena's Johnny Walker horse piss and alternated between sobbing and drinking and apologizing to God and Carl for my mistreatment of him, and on the third day someone finally dared to approach me.
I opened the front door and found Kasena standing there, her hands in her pockets and the wind tossing her long black hair back and forth. Before I could say anything, she stepped forward and hugged me, and I remember noticing how she smelled like hot chocolate and her citrusy leave-in conditioner.
“You've had a rough last few days, eh?” she asked when she pulled back, and I gave her a wordless nod to have her pull me into the bedroom and hold me against her and stroke my hair and tell me, “Go to sleep, Selena. Go to sleep.”
I had shared a bed with Kasena on other occasions – when we would go on raids, that was all we did – but that night was different. That night was so much closer and more personal that it sparked the fantasies I had forgotten for more than thirty years, and I found myself utterly and hopelessly in love when she left the next morning.
I continued to see Kasena throughout the next thirty years of my life – we saw each other every week at least, although our encounters were almost always more frequent – and, as I grew older, I could sense her guilt and pain over the fact that I grew older and weaker while she stayed the same. She blamed herself for my mortality, and nothing I could do or say would convince her that there was nothing she could do and that it certainly wasn't her fault that the immortality gene had skipped me.
Finally there came the day when I knew for certain that I was going to die, and so I called in all of my family and friends so I could see everyone I loved one last time before I died. Kasena, as I requested, was the last one to arrive, so she was the last one to see me alive.
As I lay on my deathbed and stared up at my best friend and my one big mistake, the one love I should have never felt, I wanted so badly to tell her everything, to spill my guts and explain my love and my guilt and my pain, but even as I lay dying, with no more than a half an hour left to live, I couldn't summon up the courage to tell her the truth. Instead, I told her that it wasn't her fault – not that the repetition of that sentiment did any good at all, of course – and that we would meet again in another life because we were blood-sisters for eternity.
And you have met again in another life.
Indeed we have, in a life where I am finally in the body Kasena knows again.
Do you consider that a coincidence?
I spent twenty-nine centuries and forty-one lives tracking Kasena down, and in many of those lives our paths missed crossing by five minutes or five seconds even. No, I do not consider the fact that I have finally found Kasena as Kasena's Selena a coincidence.
If you don't mind me asking, how are you handling Kasena's engagement to Sean?
I am wildly happy for her, because she has finally found someone to love her like she deserves and whose presence lets her actually sleep, but also incredibly jealous and heartbroken because I am watching the person I have wanted for two thousand, nine hundred and eighty-four years marry someone else even after I have revealed my feelings.
So Kasena knows?
Of course she knows. I would not be talking to you today if she did not.
And how is she handling the news?
She is understandably stunned but surprisingly unaffected. She doesn't seem to feel awkward around me – she certainly doesn't act any differently around me – and, most important of all, she loves me just the same.
How has Sean reacted to everything coming out?
He wasn't particularly surprised; he, being incredibly observant of people as well as hopelessly in love with Kasena, undoubtedly suspected from the beginning. In all honesty, he is seemingly unaffected by the news as well. He knows that Kasena and I are blood-sisters and so anything between us is strictly between us, and he simply seems to accept me as a compatriot in the club of Kasena's unknown admirers.
And your mother?
After what happened with Xavier, my mother truly can't be particularly disgusted with my love for Kasena, and God knows she certainly doesn't have an issue with me liking women. She is more concerned with the fact that she finally has her daughter back.
So what will you and Kasena do from here?
What we did for the seventy years we were blood-sisters: I will love Kasena one way and she will love me a different way, except this time we will be able to understand and accept the differences in our forms of affection. But one thing is for certain: we will continue to love each other, as we have done and will do for all eternity.

Kasena. I wasn't sure you would be able to make it.
Well, I'm here, for better or for worse. Hey, you got any Scotch on you? I could really use a drink.
There's some in the cabinet to the left.
[Long pause]
What? Did I drip some on myself?
No, not at all. It has just been a while since I have seen you, Kasena. I had almost forgotten how much you look like your father-
-Except for the eyes, I know. Your guess is as good as mine as to where those came from.
[Long pause]
Selena mentioned your drinking habits almost fondly.
Did she? Huh. She certainly never spoke of them fondly in our first life together.
Selena also mentioned your sleeping habits with far less fondness.
Oh, the fact that I have terrible insomnia? Yeah. Although it's more of a compulsion with being awake, really, and it's so strong that my record is ten days on my feet without sleeping.
You sound terse.
Well, this is kind of a hell of a lot to take in. I mean, I had the woman in my head for seventy years – seventy years! – and I never knew; hell, I never even suspected! It's just... how could I have been so ignorant to the true feelings of the person I thought I knew best in the world?
Well, to be fair, you have kept some rather large secrets from Selena in return.
Oh, you mean the blood polarization thing? Yeah, I guess that is kind of a big thing to keep from her.
Refresh my memory on what exactly your condition is.
Well, it's pretty simple: because a quarter of the blood in my body is Kuro's, or the god of evil's, and a quarter is Tom's, or the god of good's, it's unstable mixed together like it is, because their blood was never meant to be blended. The result of this instability is that there's a ninety-seven point three percent chance that, at any given point in my lifetime – it could be in a minute, a day, a year, a thousand years – the blood in my body will polarize and I will die an excruciatingly painful death. There's also a two point seven percent chance that I could live forever, barring any other ways of dying.
So you could die at any given point during this conversation?
Well, I wouldn't die immediately. First, I'd get hit by convulsions and waves of pain so powerful that I'd go in and out of consciousness, and then I'd be able to feel – with incredible accuracy, by the way – the blood in my body literally separating and moving to the two different halves of my body. Then my body would start to glow, half-white and half-black like I can already make it do, and, when it's all said and done, the official cause of death would be cardiac arrest because no heart in the world can pump hard enough to make unmixable blood mix.
How do you know that that is exactly how will you go? Have other instances of blood polarization occurred?
Yeah. You know the town on Titania, Dengelemek?
I've heard of it, yes, although I've never been there because I've never really been one for the off-world colonies.
Well, dengelemek means balance in Turkish, and the whole town is almost a little tribute to me. The place was technically founded by Abigail's children, so Lizzie's great-grandchildren, all of whom have opposing blood like I do because of Kuro being married to Abigail. Because of this, there have been numerous cases of lethal blood polarization, although mine – if I'm ever so unlucky to have it happen – would apparently be much worse because the ratio of good blood to evil blood in my body is exactly fifty-fifty, whereas everyone in Dengelemek has far more evil blood than good blood so the polarization doesn't tend to be as severe. Hell, there have even been cases where people have survived it – not that I can hope to be that lucky, of course.
And there is no way of discovering whether or not you are ninety-seven point three or the two point seven without you dying?
Nope. The only way to tell will be if I suddenly experience what I described earlier and drop dead. Then we'll know that I'm the ninety-seven point three.
So you essentially have had the threat of sudden, excruciating death hanging over your head your entire life?
Yeah. I worried about it at first, but then I just stopped caring. I mean, if I'm going to die like that, then oh well. There's nothing I can do about it.
[Long pause]
You mentioned the town of Dengelemek was sort of a tribute to you. How so?
Well, if you live in that town and you've got split blood, you're entitled to a yin-yang tattoo right in between your shoulder blades on your sixteenth birthday.
A tradition that I assume was started by you?
Yep.
Would you mind showing me this infamous tattoo?
'Course not.
[Long pause]
Well, it is exactly as you described: a yin-yang sign right between the shoulder blades.
Yeah.
How was the age sixteen first decided appropriate to receive such a tattoo?
Well, my dad figured that if I was old enough to drive a car and therefore seriously injure myself and others, then I should be able to mutilate my skin with whatever the hell I wanted – given that he approved of the tattoo first, of course.
And I'm presuming he required you to get his approval first simply because he wanted to make sure the tattoo was worthwhile?
Yeah. He didn't want his daughter getting a rainbow peace sign on her nipple or something like that. Besides that, my dad's got no problem with ink; hell, he's got tattoos himself.
Yes, I remember distinctly when he received his last one.
Hm.
[Long pause]
So, after all the recent revelations, what is your relationship with Selena currently like?
I don't really know, honestly. I'd like to think it's unchanged, that the twenty-nine centuries and all the uncovered dirt between us and our first life together don't really matter, but I'd be ------------ myself if I really believed that.
Has her demeanor towards you or your demeanor towards her changed significantly?
Not really, thank God. I may know that she's in love with me, but she's still my Selena and I'm still her Kasena and that's never going to change.
You are very devoted to her.
Well, yeah. I carved her initials into my thumb and took her into the back of my head twenty-four/seven. I bonded my soul with hers for eternity. If that's not devotion then I don't know what is.
If you don't mind me asking, why did you never tell Selena about your blood polarization and the possible death awaiting you?
There just never seemed to be a good time. Besides, I didn't want to worry her with it. I mean, I know, as the person who would be the most affected by my death, she had a right to know, but I didn't want to force my suffering upon her. I figured it'd be easier and better if I died suddenly without her knowing why than her knowing my cause of death after constantly worrying about me dying.
You know, Selena confessed to me that she wanted to tell you the truth about her attraction to you on her deathbed but just was never able to work up the courage to do so.
We're cowards in the same vein then. Except she's less of a coward than I am, because it only took her two thousand, nine hundred and seventy-two years to come around and tell me the truth and I'm still keeping secrets.
Do you plan on ever telling her?
Yeah, I do. She certainly deserves to know – she's always deserved to know – and I think she'll be able to handle it better now, now that we know that death is not forever.
You still don't sound completely convinced about the idea of reincarnation.
It's not that I doubt it – hell, Selena wouldn't be here, forty-one lives after we first met, if it wasn't real – but I doubt that it will work for me.
Because you are immortal.
Exactly. Selena's mortal, so she's been given lots of chances and lots of lives. But me? I think this is my one shot, my one life, because that's the price I pay for being exempted from the reincarnation cycle. I guess if you look at it from that perspective, Selena almost got a better deal than I did.
Selena mentioned you blamed yourself for her mortality.
That's true. I always thought it was unfair that a person like me, a person who would never amount to much, should be given forever when a person like Selena, a person to change the world, should be given only a lifetime. Except now it looks like Selena might have longer than I do.
[Long pause]
How do you personally feel about Selena being in love with you?
Well, aside from my initial shock, my first reaction was to feel awful for Lizzie. I mean, her first son gave himself to her when he was fifteen and so is totally, completely, utterly in love with her for the rest of eternity, her daughter is in love with her brother's daughter, and Timmy, the only child who didn't have incestuous urges, died a thousand years ago, and, by all reports, might have been a borderline sociopath simply because he didn't care, because he was indifferent to the world.
How do you view all of the... struggles of the second generation of Gates'?
As a whole hell of a lot of bad luck for Lizzie. I mean, she's an awesome woman, and I'm truly honored to be half-named after her.
Yes, I remember when your father announced your name would be Kasena Elizabeth. That was one of the very few times I have seen Elizabeth Eleanor Marie Gates cry.
Yeah, Lizzie definitely didn't see that one coming. Anyways, I have to imagine she was an awesome mother as well – God knows she loves her children totally, despite all their issues – so not a one of her children turning out normal, even by immortal standards, is just a huge piece of ------ luck in my mind.
How do you think Selena feels about her love for you coming out?
I think she knew that it was inevitable, that there was no way she could hide a secret that big from even someone as blind as me for forever. You know, when I look in her eyes, I see it now. The love, and the self-loathing... I was waiting outside the door, and I couldn't help but overhear you guys. Selena called me her big mistake. Is that really what she considers her love for me to be? A mistake?
I... you will have to ask Selena about that one.
But that's what she really needs to know: that loving someone isn't ever a mistake, no matter how poorly-timed or poorly-situated the affection seems to be, because good comes out of every love. A lot of people feel bad for Lizzie and Xavier, because he'll never have children or a life that doesn't revolve around his mother. But loving her gives him purpose and lets him know that he's still truly alive and prevents him from succumbing to the depression of immortality. I know that a lot of people are going to be pitying Selena and I now too, but we don't need their pity. If it weren't for Selena's love for me, we would have never become blood-sisters and the seventy wonderful years we spent together would have never happened.
So you are saying that you almost are grateful for Selena's love for you, then?
Not almost; I am. I would have never intimately known the most amazing woman in the universe, the woman I am privileged beyond all belief to be blood-sisters with, if it weren't for her attraction to me. Do I wish that her love for me had been purely familial? Of course, but simply because loving me like she does is never going to turn into anything or get her anywhere; all it will do, all it can do, is hurt her. But I would still take a Selena romantically in love with me over a Selena indifferent to me any day of the week.
How do you plan on moving forward in your relationship with Selena, then?
I plan on keeping it as much the same as possible.
Meaning?
She'll love me one way and I'll love her another way and, even though our love might not be the same, it'll keep us together. For eternity.

[dogshrimp]

:3 i LOVE it

[Sonmi-451]

The door opens, and I look up from the Time I'm reading, a smile unfolding on my face as I feel a wave of joy wash over me at who that must be.
“Luke,” I greet when the door opens and it does turn out to be my husband, and I set my magazine down to rise to my feet, cross over to him and give him a welcoming kiss, my hand cupping the back of his neck and his soft hair tickling my fingers.
“You taste like Nutella,” I tell him when I pull back, and he smiles down at me from underneath long blonde lashes. Luke as a whole is not pretty – Luke is gorgeous, but in a purely masculine way – but his loving sky-blue eyes are two of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.
“I got some at Safeway and couldn't resist the temptation on the drive home,” he tells me, and I grin at his predictability. My husband's infatuation with Nutella is a permanent thing, it seems, and his infatuation with me is even stronger and more lasting.
My husband. Even almost eight months after the wedding, those words still don't feel real, still produce a giddy feeling inside of me every time I say or think them, because it's almost impossible to realize that something so wonderful could have been birthed by the horror of the Triple Crown.
Unbidden, the image of a little girl with blonde hair and blue eyes and blood blossoming on her chest lying in my lap in the snow rises to the forefront of my mind, and my eyes sting with tears as I hear Abby's voice saying to me, “I’ve always known that you were different, Lizzie. I’ve always known that you are one of those people they write fairytales about. I hope people get to read about you in a couple hundred years, Lizzie.”
No, not now, I command myself, and I force my mind off of the subject of Abby and back onto the subject of my incredibly attractive husband standing in front of me. Reaching my hand up again, I tangle my fingers in his hair and kiss him deeply, smiling against his lips when I feel his arms wrap around me and hold me to him.
I pull back for a moment to meet his gaze and find his blue eyes slightly darker with desire, and my smile quickly becomes a smirk as I kiss him again, removing my hands from his neck to slide them underneath the hem of his shirt and tactilely explore his muscular, scarred torso. I know there aren't sparks flying from my fingertips – that has happened quite a few times, actually, and I'm learned to recognize the feeling in my hands – but he reacts as if there are: he is electrified, and he kisses me more urgently, his hands slipping under my shirt and simply resting on the bare skin of my waist.
When I withdraw again, both of us are breathing heavily, and I smile at Luke again as I see his mouth slightly open and his eyes almost dark blue with desire. Slowly and deliberately, I remove my hands from underneath his shirt to help him pull it off, and my want for him diminishes some as I trace the burn scars, the scars I gave him just the same as if I had locked him in a burning house, on his chest and arms. However, Luke is having none of that, as he still wants me quite a bit, and he purposefully takes my hands off his torso and drops them at my sides to kiss me fiercely, his hands coming up to cradle my face with his callous fingertips resting on my cheeks.
He pauses for a moment, gazing deep into my eyes, and I grin at him almost predatorily as I slip my fingers into two of the belt loops on his shorts and back him up with me and eventually pull him down on top of me as we collapse onto the couch. He gazes down at me for a short moment, his eyes searching mine to make sure this is really what I want, before he lowers his head to kiss my throat and moves to cover my body with his.

“You were murmuring something when you were kissing me,” I say absently, my head resting on a couch cushion and my fingers idly tracing the scars that cover him nearly from head to toe, as I realize what his lips moving against my skin must have been. Looking over at Luke, I meet his gaze and ask him, “What was it?”
“I love you,” he responds with an adoring smile, and he gently brushes his lips against my forehead. The light gesture, which almost feels more intimate than any of the heavy stuff we do, makes me shiver slightly, and he reaches a hand up to stroke the side of my face in an equally gentle gesture that produces the same results. “I love you,” he repeats as I rest my head on his shoulder, reveling in the warmth and softness of his skin, and my lips curve into a smile as I kiss his throat, feeling his steady heartbeat underneath my lips and tasting him: sweat and boy and desire and, above all, an unconquerable, unconditional, permanent love, the love to outlast everything, even death.
“I love you too,” I breathe against his skin, and now it's his turn to shiver slightly. Almost involuntarily, as a sort of reaction, Luke wraps the blanket we're tangled up in tighter around us, and I smile at the fact that it gives me an excuse to get even closer to him, to touch him even more.
Luke simply gazes down at me for a moment, his stunning eyes tracing my face as if he is trying to commit my features to memory, before murmuring, “You have the most beautiful eyes.”
Luke's favorite color is gold like my eyes, just like my favorite color is blue like his, and I can't help but smile again. Being with Luke is like having an IV drip of pure happiness in my arm. “No, I think that title goes to you,” I tell him, reaching a hand up to touch his cheek. “I mean, I may have the more beautiful face, but your eyes... they are the most stunning things I have ever seen.”
Luke stares at me for a moment more, seeming to be almost in shock at my words – although he really shouldn't be, seeing as I've said them to him before – before finally saying, “I love you, so much,” and I smile as I rest my head on his shoulder and simply let myself be with him.

It's ten o'clock at night, my hair is still damp from the shower I took a little while ago, and I'm just finishing up checking my email when Luke's voice calls to me softly, “Lizzie, come to bed.”
That is all the motivation I need to quickly log out of my email account and shut the computer to turn it off, and I turn around to find Luke watching me, his hands behind his head on his pillow in a pose that emphasizes the muscles in his arms.
I smile almost involuntarily – seeing him just makes me happy for no other reason besides the fact that I am in his company – and cross the room to slip into bed with him wordlessly, resting my head on the pillow next to his and one hand on the fabric of his black T-shirt over his chest when he rolls over to face me. He returns my smile and leans in to kiss me, his lips gentle on mine and his touch almost hesitant, like he's waiting for something.
“Oh,” I murmur aloud when I realize what he's waiting for – permission to do more of what we did earlier – and, with an even bigger surprise, I find that I actually don't want to do that, that all I want to do is just sleep.
Luke arches a questioning eyebrow at me, and, when I shake my head, he actually doesn't look that surprised or disappointed.
Still, I tell him explanation, “I just want to sleep tonight, Luke,” and he nods his head in understanding, a small smile curving his lips as he gazes over at me.
After a moment, he wraps his arms around me and pulls me toward him, our bodies fitting together as if they were made for one another, and murmurs in my ear, “Good night, my love.”
I smile at his use of that term – I've always loved the way those two words roll off of his tongue and become something more, his own, unique name for me that no one else will ever be able to say correctly, because it is a name that belongs on his lips and his lips alone – and, as I relax at the feeling of our bodies intertwined, I echo, “Good night, Luke.”
He kisses my forehead gently, his lips curving into a smile against my skin, and in the gesture is such an impossible amount of love for me and acceptance of my mistakes and shortcomings and understanding of me that I can't help but wonder how Luke could ever think he's the lucky one in this relationship, because I am truly the most blessed girl to have ever lived because Luke is mine.

[Lierre]

I LOVE it! i loved the ending! thank you SO much!

[Sonmi-451]

Spotting Min was easy: look for the perfectly-tanned feet and ankles dangling off the end of a chair beside the pool and the numerous boys hovering around, waiting for their chance to impress her. Occasionally one would go up to her with his winningest smile and his shirt off to show his six-pack to walk away a moment later looking confused and annoyed.
As he approached, his eyes fell to her ankles, where the golden crescent moons that he knew no one else could see glimmered in the sun, and he felt emboldened by the fact that his knowledge of her was far, far beyond any other boy's there. Hell, they couldn't even see as she really was; he, at least, knew the secrets of her blood.
Without looking up from the book she was reading - Lady Chatterly's Lover, by D. H. Lawrence - she told him, "If you haven't read The Art of War or heard 'Nearly Witches' by Panic! At the Disco, get the hell out."
"I've done both of those things at your insistence, actually," he responded, accentuating his Texas drawl because he knew she liked the sound of it, and a smile curved her lips as she closed her book and looked up at him.
"Jackson, hey," she greeted, removing her sunglasses so as to better see him with her eyes still shaded by the brim of her black-and-white fedora she often described as the love of her life. If he were to be honest, he hoped he'd be able to change that at some point.
"Here, I saved you a seat." She reached over and pulled her green Nike gym bag off the chair next to her, and there was a collective sigh of disappointment from her crowd of admirers as Jackson settled down into the chair with a smile and a murmured thank you.
"Reading the classics again, hm?" He pulled a random book out of her bag to find that it was Dante's Inferno in Italian. "And multilingually too."
"Hey, Dante's Inferno is just about one of the greatest books of all time, especially when you can read it in Italian and get all of the intended nuances," she responded with a smile as she snatched the book from him and sat it next to her on her chair. "In fact, I think I'll be reading that after I finish Lady Chatterly's Lover." Her grin turned teasing for a moment before falling off her face completely as she seemed to take him all in for the first time.
"Christ," she murmured as she stared at the scars that covered his torso: pinpoint silvery needle holes, ragged silver slashes that acted as proof of the perils of disobedience, numerous small uneven marks from fights in the facility and outside world.
"You're hidden, right?" She looked up at him for confirmation and he nodded; just as only he could see the crescent moons on her wrists and ankles, only she could see his scars, which were like silver ink on the white paper of his skin that spelled out a very tragic story indeed.
Gently she reached over and touched the inside of his forearm, where a whole row of needle holes was, and he couldn't help but tense under her fingertips; part of it was his innate wariness of anyone and everyone and part of it was the fact that it was Min, stunning Min who he had always admired but thought would play with his heart for a while before casting it into the mud, touching him. She noticed his tension, of course - Min noticed everything - but she didn't removed her hand and instead slid her fingers up his arm to feel the needle holes on the swell of his bicep as well.
"Do they still hurt?" she asked quietly, and he was so distracted by her prolonged contact with him that he found himself answering completely truthfully.
"Sometimes, when I feel about Lexy. It's almost a shadow-ache, like my body remembers the feeling of the pain that made them so well it duplicates it unnecessarily." The honesty of his answer surprised him, and he watched her carefully as she studied his torso, her hand still on his arm and her eyes distant.
After a moment, she snapped out of her reverie and finally removed her hand before standing up and stretching luxuriously, revealing to the world exactly how much tanned skin a bikini on a five-eleven runner's frame shows.
Then, in a move that stunned everyone but Min herself, she bent down over Jackson, entangled her fingers in his gray-blonde hair, and kissed him firmly on the mouth. When she pulled back, her luminous golden eyes on his and her long brown hair cascading down around her face, she studied him for a moment, her hands still in his hair, before saying, "Jackson, you were always the one I was waiting for," and pulling away completely to make her way over to the popsicle stand on the other side of the pool, every boy in the place staring after her but only one really understanding her and waiting for her to return.

[rascal lover]

Pets:
Pet's name: Pinkswirl~~ Mate with Ramond
Adopt virtual pets at Chicken Smoothie!


Pet's name: Raymond~~ Mate with Pinkswirl
Adopt virtual pets at Chicken Smoothie!

Story Type: Romantic/ Friends/ Creative.

Genders of Pets:Pinkswirl is a teen girl and Raymond is a teen boy

Other: In highschool.

You have great stories! You are very creative! Thanks!

[aquamarine]

you know there's a special thread for this :3

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=327595

[dogshrimp]

ill put another couple :3 when you finish other peoples stories

[Sonmi-451]

“So why exactly did you break up with Tejuyo again?” Kellan asked Cassandra as he gazed over at her, looking up from his coffee and revealing even more profoundly the hollowness, exhaustion and inexorable agony of his eyes.
Cassandra, not wanting to see such emotions in her best friend because they reminded her that she had failed again, that Maria was an unfortunate repeat of Selena that she wasn't able to prevent, quickly lowered her eyes to her own cup of coffee – which was spiked with whiskey that wasn't doing anything to cloud her mind and therefore her overwhelming sense of guilt – and answered to the drink, “I could tell that he was never going to be anything more than a passing fancy for me, I guess you could say, so I thought he deserved to be let go before I broke his heart too bad.”
She snuck a quick glance up at Kellan to find him watching her almost wearily, and, upon catching her looking back at him, he reached out, laid a hand on hers, and told her quietly, “Cassandra, this isn't your fault. There's nothing you could have done, and the only thing you can do now is stop persecuting yourself for crimes you did commit and you could not have helped.”
“But Kellan, it is my ------- fault!” Cassandra burst out, angry that he was determined to be the pariah; that was her job, and he had no business stealing it. “After Selena, I made a promise to myself that I would never let you go through that again, and lo and behold I failed. I failed ------- miserably, in fact.” After pausing for a moment – and taking the time to give all of the other customers in the cafe who were watching them because of Cassandra's bad-mouthed outburst dirty looks – she added, in a quieter and more desperate tone, “Kellan, what am I going to do if you get suicidal – like you have every right to be – over this? I don't want to be left alone for the rest of eternity, Kellan.”
“Cassandra, you weren't the only one who made promises to yourself,” Kellan murmured, his tortured golden gaze captivating her sharp sky-blue one. “In about 600, after I stopped drinking enough to be considered lucid, I promised myself that, no matter how much pain I felt, I wouldn't give into it, because I could never leave you after everything that you had done for me. I couldn't consider myself your friend if I quit and left you alone when things became difficult for me. Trust me, Cassandra, I will never leave you.” He reached out, took her hand in his and entwined his fingers with hers, his palm warm and callused and incredibly familiar against her skin.
Suddenly Cassandra felt Kellan jolt and stared over at him concernedly to find an all-too-familiar look in his eyes, one that she had seen directed at her exactly three times in her five thousand and three years and one that she would never forget, even if she didn't have an eidetic memory.
It was an expression of all-encompassing, permanent and unbreakable love, love that transcended time and space and death; it was the passion that accompanied giving oneself to another person, or making a person the center of your universe – your everything, essentially. It was what Kellan had done to Selena – he had spent nearly one thousand years drinking to dull the pain of her death – and then Maria – it had only been three weeks since her death, and Kellan had resorted to completely withdrawing from society to deal with the pain; in fact, this was the first time he had left his house since her death – and now apparently what he had done to Cassandra as well, which meant that, for the first time in the forty-six hundred years they had known each other, he must have viewed her differently, as something other than just a friend.
“Oh, ----,” Cassandra instinctively exclaimed upon registering the look in his eyes, and quickly grabbed Kellan by the hand and marched him out of the cafe and out to her car.

“Kellan, why the ---- did you have to give yourself to me?” Cassandra groaned as she collapsed onto her couch with a glass of Scotch – only the best stuff – in her hand. All of a sudden she felt exhausted and had an overpowering urge to punch Kellan as hard as she could, to see if she could knock some sense into him.
“Cassandra, it's not like I tried to,” he told her, taking a seat across from her in one of the chairs in her living room and unconsciously leaning towards her in order to be as close to her as possible, and Cassandra could just feel his desire for her radiating off of him. He wanted her more than any man ever had in five millennia, and being able to see that so clearly was almost unsettling. “It just happened, and there's nothing either one of us can do about it now.”
“But Kellan, how are we supposed to proceed now? I mean, it's not like we can just pretend like nothing happened and continue our Platonic relationship, so what are we supposed to do?” she questioned, and it wasn't until afterwards that she recognized the folly of her query.
“Well, I have an idea,” Kellan told her, and rose to his feet to cross the short distance between them, take the Scotch glass out of her hand, gently pull her to her feet, and kiss her, his arms wrapping tightly around her.
Instantly Cassandra flashed back to that night in Egypt forty-six hundred years ago, those eight hours spent in bed with him that were alcohol and youth and boredom and frustration demonstrating themselves, which was the first and last time they had kissed. After a few seconds of kissing, during which time Cassandra wasn't able to get in a word or even get a good enough position with her hands on his chest to shove him away, his hands found the hem of her shirt, and it was then that Cassandra realized exactly how much he wanted now to be like Egypt.
Placing her hands firmly on his chest and elbowing herself in the process – she couldn't get a good angle without inflicting some pain upon herself – she pushed him hard and broke his grip on her, like she had been aiming to, and stared up at him angrily.
“Did I... did I do something wrong?” Kellan asked perplexedly and worriedly, unconsciously mussing up his hair like he did when he was concerned. Unfortunately, such an action also had the effect of making him that much more attractive in Cassandra's eyes, something she did not need to be thinking about currently.
“What the ---- kind of question is that?” Cassandra snarled, meeting his gaze fiercely. “Insinuating sex with your best friend of forty-six hundred years is not a good plan, especially when said friend has made it very clear that she wants nothing more than to be your friend!”
“But... why isn't it a good plan?” Kellan questioned, and simplicity of his inquiry caught Cassandra off guard. “I mean, you want me just as much as I want you-” – damn Kellan and his knowing her so well – “-and we know and trust each other, so why not? Why shouldn't we sleep together, Cassandra?”
“Because I don't want to sleep with you, Kellan,” she told him, supplying the only response that she knew would get him to drop the issue.
“Oh,” he muttered lamely, and suddenly his whole body changed: his shoulders slumped with defeat, his eyes dropped with disappointment, and he let out a regretful sigh, all of which Cassandra knew had more to do with the possibility that he had hurt her than at the fact he wasn't getting laid.
He began to trudge his way to the kitchen – probably to get alcohol for himself – and Cassandra watched him go, her heart aching a little bit more with each step he took away from her, and suddenly something inside of her snapped and refused to see her best friend in pain anymore.
“Oh, what the ----,” Cassandra muttered to herself before draining her glass of Scotch, catching up with Kellan, placing a hand on his shoulder to get him to face her, and kissing him, locking her hands around the back of his neck as she did so.
It took less than a second for Kellan to react by wrapping his arms around her again and holding her against him so she couldn't pull away, and he leaned into her more when she slipped her hands underneath his shirt and explored his washboarded stomach.
After a few moments, Kellan finally drew back and gazed down at her, his eyes much darker than usual with desire, and, after exchanging a lustful smile with him, she let him lead her back to the bedroom.

“Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?” Kellan questioned quietly, reaching up to cup Cassandra's face with his hand as he gazed over at her with a contented smile on his face.
“You have, actually,” Cassandra answered, enjoying the way it seemed like their bodies fit together as she recalled that night in Egypt. “I distinctly remember you telling me that after the first time we had sex.”
“Good, because you most definitely are,” Kellan replied, and leaned in to kiss her on the mouth. He pulled back after a long moment and, as he stared over at her naked body, he murmured, “It has been too long, way too long.”
“No, it hasn't been long enough,” Cassandra told him, drawing his eyes back onto hers with those words he wasn't expecting. “Kellan, has it ever occurred to you that we were friends for forty-six hundred years without being anything more for a reason, that reason being that we're not meant to be anything more than friends, and that we might have just permanently [censored] up our relationship by crawling into bed together?”
“No, it hasn't, actually,” Kellan responded, and Cassandra could see from his eyes that he was serious. “My theory on that matter is the opposite, actually: that those forty-six hundred years of us being friends and growing closer and closer together were simply preparation for us spending the rest of eternity together, and I must say, I like my theory much better than I like yours.”
He gave her one of those charming, boyish smiles, the kind that had first made her notice him forty-six centuries ago, and she couldn't help but smile back at him. She also couldn't help but, as she laid there with her body still meshed with his, realize exactly how ------- attractive he was.
“You know,” she began, meeting his gaze and almost being awestruck by how much he was clinging onto every word, “I think I like your theory better too.”
She kissed him, entangling her fingers in his hair, and, as he rolled on top of her, everything she could sense and everything she knew was just Kellan.

Cassandra felt a comforting warmth on her face and opened her eyes to see sunlight streaming through the blinds in her bedroom. She felt a similar warmth pressed against her and smiled as leaned back against Kellan and felt him stir slightly.
“So you're finally awake,” he murmured, and she rolled over to face him to find him smiling at her with a warm, loving benevolence in his eyes.
“How long have you been awake?” she asked, letting her curiosity get the best of her as she openly admired him, just as he was doing with her.
“For two hours at least,” he replied, and, when she was about to ask him what in the hell had possessed him to get up so early and stay up, he simply added, “I like watching you sleep. There is a certain... peace to you when you are sleeping that is not there when you are awake.”
“I guess when I'm asleep I forget the fact that I'm absolutely ------- crazy,” she told him, and he laughed, a low, melodious sound that Cassandra thought she might never hear again after Maria's death.
“You're not crazy at all, Cassandra. You may drink more than you should and call people unsavory things in languages they are hopeless to understand and have a past record of ten thousand and sixty-three one-night stands, but you are not crazy and you never will be, as long as I have a say in the matter.” Suddenly his face creased into a grin again, and he reached a hand up to gently cradle the side of her face, as if he wasn't quite convinced of her reality and had to actively touch her to make sure that she was really there. “You are, however, beautiful all of the time,” he murmured, and leaned in to kiss her again, his arms locking around her as he seemed on the verge of rolling on top of her again.
Cassandra, however, wasn't a particular fan of what would inevitably follow such a course of action, so she pushed him hard to break his grip on her and told him firmly, “Kellan, we shouldn't stay in bed any longer.”
“Why not? Neither one of us have any place we need to be and I don't know about you, but I rather enjoyed myself this last night and think that I would continue to enjoy myself if we were to continue this engagement,” he responded, and it only took a half-second for his skillful eloquence and obvious burning desire for her to erode her willpower.
“You're right; why not?” she said, and pulled him on top of her.

“So where do we go from here, Kellan?” Cassandra questioned as she stood in her front doorway and stared up at his ruffled, tired and passionate perfection.
“Dinner, tonight. I'll pick you up at six, and maybe afterwards we can go back to my place and do this again, because I rather like this,” he responded, and Cassandra realized that he had had this dinner idea in his head for a while.
However, it had been a while since she had gone out on a date – and an even longer while since she had had a night like that – so she smiled and told him, “Don't be late. I don't like waiting.”
“I know you don't, and I promise I won't be,” he murmured, giving her a smile of his own before leaning in to kiss her. When he pulled back, he said, “I will see you tonight at six then. Until then, goodbye, my love,” and walked out to his car.
Since he was obviously dawdling in the hopes of getting a similar goodbye, Cassandra called after him, “See you then, Mister Kellan Mancandy Huntsman,” and shut the door quickly before he could reply.
She then watched him shake his head in loving exasperation through the window next to her front door and didn't dare to look away until his car was at the end of her driveway and therefore out of sight. As she sat down on her couch and stretched out, she couldn't help but wonder if maybe Kellan would be the first of her one-night stands to be more than that – he already was, technically, but the two nights were so far apart that she might as well have slept with two different people – and that if maybe Kellan had the possibility to be the first man to make her want to settle down and practice monogamy and maybe, just maybe, make her want to actually marry.
Suddenly she caught herself and realized how crazy all of this wild speculation was. After all, she was Cassandra Moore, the woman who invented the phalanx formation and the idea of friends with benefits, not some ------- Stepford wife! Then, like she always did when she found herself thinking and feeling too much, she got out her fifth of Scotch and started drinking straight from the bottle.

[Tabuu]

Well done! I love seeing your new storys, keep up the amazing work! Just don't stress yourself out too much, ok?