CELEBRATING THE HOLIDAY EVERYONE LOVES TO HATE*

[first_seventhe]

Fandom: taking back Valentine's Day since 2008!

So last year bottle-of-shine had a Kissing Battle. The last edition is here (EDITED TO ADD: this is the old battle, not the current one!). It was a lot of fun and might be known around FF-fandom circles as the best Meme ever**.

Pretty much everyone I know is stressed about something, too, so this round of the

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Paine/Nooj

[dior_anghel]

Paine had heard stories of Nooj the Undying. Bards sang his praise and little children fighting with sticks played at being him.

When she first met him, her only thought was that she hadn't expected he would be so normal.

Of course, he wasn't really normal. He was quite handsome, actually, and a little on the tall side. He was also half-machina, which, although she'd known prior to meeting him, was still a bit of a shock.

So he wasn't really normal. Rather, she hadn't expected he would be so human. When a man is nothing short of a celebrity, one expects... a god. Some sort of superhuman being.

When they began to make love, her wonder grew. He was an extraordinary man, but he was just that. A man.

The first time when her hands had gone to the zipper of his red suit, he grabbed her wrist and his eyebrows had snapped together into a frown. "Don't," was he said.

Paine blinked. "It's kind of necessary for this," she answered dryly.

"It does not all have to come off," Nooj countered.

"Nooj, wh-" And then she understood, in a sickening moment of clarity, exactly why he didn't want to completely undress. She didn't wait for him to stop her, this time - as quickly as she could she tore down the zipper and pulled back the sides of the suit to reveal the junction of metal and flesh; the place where man ended and machina began. It was scarred, as she'd known it would be. That he had been so afraid of what she would think of it made a lump form in her throat.

Swallowing hard to try and fight the tears, she leaned forward and brushed a line of butterfly kisses along the scars.

At the look on his face - stunned, as if he barely dared to hope she meant it - she could help but smile.

He really was only a man. She loved him more for that.