The walls of the corridor bounced the hum of Nos-4-a2's thrusters back to his audio receptors as he approached his quarters, tucking the custom-made wire into his cape. He passed through a small common area joining the main corridors of the vessel, going straight across to the hall that ended at a sleek, featureless door. On the other side, Two waited.
He pat the wire through his cape, a wedding gift he'd ordered months in advance, the hardware that would allow them to make their final connection. He halted right before the motion sensors would detect him and open the door, taking his last moment alone to compose himself, steeling his nerves. If Eve found out I was nervous, she'd laugh in my face. I can't screw this up. I'm just overreacting... that probe can handle anything.
He lifted his left hand, palm up, examining the silver band around the base of his middle finger. They both lacked ring fingers, but the symbol was still the same. A small power surge struck his core at the thought of Two's matching accessory.
The Energy Vampire sucked a deep breath into his ventilation system. He curled his fingers over his palm so his talons clicked together, looking up and facing the door. He hovered forward to open the portal.
Their room was small, but the view of space from the window made it feel much larger. A bench seat ran along the wall beneath the window, padded with throw pillows courtesy of Two's campaign to make the ship homier. Nos-4-a2's coffin-turned-bed sat against the wall on the right, adorned with maroon sheets and a single, overstuffed pillow. A computer terminal occupied the open wall to the left, though the deactivated screen made it seem rather barren. Against the warm blacks, purples, and reds of her surroundings, Two shone like a pearl.
When she turned to face the sound of the door, Nos-4-a2 felt his core simultaneously drop and lurch. Her robes fell around her in ruffled layers of shimmering white and silver, a band of flowers tied around her head. It was a nice wedding gown for something so last minute. Her blue eyeforms curled into a beaming smile at the sight of her husband, and in her excitement, she launched across the room. She knocked a surprised "Umf!" from his speakers as she wrapped her arms around his chest.
"Well, hello to you, too, little dove!" the android laughed. Infected by her enthusiasm, he lifted her up and twirled her around. When he stopped, he held her up so that their optics were still level. Two put her left hand on his shoulder and held the side of his face with her right, using her thumb to brush his cheek. Nos leaned into her touch and closed his optic as she started a blue arc of electricity against his lips.
Though the kiss didn't last very long, something about it stirred the depths of Two's CPU. This strange, deep feeling had occurred more and more since she and Nos hadn't had to hide their affections. They took things farther and farther in the days leading up to the wedding, leaving Two baffled by the fact that there were still so many strong emotions she didn't know about, intensely alluring and all consuming. Her sense of touch felt heightened (or at least she was more aware of it), and the looks that Nos gave her sent chills through her every wire. In their moments of privacy, his gaze had ranged anywhere from adoring to enticing to predatory, but the look he gave her now was entirely new. It was almost triumphant... maybe expectant? He had been waiting for something, and judging by his expression, it was finally within his grasp.
To be fair, Two wasn't completely oblivious. She had a vague idea of what came next, but it didn't stop her core from bursting into butterflies.
"Nos-4-a2, I... before we do anything else... um... I think I need to talk to you about something," she murmured, drawing her visor away from his lips.
A brief internal battle passed through his optics. His smile became tense. "I know. I... haven't done this in a while."
Two let out a shaky burst of laughter. "I haven't done this ever."
His optic opened wide, his smile faltering. "Wow, I... oh. No, don't worry, it's fine!" he assured her when her eyeforms fell, "I mean, I sort of suspected that you hadn't really done... much... before."
"Yeah, I didn't know how to bring it up... Even after you proposed, I just... it never... seemed like the right time? Haha, that s-seems really stupid now that I say it out loud!" Two's voice warbled. She hovered out of his relaxed embrace and sat on the bench beneath the window. Her eyeforms were wide, but downcast. How could she feel so ecstatic, in love, and paralyzingly nervous? She trusted Nos more than anyone she'd ever known and wanted to give herself to him entirely ‒ they were married now ‒ but she had no idea what to do.
"Don't worry, darling!" Nos took the spot next to her, putting his arm around her and pulling her close again. "It's not that big a deal. After all... we've had a lot of firsts, haven't we?"
The corners of Two's eyeforms lifted a bit. "Yeah... I guess we have."
"Just trust your instincts. I'll take the lead... I don't want you to feel uncomfortable, especially not tonight, so there's no need to rush things if you don't feel ready. We can go as slow as ‒ "
"But I don't want to wait!" Two blurted. She quailed at Nos's expression. The Energy Vampire was taken too off-guard to respond right away, so Two used his hesitation as a chance to recover her composure. "Um, I mean, I guess I've been... looking forward to this? I just don't know what to do."
The smile that had crept over Nos-4-a2's countenance while Two spoke turned into a full laugh.
"W-What?" she warbled.
He bumped his forehead against hers, beaming and bundling her up in his arms. "Eve, I'm certain you'll get the hang of things as you go! You've always been a natural... there aren't words to describe how much I adore you."
Two's nerves melted a little as she wrapped her arms around him in response. "I love you, too."
Nos took Two's visor in a kiss laced with all the passion and light he felt. When they closed their optics, the rest of the world fell away, leaving nothing but their senses. Both did all they could to feel as close as physically possible: Nos's right hand held the side of Two's face, his left sliding down the gradual curve of her back, her arms crossed behind his neck, her body lifted into his. When the spark of Two's kiss flitted between Nos-4-a2's parted lips, he shuddered and savored the familiar jolt of static electricity. It traveled all the way through him, even making his fingertips tingle. He held her tighter, his tongue dancing with the sweet, crackling light.
A pleading sigh seeped from Two's speakers. The strange, powerful emotion in the depths of her processors began to burn brighter, prompting her to direct more energy to her kiss. Nos felt her emerging lust mingle with his own and leaned her against the window, the hand that had been roaming her back now trailing to the bottoms of her robes. His talons weren't completely steady as he slid them under her cloak to caress her smooth, flawless metal. A thrill shot through Two's wires, her hands tightened in the fabric of his cloak, giving him even more encouragement than he needed. As his fingers explored the contours of her frame, she moved her hands over his shoulders, down the front of his chest, slipping them beneath the folds of his cloak and along his button-up shirt. She hesitated for a moment when she felt how warm he was... he let out a heated breath from his ventilation system against her visor. It wasn't just him, though ‒ her processors were working hard as well, and she could tell that wasn't going to change any time soon. His fangs lightly grazed over the base of her visor and drew another gasp from her speakers. Her thought process felt blurred, sluggish, glowing. Two hadn't thought it was possible, but the loss of focus caused by this slight overheating felt... good.
Suddenly, his fingers began to catch in the fabric of her gown, leading them both to a silent agreement: their clothes were a serious obstacle. Nos waited for Two to make the first move, but as soon as she began to tug at his tie, he pulled the circlet of flowers off her head. Their outfits were hastily shed piece by piece, neither giving much thought to where the articles landed, both doing their best to maintain their increasingly passionate embrace.
Nos-4-a2's task wasn't difficult given Two's streamlined shape. Her gown only had a few layers, so once he undid the circular fasten holding the top layers together, all he had to do was tug her slip away.
For Two, Nos's tie posed an interesting challenge, but it was no impossible puzzle, even with her vision impaired and a plethora of distracting stimuli. The buckle of his cloak was a breeze, letting Two relish pushing the thick fabric back over his shoulders. It wasn't until her fingers reached the buttons of his shirt that she began to fumble. For whatever reason, be it the shapes of the buttons or her foggy thoughts, she couldn't quite vanquish this final barrier.
When her mewls of pleasure turned to utterances of frustration, Nos had to pull back, doing his best to hide his amusement.
Their optics met for the first time since he had started the kiss. Two's were slightly blurry around the edges while Nos's seemed to burn a brighter shade of scarlet. His ventilation system kept a slow rhythm as he used the tips of his talons to undo the row of buttons down his front, taking on the task with a surprising amount of dexterity. Two relaxed against the window to collect her thoughts while she could. Her pearly surface glittered with pinpricks of reflected starlight, displaying the jagged black lines down her front that matched the design on Nos-4-a2's chin. Though the couple never wore much in the first place and had seen one another undressed before, it had never felt so intimate. Two took a long, hard look at the man in front of her, the one who had turned his entire life around to spend it with her. Ever since she fist began falling in love with him, she had marveled at the sheer power of her feelings and the way that they grew and deepened every day. She wanted to be close, to feel, to hold and be held, to kiss, to never spend another moment apart... the fact that they wouldn't have to was almost too much for her to handle. She hardly knew how to process all of it.
Suddenly, Two wondered how they would connect. Was it even possible? They were so different in so many ways ‒ how were they supposed to share data? Would their systems be compatible? And, on the off chance that they were compatible, did Nos have proper protection? Did he even know they might need protection? Why was this the first time these things had occurred to her?
The Energy Vampire shifted his focus from his shirt to his wife once he had all the buttons undone, sensing the frenzied, inquisitive workings of her mind.
"I suppose it's time to address the technicalities," he said with a soft sigh. Reaching back to his cloak, he fished around the pockets for the cable he'd hidden earlier. "I hope you don't mind, but I had to do a little research on your model to prepare for tonight. There are no manufacturers who make adapters between data ports like ours – well, really, why would they? So I had to custom order one of our own."
He showed her the thick, blue cable. On one end was the standard, half-moon piece that fit most robots in the interstellar community, and on the other was the round Buy n' Large adapter.
"Oh, nice thinking ahead! But, since you mentioned it, um... about your 'research?' Did you... uh..." Two fiddled with her hands, "was there anything else you learned about my model?"
"Like... what?"
"Well, anything, you know... experimental?"
"Ohhhh, I think I know what you're talking about. Do you mean the prototypical reproductive hardware?" Nos guessed.
Two nodded, her shoulders relaxing. "What a relief! I don't know how I'd begin to explain all that."
"Well, I didn't look into it much, but I do know that we have nothing to worry about. The way things are now, we couldn't use it even if we wanted to. I am curious, though, if you wouldn't mind me asking... You were one of the first robots on Earth to have this installed, weren't you?"
"...Yes."
"Right, so... why? If you've never come close to using it, what was the point?"
"Well, that's part of what makes it difficult to explain... I didn't know what it was for at the time. It was my sister's idea," a coy twinkle came into her eyeforms, "But I'd rather save that tale for another day. If we have nothing to worry about..."
A bolt of excitement shot through the Energy Vampire. "I guess I don't mind waiting on that story."
He pulled his arms out of his sleeves, exposing the red alloy of his chest and doing away with the last piece of clothing keeping them apart. Two couldn't contain herself. She practically leapt into Nos's arms as he scooped her up off the bench. His beaming smile made her feel like she was glowing all over. He carried her as if she weighed no more than a feather pillow, taking her to sit down on the edge of the bed, keeping her frame tucked against his.
She wasted no time pressing her visor back onto his lips. A hum of surprise escaped Nos's speakers at her kiss's sudden increase in current. It was almost as if the little probe couldn't help it ‒ whether it was due to the temperature of her CPU or the way his hands smoothed over her back, her mind wasn't working exactly right. Her capacity for coherent thought melted away, her artificial nervous system taking advantage of the newly available processing power. Her movements seemed subconscious, motivated by some force that knew much more than she did. It surprised and delighted Two almost as much as it did Nos-4-a2. Her hands began to explore every ridge, angle, and seam of his chest, soaking up the warmth of his metal. The only thing Two knew for sure was that she wanted more.
More of what? She couldn't really tell. Something strained in her chest, begging for relief.
Two didn't protest when Nos's lips left her visor, hoping that he was progressing toward satisfying her new desire ‒ he was the expert, after all, and her spark wasn't easy to maintain at such a high power. While she allocated more energy to her visor, Nos trailed kisses along the side of her head piece and down to her collar, finding the patch of metal concealing the bite mark from the few times she'd shared her electricity with him. Nos kissed it, but not in the apologetic way he usually did: his lips closed around it with a light suck, his tongue running over the tender spot. Two shivered and moaned, hugging his neck. She felt him smile and knew he understood exactly how sensitive it was.
"Nossy…" she groaned through the whisper of her ventilation systems.
He shuddered. The familiar pet name seemed like a whole new word with such an inflection. Maintaining the attention to her collar, Nos carefully leaned her back onto the sheets, propping himself above her on his elbows. He gave her collar an affectionate nip before lifting his head to meet her eyeforms.
Their optics locked for a moment before he asked, "Are you ready?" The words rumbled with the low pitch of his voice, thickening his accent.
"Yes. Please, just... do it."
Nos-4-a2 stifled a snort of laughter. She didn't even know what to ask for! There was something about Two's arousal and sincere naivety ‒ innocence, almost ‒ that amused him more than words could say. "Of course, my queen, as soon as you show me where your lovely little data port is!"
Two didn't waste any time responding to his teasing, though she was sure he knew exactly where her port was after all his "research." She typed a color code into the hidden touch display on her chest, making the near-invisible seams around her bio-status containment chamber glow a light blue. A single covering detached from the upper right-hand area of her chest to uncover the port. She tossed the small panel away like she never cared to see it again.
Nos's playful attitude faltered. For a moment, he seemed to absorb every detail of the probe bundled beneath him: her sleek, contoured frame; the arousing look in her optics; the minute lights that danced beneath the surface of her metal. She was giving it all to him.
"Eve, there's something I want to try before we plug in. Something like a... a warm-up. Is that alright?"
Two hesitated. She didn't want to wait another moment, but... what did she know? Nos had much more experience, and the eager light in his optics was hard to refuse. "Well, you're the one who knows what he's doing..."
Nos grinned so wide that the corners of his mouth curled up. "Just relax and enjoy, little one. I promise you won't be disappointed."
As he spoke, his talon grazed over her port, sending ripples through her whole nervous system. Static filled her vision and a shaky gasp left her speakers.
"N-Nos, that... oh..."
Her optics lost focus in response to the new stimulus. Nos smiled, kissed her cheek, and slowly outlined her entrance with the tip of his finger. Inarticulate noises of pleasure bubbled from Two's speakers as she processed the new sensation, so unlike anything she'd felt before. It tingled through her frame, driving her hands to find purchase on his metal, her eyeforms drawing into narrow slits.
Two barely had the chance to grow accustomed to the path his finger traced before he changed it, dipping the very tip into her port and swirling it around. She released a moan unlike anything Nos had ever heard, clouding his hard drive with arousal.
"You're sensitive, aren't you?" he purred, smiling at the success of his experiment.
"Maybe... hahh... you're just good at this?" she stumbled over her words when Nos deliberately added extra pressure.
Grinning, he removed his finger and replaced it with his thumb, rubbing in a small circle.
"Mmn ‒ !"
His thumb covered her port completely, attracting a small spark that sent a shockwave through her body. Two cried out and gripped at her lover's back, pressing into his frame, encouraging him to incite a few more. Her head tilted back and her eyeforms closed as the sensation built and added to a process deep in the pit of her containment chamber. Two didn't waste any processing power wondering about it, surrendering herself entirely to her tactile sensors.
Just as the pressure felt close to breaking, Nos took his thumb away from her port, leaving nothing but a searing need. Two whimpered and opened her eyeforms, but he beat her to the point, pressing his lips to her data port.
"N-Nos-4-a2!" she gasped. His mouth was warm; it felt even better than the deft movements of his fingers. His free hand ran along the dip in her side as he hummed a soothing note, sucking against the entrance to her pleasure center. When his forked tongue slid over her metal, her entire frame arched against him. Two held his head against her chest as if he might pull away, her voice rising to express the nameless sensations coursing through her body.
Nos, too, let out a groan when he managed to attract a spark to his tongue, muddling Two's mind with ecstasy. The sound of his voice against her metal was the most attractive thing she'd ever heard. It wasn't long before the pressure in her core built up again, warm, tingly, and powerful. Nos could sense whatever was happening, too: as soon as she felt it truly begin to swell, he applied more force.
"Nos-4-a2..." she panted, the sensation building exponentially.
"N-Nos!" it filled her core to bursting.
"Nossy!" it exploded in searing bliss, waves radiating from the port in her chest and flooding the rest of her nervous system. It lasted a few spectacular seconds before she came down, trembling with each final, gentle stroke of his tongue.
When he lifted his head, a string of artificial saliva hung between his bottom lip and her data port. Two brushed it away to hold the side of his face.
"Was that alright?" he purred, smirking.
She let out a bewildered laugh, burying her face in his shoulder. "I've never felt anything like that before!"
"I'm so happy you enjoyed yourself, darling. Here... let me see those baby blues," the Energy Vampire prompted. Two nuzzled his neck before pulling back to meet his optics.
"Can we do this, like, all the time from now on?" she chimed, winning a warm laugh from her partner.
"My love, you still don't know the half of it! We haven't even used the data cable yet!"
Two's eyeforms flashed with a mixture of arousal, excitement, and anticipation that made Nos-4-a2's power core falter.
"Of course, that's only if you're feeling up to ‒ "
Two stilled his lips with her visor, sending another spark to the back of his throat. Any surprise Nos felt dissolved in moments, making way for lust. He returned the kiss a bit rougher than Two was ready for, hungrily latching onto the source of her spark and running his hand up her side to grip her shoulder. It didn't take long for the little probe to melt into his affection, though reciprocating his energy was a bit of a struggle after her recent climax.
"Nos, this is incredible," Two whirred at a break in their kiss. The Energy Vampire grinned against her visor and laughed deep in his throat.
"You're going to love what comes next."
Two saw darkness laced in the affection in his optics. There was no part of her that doubted him, though she worried about whether she'd be able to last the night without crashing. When Nos shifted to hold himself a bit higher above her, she noticed that he had exposed his own data port. She decided that crashing was an acceptable probability. There was no part of her that wanted to hold back.
"You might be a little sore at first," Nos whispered, "but I promise it won't last for long. You can stop me whenever you need to, okay?"
"Okay," Two nodded, certain that she wouldn't have to.
With that, Nos clicked his end of the wire into place, taking hers in hand. He kissed her forehead as he plugged it in.
Two didn't know what she'd been expecting, but this was much, much more. She tried to comprehend it, but she wasn't sure how ‒ all of Nos-4-a2's coding, programming, data, processing, everything was open for her to access. She could even sense a glimpse of what he felt, how he felt, and his love alone almost overwhelmed her.
He nuzzled a few kisses against the side of her head, reassuring her and reminding her to pace herself. He had to withhold the majority of his energy to allow her to adjust, trying to stay as steady and consistent as possible.
"Nos," she shuddered, "th-this is..."
He nodded and gave her another kiss to let her know he felt the same way. It didn't take long after that for Two to adjust to the flood of information. She relaxed into his touch and slid her hands onto his shoulders. It was all Nos needed to know she was ready. He shifted his weight to brace himself, pulling his lips away just the slightest distance before seeping into her systems.
"Ooahhh~" Two's grasp tightened on his metal, her eyeforms flickering and dissolving. He deftly navigated her programming and narrowed his focus down to her nervous system. He was methodic and experimental, delving into her reward modules and testing every code he found to gauge her reactions. Each one activated a different sensation, some no more than a fluttering warmth while others were so strong that they caused involuntary physical reactions.
Her earlier response to his oral stimulation was nothing compared to the modulated moans now gracing his auditory receptors. Nos let a quiet hiss through his teeth and gripped the sheets as her pleasure rebounded into his systems. She encompassed his being like he'd never thought possible ‒ she didn't just accept his energy, she craved it, resulting in a strong feedback loop of her own sensations. Nos buried his head against the side of hers, reaching deeper into her servers to find more sensitive nerve endings.
Two couldn't contain the pleasure coursing through her. The physical stimulation of her port didn't hold a candle to interfacing: no matter how sensitive the nerves in her chest were, Nos now had control over all of her tactile processing, and he was dead set on sending her to seventh heaven.
When she lifted her gaze to meet his optics, she found them dim and hazy, the lid over his expressive lense drawn low, his brow creased, his mouth slightly ajar as he panted. As long as Two had known him, he had been incredibly self-possessed, but now he was at the complete mercy of his pleasure. Two pressed her visor to his lips again and won a muffled groan from his speakers.
Everything little thing she did drove him wild. He could feel her every movement down to the strain of the magnetic fields holding her together, reveling in the strain, doing all that he could to make her writhe. Though he had interfaced before and knew doing it with Two would be better based on their emotional connection alone, he never dared to imagine it would be so good. He started to activate multiple codes at once, mixing different sensations, driving their ecstasy even further.
"Oh, Nos!" Two wailed. Her thoughts were swallowed by white-hot pleasure, her voice pitching and distorting. She clung to his metal, barely anchoring herself to reality amidst the onslaught of euphoria.
The same sensations ricocheted through Nos-4-a2, driving him to dig deeper, stimulating more complex, sensitive combinations, clutching her frame. His voice joined hers as they rent the air with ecstasy.
All too soon, Nos felt heat pooling in his core. He couldn't help himself. It was so much better than he had hoped, he wanted to keep going, but he knew neither of them would last much longer. He clenched his jaw, gathering all of his remaining focus to create a combination of codes to make her see stars. Nos dug his fists into the sheets, using the last of his energy to activate the final attack on her nerve endings. The explosion sent them both over the edge.
Two let out a shattered cry in harmony with the moan that tore from Nos-4a-2's speakers, the shared climax ripping through their systems. Nos lost all focus amidst the waves of pleasure, but they crashed so hard on Two that she went offline.
Neither could tell how long it was before they floated back down to their physical forms in their quarters of the ship. Nos lay on his side, panting heavily, when Two booted back up. Her ventilation system was also working at maximum capacity. All of it felt perfect: the heat, the weight of their tangled limbs, the dull light of their optics, the clicks and whirrs working away within their frames. They were perfectly content to steep in the afterglow for a few minutes, letting their thoughts settle.
Two used what energy she had left to bury her face in Nos-4-a2's chest.
"Heh..." he whispered, "you okay? It felt like I lost you there for a second."
"...Yeah. I feel... amazing," she responded in the same undertone. Her description didn't do justice to how she really felt, but she was too tired to elaborate.
A laugh rumbled in Nos's throat as he gently tugged the cable from her chest. "You certainly are amazing. I told you you were a natural, but that was a truly breathtaking performance."
Two scooted her head back to meet his optics. "Really?"
Nos smiled a drowsy, love-drunk smile. "Mm-hmm. You know why?"
"...Why?"
He tossed the cable to the foot of the mattress, tucking his arm back around his mate, nestling his head above hers on the pillow. "Because I love you more than there are stars in the universe."
Two felt warmth bubble up through her wires, her eyeforms drifting closed. "I love you more."
She knew the only reason he didn't respond was because he was already falling into sleep mode. Smiling, she nuzzled one last kiss to the base of his neck. Wrapped in her husband's arms, Two was sure there wasn't anywhere else in the galaxy she'd rather be.
A/N: This is my personal favorite and also one of my oldest stories. I wrote the first version about five years ago. Back then it clocked in at 8 pages and had a really. Bad. Title. Since then, it's gone through a LOT of changes: three different titles and five complete revisions. I'm really happy with how it is now (not to say that I won't still tweak it every now and again). I was so excited when I finished this that I decided to make April 10th Nos and Two's wedding anniversary (got that squared away)!
If you're curious about the experimental reproductive hardware mentioned in the story, I figure I should say something about it here because I'm not sure I've really explained it anywhere else. =u=' So, the short version is that after a few years on Earth after the events of Wall•E, Wall.E and One want to start a family. They are a symbol of new life on Earth, the heroes of the human race, and the robots responsible for encouraging other automatons to write their own programming, so of course giving robots the chance to have families of their own becomes a top priority in the scientific community. Not long before the First War, working prototypes of the system are created and installed in a small test group of automatons. Amongst those lucky few are Wall.E and the five Axiom EVE Probes. The system works similarly to human reproduction: data from the two parents is combined through interfacing or a direct transfer of nanorobots to create a new individual. The probeling develops within the mother, built by hundreds of millions of nanorobots over a long period of time. However, Two never had the chance to learn much about it since she was more interested in agriculture than relationships before the war began, hence the clueless virgin we see in the story above.
So, while I originally planned on simply polishing this story for posting, I ended up rewriting the entire thing. The only parts that are the same are the plot and the general outline of the opening scene. I'm really happy with how this turned out! If you notice any mistakes, please let me know ‒ given my schedule, I had to write most of this at ungodly hours when my wits weren't at their sharpest. I'd also love to hear any constructive criticism you might have! Questions, of course, are always welcome.
Lastly, I'd like to say something about what this story means to me. It represents the progress I've made recently not only as a writer, but as a happy, healthy, human being. About a year and a half ago, I hit some hard times and started to put myself through some emotional abuse without realizing it. I put myself down a lot, though I thought I was just being modest. I thought I'd never get hurt if I never tried. I had very little faith in myself, next to no trust in myself, and I hit a really hard creative slump. I thought I was losing my ability to write since I couldn't find any motivation, and I blamed myself. The thought of how much my past self would hate who I had become made me sick with fear, disgust, and guilt, so I stagnated, trying to stay something I wasn't. I mistakenly thought I was "growing up" by losing my will to write, but in the past few months I've started to become my old self again. I realized that the only thing I need to worry about is my present self, that I am the source of my own torment. However, I couldn't have seen this without some guidance from something I never would have expected. As silly as this may sound, Undertale has played a huge role in bringing me back to my old self. It has been such an overwhelmingly positive force in my life. There's so much love both in the game and in its fandom, so much value put into kindness, understanding, forgiveness, and self love. I can't properly say how much it's done for me. I've begun to feel things I was sure I'd never feel again ‒ I remember what it feels like to be in love and live that love through my writing. I've become much stronger that I ever was before, confidently taking on school work, starting to put myself into more social situations, and taking my first steps towards becoming independent. For me, Alloy isn't only my favorite story about Nos and Two's relationship, it's living proof that no matter what, things will take a turn for the better. I love it because I love who I am and what I'm capable of, and I believe there's only room for improvement. All that's left is to have my hard work serve as entertainment for someone else! I hope you enjoyed it!