#compassrose

Might I request 2 or 24???

24 from this list: A kiss to the shoulder (I will be doing 2 here soon as well) Ruby woke slowly, warm and comfortable, with an arm around her waist and kisses being pressed against her bare shoulder. For a while she didn’t move at all, didn’t say anything though her less even breaths now gave away the fact that she was awake. “Mmn, you’re up early.” She mumbled when the kisses turned to nips instead.

“Oh am I?” And there was something in the way he said that, that gave her pause.

She could usually reliably tell who she was talking to, it was rare for her to be mistaken. There were countless small things that were clues. Kisses to the shoulders, or neck, almost always meant it was Oscar. Though he rarely ever woke up before she did, where Oz sometimes woke an hour before her. Neither of those two things necessarily meant anything on their own, they were quick to switch out control some days or share it other days. It was his voice that made her wonder, because even in sharing control they didn’t speak as one person.

Ruby glanced back at him and in his slightly unfocused gaze back at her, and the soft but smug smile he gave, that she confirmed her suspicions.

Sharing control was an active choice, but once in a while they blended in a way neither Oscar nor Oz had any say in.

It used to be an issue. The first time it happened there was just no getting through to them, it was the strangest most intense combination of outright panic and resigned depression she had ever seen someone go through.

It had been painful to watch, and she was thankful that each subsequent time had gotten easier. As they gained confidence that it wasn’t a permanent thing, and then gained comfort and trust in each other that even if it were permanent it would not be a tragedy, things got better.

Still Ruby preferred not to draw attention to it when it was happening. Half because of the concern that it would still upset them, and half because it was always fun to see what would come of it. She would treat him as one person who had a random grab bag of traits of either of her partners, an assortment of preferences that never seemed to stay the same time to time.

There were even things that showed up that she knew for a fact were not preferences of either of them as individuals. Such as last time this happened where he drank five cups of peppermint tea with honey in it, a drink that both Oz and Oscar would separately claim to be completely neutral to.

“Yep, you’re up too early. Can’t you let a girl sleep in?” She responded eventually, jostled out of thought by teeth grazing against the line of her collarbone.

Crown of Thorns: The Pod’rama Zine — cover art by CompassRose

Image description:  A rough digital painting of a seashore, fading to a misty horizon. In the foreground, Aziraphale, a brown-skinned man-shaped being with fluffy white curls in a blue jumper and white trousers with the cuffs rolled up, walks towards Crowley in the middle ground, a dark-haired man-shaped being in a white shirt and dark trousers, stooping to reach for something in the surf.

Listen to Crown of Thorns Pod’rama, the audio fanwork that inspired CompassRose, here!

Download a PDF copy of the zine here!