Welcome to Gaia! ::

"What is?" His proximity had her voice hushed, and thick with an emotion she wasn't sure she was mature enough to handle. To temper how hard he made her heart beat, and how easily her eyes fluttered at his touch, she continued with, "Peeing in the ocean?"

Her strategies were normally many and varied, but she was running out of options to keep from melting into a puddle in her lovers arms. The shakiness of her voice gave away just how lost she felt against him.

She was up, floating weightlessly in the air as he held her, and her legs wrapped easily around his body to hook above his hips. He was so honest, so genuine in the face of her never ceasing wit. She put down shoddy barriers between herself and the overwhelming emotions that flooded her, and he flicked them down with a word, a touch, a look. She felt like she could aptly define the word smitten by the way she felt at that exact moment.

And then he swayed her with the ebb and flow of water, and she fell into a lull of comfort that had been lost to her since she was a child.

"I love you." She could have - should have - told him that she kind of liked him, too. The words were there, as they always were, ready to joke about how she felt. But other, more important things pushed their way forward, speaking for her instead. "I don't know how you did this. I'm scared. But it's a good kind of scared."

She inhaled a sharp breath, feeling the sting of so much honesty at once burn her throat. A hard swallow was followed by the press of her forehead against his. "Worst of all, I think I might like you, too." The corner of one lip rose. "A lot."

It was easy to just accept that, in the moment filtered by the shine of sunlight glittering off a clear ocean. Everything felt like magic, in that moment. It was all too easy for her to just admit that his hold on her was a little bit of magic, unexplained and yet still so real, and so unbreakable.

She had no more words, no more sarcasm. Her eyes couldn't stay more than half open, barely able to hang on as the breeze and the waves and the feel of Otto's warm, pliant body tried to drift her away.

And then he sang to her, and she let herself drift.

She imagined him alone without her, as he sang. She imagined it because she knew she let it happen too often, and his cliche little song was trying to tell her that her absence was felt. She knew he wasn't the only one.

"Does it really make you guys sad?" Maebe whispered, pressing her cheek against his. "Am I hurting you?"

Otto was always so good about keeping her from feeling stifled. Unfortunately, when Maebe was given an inch..

Her teeth grazed against his lower lip as he pulled away from the kiss. "It's not like I don't like being with you both. I'm just not used to calling someplace my own. I guess I kind of liked the idea that I wasn't reliant on anyone else, for a little while." But she was hurting them, by defying their need with her independence. Her priorities were shifting, in ways she wasn't sure of.

"Maybe.. I can.. a little bit more." Each word sounded hesitant, as if she was testing it out, waiting for the anxiety to well up inside of her. The feeling of being trapped, tied down, owned.

It didn't come.

"But only because you're both worth it."

The flood and rush of all of her sass returned to her so forcefully when his hands tightened on her rear, that it left her almost dizzy. She tried to focus on just one thing to make fun of, but it was just.. so.. hard..

"Are we using pet names now? Because I've got an arsenal, sugar lumps. Sweet marmalade dumpling. Poopsie woopsie squishy pie." She heaved a little at the last one. "Or, maybe just.." Her hands lifted to brush down his cheeks on both sides, holding his face between them preciously. "My angel face."

If he truly was magic, she was sure that one day he was going to sprout wings and fly away. She wanted to believe she could be strong enough to hold on tight for the ride.

She snorted, and rested her forehead against his once more even though she refused to let his face go just yet. She didn't want a reminder of the person she was when he called her that, but he did remind her of something else.

"Remember our first kiss?" She flickered her eyes up to meet his, twinkling with mischief. "I mean our very first."

They'd been two different people then, but she'd come to consider that her first kiss with Otto, because it was the first time she'd realized there was something in him that she wanted. Something that she thought she'd never be able to touch.

"You were magic then, too." And so very impossible. She'd turned desperate to corrupt him, to change him into something more like herself. He did the opposite.

"I do." She chuckled out, a little embarrassed that she considered something so unreal as that dream their first real kiss. "Because that kiss implanted something in me. A need, I guess. Or maybe a hope. Something wormed its way into my heart, and I didn't appreciate it." She reached up and tugged playfully on his hair. "At least, not back then."

But whatever had infiltrated Maebe's cold interior had blossomed into the love that warmed her more than the Hawaiian sun ever could. She appreciated it, now that it was real.

The news that she glowed when she laughed made her fall still, before snorting softly. As always, he had the power to make her entire face transform as she grinned at him for the compliment. "That sounds ridiculous. Buuut so does half the stuff around here, so maybe I'll take your word for it."

She leaned in, the temptation to kiss him finally overwhelming her. It was like the crash of a wave, and even though she was the one crashing into him, it hit her with just as heavy of a force. She was lost in his kiss, his lips, his tongue, his taste. Lost, and determined to never be found.

When he pulled away, his first words had her perking with interest. But he finished his offer, and she barked out a soft laugh, her head leaning back. "Wow, I thought that was going somewhere completely different.. I was ready for you to say you were ready for some indoor activities. Wink. Nudge. But food works."

She grinned, and pecked his nose, before releasing his body and floating in the water. She swam away from him, and then back towards the shore.

"I want something with a pineapple!" She called back to him. "And a tiny umbrella!"