#cotton safety gloves

[tmeglove]

Cotton safety gloves touch screen gloves

[speedwear]

Choosing the Best Motorbike Riding Jacket for Your Needs

Selecting a new motorcycle jacket can be a challenging task for both new and seasoned riders. With a wide array of materials and features available, it can be overwhelming to decide where to start. So what are Motorbike riding outfits? What should you consider before purchasing your Motorbike riding jackets?

What is a Motorcycle Outfit Called?

First, let's clarify the terminology. A motorcycle outfit is commonly known as motorcycle gear or riding gear. It includes a variety of clothing and accessories specifically designed for motorcyclists to ensure protection and comfort while riding. Each piece, from head to toe, serves a crucial role in keeping riders safe on the road.

What Clothing Should You Wear on a Motorcycle?

Prioritizing safety is crucial when it comes to motorcycle fashion. Here's a rundown of the essential gear every rider should have:

Motorcycle Helmet:

Never underestimate the importance of a high-quality helmet. Our helmet is your primary protection against head injuries in the event of an accident. Ensure it meets the safety standards applicable in your area and fits snugly and comfortably.

Motorcycle Jackets:

Motorcycle jackets serve as both a fashion statement and a vital piece of protective motorcycle gear. Opt for jackets made from durable materials like Waxed cotton textiles with reinforced padding in critical areas. SpeedWear.co.uk offers a select range of Motorbike riding jackets that combine safety with a sleek design. It ensures you ride in style without compromising protection.

Motorcycle Pants:

Similar to jackets, motorcycle trousers are crafted to offer abrasion resistance and impact protection. Opt for pants with integrated armor or reinforced panels in high-risk areas like the knees and hips. Leather or armored textile pants are excellent choices for maximum safety. Speedwear also provides waxed cotton over trousers that can be worn over protective jeans.

Motorcycle Gloves:

Your hands are particularly vulnerable in an accident, so it's crucial to invest in high-quality motorcycle gloves. Seek out gloves with reinforced palms, knuckle protection, CE certification, and a secure fit to improve grip and prevent injuries.

Motorcycle Boots:

Proper footwear is vital for maintaining control and safeguarding your feet and ankles. Motorcycle boots should be robust, supportive, and feature non-slip soles for optimal traction. Select boots that cover the ankles and offer substantial protection from impact and abrasion.

How Do I Choose a Motorcycle Outfit?

With the key elements in mind, let's explore how to choose the perfect motorcycle outfit tailored to your requirements:

Consider Your Riding Style:

Your choice of motorcycle clothing may vary depending on the type of riding you do. For relaxed rides, consider choosing a lighter, more breathable jacket to enhance comfort. For long-distance driving, you’ll need gear that offers superior comfort and weather protection. Waxed cotton jackets fulfill both long & short-distance travel needs.

Focus on Safety Features:

Ensure your gear meets safety standards and provides ample protection. Look for CE-certified labels on jackets and pants, and choose materials that are durable enough to resist abrasion and impact.

Prioritize Comfort:

While safety is crucial, comfort significantly enhances your riding experience. Select gear that offers flexibility and ventilation to keep you cool and comfortable, especially on long journeys.

Express Your Style:

Motorcycle fashion isn't just about safety – it's also a way to showcase your individuality. Choose gear that matches your personality and style, whether you favor timeless leather jackets or contemporary textile designs.

Invest in Quality:

While high-quality gear might be more expensive, it's a worthwhile investment for its longevity and protective features. Opt for well-known brands that prioritize safety and superior craftsmanship, such as those offered by SpeedWear.co.uk.

Conclusion

Achieving the ideal motorcycle look involves harmonizing style, safety, and comfort. Whether you're navigating urban roads or setting off on a grand adventure, selecting the right gear is crucial for both your appearance and your safety. With the tips and Waxed cotton jacket options available at SpeedWear.co.uk, you can ride confidently. Rest assured you will get the best Motorcycle fashion products that are meant for success in every sense of the word.

[allworkwear]

Get our adaptable vest which is your new apparel

Discover how versatile and easy to wear a vest can be by adding one to your wardrobe! Stuck in an unbreakable cycle? All Workwear provides the ideal vest to quickly and stylishly alter your appearance! Are you trying to find something that is both practical and cozy? The vest is the only place to look. Vests are a practical addition to any wardrobe in addition to making a statement in terms of style. Our vests are designed with thoughtful features and soft fabrics to keep you looking and feeling your best throughout the day. Put on a vest over your clothes for a polished yet laid-back look. You can accessorize your business attire with a vest to be warm and fashionable, or wear one over a plain tee for a polished but relaxed look. To feel the comfort and ease of usage of a vest, purchase one from All Workwear today. Vests are not only a winter necessity - they may be worn all year round. Our variety of fabrics is perfect for dressing up on warm days or layering during transitional seasons because they range from lightweight to breathable.

[bits-and-babs]

✰ 𝐒𝐀𝐔𝐂𝐘 - 𝐒𝐈𝐌𝐎𝐍 ‘𝐆𝐇𝐎𝐒𝐓’ 𝐑𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐘

↳ summary: prompt: “Shall we put that mouth to better use?” — A particularly crass comment over the radio almost exposes your secret situationship with Ghost.

↳ pairing: Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley x f!Reader (Delta)

↳ [1k] content: 18+ MDNI. Violence, murder, injury detail, slight jealous Simon, secret relationship, panties as a gag, size kink, p in v sex, punishment, soft!dom-sub dynamic, tied wrists.

ghost masterlist I| main masterlist |I join taglist

“Taking out the trash, Ghost?”

You shouldn’t have said it– It just slipped out. A reference to a ridiculous joke that Soap had made over the coms once. You can hear the Scotsman giggling over the radio, evidently finding your remark hilarious. 

“You’re pushing it now, Delta,” Ghost’s gruff accent crackles across the coms, the thud of a body slumping to the floor punctuating his warning. It’s terrible, really. You watch him work through a wall of mercenaries, jabbing his serrated huntsman’s knife into the soft walls of their jugular veins and shooting them through the temple with a silenced gun while you observe from the relative safety of the CCTV centre. “It’s like I’ve got deja vu.”

“Sorry, Lieutenant,” you mumble, trying to move past your obvious overstep. 

“You’ve been spendin’ too much time with Soap,” Ghost cuts through your quiet apology like the throats of the men that crumple to his feet. “Gonna start assignin’ you missions with Alejandro instead.”

The spluttering disbelief of the Scotsman on the line just makes you smile, shaking your head at the jealousy Simon was attempting to disguise with authority. You watch him peek over the crate he’s hidden behind, scanning for hostiles. 

“To the left, Lieutenant,” you advise him to advance. He crouches his gigantic body as low to the ground as he can, flipping the knife handle in his hand for a better grip. The blood of his victims paints his hands dark on the grainy black and white footage of the CCTV cameras. Soap ceases his wordless, bumbling protests while you both hold your breaths, waiting for Ghost to take the mercenary out. 

It’s a simple dispatch. Simon plunges the crimson-laden blade into the neck of the unsuspecting target and lowers the body to the floor as he scrambles at his neck desperately. You hear the choking death rattles over the radio before he falls silent.

“She’s learnin’ from the best, L.t.,” Soap continues, finally piecing his incoherent sounds into a sentence. You hear the muted scoff on the other end of the mic and can’t help the giggle that falls past your lips. 

“There’s a lot more where that came from,” you smile, watching Ghost clear the courtyard. The members of Task Force 141 watch from the shadows, readying for his approval to advance and open fire on the inhabitants of the abandoned construction site that the local drug lords appropriated as a central hub. 

“How ‘bout we put that mouth to better use?” Simon answers with little thought, the coquettish comment catching the attention of the others on the line.

Gaz whistles, and you hear Alejandro chuckle. 

“L.t!” Soap speaks up, and you can tell that he’s grinning from the smug tone of his voice, “A little saucy, don’t ya think?” 

“Careful, Sergeant.”

No one dares speak up again, the silence over the coms only broken when Ghost gives the order. Conversation is replaced with the roar of bullet spray and bodies thumping to the floor.

                                                    ✰

Arousal coats your tongue as Simon’s gloved fingers shove the cotton fabric of your panties into your mouth. You whimper softly, tears welling in your eyes at the burning stretch. Ghost had thrust into you all at once, the blunt head of his cock searing up against your cervix and blooming white hot in the pit of your stomach. 

“Shush,” Simon scolds you, but his gruff voice holds no malice. It’s punishment, you think, retribution for putting him in a position where your little trysts could have been found out. Of course, there’s no real blame aimed at you, but Ghost likes having a reason to penalise you, so to speak. 

You choke back a sob, feeling the rippling muscles of his abdomen rear up beneath your fingertips and thrust deep inside you. He’s bruising your guts like this, settling you on top of his hips as he lies back. Wrists bound behind your back with a crystal-white zip tie, your skin blooms with a bruise as you kneel helplessly over his cock, forced to take whatever he gives. 

“Got nothin’ to say, love?” The midnight black of Ghost’s mask conceals the smirk you know is tugging on his plush lips, and you can just barely make out the gleam in his eyes through the murkiness of the tears welling at your waterline. The sweet taste of your own slick soaked into the cotton of your panties gags you, and you can only manage a desperate shake of your head before Simon brutally thrusts up into you.

The ache is brutal, each savage stroke rattling your lungs and jolting your body upwards. Your nails dig into the soft skin stretched across Simon’s rock-hard abdomen, and you hear him groan beneath the balaclava fabric. His huge palms swallow your hips, digits burying into the flesh there.

“Be good for me, love,” he growls, “Nice and quiet now.” 

It’s pointless, you just barely think. The cot beneath you is so rickety that you’re sure that the team will hear the squeaking of the metal frame even past the stone walls of the safehouse you all shared for the night. 

A fierce snap of Ghost’s hips winds you, a squeak working past the bunched-up fabric of your panties stuffed in your mouth. Your head lolls back, eyes rolling as his cockhead punches up against something mind-numbing. It sparks white-hot plasma across your skin, tendrils spidering down your spine. 

“C’mon,” he urges, the rumble in his voice almost breathy with exertion, “Stay quiet, and I’ll give you what you want.”

You can’t. As the orgasm builds in the pit of your stomach with how Simon’s cock batters something blissful inside you, needy, muffled wails of bliss worm their way up your throat despite your best efforts to swallow them down. You needn’t bother because Ghost is too far gone to care who hears, chasing his high with a strained choke of your name.

join the taglist here

@mortallyuniquepeach @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog @crybaby-blue-blog1 @heart-atttack @pansa-1-san @maviee @emotion-no-hot-yes-hotel-trivago @gummyfang

[motherofagony]

A HEART FOR EATING // vol. 2

joel miller x f!reader

pairing: post outbreak!joel x f!reader setting: jackson, wy (think tlou pt. 2 minus the golfing) rating: mature, 18+, minors dni word count: 8.7k series summary: a vicious raider attack robs you of human connection and lights a fire of destruction in your life in jackson. joel's fixated on you, and your lives tangle. revenge becomes a needful thing. chapter summary: you take care of joel after a patrol injury, but you suspect there's more to it than he's telling you. the atmosphere shifts as you and joel grow (begrudgingly) closer. content warnings + tags: age gap (we'll say 15-20 years), protective!joel, brief masturbation (f!reader), praise kink for two seconds, blood, bodily injuries, needles (reader gives joel stitches), dissociation/triggers, alcohol, angst, sexual tension intensifies, The First Kiss™, soft!joel vol. 1 // vol. 2 series playlist a/n: we're picking up speed, folks. world-building is my weakness, so i hope you enjoy this nonetheless. honorable mention goes to the readers in the trenches, waiting patiently for joel to [redacted] reader senseless until she [redacted] all over his [redacted]. thank you for the love on the series so far. taglist: @ghostwritesthings, @widowssbite, @p3rkerr, @eternallyvenus, @punkshort if anyone would like to be added/removed to the taglist (or if i missed anyone), please send me a DM!

You’ve always hated flying.

In the great before, the stone ages of family vacations and things to look forward to, fears were singular and planes were yours.

Your family never had a lot of money, not really, but on the special occasion of a death in the family, you’d find yourself trapped to a seat in a metal tube. Going nowhere but up. Sitting through safety instructions that came from smiling, lipsticked mouths that were only hypotheticals until they weren’t.

It’s like a rollercoaster, your dad would say, amused in the way only a dad can be and sleeping through damn near anything in the same fashion. It did nothing to calm the knocking of your knees, to quell the flip of your stomach as you climbed higher and higher until you couldn’t see anything but cotton ball clouds.

It was always unnatural to you that something so heavy could float, that you were supposed to go on doing human things and drinking your ginger ale and munching your pre-packaged snack option. As if you weren’t being hurled into the sky with no one walking you through it.

As if the plummet onto tarmac meant no harm, just completely normal erratic braking that felt a lot like the moments before a crash.

There was no control — it was in someone else’s hands that you never saw. And as you fell, you were supposed to say thank you, that’s exactly what I paid for.

This is your version of the oxygen mask. This is you putting yours on before you help Joel.

You’re on your knees digging through your med bag, thumbing through bandages, checking for a quick count of gloves, antibiotics, wash cloths. You fumble with the zipper, fighting with the tremor that starts in your forearms and liquifies into your wrists. There isn’t much in the way of supplies unless you ransack what’s kept in storage, but there’s no time, and you’re not sure of what you’re about to walk into.

Waiting any moment for a scream, or the blast of a gun when they realize Joel’s not Joel anymore.

And it isn’t really a big possibility in the grand scheme of things, if you consider that he would’ve likely turned on the route home. But it’s still there, tickling the back of your head, nudging your navel uncomfortably. Nothing’s impossible.

You of all people know that.

You linger in your living room, giving a final sweep. Worst case, you can run back for what’s forgotten, but something about the idea of abandoning a vulnerable Joel – if only for a minute – doesn’t settle right in your stomach.

Before you can stop yourself, you’re shoving a bottle of whiskey into the bag, the only anesthetic on hand. And if you’re being honest with yourself, you need to score back some points.

The steps leading up to Joel’s house are sturdy, and you imagine it’s because of the pride he takes in what’s his. Before this, his house was just another skeleton of roof, foundation, windows, and siding.

The kind of houses you pass by every day that are rife with familiarity but you don’t know what it’s like to see the people inside eat dinner, brush their teeth. Fight. Fuck.

Fresh paint from only two seasons ago, reinforced porch posts. A swing. It’s weird to see permanence in this day and age, but his intention to anchor himself and grow roots here flutters meaningfully inside you.

It’s always been a sacred thing to you, you don’t know why. A place you’d never dreamed of entering, but dreamed about what it would smell like. A pair of boots haphazard by the front door, small piles of organized chaos, of collected tangibles. A you never know if you’ll need this in one corner, a saving that for a rainy day shelved in another.

So when you raise your hand to knock, you feel like an intruder, an unwelcome invasion of privacy. And you don’t know why you knock at all, you nearly think better of it given the circumstances, but you’re testing the atmosphere, hoping for voices inside instead of a struggle.

Ellie’s swinging the door open, relief smoothing out the lines in her forehead when she sees you. Her presence seems to answer any unspoken questions you had about Joel being infected, and you don’t voice them to her when you can see unrest in her antsy legs.

“Hey. Sorry for the wait. He alright?”

Her teeth are worrying her lip, probably more traumatized by the sight of him than anything. A few strands of hair have freed themselves from her lazy half-bun at the base of her neck, caught in the crossfire when she ran her hands through it, you think.

“Yeah,” Ellie breathes, committing to it. “Yeah, he’s okay. Bleeding stopped, nothing seems broken. Just needs stitches, I think.”

It sounds more to convince herself than anything else. There’s a foreign fragility to her, and you hate it.

“He tell you what happened?”

The question strikes a nerve. Ellie’s shaking her bowed head, scoffing in a half-laugh that doesn’t touch her eyes. Her hand wraps around her knuckles, cracking slowly in an effort to alleviate the tension that’s reached a fever pitch inside her.

“He won’t tell me, says it doesn’t matter. He shouldn’t have gone alone anyway, he was bein’ a dick. ‘I wanna think, kiddo - need t’clear my head,’” she mocks in a gruff, rolling pitch, the perfect dosage of Texas.

It levels you, potent. Are you the thing Joel needed to clear his head of?

You’re weirdly longing for it, but being flicked away like a bug, peeled away layer by layer from him isn’t something you want.

There’s hope that you’re contagious. That you’re haunting him and lurking in the darkest corners of his mind like an apparition like he has yours. And maybe there’s hope after all, something left to salvage.

But you play dumb, furrow your brow a little too expertly.

Ellie’s measuring you, and there’s a glimpse of worry but she hides it in a way that you wouldn’t know what you were looking for if you hadn’t already found it.

“Anything you wanna tell me about the other night? He was pissed when he left,” she tacks on quietly.

You go a little slack-jawed. You don’t even know how to put it into words, and you couldn’t tell her what it meant even if you tried.

What’s there to even say?

“You know what, none of my business,” she says, her hands lifting in tired surrender when you don’t answer, ignoring your near-sputter. “But you’re not off the hook, just make sure the old man doesn’t croak. And tell him he scared the shit outta me.”

You exhale and hope it doesn’t read too much as relief. You’ll have to answer to her later, but at least you might have an answer to give.

“Handful of salt in the wound, rub in circular motions – got it. Tell Tommy I’ll catch up later.”

Your shoulders scrape affectionately as you nudge past each other, and you cast a wide look at the periphery of Joel Miller���s house. The feeling of unwelcome disappears, and if anything, you’re being tugged further inside. Imagining what it’s like to be a fixture, an adornment in his weird little life.

Nooks that you assumed would be messy are neat, coiffed even. There’s that unavoidable smudge of secondhand all over the furniture – mottled ever so slightly, aged uneven in places that only an apocalypse can do. But it’s an otherwise tidy existence. Another surprise from Joel that you’d never pick up on if you only witnessed him nursing a drink at the bar.

An oak bookshelf props itself at the bottom of the stairs and it rivals your own, dust gathering in thin lines where he’s repeatedly shelved this, reread that. There are paintings hung decisively on most of the walls, breathtaking rural landscapes of wherever.

You’re lugging the bag upstairs, counting your breaths with each step. The whiskey rattles mutely against the first aid tin, and it’s a toss-up now of who you really brought it for.

The landing mirrors the ground level, a purposeful littering of tchotchkes. Doors line the second floor, some closed, some ajar but not inviting, and you realize you have no idea which one you’re looking for. You sway uninvited by the bannister until you hear the unmistakable hiss of breath between clenched teeth, then a soft moan as his weight shifts.

And you’re stepping inside a room – his bedroom – warmed in the soft beginnings of sunset. Joel’s sprawled asymmetrically on his bed, eyes pinched shut, delirious with blood loss but already looking substantially less like a corpse. A damp rag settles just above his brow, and the handiwork of Ellie.

There’s an unrecognizable hurt in him, wounded in ways that he shouldn’t be capable of.

He doesn’t give any indication that he knows you’re here until he’s rasping out something weak disguised as stern.

“I ain’t bit. Shut the door behind you.”

Your mouth goes dry.

“How did you –?”

Joel just huffs in response, as indignant as his body lets him be.

“You see anyone else here? They might as well’ve jumped out the window, as fast as they dumped me ‘n left. I ain’t stupid.”

You accept that and drop the pretense, pursing your lips with a nod. He doesn’t seem that offended, knows it’s just the nature of the beast.

You move over to his bedside, unpacking the bag quickly on a side table, looping your metaphorical stethoscope around your neck and switching gears into a mode that’s strictly doctoral.

Yet, there’s still that hum beneath your skin, the fizzle of unfinished business. It’s thick in the space between you, in the way he flicks his gaze at you lazily. You’ll let him foster the anger, giving it a home. You can be the martyr he says you are.

This new lens feels calmer, almost professional. Your nerves are still firing rapidly, and your composure is forced, but it’s better than nothing.

You drag a chair from the corner up to Joel’s bed, not letting your eyes wander too far into the depths of the space. You don’t have time to dissect the idiosyncrasies of his life. Not yet.

He still hasn’t opened his eyes, but you get the sense that he’s tracking your every move. His limbs are concrete, the tendons in his forearms so tense and coiled like any and every movement is forbidden.

“Joel.”

He grunts, a pained translation. Still no effort to move.

“I need to take a look at you,” you say patiently, bargaining like you would with a kid. “Wanna tell me what hurts?”

Another grunt, softer this time. He motions vaguely, weakly to his head, then the left flank of his abdomen.

You already know what you’ll find under the rag on his head, and it bodes well that the bleeding looks to have stopped. His stomach wound, on the other hand, was enough to bleed through two layers.

“Alright. Lemme see.”

A muted whimper echoes in his throat, so uncharacteristically that it tugs on your heart. Still statuesque, unmoving.

Your fingers are deft, careful as they unbutton the first, second, third buttons of his flannel. Joel’s stock-still, and his breath comes in sharp, slow waves through his nose. Your own breath kind of sits in the back of your throat, and you pretend with a hurried exhale that you weren’t just holding it.

Your fingers reach his navel on the last button, and you’re gently tucking each panel of his shirt under him on either side, focusing too hard on not touching him. It feels like something is somersaulting low in your stomach.

You can’t even dare yourself to look at his chest, his stomach. The patch of hair leading down to the band of his pants.

Get it together. That’s not what this is.

An angry gash looks up at you, thankfully clotted with dried patches of blood. It’s about two delicate fingers long, a nasty slice. It looks clean, abrupt in shape but suspiciously manmade. Not too deep, but not superficial enough to heal without some assistance.

And thank god, not nearly as bad as you thought it would be.

Joel’s looking at you now through heavy lids, wary of you, but something like fear touches the corners of his eyes. You fight to stay medical, methodical in your diagnosis. No emotion slips out, nothing allowed in.

You sit back calmly, letting loose a sigh. Not letting yourself bathe in the intimacy of the moment, in the way he’s staring.

“You need stitches,” you announce simply.

“Like hell.”

“Joel.”

He’s scowling, a hurt animal pissed at its own vulnerability. Silence passes like a ship between you, and for a moment, you think he’ll really fight you on this. He can’t hide anything when he’s like this, the weighing of his options evident in the tick of his jaw, the pathetic pinch just in the center of his brows.

“Fine,” he grits out. “Make it quick.”

This fucker.

You’re rolling your eyes, unceremoniously tugging the rag from his forehead. The cloth is red but not soaked, just twinged pink around the edges. Joel curses, just an octave above unintelligible.

His hand is shooting to the cut near his hairline and you’re smacking it away before he can pollute it.

“Lay still, fuck’s sake,” you chastise. “An infection’ll put you out longer than a few days. Unless you have a puzzle you been meaning to get around to?”

The faux-threat calms him immediately, and the shift in restraint doesn’t go unchecked. He doesn’t say another word, but you catch a glare and a twitch of his mouth.

You make quick work of cleaning him up, squeezing rubbing alcohol on a clean towel and scrubbing patient circles through the mess of dried blood. Joel releases sharp noises you can only describe as growls when you get too close to the border of his cuts.

It’s primal, a dog asserting dominance with his leg caught in a trap.

You try to lose the attitude, and it’s difficult when your patient hates you, doesn’t hate you, won’t clarify either way.

There’s a hint of purple that’s developing like fresh film on the mountains of his knuckles that doesn’t go unnoticed. Places on the most taut peaks of flesh where his skin has split, marred with scrapes that look like indents of teeth. And in the right light, there’s a discoloration of something in the same family splayed on his ribs.

And that… you know that when you see it. Even if everything else can be explained away.

“You wanna talk about it?” you say quietly.

There’s an intermission where he doesn’t respond. Too long to be the truth, too short to come up with a lie. And you know he’s been waiting for this question, might’ve already thought of a story.

“Got clumsy,” Joel recites. “Tripped on some stairs that were caving in, hit my head.”

“Bullshit.” And it’s a statement, not an insult. It doesn’t cover why he has a certified stab wound in his side.

Another stretch of silence, lack of defensiveness, makes it clear that he knows you know. But he doesn’t elaborate, and for whatever reason, you don’t push it.

And maybe it’s enough to acknowledge this sort of thing for now. You can stow it away, let it keep you up at night. Draw parallels where there possibly aren’t any. If he’d run into a human thing, he’d be much worse off, right?

Just like you were.

You take care in lining up the supplies to stitch in neat order beside you, mulling over each step in your mind. Stalling, maybe.

You pull the whiskey bottle out of your bag by the neck and nudge Joel with the cap.

“Something to take the edge off.”

He kind of hesitates, but there’s a tenderness. Recognizing it as an act of mercy, a peace offering.

There’s nothing said, but he takes the bait, spinning off the top and swallowing a messy mouthful. A drip escapes through the corner of his mouth and slips into his beard.

You can feel the taste of it blossoming on your tongue.

He grunts his thanks and keeps a steady grip on the neck of the bottle, and the network of veins in his forearm unwind.

You clamp the needle, laced through with something thicker than thread but not quite medical grade. Joel exhales a shaky whine when you pierce the skin, and his fist grips the sheets when you twist clockwise to push the needle through to the other side.

“You’re doing great,” you murmur.

The needle weaves over the cut, greeting the other side. You pull it through and up, and his lower lip trembles, sweat beading his forehead.

“First one done,” you say, praising him but also yourself.

Joel’s still clenching the linens on the bed, ignoring you and hiding out in his own mind somewhere.

You don’t tell him that you’ve only ever practiced on fruit, that your suture knowledge comes exclusively from the one medical text you have and endless hours of TV you grew up on.

Silence envelopes you again, heavier than before if possible. The pressure waxes and wanes like nighttime waves, licking the shore between you. And it’s not angry, just something… else.

“Some house you got,” you note casually as a distraction, like you’re commenting on the weather. It comes off relaxed enough, though any conversation between you feels like flossing a crowded mouth.

His eyes sharpen, and you think it’s in excruciation, but there’s a twinge of apprehension. You straighten for a moment, hands fixed mid-stitch, and roll your eyes.

“Okay, cool it, Home Alone, I’m not casing the place.”

Joel takes a turn rolling his eyes. You swear that you see his mouth twitch again, but you hang your head, dabbing a cloth where pinpricks of blood form.

You try again.

“I like your paintings.”

You dare to look up, and his mouth is in a tight line.

“You like my paintings.” he repeats dully, not a question. Joel’s as cynical as you, and he thinks it’s a jab, not sincere.

“You’re not gonna make this easy on me, are you?”

“Wasn’t plannin’ on it.”

Now’s as good a time as any. You sigh at that.

“Look, the other night wasn’t my finest moment. It didn’t need to go that way,” you mutter, leaning on the concentration of sewing up Joel’s skin. Otherwise, you might feel too strongly, dissect your word choice with an uncomfortable linger. “Sorry. I know you were trying to help.”

He goes rigid as your second stitch meets a third. The bottle tips to his lips again, and you wonder if it’s an act of liquid courage. You boldly hope so.

“Nah, I shoulda kept my mouth shut. Been thinkin’ I needed to apologize anyway,” he admits, and you know he’s happy you made the first move. You can already feel him loosen, but maybe it’s the alcohol. “You ain’t a martyr, y’know.”

Oh.

The needle hooks into the final sliver of skin, your handiwork tightening into a neat line. You sit back, wiping your brow with the ungloved section of your wrist. It’s a treaty, a handshake at the very least.

“Actually, I think you hit the nail on the head with that one,” you smirk, olive branch fully hanging between your teeth now. “Keeping up the charade is so exhausting.”

Joel presses out a pained half-laugh, and you feel something crumbling between you.

You tie off the last stitch, trimming the excess thread off the knot. The clamp clatters into the tray, and you give it a final once-over before peeling a large rectangle of bandage from your kit and pressing it gently over the wound.

“All done,” you quip, peeling your gloves off. “Didn’t even have to amputate.”

“Not too bad,” he grunts.

“I’ll add it to your tab.”

While you’re riding the high of approval, you stand and move to the foot of the bed. Joel’s boots are still on, laced messily.

And for some reason, you don’t even ask permission, you just start untying, tipping them off and lining them next to one another on the hardwood.

He doesn’t say a word. Out of confusion, maybe.

You scoot your chair and makeshift flatlay along with you, positioning yourself at Joel’s head. That look is back, a side-stare that steals your breath.

That look that knows you could absolutely ruin him, and he’d either thank you or kill you.

The pads of your fingers brush back the hair from his forehead, still slightly matted with blood. It’s a surface cut, but crescent-shaped and easily hidden by a curl of brown, peppered with grey. Butterfly closure it is.

No signs of a concussion show themselves. At least there’s that.

“You might have a scar,” you murmur. Being this close to Joel makes you feel like you’re wearing two layers too many.

And he hasn’t broken the stare, not even minutely.

“Add it to the collection,” he says lowly, not an ounce of self-pity.

Your eyes flash to the scar near his temple. You’re exercising full-on restraint not to ask him about it. But it’s not the time, something you could try to pry out of him later. And knowing there’ll be a later makes you relax your shoulders, unclench your jaw.

He’s nice enough to pretend not to notice, or he’s in too much pain to mention it.

You dab the damp rag around the border of his cut again, mopping up any excess. You reach for the isopropyl.

“You might wanna take another swig,” you warn. And he obeys, down the hatch and white-knuckling through it.

“Good boy,” you’re murmuring automatically, and it just slips out.

Your mouth falls open just so, and Joel’s coughing, clearing his throat against the burn of whiskey. You’re pleading with the universe that his cough was close enough, loud enough to cover the words, but his face has turned a shade of red that’s probably rivaling the heat that reaches your ears.

Good boy? Jesus Christ.

If there was ever a heightened moment of being fucking touch-starved, it’s this.

You make haste with the disinfectant and place the closures over the cut. The bloodied towels and scraps from the DIY surgery are cleaned up, tied neatly into a plastic bag. And now, this is the part where you run and never face him again.

You’re already making plans to board up your windows, maybe have Ellie deliver your meals solely through a slot in the door.

But Joel’s pain is overriding everything, and he’s sunken even further back into the pillow, his head lolling to prop on his shoulder. He’s whispering a weak thanks that’s incoherent at best. You tug the blanket up and over him.

You grab a glass from downstairs, fill it to the brim with water and bring it to him. He groans at the sight, petulant.

“I’m not leaving until you finish this.”

His lifts his arm for it, scowling. “Gimme the damn thing.”

Satisfied, you hand it over and watch him drink it down, his throat bobbing in a hearty gulp. Your gaze can’t help but snag on it.

You have got to get the fuck out of here.

You come back with a refilled glass and sit it on his bedside table, close enough within reach. The medical bag is packed up and ready, sagging slightly in areas where you’ve emptied it. It knocks against your already-knocking knees, and you’re grateful to use its weight as an excuse for how blurred you feel.

“I need to talk to Tommy. You gonna be alright for a bit?”

His eyes are closed again, on the outskirts of rest, but his mouth pulls up in the ghost of smile.

“Ain’t goin’ nowhere, sweetheart.”

And you hope he means it.

—

You track down an unsettled Tommy, finding him pacing in the back of the general store. He’s restocking some shelves but not quite – there’s an gross pairing of tinned fish and fresh eggs sitting on a display that’s unappetizing at best.

“He’s okay. No bite,” you add lowly, acutely aware of how many pairs of ears are in the store. “But he needs to be monitored.”

Tommy slackens, rubbing his eyes that are full of exhaustion and bruised with worry. Index finger and thumb stroking the respective tails of his mustache one, two, three times as the gravity of that strikes him.

He loops you into an embrace, and it’s kind, full of ease. The smell of firewood and smoke tickles your nose. His worry evaporates then, and honestly, so does yours.

“He doin’ alright?”

You chew on that for a moment and nod. There are complications, but nothing to do with Joel’s health.

“He was pissed about the stitches, but I didn’t have a choice. Cut was pretty deep.”

“So… he tell you what happened, then?”

There’s that question again. You feel like you should have an answer, but if he wouldn’t clue in Ellie, you sure as hell wouldn’t be.

Like squeezing blood from a stone, your dad used to say.

“No,” you lie instinctively. You don’t know why.

But it isn’t really. Not if you don’t know the full truth yourself. There’s just something about Joel’s omission that makes you feel entitled to find out first.

“He said he fell down some stairs,” you amend, “just didn’t say where or how.”

Tommy offers you the same look that Ellie gave you – a raised brow coupled with a touch of disbelief.

“If you say so.”

You shrug, playing it as cool as’ll come natural to you. “You know Joel. Doesn’t want to make a fuss.”

He chuckles, shaking his head and rolling out his shoulders that you know have been holding tension. He believes that, at least.

“Sounds like you know him, too.”

—

A few days come and go.

Ellie takes on a lot of the recovery, but she doesn’t like messing with stitches — creeps me the fuck out that you did that without puking all over him, she claims — and she’s eager to substitute for the patrol routes while Joel’s down and out. You offer to step in, with a totally normal and selfless motive.

If she thinks anything else of it, you’d be the last to know.

Your new itinerary consists of changing Joel’s bandages, cleaning up through his hissed breaths and every goddamn it. Twice a day, morning and night and sometimes in closer intervals, but never approaching the cusp of any boundary.

Joel’s fiercely independent, swatting your hands when you try to help. Donning a clean flannel in the space between your lunchtime visit and your nightcap, despite you telling him that he shouldn’t be pushing his mobility.

That said, he’s marginally better about following doctor’s orders, drinking the water you leave on his nightstand but neglecting the pills that would stop him from coiling in on himself like a ready spring. And he doesn’t say it but you know it’s because he thinks it’d be a waste.

You trade regular formalities at first, each of you standing behind your respective walls, daring the other to toe a bit closer.

Joel doesn’t ask, but you bring him some short stories to pass the time and he devours them. You didn’t think much of it other than just straying past the point of being nice, but your heart sings a bit at how he leaves his shell at your coaxing.

You learn Bradbury is his favorite, but when he finishes The Most Dangerous Game, it’s the most he’s ever spoken to you in one sitting, astounded at the perfectly tied bow of an ending, asking you questions that only the author could answer. But it’s a marvel to witness, something you think about when you’re cleaning stables or washing dishes.

He’s unraveling for you, a loose thread tugged too hard on your favorite sweater. He talks of the places in the paintings, sometimes abruptly, like he isn’t sure what his cue is or if he has one.

Mentions of pre-Jackson when there was so much uncertainty and isolation, but it was coupled with those types of watercolor skies that you couldn’t paint if you tried.

These little pieces of him that make him whole – it’s like you’re both in on the same secret. And Joel isn’t doing it to lighten the tension, to be nice; that isn’t his brand of politeness. He just revels in the holy act of confession with you as his witness.

You come to learn that his room is modest, different from the rest of his house. Clues of hobbies sprawled on his desk – leatherworking tools and hand drawn blueprints that you can’t get a good look at with just a sidelong glance.

There’s a dusty stereo tucked at the back towards the wall, and you picture a content Joel, sketching new plans for a porch swing or some small addition while old bluesy country croons from the speakers.

You like this daydream, placing him in something lighthearted where his only worry is that he’s losing daylight on yardwork.

The two of you talk about little bits of everything and nothing. Reminiscing about sending snail mail, discussing what you think places like Italy look like now. How close you came to crossing an ocean in another life.

Tonight, you have a night terror that clings to you like wet denim. Stop-motion, nonsensical. Your head ricocheting into concrete, hitting your temple just so. Flashes of the people that used to be your parents, your friends.

And just as the life drains from you, blood seeping onto the floor and into spidering cracks, you wake up a flailing mess.

You practice your routine, twisting on knobs of lamps and plugging in the twinkling lights hanging around the perimeter of the living room. You press your cheek to the floor, checking under your bed for monsters for good measure.

Bleary-eyed, you’re climbing back under the covers, pulling them snug up to your chin.

There’s a neediness crawling its way through your organs with a one-way ticket south. The juxtaposition of fear mingles with an otherness, and it anchors itself to Joel.

You never cared for a protector, still don’t, but the eagerness that sprouts from him to defend your honor — and for nothing in return — magnetizes you on a cellular level.

Your fingers are dipping into the band of your already-damp underwear, taking inventory of what the thought of him does to you. Body on auto-pilot. A pool of dripping neediness, so slick that you’re coating your clit in excess and rubbing in tight circles.

He doesn’t even have to touch you, and it’s pathetic.

Images of Joel’s beard scratching your thighs swirls behind your eyelids, your hand gliding between the glistening of your folds. Fingers crook inside you, dipping into the last knuckle, and you’re choking on a gasp, already on the edge.

You wish they were more calloused, thicker, with length that can hit the spot that’s desperately out of reach.

You wish they were Joel’s.

It takes only a minute, some curling and pumping of your wrist to make it quick in case it’ll only ever be a fantasy. The wet noises of your arousal are nothing short of obscene, and you’re coming loudly, sharply on a string of moans.

In some ways, you think, you have already died.

And fuck. It’s so poetic it makes you sick.

—

On the fourth day, Maria sends you to Joel’s with some stew — two hearty containers that're meant for the both of you.

She’s been taking her shift at his place, carrying over containers of this and that to keep him fed. You wonder how often she takes on that role anyway, sans injury. You don’t peg Joel as the type to eat three square meals a day of his own accord.

Tell Joel I can’t make it tonight. Gotta do inventory.

She makes no room for elaboration, so you don’t ask. But you thank her with a hug, and you could swear that she’s giving you a conspiratorial smirk.

When you knock on Joel’s bedroom, he gives a new, warm invitation, coated in subtle hospitality. It’s a far stretch from the unaffected what? you might’ve received a week ago.

You place the stew down on the bedside table, along with some bowls and spoons you plucked from his kitchen. He just looks up at you from his bed, uncertainty reaching the lines of his forehead.

“It’s all Maria,” you explain and he hums, catching up.

“Explains a lot,” he mutters.

You eat quietly for a little over ten minutes. Joel’s flannel today boasts a rich navy, buttoned up to the top but not far enough to hide the sprinkling of hair that peeks through.

He catches you staring and pins you with a dark glance.

“You afraid of the dark or somethin’?”

Joel’s ask cuts through the air, and your spoon stops mid-route to your open mouth. It’s so out of the blue that it stuns you momentarily.

“Sorry?”

“You turn the lights on at night.”

What you thought to be private moments of fear were actually on display for all to see.

For Joel to see.

And the memory of your thighs trapping your hand as you came over and over again on your fingers… you’re grateful to at least have had some decorum to draw your bedroom curtains.

“Um.” You dig for a way to say nope, I’m actually just a pussy and I see things that aren’t there. Also, I was touching myself thinking about you last night. “No, just nightmares.”

Every inch of your skin feels like it’s searing. A bead of sweat makes a slow descent down your spine to your tailbone. You laugh lightly to deflect.

Joel’s mouth thins into a tight line.

“It’s nothing,” you promise.

“Ain’t nothin’,” he snaps. His brows are knitted in fury, misdirected. But you get it.

Your stomach is rumbling, but you’ve effectively lost whatever appetite you had. The bowl finds a space on the side table, and you’re pulling your knees to your chest protectively, thumbing at the fray on the cuff of your jeans.

You don’t mean to scowl, but you can’t help it. You can’t even meet his eyes.

Joel’s sighing, his own bowl discarded on the nightstand, grazing the lip of yours.

“Look, it’s not my business,” he starts, choosing his words carefully, “but that kinda shit worries me.”

When you do look up, he’s rubbing his beard with rigid fingers. You should feel nice and fuzzy that he cares enough to point it out, but it’s just embarrassment instead.

That, on top of everything else, you can’t even get through the night without waking up in a cold sweat.

“I know how it looks,” you say in surrender, “but I swear I’m fine.”

You can imagine what it would feel like to really mean it; it’s just on the tip of your tongue. There is a defiance there, it’s just struggling to find a way out.

“You sure about that?”

You let your feet touch the floor, straightening out your legs and busying yourself with smoothing the creases in your pants.

“You worry about everyone else like this?” you muse, hoping to redirect.

Joel’s scratching the back of his neck, eyes fixed anywhere else.

“Always worried about you.”

If you were any farther away, you wouldn’t have heard him.

Outside, kids are yelling, playing tag. You watch in jealousy, can almost hear the crunch of their boots and their tiny, inconsequential conversations. It takes you longer than intended to give a response, and he waits, patiently. Just trickles a look from the crown of your head to your hands to your face. Searching for a reaction.

“You’re about ten months late, Miller.” And you’re smiling briefly. You mean it as playful, but it’s colored with sadness.

His eyes glaze, and the wheels are turning, wondering if that also means too late.

“Didn’t want you to think I was takin’ advantage of the situation. And I thought Max —” Joel bites down on the name.

“Fuck Max,” you spit in disgust. “That was never a thing.”

You don’t have to make eye contact to see that he’s pleased by that. He hums in the back of his throat. Resists a shit-eating grin. From the looks of Joel connecting the dots, you don’t need say much else.

“Yeah, well. We all failed you,” he insists. “I failed you.”

It sets an incredulous spark in some hidden part of you. Nails cut into your palm, your fists balling harshly. Everyone else? Sure, you’d give him that. Jackson spit you out, with the exception of a select few.

But Joel?

“You saved me.”

“Not good enough,” he says under his breath.

—

The next day, you let yourself inside, already learning the language of Joel’s house when you press a little extra weight against the door to seal it shut when it sticks.

It’s quiet, on the cusp of 8, and you wouldn’t be surprised if Joel’s on the brink of sleep.

The sun’s long settled over the mountain, so there’s not much in the way of guidance.

It’s dark, but you expected it to be. You draw the curtains one by one, moving blindly from room to room yet knowing exactly where your feet are. It strikes you as odd, a visitor keeping pace with an unfamiliar house.

But if Joel’s anything, it’s predictable. Unfussy in the way he keeps out of the way, even in his own space. Takes pride in it, sure, but lives in a way that demands nothing but cherishes everything, even the absence of something.

Meaning there’s nothing too unexpected, too risky in its placement. He doesn’t take up too much room in the event that it’s gone tomorrow.

When your hands fumble for the switch of the living room lamp, the bulb springs to life and bathes a wary Joel in light. Sitting on the couch, slouched with residual soreness, but waiting.

For you.

“Jesus, fuck — what the fuck, Joel —”

“You’re late.”

“— sitting in the fucking dark like a lunatic —”

He puts a hand up to stop you, as if to press your mute button.

“I didn’t fall down any stairs.”

Your hands have risen to your chest in the shock of him there, and you’re gripping your shirt in the way he had almost a week ago. You don’t miss that little detail, so much so that you struggle to piece together what he’s saying.

It punches you abnormal; you kept so busy with leaving the subject alone that it slipped your mind that he lied.

“Sit down.”

You’re obedient and you don’t know why. You find a seat across from him, pulling up a stool that’s meant for feet, not your ass. Something crackles beside you, and the embers of a dying fire glow and warm to the left of you.

Your leg crosses over your knee, creating a 45-degree angle that you rest your elbows on. “Yeah, I gathered as much, thanks. You’re a terrible liar.”

Joel’s just eyeing you. And it’s not in a way that sizes you up, more of a calculation of what to say next. What to give away. There’s a beat of this, then another, then another.

“I thought ‘bed rest’ was pretty self-explanatory.”

You’re growing impatient, filling the room just to do it. You both know what happened, and maybe that’s what’s needling at you. That you’re the one person who’d understand the most, but the one person he doesn’t want to know.

It feels wretched and seething, knowing something but not enough.

“I’m gonna need you to cut to the part where you tell me what happened, Joel.”

At that, Joel drags in a breath and leans deeper into the couch. His gaze has moved to somewhere far off, burning into the drawn curtains like he can see outside, can see directly into the window of your kitchen. And with sudden clarity, you realize that he could — it’s a clean diagonal stare.

Are you afraid of the dark?

How many times has he sat in this very spot, taking in the show, watching you make tea, watching you read, watching you stutter and shake with sobs? Witnessing the onslaught of a nightmare?

Touching yourself? Watching you undress?

You aren’t the voyeuristic type, just uncaring to the point of defenseless. But Joel keeping an eye on you in this way is the coup de grâce that does you in. There’s no question now of whether he cares.

“I took Mountain View, headed for the outpost. Not much up that way lately, maybe one or two infected every once ‘n a while,” he says, and it’s unsettling that he’s talking in a way that could be to anyone or no one at all. “Thought I’d stop at the pharmacy on the way up, check that off, too. ‘Cept I wasn’t the only one with that idea.”

He pauses only to crack his knuckles for effect. Fingertips splay on his spread knees, and what seemed so fragile earlier, watercolors of bruises stretching from ligament to tendon, seems threatening now.

“One was lootin’ in the back, didn’t hear me come in. I thought he mighta been alone ‘til his friend followed me in,” he pauses, lost in thought. “Got into it with him.”

As if on cue, the gory split-skin of his hands flexes. Offensive wounds.

You were right, but you wish you weren’t.

“His friend came up from the back, ‘n they took turns for a minute. Long enough for me to get a good look. I ended up takin’ out the shorter one, other one was gone before I could get up.”

Joel doesn’t lift his head, just his eyes. The skin around them crinkles in sinister shapes, lids disappeared, lashes nearly touching brow. You know it’s not anger directed at you, but it’s shrinking you back down into an armchair, your fingers digging and clawing at the fabric without recognizing it.

“Know what’s funny about that?”

You don’t think you can answer with the desert that runs through your mouth. And whatever it is, it’s anything but.

“Not a lot of activity along the outposts this way, unless it’s infected. Everyone else comes straight through to Jackson. The logs say we’ve only run into two groups of raiders in the last five years along the patrol route,” another pause for emphasis. “And one of them was ten months ago.”

Something catches in your chest.

And then there’s a dam that breaks, pure relief. Relief that Joel’s seen the thing you’ve been pointing and screaming at while everyone else shrugs their shoulders and squints.

Then — panic.

Ice sneaks into your veins. The tips of your fingers run numb. It strikes you that you’re standing, that the foot stool is tipped on its side.

He doesn’t move, but there’s a contained rage in his eyes and his voice. A temper bubbling now that you’ve confirmed what he suspected.

“He have any tattoos?” Joel asks roughly.

There’s a flash of stars, hand-poked, bordering on downright sloppy.

“Who?” You say dumbly, but it’s obvious what he’s referring to. He’s seen it, too, and he’s seen it this week.

“You know who.”

You do.

You could draw it from memory if he asked.

Your weight becomes too much for your legs, and you collapse back down, this time into a chair that supports your amoeba-like state as everything in you turns to jelly.

“They’re getting closer. We were in Teton, so if they made it this far —” you jumble out, not sure if it’s just meaningless vomit to his ears. By his solemn nod, it isn’t.

He’s up and out of his seat with a wince that’s not as severe as before, his eyes careful on you, on your hands that you’re gripping together tightly to keep them still.

The isolation of his side is evident in the way he closes the space between you, but he masks the grimace as best he can. There’s a reprimand in you somewhere that he should be resting, lying down at least, but you know it’s pointless.

“Hey.”

He’s kneeling as much as his flank will allow, a pain in his eyes that isn’t for himself. Those fingertips scale the cliff of your jaw, ghosting as if he’s afraid to overstep. They’re prodding you to meet his eyes, and when you do, he drops his hand like he’s been burned.

It connects fiercely to a memory that you try to hold in your hands. A snowy, reminiscent one that slips through like a ribbon of smoke.

“Ain’t gotta worry about him. I’ll take care of it.”

You laugh, a real one that’s stained with sarcasm.

“What does that mean?”

Joel softens now, and the shift startles you. He thinks for a beat before answering.

“Whatever you need it to mean.”

It feels incomprehensible that anyone would willingly put themselves in danger for you, even adjacently, but then who noticed you were missing that day? Who led the pack, found you bleeding out?

The weather was violent, incoherent — a lost cause, a needle in the proverbial haystack. He already toed the line of a dangerous, potentially fruitless rescue mission.

And you never even thanked him.

“Why?” You ask it for the second time in as much as a week. It’s disjointed in conversation, but he knows that you need this answer.

“You remember how you were before?”

And for a split-second, you try.

There are glimpses, a rickety reel of kids tugging on your pant leg as they beg you to join them during recess, a glittering spray of laughter with Ellie as empty beer cans and discarded guitars litter her living room floor.

Of your friends’ faces on too many relaxed, sunny patrols, sometimes forcing them into a detour into the abandoned record store through Alpine so you can see what’s left.

Dinner in warm houses like Tommy and Maria’s, so full to the brim of love and potatoes and mead that you stumble on down to your house with cheeks burning and tuck yourself in with all of the lights off.

Visions of Joel that are fleeting, taped in frames on a film strip, but friendly exchanges.

But it’s a faceless narration. The accident wiped clean of any room for interpretation. Any visitation with these memories. You can place yourself in them, but can’t for the life of you feel tethered to her.

Frustrated, eyes watering, you shake your head.

“That’s why.”

Now he’s holding your jaw like he would some fragile thing, slotting his thumb just under the pulse thrumming in your neck, feeling the echo of it in his hand. There’s a silence, as if he’s straining to hear, to know the sound and syllables of your livelihood. You wish he’d press harder, bring you to the precipice of pleasure and death.

If only to know what it feels to be glass in Joel Miller’s hands, to be given the taste of death after he’d given you the gift of life all those months ago.

Your heart is hammering against your ribs. You know he can feel the adrenaline in your pulse point.

“Joel,” it falls out as a whisper, and you hate how good his name feels in your mouth.

He’s looking at you with empathy, thumbing through the pages of every agony you’ve succumbed to. It’s new and buzzing, knowing that there’s nothing you’d ever have to explain to Joel. No reasoning or fine print for how you are, he just knows. And he stays anyway.

A tear tracks a salty line down your face and it meets the pad of his thumb, an easy swipe.

And there’s a surge low in your throat, seesawing with satisfaction and the tell-tale lump of more tears if you lean in hard enough. Joel never shows his hand, the last to fold, but it feels a lot like you’re the prize he was waiting to throw cards down for.

So, you lean. Concave cheek into his calloused hand, tears without sobs leaking between his fingers down into his sleeve. The weight of only the world — your world, plural and shared — pushing you into him. The cataclysmic release that you’ve been aching for.

Your head is against his chest, cheek pressed against flannel because he’s guided you there. And it’s nice, you think, nice that he’s being a gentleman about the whole thing.

A gentleman just finger-combing through your hair, tucking it behind your ear.

It’s serene, and you’d happily make a home there and fall asleep if it wasn’t for the hammering of your heartbeat. You know he can feel it, and your quickened breath is the cherry on top.

Joel levels your faces, and his fingers are deja vu on the braille of each ridged cheekbone. He’s waiting on a cue, a line to be given to him from offstage, but you see flames licking through each darkened iris.

Something keeps holding him back, keeps holding you back. He’s too careful, afraid of cutting his hands on you. And in exploring every facet of that, it’s because he doesn’t want to bleed on you, not because the sharpest parts of you could hurt him.

You keep telling yourself it’s foreign and you’re strangers to one another.

But is it? Are you?

As if he’s reading your mind, Joel closes the distance in one fell swoop, and he kisses you.

It’s clumsy at first, in the way that clumsy is when you’re learning each other’s mouths. You taste the dregs of whiskey, of something wanton, and every unspoken word that’s ever misted between you. Years of forming smile lines and the prickle of his unkempt beard against your chin, taste the stories of every scar.

You’re tangling with him, lips pressing urgently against Joel. His tongue’s expert but gentle when he dips it inside your mouth, and you’re swapping breathless sighs. You can only imagine what he’s tasting of you, what flavor he’s been dreaming of.

His hands are still at either side of your face, thumbs pressing sweetly into the bony part of your jaw. Joel’s stilling the unrest in you that’s put its bags down and refused to leave. It quiets, tips a hat and walks out, leaving a welcome calm in place.

There’s a chasteness, but you know he’s just as desperate and hungry as you are. Wanting to claim, to devour each other entirely. And it’s not lost on you that he’s on his knees, hands clasping your face in prayer like you’re some communion he’s drinking from.

He engulfs you, and you’re moving together, fitting together like you were poured from the same mold. Joel’s fingers have moved to thread through your hair, one of his hands cradling the back of your head and tugging just barely.

Enough that magma pools in between your hips.

But he slows, letting loose a low groan into the heat of your mouth. It’s helpless, like he’s accepted he can’t swim and has submerged his head underwater.

And when you finally break apart, Joel’s pupils are dilated, on the cusp of black. Your collective breaths are uneven. He looks at you in awe.

“Been wantin’ to do that for a long, long time,” he’s saying, but you can barely hear him. Not when your heart is catching up with the rest of you, roaring above everything else. His thumb skates over your bottom lip, and the instinct to unhinge your jaw for him shouldn’t be there, but it is.

Maybe this sort of suffering is worth it, if it’s Joel you’re suffering for.

If you weren’t in trouble before, you sure as fuck are now.

[orchidsangel]

"NORMAL" FOR YOU (JASON TODD)

notes/cw ~ GN!reader, fluff, minorish angst (idk to me it's minor), has been renamed, (also this is only my second time ever writing in second person, i'm still learning so plz cut me some slack)

It’s 4:36 in the morning when the soft thud of boots landing on the fire escape outside your apartment interrupts the sleep you were finally starting to slip into; and it’s 4:37 when the window in your bedroom is pried open by large gloved hands, followed by the maneuvering of a large figure through said window.

Even with increased agility from years of training, he still manages to knock over a couple of the trinkets occupying your windowsill; and even though you can feel how tired he is from feet away, he still picks each item up off the floor, examining the objects for cracks or breaks before placing them back in their rightful spots.

“I don’t know why you keep coming through that window.” Drowsiness drips from your voice, but you know it’s nothing compared to what he’s feeling. “I cleared off the one in the living room to avoid this exact situation.” 

“Coming in this way is just better.” 

“Yeah, maybe for you, but not for my stuff.” 

A breathy laugh escapes his lips, and he walks over to your side of the bed, placing his knee on the edge and his hands beside your head. His palms dig into the plush cotton of the pillows and blankets around you, and he hovers for a second, before dipping down and placing a soft kiss on your lips.

“I like when you’re the first thing I see after patrol.” 

You look up at him to see the sleazy smile you know is on his face, but all you can focus on is the exhaustion evident in his features. Bags under his eyes and deep-set lines that would disappear with a couple of nights of good sleep riddle his face, and your mouth turns downward in a frown as you think about how badly he needs a night off.

He notices the way you react to the effects of his nightly activities and immediately gauges what's on your mind. “I can't,” he says, pulling back from you, standing up and turning around, starting the process of removing his tactical gear.

You suck in a tense breath, the sudden change in atmosphere giving you whiplash.

You watch his back as he removes the multiple layers of protective clothing that keep him coming home to you.

“Can’t what?” It’s a dumb question that you both know the answer to and have always known the answer to. 

It’s a dumb question that you both know the answer to, but you ask anyway even though the answer remains the same and has remained the same since you found out about his ‘occupation.'

He lets out a sigh, moving towards the dresser and opening a drawer to find some pajamas. 

“I can’t take a night off.” He lets his head drop, hands gripping the knobs, “and I can’t give you the life that you want…the normal life that you deserve.” The words come out strained, like they’re paining him, and they’re definitely paining you. 

You refrain from saying anything, knowing that when he gets like this it’s better to give him some time to let his rationale come back instead of trying to sway his thoughts.

A beat of silence goes by, and he pulls out some clean clothes then disappears into the bathroom across the hallway, not before gently closing the bedroom door behind him, ever the considerate boyfriend, even in his self-loathing moments.

The back of your head hits the pillow behind you, and you exhale lightly. Eyes drooping and body feeling heavy, you pull the blanket up to your neck and try to let sleep takeover. 

A few minutes pass before the soft sound of hinges squeaking interrupts the silence around you, and Jason shuffles around the room, quietly locking the window and putting stuff away.

The bed dips and he climbs under the covers, sliding one arm under your head and the other over your hip. Even in a sleepy, semi-agitated state you readily accept his warmth as a safety net.

“I wouldn’t be with you if I didn’t want to be.”

You feel him sigh against the back of your head, pulling you as close to him as possible, “I know.”

“Do you really?” You say slowly, fighting sleep. “Because it often feels like you don’t.” 

No response.

“I don’t know what you think ‘normal’ is Jason, but if it doesn’t include you then I don’t want it.” 

“I’m sorry," He whispers tentatively.

And your heart aches knowing the amount of love you give him may never be enough to heal the deep wounds leftover from years of being made to feel like a burden.

“You don’t have to apologize, but you do need to stop questioning my decision-making skills.” Your body shifts in his arms so you’re face to face with him, “I could do a whole lot worse than you.”

He lets out a wry chuckle that hides some sadness in it, “yeah…you’re right.” 

You hum, satisfied with his lack of protest, and open your eyes long enough to see a content look on his face, before closing them once more.

For a few minutes you lay in silence wrapped in his arms, reveling in the comfort of each other's company.

But eventually you lose the battle to sleep, and your brain drifts off into a dream land. Everything in the world around you is temporarily gone while you explore the expanse of your subconscious, and a world where Jason takes a night off every once in a while.

“I love you.” He says quietly, barely audible.

And he knows you don’t hear it, so he’ll say it again in the morning; and every morning after that as long as you’re by his side.

[eufiemoon]

How to Make: Electronic Wings for Cosplay

Hello Everyone! It's been a while since I last uploaded a written tutorial on here and since I just finished and wore my Dame Aylin cosplay this last weekend it seemed appropriate to jump back in with a tutorial on one of the costume pieces!

Her wings were the star of the show this weekend and I know a lot of people were curious about how I made them! A huge source of knowledge and inspiration behind these wings was this video by Axceleration, I made a few changes to the frame shape and electrical circuitry for mine but her tutorial was a huge stepping stone to give me the confidence to tackle them myself!

Health and Safety:

When working with Sintraboard (as well as other thermoplastics) it is incredibly important you wear a respirator as well as goggles when heating, moulding and cutting it. The fumes this plastic will give off when heated up are no joke! Make sure you're in a well-ventilated space!

Basic tool safety knowledge is also really important! wearing gloves when using power tools can be more dangerous in most situations, so always be aware of where your hands are vs where the tools are. Always cut away from yourself and take things slowly, don't panic.

Electrical safety! You're working with live wires and circuitry! make sure your hands are dry, you aren't touching the bare wires at any point when they are connected to a power source, and if you choose to solder anything, make sure you're wearing heat-proof gloves and a mask in a ventilated space!

Tools

Wire stripper

Screwdriver and wrench

Dremel - I recommend the Dremel 3000 rotary tool personally! Some essential Dremel bits you'll need for this include, a sanding bit, drill bit (smaller or same size as your screws/bolts), and a small/narrow cutting bit. These will usually come with the Dremel!

Heat Gun (A hairdryer will not get hot enough to heat the Sintraboard!!)

Pipe cutter (alternatively you can use a hacksaw for this!)

Hacksaw

Ruler

Scissors (for cutting fabric straps)

Materials

Heat shrink Tubing

2 core electrical wire

switch (you want a three position, six pin switch, like this one, even better if it has the Screws on the pins! otherwise you'll need a soldering kits to solder the wires to the pins.

2x 8AA 12v Battery Holders

2x 12v Linear Actuators (Mine had a stroke length of 100mm)

21.5mm PVC Pipes (I got 2x 3m Lengths)

2x 21.5mm PVC Pipe straight couplers

6mm 8"x12" Sintraboard

Nuts/Bolts/Screws (I used M5 bolts for the base & Actuator connectors and M6 screws to attach the hinges to the pipes! You'll need Washers for every Nut & Bolt!)

Hinges (I used 2.5cm wide hinges that were skinny but long so they would just about fit along the PVC pipe! 3" gate hinges would work!)

50 metre Polythene Jiffy foam roll (in retrospect this was ALOT of foam, you could definitely get away with maybe a 20-30 metre roll! I now have a load leftover XD)

16 AA Batteries (I used 16 and had enough for the whole day with them on, I think They'd probably be enough for another half a day-full day too! but have spares just in case!)

Webbing strap ( I went for grey to match my base suit colour!)

Buckle - as wide as the webbing strap you use!

3 metres of white cotton fabric (or whatever colour wings youre going for!)

Optional

Zipties (for cleaning up the wires)

Lets Go!

Sintraboard is this wonderfully stable thermoplastic that is relatively easy to cut into (with the right tools) and when heated allows you to mould its shape! I started by using a mannequin and heating the Sintraboard with a heat gun for a few minutes to make it pliable, I recommend using gloves for this part as the materials gets VERY HOT! Press the board into the shape of the mannequin's back, taking note of the edges especially! you want this board to sit as comfortably to your body shape as possible as it makes a huge difference to how long you can wearing the wings for in this backplate is comfy!

Once shaped, I placed it against my back to make sure it was a good fit, heating again and making any alterations I needed (again don't place bright hot plastic to your bare skin! wear protective clothes and wait till its slightly cooler to do this, with the help of a friend!). I then took a hacksaw and rounded the corners, before sanding the edges with my Dremel! Try to avoid cutting off loads, just enough to make things less likely to snag.

3. I then cut in four holes, wide enough to feed my webbing strap through, two at the top and one on either side below where my arms would sit! I measured the webbing strap by firstly feeding them through the top holes and pinning them, and then bring the strap over my should to everything sits where it should and seeing where the strap hits the side hole and cutting the length there! you'll also want a strap that attaches across the chest, meeting in the centre with a buckle!

4. After sewing the straps closed I was able to move onto the PVC pipe structure! This may change slightly depending on the finished shape you want but I needed the PVC pipes to come out from inside a breastplate so had a particularly angle as well as character references to work with! I began by heating the pipe over my heat gun and flattening a portion of it under a heavy object so it would sit much more flush against the backboard and sit better underneath my breastplate before moving onto securing the first portion of the structure to the backplate. This mainly involved lots of try-ons and measuring to make sure the angles were correct and symmetrical and was quite fiddly but well-worth the effort! I'll include a diagram of the general shape I went with below:

5. I wanted my wings to be relatively modular for ease of travel so I needed to make sure certain portions of them could come away from other parts easily, so I popped a straight coupler on the top of the pipes that were attach to the breastplate, this also meant I could slot the breastplate over these shorter pipes and wear everything correctly! Then these second pipes slot on and at the other end they are attached via hinges to the longest portion of the pipe 'skeleton', Diagram below:

6. Now that the skeleton was put together, it's time for the electrical stuff! It's a good idea to figure out where your circuit is going to lay on the skeleton - consider if you want the battery packs mounted the the backplate or, like me, put them inside the actual wings in removeable pockets for easy access and removal for battery changes. all your wires will go through the switch so deciding where you want to place that is very important! Mine was placed just over my shoulder on the front side, mounted to the PVC pipe with a metal cover I drilled a hole into to slip the switch through and then drill through the pipe.

I've included another diagram below that explains all the electrical circuitry, including which wires go on which pins on the switch!

Important to note: The linear actuators need to be placed and bolted into the PVC pipes at *exactly* the same angle on each side, any slight deviation will lead to the wings going up wonkily! So take your time and make as many adjustments as necessary.

7. You can extend your wires by adding on the electrical wire, just match the colours, and put heat shrink tubing over the connections to hide the live wires! I ended up zip-tying the wires into organised bundles once the wings were done to help keep everything safe from snags.

8. Now its time for the Wings themselves! I drafted my base pattern by just draping the white cotton fabric I had over the wing when it was fully extended. I then pinned the wings to the shape I wanted them to be along the bottom before cutting along the pins. I ran the fabric through my sewing machine to close the bottom edge, leaving a gap wide enough by the wing base so I could slip the wing on and off, closing it with velcro. I also added little fabric pockets inside of these to hold my battery packs, which also connected via velcro for easy removal!

9. Now that I had a wing base I was able to begin making feathers! I cut out a total of 800 feathers out of polythene jiffy roll for these wings, in 6 different styles and using real life bird wings to dictate the shapes I used and where I placed them. I ended up hot gluing every individual feather onto the white fabric base, going row by row until every side was covered, the wing covers themselves are super light because of the foam feathers and they shine light through them in a really magical way!

Optional: I also ended up going over these feathers with my airbrush and some super light beige paint to help darken the shadows, this is entirely optional and may change depending on the wings you're looking to make!

When in neutral position and in extended position the wings looks like this:

Mine had a wingspan of about 7ft total when fully extended but when in neutral position they were fairly close to my own proportions! mainly staying behind me and weren't much of a problem in a packed con hall!

Photo by: Helloimfran (on Instagram and Twitter)

I hope this tutorial helped and if there are any questions about anything in specific don't hesitate to reach out at eufiemoon@gmail.com or on my instagram or twitter (@eufiemoon)

Happy Crafting!

[flowerishness]

Sonchus arvensis (perennial sow-thistle)

Round-up

A perennial sow-thistle enjoys a sunny day at the beach. This plant is native to Eurasia but is often described (by farmers) as a noxious, invasive weed, and is now 'naturalized' throughout North America, South America, Russia, New Zealand and Australia. Like it's relative the dandelion, it arrived from Europe during the Age of Exploration and it's probably been growing in North America for five hundred years. I have no doubt that the first seeds arrived on someone's muddy boot.

The Minnesota Wildflowers website reports, "This species is a rapid colonizer from deep, extensive underground root systems. Once listed as a Minnesota state noxious weed, it is now widely established throughout the state but is not as problematic agronomically as was once thought. Round-up Ready crops took care of much of the problem." '

Round-up (2,4-d) is a powerful broad-spectrum herbicide used extensively in modern agriculture. Round-up Ready crops include soy, corn, canola, alfalfa, sugar beets and cotton and Round-up resistant wheat is under development. Round-up has been extensively tested and under normal concentrations it is not considered injurious to human health but this research is controversial and many lawsuits are pending. In 2023, 91% of the corn, 95% of soybeans, and 94% of cotton produced in the United States were from genetically modified, herbicide-resistant strains. For everybody's sake, I hope these safety studies are correct.

A final note: as a gardener you are advised to wear long pants, a long sleeved shirt, gloves, goggles and a mask when applying Round-up, not that anybody does. Personally, I never use the stuff. I get rid of weeds the old-fashioned way - I use my hands.

[astranite]

Holding Onto Icicles

John, Gordon and hypothermia. Whump, a bit of hurt/comfort and brothers. (John too is a protective big brother. The fish is rather frozen. They both need hugs. More poetic than this intro makes it sound.) 670 words.

Written from the @Augusnippets prompt day 9: hypothermia/overheating/dehydration (a little early but as the muse goes!). Also written because it's winter and IM COLD TOO. And needed a short thing to write because I feel better when i write and that no my creativity hasn't all been eaten up im just cold, tired and stressing!

---

The ocean wasn’t nearly as cold as space— 

John leant over Gordon, checking once again on him, laying his fingertips, even gloved he knew, against his brother’s cool, pale cheek

—but it didn’t have to be. 

John hunched himself up further, to shelter Gordon from the wind with his own body. It bit into him, worming its way in through the neck of his space suit as if it could blow straight through every thermo-controlled layer like a thin cotton t-shirt. His helmet wasn’t recoverable, neither was Gordon’s. They hadn’t been prepared, not properly. Gordon was a limp weight in his lap, head flopped over to rest against John’s chest, over his heart.

Gordon had gone in the water, but he hadn’t. John was shivering too, but Gordon wasn’t.

Thunderbird Two would be here soon, she had to be. No matter how off course the storm and rescue had sent her. He and Gordon needed rescue too. 

They needed their brothers.

“Hang in there, Gordy,” John whispered.

Gordon blinked up at him. “‘S nice to see you…” he slurred.

A clumsy hand wobbled and reached to bump at John’s chin, patting it affectionately. “Wanna hang out with you m-more.”

Gordon hit John’s rather numb nose in the process. John couldn’t care less at this point. It meant his brother was still responsive. 

“We will. I promise. You’ve got first dibs on me, for whatever you want to do.”

When John had dragged Gordon out of the water from the edge, it hadn’t been a guarantee. 

“Yuh...mean it?”

If he was more with it, Gordon would’ve made a joke about being a beached seal or something because he’d been too exhausted to haul himself out of the water. There probably would’ve been sound effects.

His brother’s lips were blue.

Gordon had been silent, curling closer to John with hands that fumbled their grip on his baldric. Orange and yellow, together they were sunset colours.

It was John’s turn to blink but much more quickly than Gordon had. “Of course I do, nothing could possibly stop me.”

Not even the aftermath of water churning with icy slush and a bitter wind. He’d do anything to ensure his brother’s safety in this moment: beg, pray, make a deal with the devil to sell his soul, kill if anyone tried to take away his brother. The universe shouldn’t even bother to make the attempt.

Gordon’s fringe was beginning to freeze. Ever so gently, John swept Gordon’s damp, salty hair away from his forehead. His fingers were cold and difficult to move; he did it though.

A sliver of ice, a sword-tipped icicle, was driving itself though the back of John’s neck, into his spine. Not literally, not quite. The intensity of the cold ached sharply, seeping through his entire body, radiating inwards and outwards. It seared deep into his chest. Maybe it was a bit like what Gordon felt with his back. He’d tried to describe it once. John hoped it wasn’t too painful for him right now. John’s head pounded.

Gordon was still breathing. John held onto that as the facts and flow of his own thoughts grew slippery, as if he was attempting to hold onto icicles on a warm summer’s day. The ice gnawed at them.

His aching hand was splayed out on Gordon’s chest. Everything hurt. The colours and textures of their respective uniforms contrasted with each other, but both were blue in the end. His hand rose and fell. He and Gordon both were blue. 

The ocean, space, they weren’t so different really. Neither were him and Gordon. 

“Of course I mean it, I love you.”

Even if John didn’t know whether Gordon heard, he still had to say it. It should never have been a question.

John closed his eyes as the weight of the cold settled heavy on his shoulders, blanketing over him, more smothering than gravity. It all grew further away—

A Thunderbird’s great engines sounded in the distance.

—but he clung to Gordon tightly.

[kushblazer666]

THINGS YOUR MOTHER SHOULD HAVE TOLD YOU

1. Take your bananas apart when you get home from the store. If you leave them connected at the stem, they ripen faster.

2. Store your opened chunks of cheese in aluminum foil. It will stay fresh much longer and not mold!

3. Peppers with 3 bumps on the bottom are sweeter and better for eating. Peppers with 4 bumps on the bottom are firmer and better for cooking.

4. Add a teaspoon of water when frying ground beef. It will help pull the grease away from the meat while cooking.

5. To really make scrambled eggs or omelets rich add a couple of spoonfuls of sour cream, cream cheese, or heavy cream in and then beat them up.

6. For a cool brownie treat, make brownies as directed. Melt Andes mints in double broiler and pour over warm brownies. Let set for a wonderful minty frosting.

7. Add garlic immediately to a recipe if you want a light taste of garlic and at the end of the recipe if your want a stronger taste of garlic.

8. Leftover snickers bars from Halloween make a delicious dessert. Simply chop them up with the food chopper. Peel, core and slice a few apples. Place them in a baking dish and sprinkle the chopped candy bars over the apples. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes!!! Serve alone or with vanilla ice cream. Yummm!

9. Reheat Pizza

Heat up leftover pizza in a nonstick skillet on top of the stove, set heat to med-low and heat till warm. This keeps the crust crispy. No soggy micro pizza. I saw this on the cooking channel and it really works.

10. Easy Deviled Eggs

Put cooked egg yolks in a zip lock bag. Seal, mash till they are all broken up. Add remainder of ingredients, reseal, keep mashing it up mixing thoroughly, cut the tip of the baggy, squeeze mixture into egg. Just throw bag away when done easy clean up.

11. Expanding Frosting

When you buy a container of cake frosting from the store, whip it with your mixer for a few minutes. You can double it in size. You get to frost more cake/cupcakes with the same amount. You also eat less sugar and calories per serving.

12. Reheating refrigerated bread

To warm biscuits, pancakes, or muffins that were refrigerated, place them in a microwave with a cup of water. The increased moisture will keep the food moist and help it reheat faster.

13. Newspaper weeds away

Start putting in your plants, work the nutrients in your soil. Wet newspapers, put layers around the plants overlapping as you go. Cover with mulch and forget about weeds. Weeds will get through some gardening plastic they will not get through wet newspapers.

14. Broken Glass

Use a wet cotton ball or Q-tip to pick up the small shards of glass you can't see easily.

15. No More Mosquitoes

Place a dryer sheet in your pocket. It will keep the mosquitoes away.

16. Squirrel Away!

To keep squirrels from eating your plants, sprinkle your plants with cayenne pepper. The cayenne pepper doesn't hurt the plant and the squirrels won't come near it.

17. Flexible vacuum

To get something out of a heat register or under the fridge add an empty paper towel roll or empty gift wrap roll to your vacuum. It can be bent or flattened to get in narrow openings.

18. Reducing Static Cling

Pin a small safety pin to the seam of your slip and you will not have a clingy skirt or dress. Same thing works with slacks that cling when wearing panty hose. Place pin in seam of slacks and ... guess what! ... static is gone.

19. Measuring Cups

Before you pour sticky substances into a measuring cup, fill with hot water. Dump out the hot water, but don't dry cup. Next, add your ingredient, such as peanut butter, and watch how easily it comes right out. (Or spray the measuring cup or spoon with Pam before using)

20. Foggy Windshield?

Hate foggy windshields? Buy a chalkboard eraser and keep it in the glove box of your car When the windows fog, rub with the eraser! Works better than a cloth!

21. Re-opening envelopes

If you seal an envelope and then realize you forgot to include something inside, just place your sealed envelope in the freezer for an hour or two. Viola! It unseals easily.

22. Conditioner

Use your hair conditioner to shave your legs. It's cheaper than shaving cream and leaves your legs really smooth. It's also a great way to use up the conditioner you bought but didn't like when you tried it in your hair.

spotted on the Tedooo app

23. Goodbye Fruit Flies

To get rid of pesky fruit flies, take a small glass, fill it 1/2' with Apple Cider Vinegar and 2 drops of dish washing liquid; mix well. You will find those flies drawn to the cup and gone forever!

24. Get Rid of Ants

Put small piles of cornmeal where you see ants. They eat it, take it 'home,' can't digest it so it kills them. It may take a week or so, especially if it rains, but it works and you don't have the worry about pets or small children being harmed!

[tmeglove]

Cotton string knit work safety gloves Comfortable to wear: Safety work gloves are form-fitting, cool, and snug, making them nice general-purpose gloves, seamless polyester knit shell is comfortable and flexible and the cotton knit is soft against the skin

[allworkwear]

THE ADAPTABLE VEST IS YOUR NEW APPAREL

Discover how versatile and easy to wear a vest can be by adding one to your wardrobe! Stuck in an unbreakable cycle? All Workwear provides the ideal vest to quickly and stylishly alter your appearance! Are you trying to find something that is both practical and cozy? The vest is the only place to look. Vests are a practical addition to any wardrobe in addition to making a statement in terms of style. Our vests are designed with thoughtful features and soft fabrics to keep you looking and feeling your best throughout the day. Put on a vest over your clothes for a polished yet laid-back look. You can accessorize your business attire with a vest to be warm and fashionable, or wear one over a plain tee for a polished but relaxed look. To feel the comfort and ease of usage of a vest, purchase one from All Workwear today. Vests are not only a winter necessity - they may be worn all year round. Our variety of fabrics is perfect for dressing up on warm days or layering during transitional seasons because they range from lightweight to breathable.

[lpsis]

LPSIS Hand Protection Gloves — Safety, Comfort, and Quality Combined

LPSIS is your go-to source for premium hand protection gloves that prioritize safety, comfort, and quality. Our hand protection gloves are designed to shield your hands from various hazards while ensuring all-day comfort.

Key Features:

Superior Protection: LPSIS hand protection gloves are engineered to safeguard your hands from cuts, punctures, chemicals, heat, and more, making them suitable for a wide range of applications.

Premium Materials: Crafted from high-quality materials, our gloves are built for durability and lasting performance.

Comfortable Fit: Designed for a snug and comfortable fit, our gloves enable you to work efficiently and confidently throughout the day.

Versatility: Our gloves cater to diverse industries, including construction, industrial, healthcare, and more.

Compliance with Standards: Rest assured, our hand protection gloves adhere to industry regulations and standards, ensuring the highest level of safety.

Choose LPSIS Hand Protection Gloves to protect your hands while maintaining comfort and quality. Contact us today to discuss your hand protection glove needs, place an order, or inquire about bulk purchasing options. Your safety and satisfaction are our primary concerns.

Visit- https://lpsis.co.in/

[sable-dream]

I see a lot of 'diy gear' around so I'm surprised I've hardly ever seen bleach dyed shirts! They're honestly one of the coolest, easiest, and relatively inexpensive ways to make discreet gear - especially if you're like me and you can't exactly find shirts of your theriotype being sold.

Tutorial under the cut!! :3

What you will need:

A black t-shirt, preferably 100% cotton (avoid polyester and spandex)

Bleach

Water

Sidewalk/blackboard chalk, or a chalk pen

A paintbrush to apply the bleach

A disposable cup

A bit of cardboard or plastic to put under the shirt (to prevent the design from bleeding through onto the other side)

GLOVES and other safety gear (ie, a mask and goggles)

fabric paint, not puffy paint (optional but if you're heavy handed like I am it helps so you can fix screw ups)

SAFETY:

Work in a well ventilated area.

Wear gloves, goggles, and ideally a filtration mask when handling bleach.

WASH YOUR HANDS thoroughly after handling the bleach and do not touch your eyes or face before washing your hands

Be mindful of chemical reactions that can occur when mixing bleach with other cleaning products - never, ever, EVER mix bleach with anything containing ammonia as it can react and create toxic chlorine gas.

Keep bleach out of the reach of pets and small children, and if you have small animals like birds or rodents, work AWAY from them as the fumes can damage their lungs.

Make sure you read the back of your bleach container so you know how to handle and dispose of it safely.

Process:

Slide the cardboard into the shirt, adjusting it so you'll be drawing on the side you want your design on.

Use the chalk to draw your design on the fabric - don't worry about screwing up here, it'll wash out later. (If you want to, you can digitally draw your design, print it out, then trace the back with chalk and press it onto the shirt to transfer the art)

Put on your safety gear (ESPECIALLY your gloves) and move to a ventilated area (I did this on my back porch)

Carefully pour some bleach into your cup, then cut it with water. Remember that the more water you add, the more of the solution you'll need to apply to get your design to show up.

Apply the solution over your sketch using your paintbrush. You might need to apply it multiple times if your bleach solution is less concentrated.

Once your satisfied with your design, let it sit for 20 minutes to allow the bleach to fully stain the fabric.

After 20 minutes, rinse out the fabric under cool water. Make sure you're wearing your gloves as you do this so you don't hurt your skin.

Wash your shirt in your washing machine by itself, otherwise the bleach might transfer to other laundry. Put it in the dryer after or hang it up to air dry.

Clean up your area, wash your paintbrush out thoroughly, throw the cup away, and then remove your gloves to scrub your hands with soap and water.

Once your shirt is clean and dry, you can use fabric paint to touch up any mistakes. I used black paint to remove excess lines and white to give my design eye shines. Follow the directions for fabric paint on the back of the bottle, as the instructions for washing it can be different. Don't use puffy paint, the touch ups will end up raised and it'll look funny.

And there you have it! :D DIY gear shirt for all your alterhuman needs >:)

[kagedbird]

Cicero Loves You, Listener! TESSDE AU - Dark Brotherhood route

~ [First] ~ [Next] ~ [Prev] ~

Something had gone wrong while we were up on the cliff.

I hadn’t been able to put my finger on it. It felt like we were being watched. I was certain the others could feel it to, with the way Inigo’s tail whipped up a storm, ears flicked back tightly against his skull; Lucien nervously kept checking over his shoulder, waiting for something to pop out; Kaidan scanning the horizon line repeatedly for anyone in the close vicinity or far distance.

I couldn’t hold back my own shivers of discomfort as we slowed our pace, feeling very much like we were being corralled to something.

We were not too far from Falkreath, in Reachmen territory. Normally, according to my boys, this usually spelt disaster. But I’d managed to make friends with many of the tribes in the area, and they’d given us clear passage by warning others that we weren’t to be harmed.

They really enjoyed my hurdy gurdy songs I’d shared the first time.

Due to this safety net, however, I knew it wasn’t them stalking us like prey. Shepherded closer and closer to the edge of a cliffside, my hands felt clammy while holding the grip of Kaidan’s bow, and I felt as taut as the bowstring along my entire body.

I just wished something would happen, so we could get it over with all ready!

Suspense was my most despised form of horror. Not knowing when the other shoe would drop raised my anxiety levels too high; pulse skyrocketing in my veins. Sahloknir and Mirmulnir could hardly contain Nahagliiv with the amount of turmoil coiling through me, try as I might to douse it with vague hope.

My heart was palpitating and squeezing too tightly. My mouth felt like cotton had taken over to live on my tongue, and I felt sweat trickle down the base of my arms. I was sure to have an anxiety attack before long if this kept up.

Inigo whipped around, bow drawn, a snarl on his face as we all turned to see what had caught his attention.

But there was nothing in the area behind us.

I whipped my head back around— equal parts sure it had been a diversion, as well as thinking I had heard something this time— only to find nothing yet again. Sequestered between two boulders that hugged the edge of the cliff precariously, we all waited, as still as our breathing, for anything to happen.

…And waited.

…

…And waited still.

Despite nothing happening, none of us were willing to look away and untense to let our guards drop. We’d been through too much for that. We knew better— even Lucien, who I could tell was struggling to keep still.

I swallowed thickly again, trying to hear anything beyond the beating of my blood in my ears. We were on our way back to Whiterun, and all I wanted to do was to fall into Bren’s arms and rest with my family. I wanted to go home and cook for them and not think about being the Dragonborn for five minutes. Not have to think about the Gods that pestered me endlessly about saving the world.

I wanted a break. Not to break.

Kaidan shuffled in place, the sound of his gloves creaking from his grip sounding like blaring sirens in the stillness. Lucien’s breathing was tight, fire alight along his fingers and palms. And though no longer drawn fully to conserve energy, Inigo was still poised and at the ready to shoot anything that remotely popped up out of the blue.

I could feel my magicka swirling just under the surface of my skin, aching to be let out and released, but I couldn’t. Not yet. I couldn’t draw eyes to us just because of this tension. It would only give whatever was out there a hidden third party to kill us all the easier.

I was growing weary with every passing minute though. Why wait this long? Why drag it out? Were they even there anymore?

The temptation to call out grew more and more, but I could hear my sister berating me for outing myself to an enemy and risking my team. So I continued biting my tongue and kept my eyes peeled—

There. A shadow had moved behind the boulder on the right, I had seen it. I silently nudged Inigo and Kaidan, as they were closest to me, and nodded towards that boulder. They nodded back, eyes sharp, as I slowly moved to Lucien’s side to warn him as well.

What I hadn’t anticipated was the sudden and sharp whistle from a fired arrow racing towards me, catching me in the shoulder in mere moments.

All hell broke loose. Kaidan and Inigo immediately went on the hunt, shouting out war cries as they raced after the perceived threat, while Lucien caught me as I fell into his arms. I stumbled, knees hitting the dirt and small rocks painfully; my hand reaching up to the arrow that was surely sunk into my muscle.

Another whistle, I couldn’t think, I just shoved Lucien down, watching as the next arrow shuddered into the dirt behind us.

“RUN!” I screamed past the stranglehold on my throat, getting up as fast as I possibly could and dragged Lucien up with me.

“Where?!” He yelped back, stumbling upright and hurried off as I pushed him.

“Anywhere! Serpentine! Just run!” I croaked. Anxiety was clawing at my insides— I couldn’t think.

Another arrow just barely missed Lucien’s foot as he dodged left, leaving him yelping again. I turned to the direction the arrows were firing from, but saw nothing but open spaces.

Wait—

Along the ground of the cliffside, there were specific pocket markings, as if the dirt had been turned over. Risking the spare moments between an archer’s reload time, I could see that the motions continued in a semi-circle from one boulder to the other.

Exactly covering the section only I remained standing on.

My pupils were dilated as time slowed down. In his haste, Lucien’s feet ripped up the dirt from behind him, loose as it was, sending trickles of it throughout the air.

Another arrow just missed him, sending him skating further beyond the line.

A trap.

I went to run— I needed to get out of here— but another arrow stopped me in my tracks as it pierced my thigh. I screamed in pain, falling forward into the dirt, and felt it shudder under the force of my weight.

I howled in agony as I broke the arrow in my thigh, digging the arrowhead further into my skin; barely seeing past the blinding white pain of Lucien attempting to run back to me. He was stopped by dozens of arrows flying his way, keeping him trapped. Kaidan and Inigo were nowhere to be seen from my position. I couldn’t hear much past the tinnitus ringing in my head.

I was being targeted. By what? Or whom?

It didn’t matter. I needed to—!

The ground shook horrifically, just as predicted, and I turned my head to see the dirt collapsing behind me over the edge. I grabbed fistfuls of grass and dirt, desperately clawing my way across as best I could.

Lucien was braving through the storm of arrows, diving headfirst along the ground to reach out to me—

My fingertips grazed his—

He gasped in pain as his body retracted from being shot in the side again and again; eyes peering widely into my own.

And I let out a terrified scream as my body plummeted down, down, down below.