#covert shirt store

[faeriekit]

WIP thingy - I was gonna ask about Dude Who's a Spy and then I read on and I NEED to know about "dude who's a spy WITH POKEMON" because lolol. Please indulge me, i beg of you.

Okay I'm awake now! <3

I think(?) this was shortly after I got my first diagnosis + its accompanying medication, because I have the distinct memory of sitting down on the couch, writing, and then nothing else until it was dark and I had 6,000 words on an untitled document. And by "realizing" I mean my mother walked through the door and went "why are all the lights off-- did you not move while I was gone?"

No. No I did not. And then I did the exact same thing the next day, finishing my first short story about a guy who realizes he's compromised in enemy territory only after abandoning his wife and kid and the life he actually wanted.

And then. After finishing this sad story, which genuinely only ended on a sad note because I the author also couldn't see a way out of it, my brain was like what if....it wasn't so sad and it was also more fun.

Well, how could I do that?

...Add pokémon?

So I started rewriting the entire story with pokémon added to the plot, which, c'mon, everyone having their own emotional support animal added to a plot really lowers the sadness density! So dude who's a spy is complete but dude who's a spy WITH POKEMON is a WIP, but reliant on the first work.

Some snippets:

*(spy)

Andrew Lawrence Lee was an illustrator, husband, and father of one. He spent the majority of his days working on well-enough paid projects with the publishing house he had been hired for, working on oils and watercolors that would wind up on the pages of glossy-print children’s books— books his daughter read every night before bed and took with her to kindergarten to explain what her father did for work. His wife was employed by homeland security and could often be home late, but she was just as happy to finish her day in work shoes and on the edge of Cammie’s bed, flipping through glossy pages as Andrew pointed out the details of his work. Kanon Lee was witty and clever, and if their daughter was half as wise as her mother was, Andrew would be blessed beyond measure.

So, of course, he thought to himself, brushes dipping into pristine cups of tap-poured water, it would be nice if Andrew existed. Still, he liked being Andrew, and anyone paid fat stacks in overseas bank accounts had very few reasons to complain, and, furthermore, Andrew’s wife was an absolute delight. He wanted for nothing. If he had been left to his own devices, he probably would have done his best to pursue her romantically. The fact that he had been paid and encouraged to marry this particular member of national security was just a bonus. Literally. The amount of money he was wired after the wedding would buy a small island.

And a man named Andrew Lawrence Lee spent his time painting��a genuine hobby he had never been able to enjoy as frequently in his home country— spending time with his daughter, who he adored completely, and spent time with his wife, who really did work too hard. Spending time with her was more than just work-oriented. Sure, teasing her for covert tips and hints as to the state of national security was his true intention even when he wrapped her in his arms and pulled her shirt-to-shirt close, but date nights were cute, and when she blushed he felt like he had everything a sleeper agent could want in his whole life.

She had recently switched from mint chapstick to cherry. It was an excuse to kiss her more.

*(With Pokémon)

And it’s Kanon in a college tee and khaki shorts who unloads the boxes from the moving truck, and it’s he who’s coated from head-to-toe in paint splotches as he covers each room with an elegant red he’d fancied at the hardware store. The exception is the empty center room. He can’t resist. He paints it with layers of gold and gold and gold paint. He staples down the softest rug he can find at the discount center, and even, in his softest sentimentality, buys a pet bed for the Pokémon she’s sure to have, if she is anything like her parents. He doesn’t give up his remodeling venture until the Kecleon approves. And by approves, he means that he puts the Kecleon down on the floor and watches to see if it crawls all over the furniture with its tentative, grasping hands.

It does.

It also tries to eat a spot on the wall that he assumes it thinks is a fly? Its tongue pops off the paint with no expression he can discern, but it army-crawls its way back into his arms with what he assumes is disappointment.

He also waits to ensure that the Houndoom feels comfortable patrolling the house before suggesting his idea to Kanon.

She doesn’t approve. His wise and clever Kanon does not disapprove, either. She sits and thinks. He sits beside her and holds her hand while a finger taps on her chin, and she ponders, and she checks her phone for both their finances and her off-hours.

“…It seems reasonably possible,” Kanon decides, a week later, over her breakfast of granola and plain yogurt. He can’t help the kiss he leans over the table for.

And they have Cammie.

****

Camille Hotaru Lee is the smallest, most fragile thing he has ever seen.

He can admit it to himself, if to no one else. He doesn’t have Cammie for a cover. She is a special piece of himself that he wants, desperately, and he is selfish enough to go after this desire that has no other outlet. For him and Kanon to have a family. To have some permanence on her life that cannot be stripped away with the removal of his cover.

His handler, he’s sure, is suspicious of such compromise of his agent, but says nothing of it to his face. The man sends him endless offers to illustrate for children’s books instead. He paints with Camille on his lap. The Kecleon plays with her little grasping hands while he mixes the right shades of green for a moonlit hillside. Cammie burbles and giggles every time the Kecleon picks a new shade to mimic, until it realizes the color-changing makes her laugh. It begins to swap a thousand colors at once just to make Cammie shriek with laughter.

Kanon comes home in the evening to a house full of baby laughter and the faint smell of turpentine, and she sits beside the man who she has no reason to doubt is her husband, and they put serial dramas on the television while she pumps milk for the next day. The Houndoom snores ash at their feet. Camille sleeps to the sound of television sirens and the whirr of the pumping machine, and Kanon and he swap theories on the end of the episode, solving artificial crimes in a box.

Cammie learns how to walk during her persistent attempts to pull his easel down with her. It’s her climbing phase. He tries all types of child-proof locks on the house until another church member just buys him a pack of extra-thick rubber bands. It gets Cammie to stop opening cabinets. It also gets the Kecleon to stop opening cabinets for her in a show of solidarity.

The Kecleon sulks by slowly chewing on his t-shirts. He isn’t sure why. It goes limp as soon as he picks it up, and it’s not as if the thing has any teeth. It’s just…gumming up his laundry.

It is a peaceful, almost surreally so, childhood for Camille. He had grown up in a town house. His father had quartered his small family during the months he was in active service. He doesn’t have many memories but the smell of his mother cooking, the beige pavement crawling down the rue, and the overwhelming fear of his father coming home linger still in the back of his mind.

[mrmaxhayashi]

The engine of Max’s motorcycle was cut off in a noisy gurgle. That was something he’d have to look into later. Kicking down the stand, he pulled his helmet off and tucked it under his arm, stuffing his gloves into it and hoping that A Novel Idea was as friendly and secure as Ava had promised him it was. She’d told him it would be fine to leave his bike in the tiny parking lot behind it and he only hoped he wouldn’t have to regret trusting her. That being said, given the sorry state of the bike right now, he didn’t think that any potential thieves were going to get very far with it. You know what, he’d be impressed if they did.

He was further impressed to see that there was already a line of people waiting outside the door of A Novel Idea, and although he momentarily flirted with the idea of swanning right up to the front, armed with a cry of “I know the author!” he held back. Manners and all. He had spent years trying to instill them in Tommy; he’d be a hypocrite for doing something he’d forcibly pull his little brother back by the collar of his shirt for attempting.

Instead, he joined the line of people, finding himself sandwiched in between an elderly gay couple who informed him they always loved to come to signings for new, queer authors, and a young woman who was blatantly scrolling through Louis’ Instagram.

Max couldn’t necessarily blame her. When he’d gotten wind of Louis being in New York, he’d all but stalked the man’s social media up until he’d found a list of all his book signings. He hadn’t made the very first one, but after sending a few covert messages to Ava, he’d landed himself a last minute ticket to this one in the cute little book store. All without breathing a word of it to Louis. Sue him, he wanted to surprise his friend.

It had been way too long since the two of them had seen each other, what with Max’s move to New York forcing him to leave San Fran behind a long time ago. He still visited from time to time in order to see his aunt, but now that Tommy was here on the east coast with him, there was little for him left back in California. Louis, however, was part of that.

Excitement fizzed under Max’s skin as the door finally opened. He gave a smile to the handsome-looking owner and took a seat near the back row, nearly getting taken out by a brunette barreling by him, muttering something like the eagle has fucking landed, I guess into her hand. Taken aback by the near-collision, his eyes followed her for a moment before he shook his head and turned back, finding himself sitting next to the two men from before. They both sat up attentively when Louis appeared at the little table at the front. Immediately, Max mirrored them, a wide and proud smile on his face as Louis introduced himself and his book and began reading.

He’d always known that Louis could write. He knew that from the various occasions where he’d pleaded with the man to let him read some of his first drafts. True, he’d had to be a little sneaky about it, sometimes downright pickpocketing the other man and holding his notebook aloft from where he’d plucked it from Louis’ bag. But it was only because he knew his friend was talented, and now he was just glad he had a whole room of people to back him up. The only thing that threatened to pull Max’s attention away was the sight of a man fully army-crawling across the floor on his stomach, a crumpled looking envelope held tightly in his fist. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as the guy eventually jumped up upon reaching the same brunette woman from before, the two of them spilling out the door and quickly scarpering. Weird, Max thought, before quickly returning his focus to Louis.

As soon as he finished reading the Christopher Street excerpt, the whole room burst into rapturous applause, Max clapping wildly along with them. Then, there was a flurry of chaos as people stampeded towards the front of the room, hoping to be amongst the first to get their book signed. Max was happy to hang back at the end of the line though, grinning when, at long last, he could approach Louis’ table.

“Holy shit, don’t I know you from somewhere?” he teased, reaching out to clap his hand on Louis’ shoulder in the hopes of pulling the man into a hug.

[dramatisperscnae]

Headcanon - Bucky

Age and Appearance

Bucky Barnes was born in the year 1918, his father a WWI veteran. That makes him roughly 105 now, though he still looks like he’s in his early 30s.

He stands 5’10”, weighing in at 260 lbs; likely 50 lbs of that is due to his left arm.

He favors neutral or darker colors, nothing that stands out too much and blends into a crowd. Preferably clothing that is durable and low-key, stuff that doesn’t show the wear and can be worn for two or three days before it really starts to show. He doesn’t buy new clothing these days; everything he owns came either off someone’s clothes line or from a thrift store. Faded, worn, something no one would look twice at on the street. Which is kind of the entire point.

He tends to avoid short sleeves when it comes to shirts, unless it’s a situation where it’s not going to matter - like a pitched battle, for instance - and generally wears gloves at all times. Cotton and wool are his go-tos when he has the luxury of being picky about material; both of them breathe well, and wool has this amazing property of not staying wet that is incredibly useful.

Generally he wears boots rather than running shoes or other such things; again, durable. Boots tend to last longer than sneakers, and they’re hardier and work better in all weather and on pretty much all terrain.

His hair is brown, shoulder length and generally tucked under a baseball cap or a hood out of grey-hazel eyes.

Said eyes, due to their coloring, can look blue, green, or grey - or any combination thereof - depending on what he’s wearing at the time.

Abilities (taken from 616 Wikia, Comicvine, and Wikipedia)

Bucky’s left arm has been replaced with a fully-functional bionic arm. The arm has superhuman strength, speed, and reflexes, and is fitted with sensors that allow it to pass through metal detectors with ease. It can also shield other metallic objects such as knives or guns.

His arm is capable of releasing bolts of electrical energy or electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) from the palm that can stun opponents or render electronic devices useless.

If necessary, should it become separated from his body, James can control his arm remotely thanks to cybernetic implants received at the same time as the arm.

Bucky is a master martial artist and hand-to-hand combatant, able to go toe-to-toe against the likes of Captain America and Wolverine alone and win, or at the very least hold his own. He is also a skilled acrobat and Olympic-level athlete, his abilities honed first during the war and later by the Russians.

He is an expert marksman, skilled both in sharpshooting and knife throwing, and is one of, perhaps the, most lethal assassin in the Marvel universe.

His body - strength, speed, endurance, agility, etc - is close to, if not at, the peak of possible human condition.

He is an expert spy and advance scout, highly skilled in stealth and concealment as well as covert operations skills such as demolitions, survival, communications, tracking, etc.

Bucky is fluent in English, Russian, German, and Japanese, conversational in Spanish, Portuguese and Latin, and understands a little French.

Personality

He doesn’t talk much these days, answering only with the bare minimum and only explaining when asked.

He tends to avoid people for the most part. SHIELD, or what’s left of it, is probably hunting him, and Hydra, or what’s left of it, would probably like to have its weapon back. He wants no part of it; just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.

Bucky has made a habit out of constantly studying his surroundings and depicting what he can and cannot do in whatever situation he should fall in, scoping out ways of entrance and exit without being detected and the best ways of neutralizing the minimum amount of security necessary to do so.

His fight-or-flight instinct is almost permanently hardwired to fight first, run later. That is to say, if he feels threatened, he will make the first strike and he will strike to incapacitate or kill, and then if he feels he cannot handle the situation alone he will run. If he’s facing SHIELD or Hydra personnel, the strike is most likely going to be to kill, with very few exceptions.

That being said, if he has the opportunity to run, he will. Nearly a century of being used as a weapon has left him with a bad taste in his mouth for killing if he doesn’t have to.

He rarely makes eye contact with anyone, keeping his focus on their chin or their chest.

If told to do something followed by the words ‘that’s an order’ he will do it, or at least move to begin; years of conditioning have left that as a trigger phrase.

When uncomfortable he occasionally mutters to himself in Russian, often nonsense rhymes or the specs of whatever weapon comes to mind first, as a calming and grounding mechanism.

Miscellaneous

He will still occasionally [especially on his bad days] answer to Soldat [the Russian for ‘Soldier’], to Winter or Zima[the Russian for Winter], and occasionally to James(but never to the Russian version of his name). He will also look up at the word ‘asset’, as that was often how he was referred to.

He does have some of his memories back - probably more than he thinks he does - but he’s given most of them up as lost forever due to the extended trauma he went through with Hydra.. The clearest ones are those from his time under Hydra’s control. Especially the people he’s killed under their command.

He’s not as stable as he appears to be. Memories from before Hydra are still sketchy at best; he basically cold-reads whoever he’s talking to – especially Steve – and plays along most days. If he’s being honest with himself, he doesn’t think he ever will actually remember Brooklyn or the pre-war days clearly.

Bucky’s always had a habit of biting his thumbnail if he’s really stuck on a problem. He doesn’t really chew on it or try to shorten it, he just bites at it. Theoretically it helps him think.

[conkniving]

banner resource. banner edited by @thvnderr

tw: drug abuse, murder/death mention, child neglect

i. the lovers' mask

a tale called the moon's anguish that has circulated anchorage for the past several decades has prompted some young lovers to exchange masks as a promise of devotion. what design would your muse theoretically think fits them?

fallon encompasses the phrase "blind in love" partially because she never knows until it's too late that she had been in love, and partially because she can't see any way out of it. for the better or worse. a perfect depiction of that would be a venetian mask without eyelets. stark white, littered with scratch writing over the entire face of it, containing pop culture quotes and quotes from the person in question — all to guide fallon in her sightlessness.

some might consider them leading a double life if they knew about...

stating something about the bastards is too easy an answer. it's nearly a given, though no one would dare publicly question fallon about her affiliation if they didn't fear immediate retaliation as they should. rather, a double life could be said about the covert addict life. it's easy to hide behind the booze and the pot as just facets of her lifestyle, a cigarette always to adorn the lips. but behind the backs of those she loves the most, tucked in dark corners and walking lonely streets, there's the surreptitious use of coke. and the desire for something more. stronger. intravenous...

what would be their own deal breaker in a relationship? would they die for love or kill for money?

betrayal. most can be forgiven but to stab fallon in the back after she trusted she could bare the vulnerable side of herself is to ensure a swift end to any relationship. and it won't be clean either. but if one were to be lucky enough to get beneath the armour, to touch the flesh and its weaknesses, she would certainly die for love. that's not to say she wouldn't kill for money, either.

they only have enough change for one call at the phonebooth, and someone with glaring red eyes and a spatula is standing across the street. who will they call?

stella, clarifying she only has a couple minutes to pull up before fallon takes care of this herself. or truthfully: sarai. just to let someone with medical expertise know where she is — whether it means fallon's the one who winds up injured or the creep is unclear.

ii. the zeitgeist of the 90's

their favourite slasher film is...

the slumber party massacre series. in general, fallon likes any slasher or horror film — the more b-rated, the better. satisfying her penchant for trashy media, the series is the sort that she can throw on her tv and let play in the background softly as if it's any other vinyl record to another.

in their free time, they enjoy going out and...

thrifting. it's not like fallon has a lot of cash to throw on on non-essentials: rent, food for her and cerberus, the gang, and her drugs. sweet thing grunge looks good second-hand, and she has an amateur hand at repairing an article to her standards. there's a balance of looking dirty and actually being dirty, the latter of which she despises. thrifting at consignment stores is a random activity that might draw the eye of those perplexed to discover her sifting through the racks, and then it starts to make sense. big headphones crowning her head and shielding her ears, a couple hangers draped over a shoulder while she inspects the cargo pants she knows she can dye black in her tub to fit the aesthetic; and if she only happens to find a shirt or belt she likes, it's easy to slip it on as part of the outfit and no one is the wiser.

a fashion fad of the times they adore that their friends would despise is...

the spiky space buns hairstyle. even a singular bun, as long as it's got straightened ends that jut out as if they're truly sharp, fallon will wear them despite the fact it's not exactly "hard" of her to do so.

how often do they order delivery from peppy's pizzeria? have they ever seen the walls ooze green slime in the pizzeria or the animatronics move on their own during their time in anchorage?

often. fallon doesn't like to cook unless it's easy and there's not enough in the budget to splurge on something more than dehydrated packets of ramen. peppy's subpar pizza is perfect as part of a hangover remedy or a pick-me-up after a long day that's become day. and due to those occurrences that often warp reality ( and not to mention the years of drug use ) fallon has caught movement in the peripheries that she chalks up to her own psychosis and paranoia playing tricks on her.

when they believed in christmas, were they told krampus would pay them a visit for being on the naughty list?

christmas wasn't a fixture in fallon's household even after they moved stateside. the whole knowledge of krampus came from fallon's own delve into folklore in high school, satiating that need for the dark and gritty, and was the whole inspiration for her own snowman she entered into the contest simply because she thought it would be funny to include something grotesque among the adorable entries. what she does believe in? karma. and it certainly divined exaction on her for that act since the krampus snowman had been "stolen" and implicated with the new year's atrocities. in a way... did krampus pay a visit for fallon's naughtiness?

what tall tale or superstition were they told as a child that still gives them the heebie jeebies?

when fallon first heard about w*ndigos. something about cannibalistic fiends morphed of humans prowling in the wilderness all across the world frightened her terribly as a child. even now, when she looks out into the woods from the motel, she can envision a twisted creature staring back, hopeful to devour her heart.

iii. the curse of the spider

are there family secrets or so-called curses that haunt them? ones that are known publicly or follow them figuratively?

until recently, fallon never spared another thought about her parents since she had moved out more than a decade ago. not as though they ever attempted to contact her either. which was fine, but perhaps she would have hoped they cared enough to tell her that the debts they left unpaid for so long had begun to catch up to her. haunting her now, both in the relationship it destroyed and the paranoia that she were to be snatched up at any moment, is the price of her head for her father's sins.

which of the seven sins would corrupt their morals?

wrath. that blind fury. it could turn her against every virtue she holds dear, the very people she would never want to lay a hand on. it wouldn't let go until she blinking back to awareness and she's left with the aftermath of her own possession.

the world remains the same for decades now. is ignorance bliss? or is there the shaky sense something is amiss that can't be ignored?

ignorance is bliss. fallon doesn't care ( or doesn't even realize ) that the world doesn't appear to have changed in an abnormally long period of time.

dreams are often influenced by the subconscious and sometimes distorted. in their deepest, darkest nightmares, how do they view themselves?

like a kicked dog. that she will never amount to anything more. that her time will come and pass, and no one will have noticed. utterly forgettable. unlovable.

iv. the crooked frame

what is their death wish? the perfect crime was constructed and someone else took their place. how did they originally die?

fallon is largely unaware of her own imposter. and she hopes that when her due is ready to be collected, that it goes swiftly. a bullet to the back of the head. dead before she hits the ground. originally? she had already been her parents' collateral once. a test subject sold off to wipe the slate clean and rid themselves of a burden. only, she came back... and different. wrong.

the muse couldn't be the one behind the tunnel of love outage because when the power went out, they were...

fucking stuck in there. the bruises on her waist indicate the fervor in which she escaped the metal confines of the ride trying to bar her there.

what would they consider their calling card?

haphazard drawing of a spiky, feral rat. in the dirt. in graffiti. in blood.

those with intermediate technical skills have used cracks and vpn's to improve the internet connection, but anything post-dating the 1990's is only accessible through the dark web. has the muse ever accessed the dark web? have they used it for any nefarious means or to purchase services?

fallon has never personally accessed it with her complete lack of technical skill. but she does have contacts, and therefore, been able to use the dark web for personal and work purposes. some jobs have been completed in order for some quick cash to supply the bastards, and she has been able to stock up on paraphernalia through these means.

[efosa123]

Covert Shirt Store Ver2 Partners Video April Launch hi and welcome to the I am wealth builders partner page but covert shirt store this is a wordpress theme that makes it quick and simple for anyone to set up a wordpress t-shirt site selling shirts from a variety of platforms including amazon tee spring tees early and son Prague and now with the version to update this includes Cafe Press so it's not just t-shirts users can sell a wide variety of branded items from mugs to mouse mats covet shirt store is a proven seller with over 3000 copies sold on jvzoo alone with a solid long-term conversions and EPCs it's an evergreen product that is around to stay we released the new version 2 at 10:00 a.m. 154 more words

[cool-wilson-david]

Covert Shirt Store by IM Wealth Builders Review – A New Revolutionary WordPress Theme that will Transform Your Blogs into Your Own Profitable Viral T-Shirt Store and Get Massive Commissions Without Having to Design A Single T-Shirt or Spend a Single Cent on Ads

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[choco-pudding]

Space Channel 5 Gyun Gyun Book p.06-12 (Translations by @lavoszero and myself. Edit by myself.)

Imgur link to the complete Gyun Gyun Book scanlation.

Plain Text below

p. 06-07

Fashionable Reporting in Shibuya

p. 08

Costumes of ULALA

Ulala changes costumes for every report, here’s the four variations for your convenience. Even though they're all designed with orange, you can still notice the variations between each outfit. Maybe they all have hidden features to go along with their different types of charm…?  Let's delve into all of the costumes!

She's always wearing a headset even when wearing a helmet. Since she's shaking to the beat all year round she doesn't need to worry about bad blood circulation.

Ulala has a strong sense of originality but she also makes sure to incorporate the latest trends. She's been into the orange trend recently.

Channel 5 didn’t even provide a mic, so she remodeled the face of one to match the branding. Cute, huh? It can transform into a raygun though the mic's handle makes for a great, hard blunt weapon as is.

The raygun (tension blaster) is powered by one's "soul fly" energy to shoot with a chu. Basically, it fires the A Button and B Button beams.

The suppository-like shape is gross but Ulala's rockets have excellent performance and are super convenient when flying to high places. Careful, use it for too long and it will burn your butt.

The orange platform are her favorite and also very dangerous ‘cause of the sharp heels. And since her legs have been strengthened by dancing, she could be just as strong and dangerous as Alexander Karelin when she learns and uses a taekwondo style front kick.

[Translator's note: Dancing improves cardiovascular health hence the comment about Ulala not having to worry about bad blood circulation. Yes, it actually says her rockets look like suppositories. Alexander Karelin is a former wrestler.]

Normal Outfit A summery reporter's outfit with the most up-to-date features and a revealing miniskirt. It focuses on the ease of movement and is made from ultra-stretchable fabric. The way it's cut at the joints is designed so that her arms can move with maximum efficiency.

p.09

Secret Gear Not only has the miniskirt has been changed into shorts, but the outfit’s collar has also been removed so that the maximum movement and weight reduction has been accomplished~. In a way, it’s a design suited for covert reports. It's extremely breathable and perfect for high pressure areas like spacecrafts and submarines

Gogo Gear Wouldn't it be a perfect winter outfit with those long leaves and trim? When traveling in outer space at high speeds, even small dust particles can damage the human body, so this suit was designed to completely protect the reporter from any incidents. The helmet resembles a fishbowl, and that's where all the air gets stored.

Deluxe Gear With a long-sleeved shirt + miniskirt combo, it’s a secret outfit that looks similar to a Santa suit but still has that womanly appeal to it. According to the outfit's designer, the suit is a "spacesuit that still covers the revealed areas with a super-transparent material that is created for ventures in outer space." And the "red gloves are there to prevent the hands from getting frostbite in the cold vacuum of space," but honestly it just adds to the Lady Santa look.

p.10

Martial That Shines All Night Long When heading to a club, I prefer wearing shorts since they're easy to move in with a top that's made of shiny fabric with an open back. With a wig the same color of the shorts to be more unique.

p.11

Sport Off Wear For a sportier style, I'd put together a jersey with colors that really pop out. Planning out outfits with girlfriends is perfect before going out window shopping together.

p. 12

Take Aim! Ulala's Kinda Funky Coordination Technique Right here, we'll showcase various outfits that'll be sure to make others envy your fashion sense!  Along with the advice of the ever-popular stylist, you will, without a doubt, have everyone envy your clothing. When planning on going out, choosing a fitting outfit suited for the situation will expand your horizons.

SHOPPING - Making Dates with Him Stylish Just by choosing different clothes for the usual dates, you can create a futuristic aesthetic! Even when this style has that retro feel to it, it's still perfectly balanced to wear in the present day. (See example on page 6)

Iza! CLUB!! For a striking design, a top with an open back would be a bold look. The key for this style is being open, and even though it’s a common design, it can still be a refreshing and sexy look. "With the addition of thick platform sandals, your legs will be even more outstanding! (See example on page 10)

Aya Izumi Stylist Very popular and active in fashion mags like "Spring" and "Boon". She's an artist with a reputation for creating unique styles focusing on an out on the street retro fashion. Which is why we selected her to help coordinate Ulala's fashion with trending 2000's looks

Festive Sporty Fashion This style is centered around Ulala's favorite color, orange. The "Foxy" outfit makes any woman have so much glamour to the point they can sweep anyone off their feet. Even more so when paired with large sneakers.   (See example on page 11)

Time-off Fashion - Going Out Alone A style that was inspired by the crop top that Ulala usually wears in the game. Though the skirt is made of basic denim and doesn't completely match, it still brings harmony with this outfit as streetwear.

Adding Cute Accessories for a Soft and Cuter Look The top is made of fleece embroidered with stars made with silver thread is perfect for the early morning and gives the outfit an otherworldly feel. Pink is the hottest color this year. The clothing has a magical look that makes any girl look cute!

[letaliabane]

'Where is Y/N?! Get her out here now!' 

The distant sound of Din's voice echoing through the tunnels forced your eyes away from the supplies you were storing away, abandoning the work to rush past other Mandalorians who turned to the open doorway of the infirmary. 

You froze at the sight of Din who pushed past others who stood along the hallway, all but barely dragging a lifeless, familiar blue helmeted Mandalorian. 

You hurried forward, lifting Paz's lifeless head upwards, pressing your fingertips firmly to the cowl that covered his neck, heaving a sigh of relief at the weak but evident thump of his heart.  

You glanced at Din. 'What happened to him?!' 

‘Bandits got the jump on us, sniper got a lucky shot. I was able to get the bullet out but he needs your help.’ 

It was then you realised there were dark stains across his cuirass and the stench of blood almost made your gag. 

‘Let’s get him to our quarters, more room and less eyes around.’ 

With a nod from the Mandalorian, you lifted Paz's arm over your shoulder with a grunt, wondering how on earth Din was able to shuffle the man's entire weight alone. 

'MOVE!' Din hissed as you began to shuffle through the crowd, many others who blocked the pathway scattering out of the way. And after a few minutes of moving through the dark tunnels of the covert, you finally made it to his room. 

Briefly helping to lay him down, you rushed over to where you knew Paz had his medkit, dragging it over beside the bed. 

‘What do you need-’

‘Get me hot water and lots of towels, quickly,’ You cut Din off, and as he moved away to retrieve the items you needed, you began to remove Paz’s armour. 

You had familiarised yourself with the process of removing Mandalorian armour after months and months of working in the infirmary, you just never thought you’d have to do this for your beloved. 

Placing the armour carefully on the table, you rushed back to his side, grabbing the scissors and cutting through the undershirt that clung to his shirt. You  winced when he flinched as you pulled the ruined material away from his wounds. 

‘Paz?’ You called to him as you began to inspect the damage, steeling yourself at the sight of blood that oozed from the ruptured wound, right near his heart, ‘Paz can you hear me?’ 

Your heart clenched when he whimpered weakly, quickly beginning to clean the wound as Din hurried back, carefully placing the large bowl of steaming water on the side table by the bed, along with a tower of towels 

After disinfecting your tools and wiping away the excess blood, you got to work on stopping the bleeding, making sure no shrapnel remained in the large wound. Carefully you applied a bactapatch, settling it over the wound firmly even as he began to squirm and arch away. Din, watching from afar, quickly moved around the bed, pressing Paz down at the shoulders. 

There was silence between the both of you as you continued to work, beginning to carefully and slowly stitch up the wound. Finally, after cutting the last knot in the stitches, you added it to the pile of bloody tools that lay within the now stone cold bowl of water. 

With a sigh you stepped back, Din moving to your side, his visor pointed down towards his brother. 

‘Will he recover?’ 

‘He may need to work on his upper body muscles and his left arm, but I think he’ll make a full recovery with rest,’ You said softly, not moving your eyes away from Paz. 

Din turned to you, squeezing your arm, ‘You did well, I owe you a great debt for saving him.’

You scoff, ‘You owe me nothing Din, you brought my beloved back to me. That is the greatest gift I could ask from anyone.’ 

He was silent as he nodded to you, squeezing your hand. And with one last look towards Paz, he left your quarters. 

When the doors had closed behind him, you slowly made your way over to Paz, eyeing the helmet that shielded his face from your eyes. You lifted the beskar helmet, leaving it on the side table as you carefully manoeuvred his head to rest back on the pillows. 

You couldn’t help but admire the peace that had fallen over your lover’s face, his eyes closed as his chest rose and fell with each breath that left his lips.

Dragging a chair close beside the bed, you curled up, pressing his hand to your chest, as silent tears fell down your cheeks. 

You nearly lost him ... 

‘Mesh’la?’ 

You groaned softly as you awoke from a restless sleep, stretching momentarily before a squeeze on your hand caught your attention. Paz, eyes barely open, looked towards you. And though still weak, colour now flushed his cheeks. 

You quickly sat at his side, squeezing his hand firmly, ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Like i was run over by a Krayte Dragon.’ You chuckled at his words, the smile fading as quickly as it came as you took in the sight of him. He smiled towards you gently. 

‘What is the matter, dear one?’ 

You shook your head, trying to hide the tears from his eyes but it was no use. His hand pressed against your cheek, forcing you to look into his eyes. 

‘I nearly lost you Paz. If it weren’t for Din ... if he hadn’t gotten you here-’

‘But he did Mesh’la, he did,’ He said, his heart melting as you nuzzled your face into the touch of his hand, kissing his palm firmly. 

‘But what if he hadn’t?’ You whimpered, your tears falling fast down your cheeks, staining the sheets that were draped over your husband. Paz remained silent at your words, unsure of how to respond. 

‘Come here, Y/N,’ He said, patting to his side, ‘Lay with me.’ 

Though hesitant, it was the tug on your wrist that pushed you to lay at his side, tucking yourself close to him, your hand resting just over his heart. 

Your eyes roamed his body, fingertips grazing over the scars that littered his chest, running over the bandaged wound, the wound that had nearly taken him from you. 

You gasped softly as his hand crept up to cover your own, squeezing it, glancing up to find him already staring back at you. 

‘I’m right here, my love. I’m here,’ He said, as if only for you to hear his words. With a teary smile, you leant up to press a kiss to his cheeks, to his eyes, to the edge of his brow, his nose, and finally to his lips. 

‘Don’t leave me all alone ...’ 

His hand that had fallen to your waist pulled you ever more closely, his lips grazing your cheek, and your nose before firmly planting a kiss to your forehead. 

‘I won’t ...’ 

[childrenofthesunny]

Seek Him Who My Soul Loveth (1/2)

For my spin on @gayforgoodomens‘ Priest AU, for when she wondered off-hand how Crowley and Aziraphale might go about having sex for the first time, whilst simultaneously still pining/pretending they’re not breaking their vows. So, naturally, off I went to write what’s looking like will be a 6-7,000 word fic about it.

Listen, the only thing stopping me from turning this AU into a full-blown multichapter fic is (a) my knowledge of the workings of Catholicism being limited to some brief skimming of Wikipedia and what little of church I remember from when I was 7 and (b) I already have a multichapter WIP being posted, and I know I don't have the attention span to maintain two major WIPs simultaneously.

But I want to

(That being said, this is in two parts; part two should be done in a few days.)

If you prefer, you can also read this on Ao3 @ childrenofthesun.

-----------------------------------

"Ah, Father Crowley, there you are! So, this is where you've been hiding all evening."

 "Hardly a shock to find me out here, is it?" Crowley asked with a grin, squinting up at the cherubic middle-aged man now standing beside him. Like Crowley, he was wearing pants and a short-sleeved button-up with a clerical tab, in deference to the balmy summer weather. Unlike Crowley, he was very clean and neat, and not wearing a dirt-streaked garden apron. "I've been spending all of my free time this week working on the gardens, now that Shadwell's retired and can't go berating me for trying to do the job he wasn't even doing himself. Beyond me how he even got the job in the first place."

 The other man looked around fretfully, as if expecting the former groundskeeper to leap out from behind a poorly maintained bush and start yelling at him. "Oh, I know, but you mustn't be too hard on the poor fellow. The job was more to make him feel useful than anything. But Gabriel said we couldn't justify the expense anymore."

 "You were too soft on him, anyway, Aziraphale," Crowley admonished, smirking at the little huff Aziraphale let out when Crowley didn't address him by his title, as he was supposed to. "Letting him set up all that nonsense meant to ward off witches. It’s certainly never stopped Anathema from coming here to borrow one of your books."

 "At least it kept him busy," Aziraphale replied, sounding slightly aggrieved. His hands fluttered briefly by his wrists, as if he wanted to fiddle with the sleeves of the cassock that was his preferred style of dress. "Although it would have been nice if he had directed some of that energy towards the upkeep of the gardens. I did try to explain to him that the grounds are consecrated, and that surely would ward off evil, but in his eyes that wasn't sufficient protection."

 "I know, I tried to explain it that way, too," Crowley told him cheerfully. "Apparently, the fact that I wear sunglasses all the time means I must be in league with the Devil, so he didn't think my input was particularly useful."

"Is he not aware of your eye condition?"

 "I tried to tell him what photosensitivity is, but seems he's of the school of thought that science and witchcraft are basically the same thing. The tattoos probably didn't help me make my case either."

 Aziraphale made a face. "Ah."

 "Yup," Crowley confirmed, and Aziraphale shook himself suddenly.

 "You've distracted me, you wily old thing!" he chided.

 "Younger than you," Crowley pointed out, grinning impishly and making Aziraphale glower at him with impatience.

 "I was about to get cross with you," Aziraphale insisted. Crowley arched an eyebrow at him.

 "Oh? Whatever for?"  

Aziraphale gestured at the gardening tools in Crowley's hands. "That! It's far too late for you to be working out here, still."

 "Still light out," Crowley muttered, poking rebelliously at the soil with his trowel.

 Aziraphale rolled his eyes and threw up his hands in exasperation. "It's summer, of course it's still light out! That doesn't change the fact that it's almost nine thirty." He shifted his weight, arms now folded. The slowly dwindling rays of sunset caught in the white-gold curls crowning Aziraphale's head, making them glow as if from within.

 Lord, but did he look like an angel.

 Crowley hissed in displeasure as he begrudgingly got to his feet, the taut muscles of his back creaking in protest. Aziraphale gave him a reproving look.

 "'S not like it's going to weed itself," Crowley grumbled in a half-hearted final objection, wincing again. Now that he was standing, the ache in his back was really starting to settle in. He tried to straighten to his full height, which would give him a few inches over Aziraphale, but found that his spine would only comfortably let him stand with their eyes level.

 All right, maybe he had been overdoing it a bit over the past few days.

 Aziraphale pursed his lips. "Be that as it may, you mustn't work like this to the detriment of your own wellbeing. It will still be here in the morning. This is your home, Crowley, it isn't as if you'll be forced to leave if you don't turn the church grounds into Kew Gardens overnight."

 "S'pose I would've been kicked out ages ago, if that were the case," Crowley acquiesced, rubbing some of the dirt on his hands onto his gardening apron. "Y'know, when I first came here, I was really excited to see the gardens," he admitted. "I'd heard how lovely they were, especially for such a small church. Was a bit of shock when I saw the state they were in."

 What he didn't add was that, given Shadwell's constant undermining of any covert attempt he made to coax the gardens back to life, Crowley would have long ago gone and grovelled to the diocese to grant him a new assignment elsewhere. That is, had he not had a compelling reason to want to stay in Tadfield.

 A middle-aged, cherubic man-shaped reason, to be specific.

 "Well, you'll have plenty of time to restore them to their former glory, now," Aziraphale said kindly. "There's no need for you to rush anything."

 Crowley hummed in agreement, and went to bend down to pick up his tools, unable to stifle a groan as he did so. Aziraphale was quick to forestall the movement with a hand to Crowley's chest, his usual hesitance to so much as brush shoulders with Crowley vanishing under his concern. Allow me, he probably said, but Crowley couldn't hear him over the sudden rush of blood to his ears, pounding through his rapidly beating heart in a way that Aziraphale would surely be able to feel beneath his fingers.

 Aziraphale said something else that Crowley's brain refused to parse, too focused on trying to keep the other priest from realising the effect the simple touch was having on him. He managed to nod, not sure what he was agreeing to, but was rather proud of himself for managing not to whimper when Aziraphale's hand pulled away.

 "We'll just put these away first," Aziraphale told him, Crowley's brain function apparently restored now that they were no longer touching. Crowley dutifully trailed after him to the shed, putting his tools back in their rightful place. He grunted slightly when he reached to the small of his back to undo the ties of his garden apron, the motion tugging at the aching muscles of his shoulders. The sound alerted Aziraphale, who immediately fussed over him again, lifting the strap holding the apron around his neck for Crowley despite his protests. Crowley scowled as Aziraphale smiled serenely at him and hung the apron on its hook by the door. Secretly, however, he was glad that the dim, fading light meant that Aziraphale wouldn't be able to see that the tips of Crowley's ears had gone a hot, flaming red.

 Aziraphale took the lead again as they both headed for the rectory they shared, both toeing off their shoes and leaving them in the rack by the door once they'd crossed the threshold.

 "I imagine you'd want to shower before we begin," Aziraphale said as they headed into the living room. He picked up a book he'd left beside the sofa and took a seat, already thumbing it open. "Take your time, I'll be waiting here for you when you're done."

 Crowley glanced down at the dirt packed under his nails, felt the sweaty stick of his shirt against his back, and couldn't help but agree. Whatever Aziraphale had had him agree to, it probably would be best if he cleaned himself up first. Not to mention it would give him a little bit of time to collect his thoughts, to slow the still traitorously fast gallop of his heart.

 He headed upstairs, grabbed a change of clothes from his room, and did his best not to run to the bathroom, knowing Aziraphale would be able to hear the creak of the floorboards overhead if he did.

 Once enshrined in the privacy of the bathroom, shower turned on and old pipes groaning laboriously as they slowly heated, Crowley sagged against the door and let out a long, shaky breath.

 "Get a grip," he muttered to himself, flicking on the ancient exhaust fan. It rattled slowly to life, letting out the occasional whining protest, as the unbalanced blades scraped against the inside of the casing. "You're acting like… like he's about to lay down rose petals for you and take you to bed, when you know he couldn't find his way out of the closet if you gave him a torch and a map. And even if he could… he wouldn't do anything about it. You've both got your vows." He tore off his clothes and left them in a sullen pile on the floor, opening the shower door. Steam billowed out and he stepped inside quickly before too much could escape. He stood directly under the scalding spray, heedless of how his pale skin went instantly pink. His face was likely beyond sun-kissed, too, given the time he'd spent in the garden.

 There wasn't much he could do about that, but at the very least he could wash the sweat from his skin, furiously scrub the dirt out from under his nails. Whatever the evening had in store for him, at least he'd be clean.

 He fruitlessly tried again to piece together what Aziraphale had asked him, out in the garden. Now, though, naked and surrounded on all sides by steam, his mind only seemed to want to offer him lewd suggestions, each one more highly improbable than the last. Unbidden, he imagined Aziraphale walking into the bathroom to find out what was taking Crowley so long, then disrobing and entering the shower with Crowley, hot water cascading over them both as Aziraphale pressed him up against the tiles–

 With a burst of self-disgust, Crowley realised that certain areas of his body were getting very excited indeed by such thoughts, and were responding in a way that was meant to encourage him to keep thinking those exact thoughts as he took himself in hand. He'd done it a few times in the past, now, even though it invariably left him riddled with guilt and shame. Somehow, it seemed even more egregious than usual to have a self-loathing-fuelled wank over the man he worked with, when said man was patiently awaiting his return downstairs, none the wiser.

 With a sigh, he turned off the heat, standing under the cold spray for several seconds to try and keep his body from getting any funny ideas, before cutting off the water completely. Skin still pink in places, but at the very least clean, he towelled himself off, squeezing as much water out of his hair as he could. A glance in the mirror told him that he'd definitely been out in the sun too long. If he was very lucky, the skin wouldn't start peeling off over the next few days, but, given how his pale skin had historically reacted to overexposure to the sun, he wasn't exactly holding out hope. He applied some moisturiser to his face to at least draw out some of the heat, and resolved to stop being so forgetful about putting on sunscreen when he needed to.

 He put on his clothes quickly, only realising once he was done that he'd gone on complete autopilot, and dressed himself as if preparing for his clerical duties, collar and all. He felt a little stupid, but knew he'd feel even stupider if he went and changed again, so he decided to leave everything as it was, and headed back downstairs. Hopefully, wearing something symbolic of the Church would help remind his unruly body, mind, and heart how they were all supposed to be behaving.

 "Ready, then?" Aziraphale asked when he came back into the living room, glancing quickly at the page number before closing the book and setting it aside.

 "Yep," Crowley answered, still having no idea what he'd agreed to.

 "We can use my bed," Aziraphale decided. "Now that I've had a moment to think about it, the couch really is far too narrow to give us enough space to work with comfortably."

 "What?" Crowley squeaked.

 Aziraphale gave him an odd look. "I suppose we could do this here, with you laid out on the floor, if you'd prefer. I know that some people like a more solid surface beneath them for this sort of thing," he said, apparently unaware that he was giving Crowley a heart attack.

 "You… you want me on the floor?" he managed.

 Aziraphale shrugged. "Personally, I would have thought the bed would be more comfortable, but the choice is yours. This is to your benefit, after all."

 "…My benefit?" Crowley asked faintly, apparently unable to do much more than echo Aziraphale's words back at him.

 "Honestly, Crowley," Aziraphale replied huffily. Crowley managed to find space amidst his confusion to feel the little thrill he always did whenever Aziraphale dropped the honorific when referring to him by name. "The massage? That we discussed not twenty minutes ago, were you even listening?"

 "Massage?" Crowley couldn't help but parrot. Aziraphale pinched the bridge of his nose.

 "Yes. Massage. For your back. That I offered to you. Because you've been overworking yourself in the garden all week and can barely stand upright."

 "Oh. Right," Crowley managed, nodding like a dashboard bobblehead on an unpaved country road. "That massage. 'Course."

 "Honestly," Aziraphale huffed again, but far fonder in tone this time. "So. Out here, or on the bed?" "Bed," Crowley said before he could stop himself.

 Aziraphale nodded, standing. "Shall we, then?"

 Crowley nodded mutely, and when Aziraphale began to lead them both upstairs, he followed.

[lampmeeting]

Charles/Pickles, 63

6 months late! that's okay, right? hahaha (yes, y'all, i'm still planning to do all the smut prompts i still have, it's just gonna take a while lmao)

prompt #63 - "open your mouth"

chickles in a preklok flavor, mm! :3c (18+ only)

“Open yer mouth,” Pickles said. His voice was a low, secretive purr.

Charles obeyed, pushing his tongue forward eagerly, and on instinct he let his eyelids sink shut.

“Good boy,” Pickles cooed. “Here it coooomes...”

Oh, he wanted it so badly he could almost taste it...

Pickles fed him the spoonful of warm cobbler. Charles closed his lips around it to capture every sweet morsel as the spoon slid out again. He chewed slowly, savoring the soft, juicy peach and the sweet, crumbly crust, and after he swallowed he opened his eyes to see Pickles’ blushing face regarding him curiously.

“So...whatcha think?”

“It’s delicious,” Charles sighed.

The confidence returned to Pickles’ expression and he grinned a triumphant, crooked grin. “Fuck yeah it is!”

“You’ve really outdone yourself with this one,” Charles said, eyeing the rest of the cobbler in the Pyrex dish. “Is there any way I can, ah...”

But Pickles put the lid over it. “Yer gonna spoil yer dinner, dood. Nat’an’s workin’ hard on those ribs.”

“Ah, hm...fair enough, I suppose. I’ll wait.”

Charles wasn’t sure whose idea it had been to have this little get-together. He wasn’t even sure what they were celebrating, if anything. But Nathan had set up his charcoal grill out by the parking lot, Skwisgaar had gone out to purchase nice liquor, and William and Toki were likely still at William’s grandmother’s house raiding her fridge and pantry for acceptable side dishes. This left Pickles and Charles on dessert duty, though truth be told Charles’ assistance had been limited to slicing peaches and opening beers for the baker. Mostly he watched Pickles work his magic in between stealing a covert kiss or two.

Pickles stepped closer to him, effectively pinning him into the corner where the two counters met. “Maybe I can give ya a taste of somethin’ else in the meantime?”

Charles rested his hands at Pickles’ waist, thumbing at the flour-covered apron tied snug around his middle. “Something sweet?” he asked, trying to sound coy but probably just sounding silly, and was rewarded with a slow, lingering kiss. Pickles tasted of Natty Light, as usual, but with an underlying syrupy peach from all the slices he’d snuck when he thought Charles wasn’t looking.

They pressed back against the corner. The edges of the counters hit Charles right at his braided belt, and he shifted his hips forward to grind into Pickles. Accidental, but not unpleasant.

“Ohh, okay,” Pickles said, giggling a little, “it’s like that, huh?”

“I was just—” A firm hand cupped his groin and he nearly jumped out of his Sperrys. “Ah—” He suddenly remembered where they were and who could walk in at any moment. From the front door, anyone would have an unobstructed view into the kitchen, and he was certainly not excited about the thought of any member of Dethklok walking in and seeing the two of them like this.

Pickles kissed along his jaw. “Chill out, Charlie.”

“But Nathan’s just outside,” Charles tried to say, but his protests melted into a moan as Pickles’ grip tensed around his growing erection.

“And he’s gonna stay outside,” Pickles said. “He ain’t takin’ his eyes off those ribs, so don’t worry.”

Charles, of course, continued to worry, though his thoughts strayed and sputtered as Pickles stroked him through his Dockers and licked at his throat. He rocked at the same pace, seeking out the friction of that practiced hand. Somehow this always happened. Somehow Pickles always managed to get the better of him and lure him out of his comfort zone. He wished he had more self control. He wished it didn’t feel so good to let himself be a little bad.

“We’re makin’ a mess.” Pickles snickered at him, and when Charles looked down at his pants he saw the tell-tale damp spot a few inches left of his fly. And the flour from Pickles’ hand rubbed into the khakis along the length of his erection. It would be unmistakable now what they’d been up to.

“Maybe we should, ah—” he started to say, concern cutting through the cloud of arousal, but Pickles pushed him harder into the corner and kissed him again to shut him up. His thighs trembled at the gathering pressure between his legs, his head reeling with every satisfying stroke. How had he come undone so quickly? Was it being out in the open like this? Was it the fear of getting caught?

Nathan could walk in and see them clear as day. Skwisgaar might be home from the liquor store any second. Or William and Toki could get back with arms full of tupperware and catch them in the act. How would he look to them? Knees weak, face flushed red, bracing himself on the countertop for dear life as Pickles kissed him and basically jacked him off right there in the kitchen? A mortifying thought, and yet it burned hot in him like fuel.

God, he wasn’t into this sort of thing, was he?

A sudden anxious pleasure fluttered through him and had him pulling away from the kiss in a panic, his hands on Pickles chest. He was too close already. Much too close. But Pickles just kept rubbing him with that grin on his face as the rough, sweet sensation reached a point of inevitability.

“Pickles, if you, ah, keep going—”

“Uh-huh?”

“—if-if you—”

No time. He balled Pickles’ shirt in his fists, made a rather undignified noise he attempted to stifle, and came in his pants with a tense shiver. Wet, relieving warmth pooled for a blissful moment then started to run down his left pant leg, darkening the khaki as it went.

“Holy shit,” Pickles said like he was proud of him. He laughed and kissed him, fingers still trailing delicately over his restricted length to the damp tip.

Charles trembled in the soupy afterglow, but a second or two later snapped back to reality. “Oh, ah…” He inspected the damage, squirming as his ejaculate began to cool uncomfortably, and he looked quickly to the door in a jolt of sobriety. Did he hear keys? He hurried to untuck his checkered button-down to hide the stain, but it wasn’t quite long enough no matter how hard he pulled. “I-I can’t be seen like this, Pickles, I just can’t, I—”

“Shh! I gotcha, chief.”

The door began to creak open, and just as Skwisgaar came through, balancing two heavy-looking brown bags in his arms, Pickles pulled his messy apron over Charles’ head and swiftly tied him into it. Charles drew a nervous breath and didn’t dare exhale.

“Skwisgaar!” Pickles cheered, leaving his side to intercept the man before he walked into the kitchen. “Lemme get that for ya, pal o’ mine! Ya just go rest, awright? Take a load off. Go relaaaaaax.”

Skwisgaar happily let Pickles take the bags from him, and if he suspected anything strange at all he didn’t voice it, just stretched his long arms over his head and yawned. “Goods idea. Wakes me up whens foods ams finish?”

“Caaaan do!” Pickles continued in that saccharine tone of his, really laying it on much thicker than he needed to. Charles fiddled with the apron and listened for the sound of Skwisgaar’s bedroom door, and the instant he heard it he allowed himself to breathe again.

“Ohdearlord.” He felt faint, either from holding his breath or nearly getting caught. Maybe both. “That was much too close for comfort.”

Speaking of comfort, the slow trail of cold ejaculate reached his knee, trickling below the concealing hem of the apron. He wriggled his leg and tried to paw at the stain without touching it directly, certain he was beet red. Pickles thankfully set the bags down on the kitchen counter and placed a hand on the small of his back to direct him.

“C’mahn, Charlie,” he whispered, quiet and conspiratorial so Skwisgaar wouldn’t hear through the walls, “I got some cum-free pants I can loan ya.”

“You have clean pants?” Charles asked.

Pickles giggled and pushed him along. “I didn’t say clean.”

[efosa123]

Covert Shirt Store Review ⚠️WARNING⚠️ DON’T BUY COVERT SHIRT STORE WITHOUT MY 👷CUSTOM👷 BONUSES!! hey what's up guys it's John here from Jonah - Armstrong comm welcome to my covert shirt star review I'm here inside the software and I'll give you a full demo and a walkthrough of exactly what this does in just a second now I'm still here in Lombok which is the island next to Bali in Indonesia and I'm flying back to my home in Jakarta today in a couple of hours time but I thought I'd get this review in just before I get on my flight so I'm I hope you'll enjoy this lovely background behalf behind me of the swimming pond there's some cows on the beach ok it's it's a very very recommended place to come to if you want a relaxing little vacation anyway before I get into the live demo I want to talk to you about some custom bonuses I put together for those of you that I'd like to pick up covert start through the link which is down below in this video description if you click on that link you'll come through to this page right here this is my bonus page where I host all of my bonuses and if you'd like to pick up covert t-shirts start at any time during this review all you need to do is click on any of these orange buttons here before this countdown timer runs down because when it does this page will expire and so on my bonuses and that's something that I really don't want you to miss out on because I spent a lot of time putting these bonuses together so that you can get the best out of covert star as possible now my first bonus is I'm going to show you it's a video tutorial where I'm going to show you how you can use teespring to get some design inspiration for your shirts ok my second bonus I'm gonna show you how you can get traffic to your star now although there is some social traffic covered inside of covert t-shirt store but this is an additional traffic sauce that you can use ok bonus number 3 I'm going to give you access to a robot that I'm using with Instagram which gets an insane amount of free traffic to my offers and my pages and you can totally use the with covert Isha star as well so what it does is you load it up with Instagram accounts and I show you where you can buy these accounts as well for less than three dollars per account now each account you set it to go and follow the followers of your competitors so for example you are in the coffee niche you would set this to go and follow the followers of Starbucks and what this will go and do is for each account it will go out there and it will follow 300 to 500 people per day and then it will unfollow them after a certain amount of days which you can set inside the software now what happens when this when it does this is the people that it follows obviously their targeted customers because they're following Starbucks so they're probably going to be interested in what you have to offer as well now one when one of these people gets a notification they're gonna get a notification on the phone that says Joe knows coffee star has just started following you they're gonna think okay well I don't know this person but they're into coffee so I'm gonna check them out so they go and check them out they're gonna check you out they see the other nice interesting profile there with a link in it which goes to your star okay now I've found from testing this that around 10 percent of people will actually click that and go through to your star so that's if it's following 300 to 500 people per day it's around 30 to 50 people now I have my purse my software loaded up with 50 accounts so 30 times 10 is 350 times 50 is a difficult math question I'm not very good at math but it is it does turn out to be a lot of followers a lot of people that go through to Yoast on a lot of traffic and it's all free as well so I'm gonna give you access to this robot the end so you can understand how to use it and use it to use it to get some traffic to your t-shirt store as well bonus number four I'm gonna give you a full cost which I have white label rights to give away no it's not crappy PLR it's a high quality course and it's going to show you how you can use how you can harness the power of Instagram influences to get traffic to your store now this is really really powerful stuff basically you would go and you would find somebody an influencer on Instagram in your niche so for example I don't know maybe if you're in the coffee natured go and find a kind of small coffee influencer has maybe ten or twenty thousand followers and you ask him to do a kind of page shout out and then they will do a shout out which will have a link to your star and you'll get a ton of traffic that way and it's quite a cheap and targeted way to get some really good traffic bonus number five I'm going to give you any bonuses that the vendor has given to me to give to you now in this particular case the the but the the vendor hasn't given me any specific bonuses to give away but I think there are some inside of the members area so you can check there but anyway I just want to make sure that you're not gonna be missing out if he is giving away any bonuses so you receive them as well now to to get all of these bonuses all of these four custom bonuses plus the vendor bonuses all you need to do first of all is click on the link down below in the video description scroll down then click on any of these orange buttons now that will take you through to the sales page and I forgot to bring up the sales page so let me go and grab it give me a second doing this live I should have should have been a bit more prepared but once you go through to the sales page then you will be able to purchase covert shirt star and you'll be able to pick up my bonuses and they'll all be delivered to you instantly upon checkout okay here we got a sales page so if you do click any of those orange buttons on my bonus page here then you'll come through to the sales page where you can check out and buy covert shirts don't get all my bonuses now new point-and-click simple WordPress theme transforms your blog's into your own profitable viral t-shirt empire limiting the risk and rank it and raking in huge pay paychecks without ever having to design a single t-shirt or spend a single cent on ads and it sucks in free traffic from Facebook one ello Pinterest and more on completely on autopilot yeah that's what but what this basically does okay it's a it's a wordpress theme and a wordpress plugin that's going to allow you to create a t-shirt store very very quickly and it also has traffic it also has some traffic options where you can plug it into your social accounts to get some free traffic to your stars straight away so this is the sales page here go and have a read through it I'm not going to read through it with you because it's pretty long and you can go through and read through it on your own there's a ton of information there that you really should check out before you consider buying now like I said you can reach the sales page by clicking on the link down below in this video description coming through to my bonus page and then clicking on any of these orange links on my bonus page that will take you through to the sales page you can go and have a look so I'm gonna jump into my wordpress site now where I've installed this and I'm gonna show you how to do it so first of all you're gonna receive two files okay two zip files one is gonna be the Cova shirt star and theme and another one is gonna be the the covert ship builder now the shipbuilders are plugin so you need to go to plugins where is it plugins and you would need to add a new one and then you would need to upload the zip file to get the shirt build and I'm not gonna go through the share builder because it's pretty straightforward now for the actual store itself you look you will receive a zip file as well for this one you need to go to themes so you need to go to appearance you need to go to themes and then you need to go to add new theme and then you'll be able to upload that zip file after it's uploaded then you'll be able to put in your registration key and you'll come to a page that looks like this now this is all wordpress based okay it's not cloud based it's not you know self hosted or anything like that so it's gonna assume that you do have a wordpress site now once you've installed it I'm just gonna have to put my hand over my head because the Sun is really really in my face and I can't see my computer screen so you're gonna come through to a ten step process here now for each one of these steps you can click on and you can watch the video tutorial that comes with it so that's gonna that's going to give you some guidance on each one of these steps and that's one of the things that I really like about this it's been really really well thought out and from a newbies point of view because not everybody knows how to do this so they've tried to make it as newbie friendly as possible so number one okay you've installed the theme now we can go and click on next ok and then we have some settings here for the header configuration so you can choose a background color you can you need to make sure that you have your title in there and your tag lines make sure that you do that because that will get you some organic SEO traffic then you can have that you can change the color of the text and then you can you can customize the navigation bar there the menus and then your social buttons so you'll need to put in your all of your social account information into here try to put in as many as you can ok because that'll show up on your home page then once you've done that just click on next and you'll come through to step number 3 now this is where you this is where you customize the header so you can choose from any of these headers that they've already have which personally I think look pretty crap but you can go and upload one of your own files as well as long as you use the specifications the width on here you can go through to a a free graphic software like canva canva comm and you can create your own header there which is what I suggest that you do ok how many shirts to feature you can set all of that up on here as well and the shirt title and the colors and stuff like that and then we go through to next ok next you are going to be able to further customize the homepage so you've got a ton of customization stuff here you can really you can really really customize how you want the look and feel to look I'm just going to click on next and then you have how many t-shirts you want it to show how many posts message displayed when loading new theme post navigation so open the links in a new window you can you can actually enter your affiliate links as well if you're doing Amazon t-shirts which is pretty cool so onto step 6 single post settings so this is going to be for your product display page you can customize stuff there and then for your social sharing you can customize stuff here can use WordPress comments I would recommend they use the Facebook comments because it gives it better social proof I guess you can hide the timestamps and you can show all of these social buttons if you want so people can share it again there's tutorials on every single step of the the way here so it's going to help you out it's going to show you what to do step number eight further page settings this is for the the product details pages where's my mouse gone I cannot even see it okay next and then you can you can set the the sidebar configuration so how many widgets you want on the sidebar and stuff like that okay and then you have you can integrate this with your autoresponder because what it does is it has these light boxes that pop up for example if people don't buy or if it comes up after a certain amount of seconds you can have a light box that pops up so you can collect their email addresses now you can have this to integrate with most major autoresponders on here you can have it to like your Facebook pages your Pinterest stuff and all of the other social stuff as well so once you've done that you would click on save and it would go and it would build the star according to your settings that you've set up in here so it's pretty straightforward and again there's tutorials every single step of the way now how is this gonna help you out well selling t-shirts online is a massive money spinner there's a lot of people making a lot of money doing this now those people know what they're doing they know how to create websites or they've probably hired a web designer to do it so what this does is it takes away that whole learning curve that whole learning curve of designing websites this is going to be a star that you can surf in a matter of minutes and you can have your traffic coming to it from your social accounts and if you get my bonuses then I'm going to show you some further traffic sources that you can use to this so it's a little bit like a business in a box you said it up it takes less than five minutes to set up and then you just forget it okay you have it on Google you have your social accounts going to it you have people buying either you create your own t-shirt so you can import t-shirts from teespring so once they check out they will go through to teespring to to pay for it and then they'll have their t-shirts automatically shipped so you don't really have to do anything with the the ship excuse me with the shipment process or anything there you can have it to link to Amazon as well so you can sell other people's t-shirts and just get a commission which is a great way to get some recurring income for pretty much you know passive in a passive way so that's what it does it's a bit of a business in a box that's really easy to set up and because it's on a wordpress site you can have your own custom domain in there so you can then go ahead and use some SEO tactics to get this onto the first page of Google to get some organic traffic and just rake in some some passive income basically so don't forget to check out my I haven't talked to you about the prices and the upsells yet so the front end everything that I just showed you is $27 okay now there's a couple of upsells on here as well okay let me just have a look and see what these are so covert shirt start Pro is the first upsell that's thirty seven dollars I guess you're gonna get access to some more advanced features I don't have any information on my bonus page here because I did it in a rush and it still got all of the stuff from from my last promotion so by the time you check this out this will have changed and there'll be more information about the upsells on here so you can check it out but the first the first upsell is thirty seven dollars it's the pro version the second upsell is $97 and it's a developer's license now probably you're not going to need this unless you know what you're doing with developers licenses basically it's gonna allow you to go to his places like Fiverr and install these WordPress themes onto other people's sites and and get paid to do so but that's a completely different concept and if you're not really if you don't really understand what you're doing then you don't need that at all so I am gonna recommend the front-end although I don't really know what the OTO one does I'm guessing it's going to give you access to more features and probably more t-shirts and stuff that you can put in there so it might be worth considering but check out my information on here once it's once it's ready so this goes live today which is the ninth of ten you very much 9th of April 2018 I think he goes live around 9 a.m. 96 more words

[miceenscene]

Star-Crossed

din djarin/female oc | soulmate AU | pre-canon

wc: 2.2k / 4.9k (so far)

summary: The Way was not supposed to be a solitary one. People, house, clan. And when all else failed, your Match. “Fits like a Mandalorian Match” was the old saying. Though it wasn’t so long ago that it stopped making sense. But what's a lost Match to a man like Din Djarin?

warnings: canon-typical violence

Previous Chapter | Masterpost | ao3

Chapter Two: The Question

Din Djarin did not have a Match.

Din Djarin did not have a Match.

He couldn’t.

How, why didn’t matter…

He just couldn’t.

Right?

This Woman with a small dark spot high on her cheekbone and finely calloused hands and wearing his shirt couldn’t be his Match.

She just… couldn’t.

It was just coincidence that he was pulled into her orbit, like a comet desperately seeking gravitational equilibrium.

And it was coincidence that she apparently felt the same. Even foggy as she was.

She still had not said a word, did not reply or even react when addressed, but she always floated in Din’s direction when he stepped away.

Which wasn’t very often.

The urge, or ‘bond’ as the Armorer called it, was only satisfied if she was near.

The pair of them were something of a side-show in the covert for the evening.

Even through beskar and dark visors, gazes felt heavy on Din’s shoulders.

Outside the covert, curiosity – whether hostile or benign – was expected.

But here? Never before.

He thought about leaving. But as confused as she was, dragging her, barefoot, back through the streets of Nevarro, even just to the ship seemed unwise.

So Din found a spare room in the covert–The Woman following in his wake, fingers still threaded with his.

It was barely more than a door and two stone benches that could pass for beds if needed. But solitude was necessary for his kind.

He found himself hoping she’d speak once they were alone.

She didn’t.

But she did grow tired before too long. Not surprising given her recent clinic visit.

“You can sleep here,” he said, gesturing to one of the benches embedded in the wall.

She did not reply. Or move.

He was not used to being the verbose one.

“Here.” He offered her his cape, threadbare at the bottom but warm enough. She took it, thumbs brushing across the fabric.

Nodding once, he moved for the door.

She followed.

“You need to sleep. I’ll be outside.”

He stepped back and she stepped forward.

“No–” he huffed in minor annoyance. Turning her around by the shoulders, he guided her to one of the benches and sat her down. Gently by firmly. “Sleep. ...Please.”

He stepped back once. Twice. She didn’t move.

On the third step, she made to rise, but his hand outstretched stopped her.

He at least made it to the door before she stood back up.

He surrendered with a sigh. “Fine. I’ll stay here.” Sitting down on the opposite bench from her. “Satisfied?”

She apparently wasn’t as she drifted to sit on the bench, hand fitting into his as she curled up next to him.

A beskar pauldron couldn’t have been a comfortable pillow, but it might as well have been down-filled silk for as quickly as she dropped off.

He waited an hour, then two, just to be absolutely certain she was completely asleep, listening to her gentle breathing turn deeper and slower. Then he eased her off his shoulder to lie down, leaving his cape for her blanket.

She didn’t stir as he headed to leave the room, the door hissing open in front of him.

Stay.

A fist pressed to the front of his helmet for a minute in frustration.

Stay.

There’d be no peace if he resisted.

So he sat down in the furthest corner of the room from her, tipping his helmet back to rest in the crook of the walls.

Her sleeping form was the last thing he saw as his eyes drifted shut.

But when they opened a few hours later, the bench was empty.

His head jerked up only to realize that The Woman had simply moved.

Her head now rested on his collarbone, his arm wrapped around her, her hand clasped in his, pressed tight to his cuirass.

Something high in his chest cracked, fissures reaching magma flow far below, and his next breath quaked.

Beskar cautiously pressed to the top of her hair was not perfect, not even ideal.

But the alternative was terrifying.

The next morning dawned and The Woman still had not spoken, still drifted in a haze where Din was her only heading.

“I don’t know what to do with her,” he said, in the early afternoon, back in the Armorer’s forge.

This time with The Woman at his side, hand in his as always.

“I have work to do.”

“Take her with you,” the Armorer replied.

“I can’t do that.” His work was dangerous enough without spacey tag-alongs who did not listen to reason.

“She won’t be happy to stay here. And neither will you.”

Silence seemed the better reply than admitting how correct she was.

“Can you keep her here while I get supplies?”

“Yes.”

Din was never a meandering purchaser, but it was perhaps the shortest supply run he’d ever made. And that was with the addition of finding clothes and shoes he hoped would fit her.

Karga even made mention that he ‘seemed awfully anxious to get going’. But he coughed up four new pucks after a solid minute of silence.

The Woman was waiting at the western entrance of the covert when he returned and followed along happily back to The Razor Crest, now dressed in nondescript pants and tunic that suited the weather.

He set her down in the co-pilot’s seat and started the engines. Cleared for take off. Coordinates plotted. But first––

Turning back to face her, she looked his way, eyes still distant. “If you want to be taken somewhere, just tell me.”

As if that diffused the uneasy energy of leaving a planet with her.

Again.

She seemed entranced by the pulsing blur of hyperspace, eyes wide and unmoving from the windows.

Seeing as there was just one bed aboard, it made sense to sleep in shifts.

Though every time, he woke to her sitting at the cabinet opening, holding his hand.

He really couldn’t bring himself to mind.

He’d never had many passengers aboard his ship before, at least ones not stored in carbonite. But when he had, they felt like an intrusion. Something to be stepped around and removed at the soonest possibility.

It made very little sense why The Woman didn’t fall into the same category.

The first quarry was on Felucia. Seemed a group of bandits had been making life difficult for the local villages, difficult enough to pay Guild rates to have the base cleared out and the leader brought back in carbonite, ideally to be left in there.

The Woman was sleeping when they arrived. He hoped she’d remain that way in the time it took him to finish the job, which he didn’t think would be long. There were two dozen bandits at most, ill equipped and even less trained.

He slung his rifle over his shoulder and paused to rest a hand on her shoulder.

Stay.

“I’ll be back,” he said in a low tone, before forcibly ignoring the bond and heading out.

Return.

Unfortunately, in his admittedly distracted scouting of the base, he missed the patrols they were doing of the surrounding forest.

Which is how his nest was stumbled on by some truly lucky trandoshans, who just happened to have back up already on the way, and Din was disarmed, cuffed, and taken into the yard behind the walls of the base.

Not ideal, but he’d been in worse setups.

Though the odds tilted out of his favor when the head of this bandit ring was revealed to be an ex-storm trooper sergeant. That had not been in the briefing.

No wonder there were forest patrols… and imperial grade handcuffs.

At least they let him keep his helmet for the time being.

However, they were unfortunately interested in how he’d gotten to them. A search party was immediately dispatched to find his ship.

They hadn’t been gone more than five minutes when suddenly,

Danger.

Oh no.

The Sergeant’s comm link activated. “Ship not yet located, but we did find something else, boss.”

“What?”

“Kursan is bringing her to the base.”

No. No. No.

“Well, well, well. This yours, Mando?” the Sergeant laughed as The Woman was brought into the yard at blaster point. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

The Woman did not answer. She tried to step away from Kursan, but his grip on her arm stopped her, blaster pressing to her back.

“Let her go,” Din said. “She’s not part of this.”

“Oh, so, she’s up for grabs then?”

The Sergeant chuckled when Din did not reply. “‘Cause, ah… I know she’s not a local. And it’s not everyday beautiful women come wandering through the forests of Felucia.”

Danger!

He grinned. “This just got interesting. I know you Mandalorian types. Torture doesn’t bother you. Rip your lungs out and you still wouldn’t talk.” The Sergeant swaggered over to one of the weapons racks, picking up a bo staff. “You’re big on honor, loyalty. But more importantly, Protection.”

The Sergeant turned back to face The Woman, regarding her closely. “I wonder how pretty her face will be after I’m through,” he said quietly, steadily.

Rage breaking through control, Din pulled at his cuffs but they held strong.

“Leave her alone!” Din snapped.

Danger. Danger. Danger.

“Tell me where your ship is.”

Din gaze swept through the area, hopping from his restraints to his captors, seeking alternate routes. Desperate ploys. Anything.

The Sergeant did not wait, bo staff meeting The Woman’s ribs with a crack. She cried out and dropped to her knees, arms wrapped around her middle.

“Tell me where the ship is.”

With a swift inhale, the Sergeant lifted the bo staff for another swing–

“It’s on the ridge. A klick and a half due south.”

The Sergeant grinned again. “There. Now was that so difficult?”

He swung the bo staff down towards her–

“NO,” Din yelled–

The Woman’s hand caught the staff, mid-swing.

Her head snapped up. Snarl on her mouth.

She snagged the staff sideways, through the Sergeant’s grip, and gouged it into Kursan’s stomach.

His blaster fell to the ground. She grabbed it.

One shot, Kursan was down.

Second shot, hit the middle of the Sergeant’s cuirass, making him stumble back, and she got hold of the bo staff.

One quick swing knocked him to the ground.

Din used the cover of surprise to knock his blaster out of the hands of his guard.

Grabbing it, one shot to kill that guard and a second to kill the other.

The rest of the battlements finally caught on and opened fire into the yard.

The Woman ran for cover behind a parked imperial shuttle as Din tried to draw as much attention as possible away from her. Still cuffed, but at least he had the beskar.

A post under the battlements was as best cover as he could find. But it gave him a clear view of the opposite wall. Another shot, another guard fell.

A body dropped right in front of him, shot down by The Woman on the other side of the yard.

Who was she–no. Curiosity could be dealt with later, right now he was just kriffing grateful.

In tandem, they methodically took out the guards on the wall.

But Din lost sight of the Sergeant in the chaos.

He found him again when the Sergeant and The Woman came around the shuttle, bo staff and axe swinging furiously.

Din rolled out of cover, getting the last few guards she left behind above him.

The Sergeant blocked her high swing, but wasn’t ready as she brought the bottom up between his legs.

Then around to sweep his feet out from under him again.

Din turned and fired, hitting the gap between his cuirass and pauldron. The Sergeant collapsed.

The Woman turned on Din, gun back out and pointed his way.

One last guard, buried in cover, popped out and got off a single shot that pinged off Din’s armor.

Without looking away from Din, The Woman fired and the guard fell.

Oh.

Silence filled the yard as she turned her gun back on Din.

Her eyes were clear now, scorching in their fury. He was far more likely to die by her hand than any of the bandits.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and Din had never seen anyone more miraculous.

He dared a step closer, still cuffed, blaster in one hand but lowered.

Her grip tightened on her gun.

Probably best to stop moving so the conversation didn’t begin in gunfire.

Her grip flexed again, and her brows flickered together.

Help.

“It’s alright,” he said in a calm, low tone.

She didn’t care much for that, fury flaring brighter.

Frustration became palpable as her mouth opened but no words came out.

She was straining for something, tension pulling her muscles taught. The hand on her bo staff shook once, till finally–

“VAII,” she demanded, the single word wrenched from her mouth with a great deal of effort.

It’d been so long since he’d heard mando’a outside of the covert, it took a moment for the word to register.

“Vaii me’bana?” he asked when she didn’t clarify. Where-what?

“Vaii!?” she repeated, after a shorter struggle.

“Felucia.” He hoped that was what she was asking.

Frustration and fury simmered down into confusion. Mouth opening again but no words coming out for a moment.

“Tion?” How?

Somewhere inside the compound, an alarm sounded.

Next: Chapter Three: The Promise

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[fanfoolishness]

A Warrior’s Death (The Mandalorian)

Set immediately following the events of Chapter 8: The Redemption.  

Din Djarin was alive.  The child was safe.   The Imps were vanquished.  He and the child were now a clan of two.  ...So then why was it so hard to breathe?

Angst, PTSD, blood/injury trigger warning, found family.  ~1700 words.

Now with art for extra feels!

***

The rocks and lava fields of Nevarro fell away beneath them as the Razor Crest ascended.  The child sat in his lap, curled against his cuirass, exhausted by the ordeal they had both survived.  Far below, Din could just barely make out the small cairn he had left behind.  A little higher and clouds surrounded them, vanishing the land.

They cleared the atmosphere and Din set the ship on autopilot in a high orbit.  He knew the Imperial presence had been destroyed, but he still felt uneasy keeping the ship planetside after such a narrow escape.  Especially with what had happened in the covert --

He abruptly got to his feet, cradling the child.  He needed to tend to him, needed to make sure he was all right after everything.  Carefully he carried the drowsy child down the ladder and to the cramped sleeping area.  He set the little one down on his own bed, bunching up the thin blanket to pad the area.  

Din knelt beside him, ignoring the dull pain in his head and body.  His head still pounded.  Bacta had saved his life, but he knew how close it had been.  It would be at least a week before his body could forget an injury that severe.

The child blinked up at him.  “How are you, kid?” Din asked into the silence.  

The kid tilted his head, ears quivering faintly.  He let out a soft sound, then slowly outstretched his hands, reaching up to Din.  There were a few small burns on those tiny green fingers, little areas where the skin was slightly reddened.  To his relief Din saw no blisters or deeper wounds.  Still, though, the way the baby grimaced slightly when Din touched them tore at him.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Din murmured.  “Here.”  He reached to the medikit stored beneath the bunk, pulling out a vial of bacta cream.  He slipped off one glove and dipped a calloused fingertip in the ointment.  “Can I see?”

The baby regarded him with those large, intelligent eyes, and reached toward him.  Din dabbed a small amount of the cream between the child’s palms, then rubbed them together.  The baby cooed, the sound sweet and bright.

“See?  Feels better, right?” 

The kid stared at him, mouth falling open in a small smile, then clapped his hands together without a flinch.

Din let out a long sigh, putting his glove back on.  “Good job.  You were very brave.”  

He rummaged in the crate beside the bed, coming out with a kit of freeze-dried krill, some of the last from Sorgan.  “Want a snack?”  

He opened the packet, setting it in the child’s lap.  “Remember the nice people in Sorgan?  All those kids you made friends with?”  If only we --

Little fingers reached to the food, and the child ate the lot ravenously, getting krill crumbs all over his face.

“Here.  Let me just --”  Din wiped the crumbs off with his fingertips.  The child leaned into his touch, large eyes falling closed as Din cradled his cheek.  “Sleepy?  Get some rest, buddy.  I’ll be back soon.  Just need to clean up a little.”  The kid snuggled into Din’s blanket, already fast asleep.  

“Night, kid,” he said softly.

The door to the bunk closed behind him, the locking lights flashing.  His shoulders slumped, exhaustion settling in.  

He shuffled to the wall beside the vacc tube, hitting his closed fist against the small panel that hid a shallow sink, faucet, and cupboard.  He glanced back.  The door to the bunk was still locked.  He didn’t think the kid would try to follow him, tired as he was, but he dared not leave it to chance.  Not after earlier --

He sank onto the narrow seat of the vacc, and leaned heavily against the wall.  

He forced himself to reach up and lift his helmet, hissing as the inner lining, sticky with dried blood, tugged at his hair.  He sniffed, wincing, catching the scent of stale sweat and iron in his sodden shirt collar.  He set the helmet down beside him on a weapons rack and methodically pulled off his gloves for what came next.  

Childhood training burned deep in his bones.  You must tend to your armor after each battle as you tend to your body.  Without your armor, your body is vulnerable.  The two are one and the same.  

Normally his skills, his training, and his beskar kept the ritual of maintenance brief and automatic. Then again, normally he didn’t come back from a job with bacta mending a skull fracture.

A blinding flash, the air ripped from his lungs as he flew backwards -- 

A horrific crunching, a hot flood slick down the back of his head, soaking his collar and cloak --

He stared at his helmet, IG-11’s words echoing.  I am not a living thing.

He shivered.  It was true that no droid lived.  No living thing had seen him unmasked since childhood.  He had sworn the Creed.

But would the Armorer have granted him his signet, had she known what he’d done?  

What he’d allowed?

A wave of pain throbbing, overwhelming, clouding thoughts and vision, black blooming at the edges of everything --

Feet limp and nerveless, legs dragging in the dust, Cara hauling him from the fray like a dead thing --

He snatched the helmet from the shelf in a quick, controlled movement, breathing hard, and turned on the water in the shallow sink.  He reached for his cleaning kit and thrust his hand inside the helmet, methodically scouring the detritus away from the delicate machinery lining its inner surface.  

A frisson of revulsion passed through him as the water flowed red.  Broken strands of hair, clumped with clotted blood, gathered at the drain.  He scrubbed until the water poured into the helmet flowed clear, until the outside shone, until his head and his hands ached with the effort.  

The certain knowledge that this, then, was a warrior’s death --

Gasping for air, chest heaving, the raised blaster in his trembling hand --

The air, soft on his face --

Stiffly he set his helmet down to dry, and raised his head.  His face, distorted, stared back at him from the dimly reflective wall surface.  The colors were all wrong: reds and purples where he remembered brown and tan.  He brought handfuls of water to his cheeks, grunting when he found undeclared bruises, a nasty cut across the bridge of his nose, blood dried hard enough in his mustache that he had to scrub to lift it.  

Helmets stacked like trophies, beskar bones of his people in the dark  —

He gingerly touched the back of his head, his hand coming away still moist with blood and sweat.  The hair had matted, mired in hopeless tangles.  He’d cut it tomorrow.  For now he settled with more soap and water, enough to thin some of the mats at least somewhat.  He brushed through some of the damp hair with his fingers, and he wondered if the foundlings had fought back.

He stilled, his hands falling slack into his lap.  He stared at the wall.  He breathed in.  Breathed out.

He stared until his eyes burned.

***

The door to the bunk hissed open.  The child still slept soundly, though the blanket had fallen to expose his small shoulders.

Din knelt beside the child, his armor finally cleaned and restored.  The kid was sleeping so peacefully that for a moment he considered sleeping up in the cockpit, letting the kid take the bed rather than move him to the makeshift hammock Din had made.  Either way he’d be sleeping in full armor, as he had ever since the kid had come aboard, so it made little difference to him.  But as he adjusted the blanket, tucking it in around the little one’s neck, a small hand brushed against his vambrace.  

The child blinked owlishly up at him, stifling a tiny yawn.  Then he reached up, hands striving --

“C’mere,” said Din.  He gathered the child into his arms and sat on the cot, letting himself stretch out.  He meant to reach over and help situate the child in the hammock, but he did not.  Instead the child curled up against him in the soft spot between his fresh-cleaned cloak and his pauldron.

Din laid a hand over the child’s back, watching it rise and fall with every small, rapid breath.  “It was a hard day,” he murmured.  “No wonder you’re tired.”

He closed his eyes.  Tried to drift off to sleep, the familiar weight of the child resting against him.  But he stared through the slit in his helmet up at the ceiling, eyes unfocused.

Burrowing his face into the shoulder of the Mandalorian, the wind in his hair -- 

He was alive.

The foundlings playing games beneath the city --

The child was safe.

Kuiil’s small body, scored by blaster fire --

The Imps were vanquished.

A mechanized voice beseeching him not to be sad --

He and the child were now a clan of two.  

Beskar desouled, defiled, desolate --

So then why was it so hard to breathe?

The child whimpered suddenly against him, his hands twitching, perhaps in a dream.  Did his species dream?  The whimper grew louder, sounding almost frightened.  The little hands jerked.

His stomach clenched, the flashes in his mind receding, his focus turning sharply to the child resting on him.  “It’s okay,” Din whispered, caressing the baby’s cheek, thumb drawing small circles against delicate skin.  “I’ve got you.  You’re safe now.”  

Please believe me, kid --

The baby murmured half inaudibly, then shifted and wrapped his arms around Din’s hand.  Through the kid’s robe Din could feel a fierce heartbeat, tapping a rapid tattoo.  Close to the heart, his gloved fingertips brushed against something hard and metallic.  The mythosaur, memory, might, Mandalore.  

The child, the heartbeat, the mythosaur.  They anchored him.  They were enough.

This is the Way.

The child rested peacefully against him, comfortably asleep once more.  Din’s eyes fell closed, his mind quieting, the ache of his wounds fading.  He breathed in.  Breathed out.  

He slipped into a dreamless sleep, and he held his foundling closer.

-fin

(Maybe Grogu’s mind wanders in the Force while he sleeps.  Maybe Din’s trauma isn’t as hidden as he thinks it is.  Yes, my heart breaks for both of them.)

[write4tomorrow]

First Meeting

Word Count: 1891

Pairing: Sith!Obi-Wan Kenobi x Jedi Reader

Summary: Master Kenobi fell from the Jedi order many years ago, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t kept close tabs on the jedi order since. As Darth Dominus, he has furthered the separatists agenda for most of the clone war but recently his attention has been consumed by something else. During his extensive studying in his padawan days, Kenobi learned what a dyad in the force was, but he never imagined being half of a whole. Could he be? 

Genre: Angst / Fluff

The war will come to an end soon, you knew that. The Jedi would return to being true peacekeepers and your life would become one of meditation and order. There would be no more covert meetings and no more negotiations between the Jedi, senators and Separatists.

Now, however, you were crouched behind shipping containers on a large Separatist ship. The lights were off and every move you made seemed to echo in the vast room. 

“Hello there,” the darkness purred. You stayed still but cursed yourself for not realizing someone else was in the room with you. The words of Senator Riyo Chuchi came to mind in that moment: promise you’ll be careful. These people will not fight fairly. She spoke those words to you just as she climbed into an escape pod and left you. 

You were supposed to accompany Senator Chuchi to a meeting about a Separatist weapon on a planet near Naboo. During your journey, the senator’s ship was taken by Separatist forces. Pulled in by a tractor beam, you had limited options and even fewer odds for success. Fortunately, you were able to cause enough of a distraction for the senator and her party to evacuate via escape pod. During the distraction, though, you were forced to stay behind on the Separatist carrier. 

You had no chance of fighting your way out. Instead, you had chosen to search the carrier for a smaller, one person ship to make an escape. Everything seemed to be going well until you tripped an alarm in the bottom sectors of the ship. The droids had backed you into a large storage room with towering stacks of different goods that were being transported. There were large boxes of all sizes stored here, and you had no trouble in finding a place to hide. The room reminded you of a maze and you hoped that you would be able to make a clean escape. 

Still, despite everything, you knew that this is what you were best at. The Jedi were supposed to be peacekeepers, but you were an excellent soldier and general. 

“I can hear your heart beating from here,” a whispered voice surrounded you in the dark. Something sinister seemed to creep along the back of your robes. Your hand went to your saber, but you withheld from igniting it. 

“Little one, stop hiding and come out. I am the only thing standing between you and the droids on the other side of that wall,” the voice sounded coaxing, welcoming. You stood, keeping your back to the shipping container and one hand on your lightsaber hilt.

“Well, hello there, master y/f/n y/l/n,” the voice said. You felt the ghost of a voice against your ear. You almost leaned into the feeling but you were startled by the sound of a saber igniting, filling the space with red light. 

“I’ve waited quite some time to meet you. Master y/n,” the Sith in front of you crooned, “the holograms of you do not do you justice.” You recognized the man in front of you: fallen Jedi master and now poster boy for the Sith, Darth Dominus stood grinning before you. You’ve never encountered him in person, but you had seen countless holograms of him. In fact, you had watched practically every hologram of Darth Dominus that you could get your hands on. His fighting tactic was immaculate, his swordsmanship was impressive and his demeanor was perfect in the middle of a fight. Still, you knew there was something else about him that caught your interest. You couldn’t explain it but every time you heard his name or saw a projection of his face, a small feeling inside of you began to stir.  

You watched him now, trying to put the strange feeling in your chest to rest. He seemed to notice your internal struggle, and his smile only widened. His golden eyes reflected the red lightsaber in his hands. You lit your own saber and positioned yourself for a fight. Dominus only laughed. 

“Master Kenobi,” you chose to use his Jedi name in the hopes of rattling him, “I’m afraid I’ve lost senator Chuchi. If you let me go, I would be happy to go find her.” 

“This was never about the senator,” he began to slowly move towards you.  

“Oh no? You’re not scared the senator would find out about the separatists’ new weapon?” You watched Darth Dominus’ face as it took on a hungry quality. You recognized it as you’d seen it on your own face when you were feeling restless. You felt it when meditation and peace wouldn’t quell the part of you that enjoyed games of strategy. 

“Why would I want the senator when I could get my hands on the Jedi order’s most talented negotiator? The tireless general that never seems to rest in battle?” Dominus moved towards you at a leisurely stroll, not even raising his ignited saber. You tried to speak, but he held up his hand and continued. 

“I’ve been watching you for some time. Your actions on the battlefield have often left the Separatist army - my army - in pieces. I must say that even I am impressed.”

“That’s some high praise from a Sith. But I’m sorry to say, Master Kenobi, that you’ve left me wanting.” You made your move then. With a faint to your left and a sudden sprint to your right, you tried to move past the Sith lord before he trapped you. Dominus was quick, though. He made a lunge towards you, not with his saber but with his open hand. He reached towards you but his fingers only grazed the fabric of your shirt. With your back to the escape route, you turned on Dominus and brought your saber down in a wide swing. He was so close to you now that you could feel the buzz of his saber. 

He dodged your swing and used the force to shove you back several paces. You fell back as you tripped over some smaller boxes. Scrambling to your feet, you heard Dominus coming towards you.

“You will not win here,” Dominus used the force to push you back farther, forcing you to fall to the ground. “You’re in a foreign space, you’re practically blind as you fight in the dark and you can’t win against me.” You weren’t going to give up easily. You rolled to your side and began to swing your saber as you made your way towards the Sith. To your surprise, Dominus turned his saber off. 

You froze, unsure what was happening. The space around you was filled only with your saber’s light. You could see Dominus’ eyes appraise you as you stood ready for battle. 

“You are hungry for a fight, aren’t you little one?” He used your momentary confusion to lift you off your feet with the force. You cursed yourself and tried to fight against the weightless feeling, but it did nothing. 

“Why aren’t you fighting me? I won’t tell you anything and I won’t-” you were cut off as you felt pressure around your throat build. 

Dominus chuckled as he pulled you down, forcing you into a kneeling position. With a cry, he grabbed your hand that was still clutching your lightsaber. He squeezed until you let it fall from your grip. It hit the floor and Dominus picked it up and attached it to his own hip. 

“Now that we’re being sensible,” He got down on one knee before you. With his own lightsaber hilt, he tilted your chin up to look at him. You tried to struggle against the invisible weight holding you in place. 

“I’ll happily accept your surrender,” You hiss through your teeth. Dominus let out a laugh that filled the large room. 

“Anakin trained you well,” Dominus admitted, “But you aren’t like him, you aren’t like the Jedi. I’ve been watching you and I can see how much you live for this war.” 

“I’m not like you,” you answered. You could feel where this conversation was going. Perhaps, you enjoyed being in the middle of a fight, but that didn’t mean you wanted war. You didn’t want to be an agent of chaos like the fallen Jedi before you. 

“You would be so much happier if you accepted it, y/n.” He was looking at you now with something you didn’t recognize. Was it hope?

“I can’t be here-” You let out a breath, the words falling out of your mouth. Of course you couldn’t be here, with a Sith lord. He was the enemy. 

“You feel it too,” Dominus let out a laugh, he seemed almost relieved. He leaned back and looked at you. 

“If you let me go, Master Kenobi,” You began, but Dominus only smiled like he knew a joke you’d never understand. He leaned towards you and rested his palm against your cheek.

“Darling, I’m not forcing you to stay here.” At his words, you realize that there was nothing holding you to the ground. You froze, understanding the depth to which you were distracted. How long have you been able to stand? 

You stood and Dominus rose with you. His hand fell from your face, but he grabbed your arm instead. With almost no room between the two of you, Dominus’ breath mixed with yours. 

“You and I are destined to be together,” Dominus whispered. You felt his free hand move towards your waist, but it never quite connected. He seemed to be waiting on something, a response from you or perhaps an outright denial. You held yourself still but could not allow yourself to give in. Not yet. 

And to your dismay, Dominus nodded and lowered his hand. 

“There is a vent in the back corner of this room,” Dominus said, pulling away, “if you crawl through, take two left turns and a final right. You’ll find the escape pods.” You stared at him a moment longer before taking a step back, reeling. He took your lightsaber from his hip and tossed it to you. As you began to back away, you found yourself smiling.

“Don’t worry, Master Kenobi,” You said over your shoulder as you turned away, “I’ll make sure to keep your little loss here a secret. I wouldn’t want anyone to ruin your reputation.” 

“That’s some big talk, y/n. Next time we meet, I’ll put that pretty mouth of yours to work,” Dominus said as you left, “and, I like it when you call me Master.” You laughed as you found the vent Dominus was talking about. Your escape was smooth sailing thereafter. 

❋❋❋❋❋❋❋❋❋❋❋❋❋❋❋❋❋❋

Later, as you sat on the escape pod, waiting for someone to pick up your distress call, you tried to meditate. You were shaken by your encounter with the Sith lord. Something small and otherwise strange inside of you had finally snapped into place. What was this feeling? 

You were pulled out of your meditation when you thought you heard something from the shadows of the escape pod. However, when you looked, you found nothing. There was no one on this pod with you. That didn’t stop you from thinking you saw someone from the corner of your eye. 

Next time you see Master Yoda, said a familiar voice in your head, ask him what a dyad in the force is. The voice echoed and then faded from your mind but you knew where it came from. You had heard that voice a million times over the holograms. You would know Darth Dominus anywhere. 

But what was worse was that you knew what a Force Dyad was. You had known for a long, long time. 

Part 2!

A/N: Um... so I love writing Sith!Obi-Wan? Anyway, thank you for reading! Please let me know what you think! More to come later. 

[blackberry-gingham]

Got to be honest... I love the mermaidau! theme too. Could you pls give us a pt2 cause I need to know how is their rlp gonna evolve. (Feel like even writing a hole 2k word fanfic with this au and im not ashamed 😂)

(Pst, anon is referring to this request!)

Mwaaaha yeeees... YEEEEES !!!! I'm so glad you guys like this au lmao 😂😂 All I have to say is, I hope y'all can come through with this mermaid au when summer hits, bc that's my JAM 😤

Even if I don't get another mermaid au request until then, like please y'all, I'm begging you lol

But anyways, tumblr has decided that doing all four on here is too long, so I’m posting half now and I’ll link Paul and Ringo before the day’s over! (Also bc I lost like half of Ringo's story last night, and I have to rewrite it, so rip :') ) Enjoy!

Paul and Ringo this way!

George

It's quite a bit before George can see you again

He had to take up a job, even with school, and practice, and family, and friends, and the occasional gig... just to save up

But when he finally got enough to buy that bike... It was all worth it

It's almost as prized a possession as his guitar, and the very next day after purchasing it, he loads up a blanket and some food and heads off for the lake

The ride from home to the water is a bit long, but nothing he can't handle

At long last, he arrives at the tiny pier and he can hardly contain himself as he sets the kickstand and grabs his things

He rushes down and sets up shop

In his excitement, George has forgotten to consider whether or not you'll even show...

But he doesn't want to give up yet

So he waits

And waits

And after a few hours pass by, he decides he might as well have his lunch instead of skipping rocks and wading in the water all afternoon

George swims over to the edge of the pier and clasps into the plank to hoist himself up

But before he can complete the maneuver, he finds himself jerked back down again

It's gentle enough that he doesn't get submerged, but it's certainly enough to give him a start

He splutters and flails a little, turning around as quick as he can to see...

Oh, it's you...

George breathes a sigh of relief, even as your eyes watch him from just above the water line, your hair floating on the surface like an angel

Your eyes go wide in excitement, and you peak your head all the way above the water, giving a soft gasp of surprise

"It is you! I can't believe you came back!"

George's heart hammers in his chest, whether it's from the surprise, the physical activity, or something else... He doesn't know

"O-of course I am! I said I would, didn't I?"

You laugh, "So you did! ...By the way, what have you got up there?"

George looks over his shoulder to the picnic basket that's clearly in view, then back at you

He waves you over and pulls himself up at last

When he's turned around, you've disappeared and George's heart drops

Well, not for long. A moment passes, followed by a huge splash as you jump from the water to the pier

It's not a perfect jump, as you need to pull yourself up a bit, but you make it well enough

George is halfway through unloading the basket, but he finds himself incredibly distracted by your tail

He doesn't mean to be rude it's just... It's almost like you weren't real before now

The tail is nearly twice the length that human legs would be. It tapers all the way down to a fine and delicate point that flares out into a transparent, forked fin

There are smaller fins like this along the rest of your tail, George notes, providing gorgeous accents to your shimmering iridescent scales

You swish your tail behind you, feeling a bit shy

George shakes himself out of his stupor, "Oh, sorry! I just... Wow"

You huff a laugh and mumble a thanks, not quite out of the awkwardness

"Um, here, I brought you something", George hands you a carefully wrapped sandwich

You give it a sniff and wait for George to taste his first

It tastes fantastic. Unlike anything you've ever had before

George tells you it's called a "ham and cheese"

Before you know it, the two of you jump into a whole conversation about life above and below water

You talk all afternoon and into the evening. George, doesn't even realize how low the sun's set until he takes a moment to stretch and look up

"Oh, I suppose you should be going..."

"Yeah..."

George looks at you and then the water one more time

It's like a pool of gold out there, the orange and yellow reflecting so beautifully on the water

"Say, how about one more swim?", George nods towards the water

Needless to say, you both race in for a last dip

You swim laps around George as he move slowly through the water, and you find yourself growing bored rather quick

"Ugh, here hold on!", You laugh and roll your eyes as you latch onto George from beneath

He doesn't protest, and you tow him easily back and forth through the water

It's not as fast as you could go, but it's faster then George has ever achieved on his own

It's actually great fun, but all things must end, and after a few rounds you glide to a stop surrounded by golden ripples

You sigh and look around, letting him go, "Sorry, it's late. I didn't mean to get so carried away..."

George wades just inches away from you, "No no, it's alright! I um, I had fun"

"Really?", You smile

"Really...", George floats a little closer to you, and you can feel his warm breath caress your hair, "In fact, m-maybe we could do this again sometime?"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah..."

Before he even gives a thought to what he's doing George's lips meet yours halfway, pressing far softer then you'd expect from a rough teddy boy like himself

It's one of those kisses where you don't even have to think, or give subtle hints

Everything just feels right

Your heart does a flip when you separate, and George sticks by his promise

It gets to the point where you have a schedule to meet each other, getting the most out of your daylight hours

From now on, no more waiting

Just you, and him.

John

John's been visiting you for quite some time now, bringing you shiny things on occasion, but mostly just enjoying your company

You're on a first name basis and everything

It's strange almost, John feels quite special

After all, he might be the only lad in all of England to befriend a mermaid!

Although lately, he's been feeling... Different about you

He must be mad

But it's just...

You're so sweet, and kind, and you listen and understand him like no one else ever has before, an-

Ugh

He must be going mad

That would certainly explain why he's buying you a locket with his latest savings

It may be from a second hand store, but he knows you'll love it

The locket is shaped like a heart and made of brass

The metal is a bit tarnished but the small heart shaped ruby in the center is bright as ever

It's perfect

John takes it home and hides it away from Mimi

She doesn't know about you, but she has some suspicions about a girl...

That's certainly not something John wants to talk about, so he's trying to be as covert about you and him as possible

But before he can hand off his gift to you, he needs to sneak one of Mimi's pictures of him

She has a few up in the attic, which John is easily able to swipe and cut out to fit in your locket

There. Now it's perfect

John gets a good night's rest and heads out bright and early to your cove the very next day

He arrives to find you splayed out on a bed of shells and trinkets, sun bathing

"Hello birdy!"

You spring up and turn to face him, "Johnny!"

Patches of sand stick to your skin, shimmering like glitter in the sun

John whips off his leather jacket and shirt as he goes to sit beside you before removing his boots and socks as well

It's a bit of a custom for him ever since he started feeling comfortable around you

The beach is rather hot, yes, but more so, he likes that you make him feel confident enough to take all that off in the first place

You don't know this, but it's a huge sign of the trust he has in you

The two of you talk and catch up a bit on the few days you were apart

John tells you about school, and you about your adventures at sea

Both of you are equally fascinated about each other's worlds, and both wish a bit that they could live like the other does

You've offered to take John out to sea, but he's not to keen on wading that far out in the ocean

When the conversation starts to run dry, John remembers his gift at last

"Oh by the way, I brought you something..."

You perk up, not suspecting anything other then the usual shiny pebble or coin

But then again, John seems... Different

You could swear you see a blush climbing his cheeks

"I uh, saw this and thought of you...", He holds out an old, worn locket. The Ruby heart and tarnished brass flash and glint in the sunlight, mesmerizing you

You gasp softly, and reach for it slowly, as though you're dreaming

"Do you fancy it?", John asks nervously

"John, this is beautiful..."

You click the heart open and reveal a raggedly cut picture of John smirking back at you from behind a heart shaped lid of glass

You trace your finger along the picture's edge, a trance like glaze over your eyes

"I um, I thought maybe you could wear this one... You know, that way you could always have me with you when you go out to sea... Or... Something", John mumbles, wondering if he sounds even half as stupid as he thinks he does

He peaks over at you once, then twice as you look at it in silence

"It's alright, you don't have to-"

"Could you put it on me?"

John looks stunned, as though he's surprised you actually like his well thought out gift

"Uh, I- sure"

You hand him the necklace and turn

John lifts it over your head and lowers it slowly

The metal is warm from John's hands as it touches your skin, and John fastens the clasp in a jiffy

"There you are..."

You turn around again, eyes shining brightly with joy, the heart clasped in the palm of your hand

A knot forms in John's stomach, seeing you look so happy with him like that, and suddenly he feels sick

He has to say it

He knows be does

He has to tell you now, or it's going to kill him

And yet, if he does tell you, that might kill him too

"Ugh, I must be mad..."

You quirk an eyebrow, "Wha-?"

"I love you", John blurts it out as though it was tortured out of him

It's not very sweet, or romantic, or charming...

No, it's actually much more like he just spat on the sand and continued on

But you know John by now, and to you, it's more then enough

You put your hand over his and lean in to press a gentle kiss to his burning cheek

"I love you too Johnny"

John's breath hitches in his throat, and looks at you with a gaze he's never given any other woman in the world

"Really?" His voice is the barest of whispers

But you don't need to answer, John is already pulling you in for a kiss as he lays back on your small pile of treasure

It's not his first make out session, and it won't be his last

But with you? Right here, on the beach, in the warm sun, laying cozied up on his bare torso?

It's the one he remembers most, for all his life

[metinthehallway]

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Hello! Here is a simple little 3.5k fic! I thank @goldenbluesuit for hosting this spectacular fic challenge! I love what I've read so far and I can’t wait to keep reading. Also, thank you to @lilacobscure and @arrogantstyles for beta-ing and just being...awesome. I hope you all like it. :) 

Warnings: mention of the word bloke from a non-Brit

Annie has had it. She’s holding two of her fluffiest pillows against both of her ears and has her white noise machine droning on at full volume. And she can still hear the sultry bass of Andy Williams singing his little heart out. She can hear him as clear as day, as if he were performing his very own live concert in the corner of her bedroom. Don’t even get her started on the Christmas lights. Annie had actually gone out and bought an eye mask in order to sleep, as her windows faced the neighbors front yard where Annie’s neighbor, apparently, was the sole reason their local supermarket was sold out of blow up decorations and string lights. 

Harry Styles didn’t even have a lot of real estate to work with in terms of space. But he really made every centimeter count. One morning mid-November, whilst getting her mail, Annie counted about fourteen deflated pop-up corpses staked to the frozen ground, multiple candy canes lining his driveway that were about half the size of her, and masses of tangled lights strung up across every visible square inch of his home. If that wasn’t enough, he had a carefully crafted playlist he turned on every night at eight p.m. sharp that was approximately three hours and forty-nine minutes long before it looped back to the beginning song. She thought, fleetingly, that she should invest in ear plugs.

Annie prides herself on being a patient and understanding person. The only reason why she hasn’t held a covert operation at three in the morning to mercilessly stab a hole in each blow-up, or cut every single criss-crossed wire, or even ambush her neighbor while he walks out his front door in nothing but a fuzzy pink robe and no shoes, demonstrating that universal, oh shit the ground is cold, oh shit, oh shit, jerking walk, is because he only recently moved in next door. She was not about to be the one to ask him to maybe take it easy on the city’s power source, that she also needs electricity for her home, and also how do you fall asleep with this godforsaken music?

Annie is not prideful in this moment. All it takes for her to snap is hearing, “It’s the hap-happiest season of all,” for the forty-fifth time. With a loud groan, she tears off her beautiful, beautiful down comforter and stomps into her shoes, scaring Cindy, her sleeping Persian cat, off the bed. It’s two thirty-six in the morning, she realizes in a far off thought that doesn’t seem to make it to the forefront of her brain, and makes her way over to Harry’s front door. She has the immature urge to punch a smiling Santa sat atop a sleigh filled with presents as she passes it. All the lights are off in his house and Annie doesn’t feel a bit of remorse as she raises a half-asleep arm and slams it against the sturdy oak door of Harry’s house. For a full minute, it’s silent and there appears to be no movement from behind the door. A sliver of apprehension begins to worm its way into Annie’s bones. 

There’s a better way to do this, Annie. Like, in daylight, during normal people hours. 

She starts to turn on her heel, continuing her internal chastising and also external chastising, muttering to herself like a lunatic, when she hears the tell-tale creak behind her and a porch light flickering to life. Annie stands there, her right hand over her eyes, shielding them from the harsh yellow rays. She can make out Harry’s figure, dressed in flannel pajama pants that look like they were previously crumpled on his bedroom floor, a white T-shirt on backwards and inside out, and his signature pink fuzzy robe. His hair sticks up hazardously, sort of like a halo illuminated by the bulb behind him. His eyes are puffy, brows furrowed together and indenting a line in the center of his forehead. Lips as pink as a rose purse together as nostrils flare.

“Is there something I might be able to help you with?” Harry asks, a slight lilt to his gravelly voice. It’s a polite enough question, however it holds an air of carefully restrained annoyance. For a moment, Annie thinks she would be annoyed as well if someone pounded at her front door in the wee hours of a Tuesday morning. She quickly dismisses the thought, actually raising her hand in the air and waving it off as if it was a tangible thing. Harry raises one eyebrow. 

“Good evening, well- morning, my name is Annie. I live next door, I’m twenty-two Ambrose Ave,” Annie starts. She doesn’t know why she announces her house number. She watches his eyes flick to his right where an engraved twenty-four lies, and back to hers. Annie shakes her head slightly before launching into a speech she never prepared.

“I’m here because I think the way you decorate is rude. Do you think, at all, of your neighbors? How do you fall asleep? Do you even have a job?! I never see you leave your house! Not that I’m keeping tabs, I’m just genuinely worried for your electric bill,” she continues, pausing to take a breath. “I have not had a single good nights rest since you started all of this, back in November. I have never hated the sound of Andy Williams’ voice more deeply than I do this holiday season.”

“Excuse me—,”

“Ah-ah! I’m not done, sir. Some of us are employed and have to work at eight a.m., some of us have cats that wake us up in the ass-crack of dawn anyway with their screeches and need all the sleep we can get. Do you know I had to buy a sleep mask because of you? Because of,” she pauses, a red rotating light from a candy cane passing over her face ominously as she turns around and gestures wildly to the commotion around her, “all this?”

“Can I just say—,”

“And the music. Are you eighty years old? The least you could do with this god-awful playlist is add some Mariah Carey, some Buble; even Ariana Grande has some sick Christmas tunes. The ones you chose haven’t been remastered since nineteen thirty-eight,” she finishes, eyes a little too wide, hair disheveled and falling in her face. Her hands are shaking and her heart is beating entirely too fast. Confrontation has never been Annie’s strong suit, evident of the lack of response from Harry as she cuts him off throughout the duration of her mini rant. He just peers back at her, face as still as stone as an uncomfortable silence falls between them. Frosty the Snowman rears its nasty head and Annie finds herself slowly closing her eyes and clenching her fists.

The second Annie starts to open her eyes, she hears the light closing of Harry’s front door and two locks click into place. She stands there, mouth slightly open as the early December chill works its way into her bones. She stares ahead of her and a murderous look takes over her face, cheeks red with the winter wind, lips chapped and tears starting to form on her lash line from the cold.

“What a fucking prick,” Annie mutters to herself. He can’t even respond to her? How childish. She turns around slowly, walking back through the winter wonderland, feeling defeated. She didn’t know what she expected to feel after finally expressing her thoughts, but she knew defeated was not it. 

As she crosses the threshold into her home, she thinks, maybe I could’ve handled that better. Annie prides herself on her patience. She was not patient that night.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Over the course of the month, Annie and Harry bump into each other way more than either of them would like. Once, when the mailman dropped off her mother’s monthly care package to Harry’s house, another when Annie had to begrudgingly ask to borrow his shovel when she found her car snowed in one early morning and a broken handle on her own. 

They’ve even begun to see each other in the aisles of their local supermarket. Annie enters the store, unsuspecting and looking for ingredients to make her world renowned charcuterie boards for a work fundraiser. She stops in her tracks and almost drops her jar of green olives when she sees a familiar head of frizzy brown hair. 

Harry is hyper-focused, reading the back of a spray cheese can. Annie tries to sneak by him and grab a box of herb filled crackers. Tries. She is unsuccessful, however, when her purse strap catches on a display and yanks her arm backwards, making her lose grip of the glass jar. Everything seems to happen in slow motion, as she watches the jar sail past Harry and hit the ground, glass exploding all over his shoes. The chattering happening around her ceases, as all of the blood in her body travels to her face. 

“Clean up in aisle four,” deadpans a nearby worker dressed in a horrid shade of neon green. He sighs heavily, murmuring under his breath that he doesn’t get paid nearly enough to be picking up all of these olives. 

Annie is mortified. She is unable to tear her focus away from Harry’s soaked suede shoes.  It’s only when he clears his throat and shifts his feet that she raises her head.

“I see… that you’ve really got a vendetta against me,” Harry scoffs, eyes trained on his feet, where the olive juice has to be seeping into his socks. No one likes wet socks. 

“That was completely on accident! I swear! Why is that display sticking three feet into the aisle anyway? That has to be a a safety violation,” Annie pushes out in a rush. There doesn’t seem to be enough air for her lungs in this store. Especially not with Harry now looking intensely at her, almost like he could see right through her. She folds under his gaze.

“It’s okay. I didn’t like these shoes much, to be fair,” Harry shrugs. 

“Really?”

“No,” Harry says. 

“Oh. Well, I can buy you a new pair. How much did you pay for those?” Annie asks, pulling out her wallet.

Harry raises a single eyebrow, the left corner of his mouth turning up and a dimple appearing out of thin air. 

“Too much. Really, it’s fine. The juice is translucent enough. I’ll just use them as house slippers,” he says. He opens his mouth to continue, but is interrupted by the loud squeaking of a bucket skidding across the floor. The neon green worker returns, a dingy looking mop in hand and a frown on his face. His free hand makes the shoo motion to Harry, starting to swipe at the floor, completely ignoring the glass scratching the linoleum that’s mixed in with the olives.

“Do you want any help?” Annie offers, stepping forward to at least pick up the larger shards scattered across the floor. The worker, whose name tag reads Roger, holds up a single pointer finger in her direction and shakes his head. Annie takes the hint, while Harry just shifts his gaze between Roger and the mess on the tiles, mouth somewhat agape. She nudges his shoulder with her own and gestures with her head for them to leave the aisle. 

Annie makes her way up to self-checkout, Harry following suit. They ring their items up in silence next to each other. They find themselves walking through the front door together, and it’s only when they’re outside in the sunshine that Harry lets out the deepest belly laugh Annie has ever heard. 

“Oh my god, my toes are so wet,” Harry says in between breaths. “Did you see the way that bloke’s vein was popping out of his neck? I thought he was about to commit second degree murder right in the condiment aisle.”

Annie’s heartbeat starts to pick up and she begins to laugh along with him. Tears form in both of their eyes and they sparkle in the cold afternoon sunlight. 

“I feel so bad! I don’t even like olives. They were just for my stupid charcuterie boards,” Annie says, laughter dying down. She sighs, wiping at her cheeks. She looks up, meeting Harry’s eyes. He looks down at her, smile fading slowly but his face still holding traces of warmth. 

“Well, I should be heading home. See you soon,” Harry bids his goodbye. Annie nods her head in his direction and turns, palming her keys and unlocking her car across the parking lot with a chirp. She unloads her groceries into the trunk and slides into the drivers seat, thinking for a brief moment about the shape of Harry’s smile. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The snow outside is falling. And it’s falling hard. So heavy and consistent that the power lines are drooping underneath the weight and the electricity in Annie’s house is flickering in and out. It’s Christmas Eve and all she wants to do is sleep the night away, then sleep the morning away, then sleep the weekend away. She draws back a curtain and peers at Harry’s lawn, the usual eyesore dark and covered in a blanket of sparkling white snow.

A sharp crack and the sound of something large tumbling to the ground close to Annie’s house makes both her and Cindy jump, eyes alert and tail all puffed out. She goes to open her front door to investigate and sees Cindy dart between her legs a second too late, a gray blur running into the stormy night.

“CINDY!” Annie yells, voice carrying eerily across the empty street. She takes off after the small cat, wearing only her pajamas and a pair of worn slippers. Annie loses her immediately in the snowfall. While outside, she sees the huge tree limb that fell onto Harry’s front yard, covering a third of his decorations, deeming a good chunk of them broken. She wonders for a short second why he hasn’t come out to check on the noise. 

Annie’s heart starts to race as she tries to get a rein on her growing panic. Cindy is a strictly indoor cat, only having been outside for vet visits. She thinks of what would bring her cat back home, yelling her name sweetly and kissing her teeth loudly. She starts to walk towards the tree line, snapping her fingers and chattering her teeth. 

“Annie?” She hears her name being called out from behind her. She throws her head over her shoulder and locks eyes with Harry, standing there in his infamous robe. He’s got his face turned away from the harsh wind and his face is scrunched up in confusion. “What on Earth are you doing out here?! Are you mental?” 

“Cindy got out! I don’t know where she went. She ran in this direction. She never goes outside, I don’t know what to do,” Annie exclaims, feeling the urge to tear at her hair. 

“Who’s Cindy?” Harry asks.

“My cat! She was scared by the branch falling and snuck right past me when I opened the door,” she explains, arms crossing over her chest as the chill of the night bites at her skin. She shivers, turning back towards the trees. They look like they’re beginning to come alive.

Harry looks her up and down and comes up behind her, wrapping that godforsaken robe around her shaking frame. She looks up at him, grateful for the extra layer. He has a serious look on his face, determined with a mix of compassion, and also curiosity. Annie is suddenly relieved that she has someone with her to handle the situation with more calm than she ever could.

“Why don’t you go inside and grab her favorite treats? And a blanket she loves? Something that smells like you would be best,” Harry says, listing off the necessary items as if he’s done this before. She looks at him, a bit puzzled, and he reads her expression easily.

“Our cats growing up were professional escape artists. I’ve done this once or twice,” he lets out a small chuckle. She nods and heads towards her house, grabbing everything they need and changing into a pair of winter boots and shrugging on a coat, shoving Harry’s robe towards him. 

“I got everything. Here’s your robe,” Annie says, unable to meet his eyes. She already feels indebted to him, and they haven’t even found Cindy yet. “Thank you for helping me. I’m just… scared,” she confesses, tears starting to well up. She presses her fists into her eyes roughly as if she could stop them from falling. 

Harry just nods, takes the garment, and starts shaking the treat bag. His deep voice carries into the night more than hers did as he walks around, zig-zagging across the snow. Annie holds Cindy’s favorite blanket that resides on her bed and wraps it around her. She follows Harry, both chorusing, Cindy! Cindy, baby! Come back! It’s too cold for you out here!

They walk the perimeter of Annie’s house, keeping to the tree line, when Harry shushes her. He stops in his tracks and listens to the silent night. Faintly, from the direction of Harry’s house, comes a small mewl. He walks briskly over, slowing his movements as he gets closer in order not to scare the small Persian. 

“Cindy? Where are you girl? Come out for your mama,” Harry half-whispers, half-shouts. He’s still shaking the treats lightly, starting to open them. From their right they can hear a crumpling of plastic, a flash of gray shooting out from underneath the collapsed blow-up of Santa on his sleigh. Annie cries out in relief as Cindy comes running towards them at full speed, crashing right into Harry’s legs. He scoops her up swiftly with one hand and holds a treat out to her in his other. 

“You had me so worried, Cindy! I cannot believe you. You want nothing to do with the outside world but decide to run out into the coldest night we’ve had so far! You’re crazy,” Annie half-sobs, holding the cats face in two hands. Cindy shakes the snow out of her fur and licks at Annie’s nose. Harry watches the interaction, feeling something unfolding in his own chest. He gestures for Annie to take her cat, picking long hairs out of his robe.

“I see everything’s all in order here, I’ll just—oh,” Harry lets out a grunt as this peculiar woman collides into his body, cat trapped between the two of them and licking at the pink fuzz surrounding Harry as if she were grooming a kitten. His eyes go a bit wide, arms frozen around Annie while she releases a string of, thank you so much, you have no idea how much she means to me, you didn’t have to do this but you did so I owe you, I’m sorry for what I said that night, I’m sorry about the olive juice, thank you, thank you, thank you, muffled into his chest. His hands find themselves resting on her back, stroking up and down in a means to calm her.

“Hey, hey… it’s okay. I know what it feels like. I’m glad she was okay,” Harry soothes. Annie pulls away, and a strange longing passes through his heart. He frowns slightly and clears his throat. 

“I’m going to go to bed now, and get this little gremlin inside. Thank you so much, Harry. I really do appreciate it, more than you know,” Annie says, a bit breathless. Snowflakes lay themselves to rest upon her eyelashes, lips pink from the cold and Harry has the innate urge to tuck a piece of unruly hair behind her ear. He blinks, forcing himself out of his head.

“Really, it’s no problem. I’ll be heading in as well. See you soon, Annie,” Harry declares. Annie realizes with a jolt that Harry just said her name for the first time. She’s suddenly overheating, and gives a single nod, holding Cindy tight to her body as she walks up the few steps to her front door. Harry watches her leave, only taking his eyes off her when he can’t see her anymore. He then turns around, looking at the demolition of his lawn. He inhales deep. 

“Fuck.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harry does a double take when he sees Annie outside his home the next morning, attempting to break apart the large tree branch. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For the remainder of the season, Harry and Annie spend an inordinate amount of time together. From binge-watching their guilty pleasure TV shows to roaming the streets downtown at midnight, sharing the same love for empty places. It seemed as though, somewhere in the universe, a story began to unravel itself.

As the last snowflake melts on the first stem emerging from the soft ground, Harry kisses Annie. He wasn’t even planning on it. It was like second degree murder. He found himself looking at her looking at the bluest sky, the sky looking back at her like it wanted to kiss her as well; so he kissed her first.