#(charms with the art printed on the inside of the plastic)

[satansaidnottoday]

Twinning: Part 1.

Part 2

Info: Human AU, Lucifer's Mc, GN!Mc.

Happens directly after this.

Summary: the twins birthday is coming up and Lucifer wants to make it special. You're determined to help.

Late in the morning, just before lunch break, was the best time to work on custom orders. Barely anyone came after breakfast, barring the occasional late coffee drinker. Working on your counter opposite the entrance, you wielded a variety of piping bags. You were careful not to smear the hand-drawn stars, pipping small planets on a space-themed cake. Soft instrumental music filled the room, only interrupted by the occasional meowing of your coworkers. They basked in the soft, post-storm sun entering the windows, purring and cleaning each other.

"What are you doing?"

You shrieked in surprise, letting out just a little too much red buttercream on Jupiter. Tuning around, you faced your unexpected visitor. Another Morning Star brother, a redhead, a little too tall for a kid but with a childish face. How did he even manage to enter without making the doorbells chime?

"Sorry, did I scare you?" He asked but didn't look at you.

You put on your best customer service smile. "No, just got a bit startled, that's all."

"What are you doing?" He reiterated.

"I'm decorating a cake."

"What is it for? Are you gonna sell it? Is it chocolate?" Without stopping his questions, the kid placed his hands flat on the counter, repeatedly jumping to look at the cake.

"Someone is having his birthday here tomorrow and he ordered a cake."

"Why does it have stars? My brother likes stars. Are those planets? How old is he?" He didn't stop, even to breathe, not leaving any space for you to answer.

This time, the bells did chime, as Lucifer stepped inside with a stern look. Riding on his back was the smallest of the siblings, looking around with bored eyes. "Beelzebub, I told you not to run ahead. What if you had gotten lost?" He scolded the redhead, who didn't seem to care much.

"I'm sorry, Lucy," he didn't even look up at his brother, eyes fixed on the cake.

"I told you not to call me that." Lucifer reached the counter and finally looked at you. "Good morning, Mc. I'm sorry for the ruckus."

"No matter, Lucy," you answered playfully. He didn't seem to find it so charming, giving you a dry smile. "How can I help you?"

"We brought you back your umbrella." He looked at Beel and gave him a little nudge. Just then you noticed the thing he was holding, as he placed it on the counter. A cheap plastic umbrella, covered in goofy cat faces. The art was your own, some of your best work if you said so yourself. You had various designs printed on school paraphernalia for the back-to-school season. A bunch was left over.

"You didn't have to bring it back," you said with a smile. "You can keep it."

"Are you sure?" Lucifer lifted an eyebrow.

"Yeah, I'm sure your kids would like it." You couldn't sell it now that it was used anyway.

"Well, how mu–" Before Lucifer could keep talking, the brother on his back spoke up.

"Lucy, can we get that cake?" It was the first time you heard him speak. He looked excited for once.

"Oh, I'm sorry, that's not for sale, but you can pick anything from the cake menu," you tried to offer.

"Do they have constellations?"

You shook your head. "No, but I have Galaxy cat cupcakes if you'd like them."

The kid nodded, less energetic than before. Lucifer lowered him to the ground and reached for his wallet. The redhead started to jump again.

"Lucy, they do birthdays. Can we have our birthday here? Please, please, please."

Lucifer took a deep breath, handing you the money. "I'll see."

With him closer to you and not dripping wet, you could see Lucifer's swollen lower lip with a small fresh cut. You wondered if that was what Satan was talking about. He seemed to notice you staring because he looked away. A little ashamed, you gave the two expecting kids their cupcakes.

"Go see if the cats want to play," Lucifer ordered and Beel didn't wait a second to drag his poor brother to the play area.

The moment they grabbed some of the toys, Felicia leaped to them, running between their legs at full speed. Lucifer smiled, seeing them start to play with the cat.

"You know, Satan really likes that cat," you say, taking your chances.

"He does?" Lucifer looked surprised "He doesn't really like anything." There was a sudden sad undertone in the man's voice.

"I can contact you with the shelter if... You're interested."

Lucifer turned around to look at you, browns furrowed. You worried you had said something wrong until he talked again.

"How much do you charge for private parties?"

The question took you by surprise. You had already forgotten about Beelzebub's request.

"Well, I usually charge a flat fee, plus catering," you explained, taking a small pause to think "but I'll only charge you for the catering."

"Why?" He looked at you like you were trying to scam him. You repressed a small laugh.

"You're my neighbors and I haven't given you a welcome gift yet, so this is it." You smiled at him, yet he still seemed uneasy.

"If you say so... How much will that be for nine people?" You wrote him a quote, including the items offered on the menu. He considered it for a few seconds. "How much for a custom cake?" he finally asked.

"For a small one, they start at about $100. It depends on the filling and the designs."

You took out a sheet with basic prices by size and flavor. He chewed the insides of his cheeks while looking at it. Though subtle, you could sense his anguish. You could only imagine how hard it would be to maintain a house and feed six mouths, all on his own.

"I do offer a free basic cake for birthday parties," you said in the most neutral tone you could. It was a lie, but you had a feeling Lucifer wouldn't accept it if you just gifted him the cake.

He nodded and took out a debit card from his wallet. "Can I make a reservation for March 11th? I'll pay it all now."

"Of course!" After running the card, you took out your notebook for reservations. "I just need the name of the birthday boy for decoration."

"Beelzebub and Belohegor," he answered, peaking at the kids.

"Both for them?"

He nodded, "They're twins."

"They look nothing like it," you laughed lightheartedly. He didn't. "So, how old are they turning?"

"Thirteen."

"So you officially will have a house full of teenagers."

The sigh Lucifer let out could only be described as a cry for help. You couldn't help but laugh, more as a sign of understanding than mocking. He looked up at the wall clock and straightened himself.

"Well, we need to go. Thank you for everything, Mc." He turned around to call on the twins, you took the opportunity to slip a card from the shelter with his receipt. "I'll call you later to close details on the reservation, is that okay?"

"Sure, whenever you can."

He nodded and directed the kids out the door, as you waved at them. Before they even left the front of the store, Belphegor was already on his brother's back.

"So he likes stars…" you whisper to yourself.

AN: Hey I'm back. Life has been fucking me and I'm having an existential crisis, so I'm back to writing for my comfort characters.

Hope you liked this! I decided to break it up in parts so I can publish them over the holidays.

[ghost-words]

This was written for @paperdemon-arpg

Yumeki Dreamer is laying on his bed in the dark.

"Uuhhggh, I need a vacation…"

You would think life is already some sort of vacation if you are a fallen god. Grabbing his sunglasses, Yumeki looks at his reflection in the dark. 

"Guess we'll make it work." Swiftly Yumeki sits up, turns on his lamp and grabs his sketch journal off the bedside table. The bookmark ribbon has a green and purple charm in the shape of an eye. This charm is similar to the eyes found all over his upper body.

"Great," he sighs. "Where did I put the travel guide…"

He gets up from bed and grabs a small brown satchel hanging on a hook from behind the bedroom door.  Carefully Yumeki places his sketch journal and a pen into the bag. Inside the bag is also his wallet with a few dollars and some change. There is still some space inside.

 After reading himself, he leaves his room and makes his way downstairs. A large glowing book sits on a table.

"Thank you for making this easy."

Flipping through the book, Yumeki lands on a page that grabs his attention. It reads "Castimeria, come visit the wildflower festival and beautiful landscapes!"

"Huh, I haven't been to a festival for a bit. Maybe ever."

On the page is a glowing triangular image. He taps it and the glow transfers to his finger. Turning to a more open room he draws a large triangle in the air and the portal opens.

"Now or never." Breathes Yumeki as he steps through. On the other side of the portal is bright sunlight, a nice summer spring breeze, and the fragrance of flowers. "This is perfect." Faint music can be heard playing in the distance and a dirt path is nearby. Yumeki makes his way to the path, people with Friendly smiles wave and say hello.

Never has Yumeki been somewhere so pleasant. He makes it to a small bustling town, the streets are filled with stalls. Continuing down the street he comes across a booth selling wildflower press art prints.

"Hello there sir! How can I help you today?" The woman at the stand asks. The stand is purple with an awning of woven flowers.

"Oh, I'm well thank you. Just, looking around." Yumeki picks up a print of blue wildflowers with a watercolor cat, bee, and hummingbird creature on it. "This one's cute!" He smiles.

"That is one of my favorites, the little guy is called a Ceebi!" She says as she straightens up some art.

"How much would you like for this one?" Asks Yumeki as he places the print down and grabs his wallet from his satchel.

"That one is 25 gold!" She smiles

Yumeki opens his wallet with slight surprise to see gold coins where his dollars and change was. 150 gold in total. "I'll take it!" He hands the woman the 25 gold and she hands him the wildflower ceebi print in a plastic protector.

"Wonderful doing business with you sir! Have a good day and enjoy the festivities!" She smiles, bows, and waves. Yumeki smiles and waves back then continues down the path.

Other booths include wildflower dyes and paints, clothing made of petals, bouquets, little figures, and at the end of the street was an elf playing a lute. He is selling his music as cassette tapes with small flowers in the shell and vinyl with flowers pressed between the layers. The album is called "Bloom of the New Dawn"

A crowd is gathered around when Yumeki joins. The music consisted of melody's of nature, love, family, and friendship. The elf bard finishes his performance. "Thank you everyone, you have all been so kind today! I appreciate you coming out to celebrate whether it's your first or fifth time!"

The sky darkens and most of the crowd has left. Yumeki goes up to the bard.

"Your music is wonderful! How much for a signed vinyl?" Asks Yumeki as he grabs his wallet again.

"Hey! Thanks man, I appreciate it. 100 gold for the vinyl and I will happily sign it! Who's it for?"

The bard grabs a flower pen and a vinyl.

"This will go to my sister, Audio!" Yumeki smiles.

"What a unique name, here you go my good sir! Hope your sister enjoys it!" He hands Yumeki the vinyl. The autograph reads " To Audio, a wonderful sister. Stay kind, stay sweet, stay smiling. Jest the Bard."

"I appreciate it, have a good night and thanks for performing." With vinyl under arm and the daylight fleeting, Yumeki makes his way to an open space. His finger glows and he draws a large triangle in the air and the portal home appears.

Re-entering his home, he lays the vinyl on the counter and heads upstairs to end his adventure with some sleep.

The next morning Yumeki calls up Audio.

"Hey come to my place, I got you something."

Within a few hours the sound goddess arrives.

"Yumeki!!! Hey!! What's up!!" Audio gleefully hugs her younger brother. The hug is tight but it makes Yumeki feel really good. He hugs back.

"So I went on an adventure yesterday. A place called Castimeria. They had a wildflower festival going on." Yumeki goes over to where the vinyl is and Audio sits on the couch.

He picks up the vinyl and heads over to Audio.

"NO WAY!!! A VINYL!! DUDE! THANK YOU!!" Audio excitedly exclaims.

"It's signed too." He points out the signature.

"Bro, thank you. Like wow!" She hugs him again.

"I got some art for myself." Yumeki grabs his bag and pulls out the wildflower ceebi print.

"OH MY THAT'S SO CUUUTE!!" Audio gently takes the print to admire it. "Could you go back and take a picture of those little guys if possible, maybe please?"

"I will think about it." Yumeki chuckles. "Want to listen to it?"

"I'm on it!" Audio snaps her fingers and a record player with speakers connected appears. She sets it up. As the music starts to play a cheerful vibe spreads across the room.

[junowyear3]

26.07.22

Supervision Session with Jill. I need to get better at learning how to properly communicate my thoughts and ideas. As soon as I get face-to-face with someone it’s as if I go completely blank, and it comes across like I haven’t put in the effort to research properly, but really I am just struggling with communication. Surely this is something I can adapt to or train myself out of- something to think about and work on.

Thank you Jill for lending me your Grimm’s fairytales, and the Scott Lawrie pamphlet!

Could be helpful to make a mind-map of specific moments in my research, rather than trying to encapsulate everything I am thinking about: kinds of things I make, and where I show them. BRAINSTORM each character. What do they represent? What do they symbolize? Bunny Hat Man-  gurokawaii (Happy Tree Friends etc..), myth of Herakles. Kuromi Monster Hat, pop culture franchise.

Instagram account as a place for curation, archiving, researching and promoting. Will you have separate accounts for separate characters? Do they host their own account, characters being different egos

Research JK Rowling construction of characters, how history and myth influence the purpose and creation of these characters.

Depictions of monsters. Depictions of humans. Humans becoming and creating monsters. Brutality and violence inflicted on humans by other humans, the monster becomes charming and fantastical. The monster hat on the human, what does this mean?

Making the world that these characters inhabit? Making the objects and spaces and symbols around them? Will the hat function as a hat? 

Massive question to consider. To what degree will these characters end up as art toy products for purchasing and collecting? Is “the art toy” as a foundation something that will be literal or represented? Is this an art toy or is this made in response to art toys? It is made with plastic that will last, or will it be made from materials that decay, degrade, rot. Which one will effectively reflect these intense and violent concepts? This could go either way, a character as a vessel to depict this violence upon, or an artificial, unsettlingly perfect object that will remain in pristine conditions long past your own life. It could outlive the period of anxiety that it is representing.

RM Gallery exhibition with Whitecliffe Graduate Iann An. Visceral use of material. Fleshy, gorey. Go on Thursday.

Doreen Garner- suspended racks- use of casts and silicone, fleshy materials

Seung Yul Oh and Hye Rim Lee, good artists who combine Pop Culture and Art Gallery Conventions

Patricia Piccinini

Scale. Small is too simple. Something that can stand in it’s own space on a pedestal- a shop display with a single product. Busts or heads? Both help focus on the hat/ mask as a prominent feature. Busts link to ancient Greek and Roman marble busts, I like the idea of both but having a line of decapitated heads links more to the violence I intend to talk about.

Making the moulds- two ways you could do this: two part mould, creating a mold for both halves of the prototype. Using clay to save liquid silicone, using marbles to create pivot points. Creating a mould that can be snapped shut and filled to create casts. A single mould involves the full immersion of the prototype into the liquid silicone- difficult if there are certain details or crevices that aren’t easy to release from the mould. Idea of craftsmanship in comparison to technology (3D printing). Brushing pigments inside the moulds, gives a different effect. Soft bait fishing- watch the process of making this. MightyApe has good supplies. 

Approach the methodology as if you are a horror film set designer/ makeup artist. Research film techniques of constructing these monsters, what products they use, what they mix up to represent something else? Lube to add slime (fetishism), Fake blood is..? Media studies

Functionality and materiality. Hat becomes a separate piece? Like traditional toy assemblage and manufacturing they’ll be made in pieces that are then placed together, creating prototype bases and some ‘accessories’ for variety of options. What materials are each component made of? Are some made in the material of what they are? e.g hat with fur, teeth, silicone as skin, plastic where? What degree of real vs artificial?

Working on a series of characters with hats and masks, all addressing deeper conceptual ideas- clear basis of where to begin.

Merchandise is the foundation of the world that these characters exist within? Encapsulating the existence of these characters into products or illustrations. Do I want it to be like this or no? Will this actually work?

[holdharmonysacred]

While I’m complaining about merch, hey anime merch manufacturers, where the HELL are the rubber straps for Case Study of Vanitas. I don’t NEED them because I’ve already got the full box of the OGs from way before the anime came out, but I do like looking at and collecting merch, and rubber is usually sturdier than acrylic when it comes to official or JP-made goods, so I’m baffled that god damn everything made for the anime so far has been acrylic with not a single rubber doodad in sight. where are my rubber keychains. i want more rubber keychains.

[angelisverba]

thinkin’ bout you

in which harry owns a flower shop and has a major crush on a girl who comes in to buy flowers every once in a while (and he’s too shy to ask for her number) 

word count: 17.3k

paring: florist!h and y/n

warnings: just some pinning and lustful yearning. m for mature...

author’s note: i’ve been working on this forever. not to pick fav’s but i think florist!h comes second to sl23... hes just so.......well, you’ll see!!

*    *    *    *    *    *

When Harry was given the option to go on a playdate with his car-loving and dirty-nailed schoolmates or spending the weekend at his nan’s house, he would often pick the latter. 

He preferred to spend his afternoons frolicking with her Siamese kitty in her wild-flower filled garden, sunbathing in the open grass, or napping on a quilted blanket under the large, round oak tree, with the kitty nestled into his tummy, keeping him warm. When he woke in the arms of his nan as she carried him inside the house for a glass of cool lemonade, he bore a band of pink sunburn over his button nose, and the blue and white striped Mickey shirt was sticking to the areas where his furry friend had provided an extra heat. 

So, it was safe to say that from the start, Harry’s tastes weren’t what could be considered ‘average’ or ‘normal’ or ‘straight’ for a heterosexual male of his age in current society. 

Not that he ever valued those opinions, but their impressions rang in the back of his loving head when the women who he brought to the comfort of his home made hurtful ‘joking’ comments on how ‘peculiar’  his choice of decor was or giving him prolonged strange looks before shaking their heads and yanking their clothes off so that they landed in a forgotten heap in some unimportant corner of his room. 

Granted, he still got a good shag, but it wasn’t enough to fulfill his desires regarding any actions associated with relationships. He wanted someone warm and soft and kind. Someone who wouldn’t judge his home, his music choices, his clothing, or anything else about him. A girlfriend, not a fuck. 

Long ago, he’d stopped caring about what others said about him. Adopting this mindset had given him some of the happiest and healthiest moments of his life (albeit occasionally, doubts merged with the ghastly shadows of his loneliness). Business at his flower shop increased as his charm increased with positivity, and a new life within him bloomed like a baby rose bud when he accepted that being single was okay. The ribbons of his bouquets bouncing with an added umf and the mist that landed on his skin when he changed the water in the flower buckets only enhanced the golden hue of his skin. 

Harry even took to renovating his home a bit. 

 Coincidentally, his apartment was located on the floor above his flower stop, and contained a significant amount of singular flowers in vases or bouquets in empty corners to prove it. An array of pastel colors smeared on the once blank walls. Bambi pink in his bedroom, sage green in his kitchen, and a French blue in his living room. The couch was a suede papaya three-seater with black and white checkered pillows, and the coffee table was an emerald-tiled piece standing on top of a geometric lavender carpet, a soft contrast against the dark oak of his floorboards. Harry’s taste in pop-culture, art, and literature was displayed on the frames hanging off his walls. Pictures and posters of his favorite pieces like Matisse’s Blue Nudes and Goldfish and The Dance II. An enhanced, enlarged photo of maraschino cherries and a raven haired pin-up girl. Another glass table by the end of the couch held a silver candlestick and a small statue.

Sometimes, the miniature Greek statue he bought at a thrift store of a man with his nakedness pure and unobscured to the viewers' eyes made his dick bloat against the seams of his pants. If he stared at it for too long, his eyes drawn to the softened cock between thighs that looked so flesh-like even though it was carved out of some clay or ceramic material, his mind would travel to sensual, honey-red places that he hadn’t been in so long. Harry’s imagination explored- as cheesy as it sounds- the sexual aspects of the male genitalia, and therefore his own sexual expeditions and how much he missed giving or receiving a good fuck. More often than not, he ended up with himself in his fist, forehead sparkling with perspiration under the candle lights in his room as his thighs and abdomen clenched with every buck of his yearning hips. 

The doorknob of his room was in the shape of an eye, the iris colored a brilliant blue. His king bed- no, frame, just a minimalist white base, pushed up against the wall with two tables on either side, both of them loaded articulately with vintage trinkets and ceramic ring trays shaped like seashells to hold his jewelry. His bedsheets were a stylish combination of pastel colors; lilac comforter, mint and sky pillows. Previously, they had been snow white sheets with strawberry print, but a woman he brought over said they looked like the sheets her five-year-old niece had. 

He changed them the week after that.

On the windowsill, a pot in the shape of a white, blue-eyed kitty with vines of string of hearts kissing the floor. A mirror in the shape of a heart with a pink trim besides the lightswitch, above his brown dresser. In the corner, a bookshelf stuffed with books that spilled over the seams, and perpendicular to it, the home of his pet chameleon, Owen (he wanted a cat, but when he went to the pet store and saw the dehydrated creature, he couldn’t leave him there). A 16 x 16 x 30 inch tank filled with a branch that cut across halfway. It was full of all the things he might need, maybe even too much of it, but it didn’t matter because when Harry was home Owen spent most of his time hanging off the collars of his shirts or snuggled in the ruffles of his hooded sweatshirt on his shoulder. The small, color changing friend adored his owner, and only morphed into a mild red color when Harry didn’t feed him more mango. 

The renovations occurred in his bathroom; a cherry-red covering the walls because it looked boring before (at least in his opinion).  The gold piping of the sink accentuated nicely with the darker color, and the sun seemed brighter when it streamed in through the window above his ceramic claw-footed tub. Owen particularly liked the misty showerhead stall in the corner, and as long as he kept his eyes to himself, Harry didn’t mind it if his green friend wrapped around the showerhead and enjoyed the mimicked tropical atmosphere. 

For awhile now, it had been just him and his chameleon (and maybe his mum’s cat if she was going out of town and needed a sitter) but he didn’t mind it. 

He got to meet new people everyday within the parameters of H’s Garden, and they all tended to overshare when it came to buying a bouquet. ‘My wife just had our son, want to see a picture?’ or ‘my boyfriend and I have our anniversary on Saturday’ and even ‘my sister had plastic surgery so me and my dad need something that says ‘congrats you look like Kim Kardashain now’ how ‘bout it?’ 

Stories ranged from sweet, to grotesque, to sad, to funny, and sometimes even evil- Harry didn’t like customers that gave flowers as a ‘fuck you’. He thought it was a waste of beauty and sacrifice. Flowers were living things that had their lives cut short in order to provide momentary satisfaction and life long memories to the receiver, not bitter feelings of revenge. Although it was still business, it pained him that such a pretty arrangement be misused. It was one of the cons of his work. He created what he considered to be masterpieces, and had no control over where they would end up, whether it be as a centerpiece for a candlelit dinner, or in the trash after the apology for a strong argument hadn’t been enough. 

However, Harry couldn’t deny that he didn’t love his job, because he did. 

When he turned 16, he’d determined that he wanted a peaceful life with a job that wouldn’t bore him. He wanted to be as stress free as possible, with his spirituality as a prominent highlight in his lifestyle. When he turned 18, he had determined that he wanted to be a florist, and began to save up to open his own shop with the occasional help of his friends and sister. He refused to take anything from his mother because he wanted to be the one giving her gifts and money and everything good after all of her sacrifices in raising him. Call him a momma’s boy. Harry loved his mother. 

Online seminars and college classes became his best friend, teaching him everything he needed to know about accounting, stocks, and how to keep his business going. He was a businessman first, florist second. During the slow seasons (the start of winter and an awkward half-week between summer and spring) he relied on his investments to triple-ensure that he had enough money to stay afloat. 

On his 22nd birthday, as a gift to himself, he signed the lease to the building that housed all of the pretty plants in temporary buckets full of flower food and water, and hired a graphic designer to design the cursive, golden letters that spelled out the name of his shop above the front door. 

 Now, three years later, he lived as happy as can be. 

And he wasn’t lonely anymore. 

Well, if you wanted to be technical, his relationship status was still a checkmark over the box labeled ‘single’, but his heart couldn’t be fluttering any harder at the sight of one of his regular customers, and she was there, creeping around in his brain to keep him company. 

She was the complete opposite of every girl he’d ever been with. She was sweet, kind, funny, and didn’t judge him for the way he dressed, or his profession. In fact, they bonded over things that previous women had… slyly berated him for. The color of his nails, the lace of his collar, the pattern of his flared pants,  and even the sheep on his baby blue sweater vest.  

She stole his heart the moment she walked through his door with a soft smile on her face, a sparkling gleam in her warm eyes, and placed it in her pocket the moment she said, “it smells lovely in here!”

Harry, awestruck and blushing because well, she was pretty and wore a shade of purple that somehow made her hair look so soft. Two strands of hair were pinned at the back of her head, essentially keeping the rest of it away from her face save for the few baby wisps that rested gently against her cheeks like a lover’s caress. The stuttering, stumbling cupid’s-bow-struck fool replied with, “thank you. It would be my pleasure to help you with anything you’d like,” and that had been his name, signed on the dotted line of a soul contract. Only she was not the devil. She was an angel. 

But even then, it wouldn’t matter. If she was the devil, if she was an angel, something in between or something new entirely he wouldn’t care because he was half gone for her already. 

“In that case,” she smiled, and Harry’s heart sang a melody it never had before. It was like the sun beamed from the spaces between her teeth and tickled the fuzzy spot beneath his earlobe. She had the most amazing voice, tranquil and clear and ethereal. “I just moved into a new apartment and wanted the place to feel like home. I thought maybe flowers would give it a little life.” 

He vividly remembers that the color of her cheeks changed to that of what is called a ‘blush’, but he didn’t know if it was a trick under the light, or a product of his wistful imagination. Her fingers gently skimmed the petals of a rose from it’s bucket near her hip, and one of the straps of the tote bag on her shoulder disrespectfully dropped away from her shoulder. He wanted to simultaneously rush over and fix it for her, and yell at the inanimate object for not being grateful of the fact that it had the opportunity to cling to her shoulder.

But, before either of these inner-conflicts met a sound resolve, her delicate fingers righted what was once wrong, and Harry cleared his throat, embarrassed because he’d stared for a little too long. He wanted so badly to ask for her name and how she liked her eggs in the morning, but instead he said, “there’s nothing like a bit of something pretty to brighten your day. Did you have something specific in mind?”

He hoped that the meaning of his words wasn’t caught on her, or that would be totally embarrassing and ‘loser’-like. 

When she walked out the door with a content smile on her lips, his own heart was beating faster than the flapping of a hummingbird’s tender wings. He was sure that he had never laid eyes on a pair of lips like hers, neither the feeling that blossomed in his chest at the thought that she might be smiling just for him to see and enjoy. 

Of course, it was a silly crush. One that clawed and gripped onto his sweaty palms with no sign of letting go. Maybe, Harry thought, it was because he hadn’t wet his wick in so long, and the interaction he’d had with her had sparked irrational, poem-inspiring feelings within the love cavern of his ribs. Because how could he fall head over heels with someone he didn’t even know? Surely, the swarm of hormone-pumped butterflies in his stomach was the beginning of a dead-end infatuation. 

Right? 

Harry went that entire day, appalled at the apparent angel he had the fortune of being in the presence of in her short fall from the tender heavens. He wondered where she placed the flowers she bought (an arrangement he was particularly proud of, full of lilac, delicate stems of lavender, and puffs of baby’s breath wrapped with a white bow) and where that tiny extension of him was. At the entrance of her home, right below the place she rested her hand against as she tugged her shoes off? At the center of her table? Maybe besides her bed? Where she would see the purple petals and white of him as he wrapped it every time she woke up or went to bed? He hoped- as much as it was a romantic thought- that it wasn’t the last one. He’s been so awkward, so pink. A blush on his cheeks he hadn’t remembered being there since the time he yelped, startled, at the unexpected pain of a tattoo needle, the artist pointedly peeved. Acting like such a boy. 

Right before crawling up the steps of his apartment, heart still bleeding with love-blood from the deadly tip of Cupid’s arrows, he made himself a mini version of the bouquet he’d made her, and placed it at the center of his tiled coffee table. 

*********

A few days trickled by, and the memory of her face drifted in and out of his mind like a giant sway of fabric slowly billowing in the wind. He was just so… struck by a slab of awe, stunned by her kind of beauty. Natural, the kind that hooks you in it’s purity, like the golden beams streaming in through transparent curtains on a warm spring afternoon. 

Her strawberry lips curved elegantly under her nose, and displayed a smile that leaked some sort of heady drug into the air because the air was sweet when he breathed it in. And when he handed the bundle of flowers over to her, the pads of her delicate fingers skimmed the rough ridges of his knuckles. He wondered immediately what kind of moisturizer she used, and if it smelled like honey or lavender or peaches. She smelled sweet. Sweeter than all of the flowers in his colorful soul shop put together. The colors that belong to her, on her person and worn by her, were more captivating than any of the tones that painted the petals on his plants. 

Owen got a kick out of this whole ordeal, though. Harry’s passionate mood had him divulging in munching and nibbling on things that tasted the way he felt; ambrosial, fresh and pure. It resulted in the purchasing of endless amounts of fruit, with many bites given to the tiny chameleon. Mangoes, strawberries, oranges, grapes, pears (Asian pears, if the store carried them, they were Harry’s favorite), peaches and guavas. The sudden craving for fruit might be explained as just a casual craving, but deep deep down inside, Harry knew that it was because he wanted to replicate the feeling that coursed through his golden veins when she giggled at something she happened to find funny. 

He wished that he had caught her name. The girl had paid in cash (and left a five dollar tip Harry fawned over), so he couldn’t have read it on her card, and he was halfway between charming and awkward that he didn’t even think of asking for it until the minute the door closed behind her, bells tinkling in announcement of her exit. He wished for a hundred different things, but he was not the type to live in regret. Not anymore. So after about a week of floundering in her memory, he meditated for an hour, tropical incense on one of his bedside tables, and cleared his mind as best he could. 

The next morning, he did the same thing. Woke up with heavy limbs, plopped himself down on his blue mat and stretched in various positions, his white boxers hanging low on his hips. His lips and eyes were sticky with sleep, and the back of his nose ached with cold air that he must’ve breathed in throughout the night after forgetting to close the window (again) but the pleasurable twinge of stretching aches between his joints were the perfect way to start his day. They urged his mind to transform into the still surface of water, clear and collected from any unproductive-pinning thoughts towards a girl he would most likely never see again. 

Even his clothes reflected his refreshed mindset.

Harry donned his favorite pair of flared  trousers in an earthy brown color, nestled snugly on his slender hips and around his thighs. The tight fit accentuated the way his back tapered into his waist, glutes shapely and sculpted. A maroon sweater vest that had a teddy bear embroidered on the middle of his chest, the small latte-toned stuffed animal seemingly childish, but on him it only directed attention to the spotlight daze of the velvety heart sheltered underneath his breathless plate. Underneath, a mustard long-sleeve shirt with tiny cherries printed on them. Some straight, some tilted or lopsided. His shoulders and biceps were hidden in the floofy bunches of cloth, anonymity given to the true thickness of his ink slathered skin. 

He looked like a corduroy dream. A thick milkshake of patterns and colors, but he managed to pull it off.

A tiny gold hoop on his right ear gleamed under the morning sun coming in through the windows and a pearl necklace rested against the downy skin of his throat. Slender fingered tipped with a coat of pure white, with his ring fingers accented in a shimmery pink. Chunky rings adorning the base of his digits; a silver rose, a band of dancing teddy bears (a running theme with him), two gold rings with his initials H and S on one hand, and a simple ruby stud from his graduating class. 

He looked good, he knew that he looked good, and was ready to begin a bright, healthy, non-pretty-girl-thought-polluted day. Even the old woman had pinched his cheek whom he had been assisting- a regular-had said he looked like a proper ‘nice boy’ along with ‘when are you going to her a lovely girl to help you run this place, Harry?’. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that he had momentarily sworn off women until his broken sentiments healed, and they had a long way to go. 

In the middle of wrapping a smashing set of tulips and fern stems with a cherry red bow, the bells adorning the top of the door frame dinges, announcing the entrance of another pleasant customer and giving passage to a gust of chilly air. Harry looked up to greet the customer with his usual pleasantries of ‘welcome! I’ll be with you in a moment!’, but the words died on his throat in a desperate hussle, just as the little mermaid had given up her voice to meet her gallant prince.  

It was his own personal little slice of heaven presented to him on the black and white checkered floors of his shop. Hair loose against her shoulders again, eyes cast downwards to inspect a bucket of fresh daisies that tickled the space above her bare knees. How she could wear a skirt in this biting weather, he didn’t know, and it partially prevented him from continuing his pursuit of admiring her because the first thought his caring mind jumped too was, ‘is she cold? And if so, does she need a sweater? Because I will gladly give her one.’ His second thought, however, was ‘how could someone be that beautiful?’. The third was something along the lines of ‘all my yoga has gone to shit, and I’m okay with that’. 

He cleared his throat, tightened the bow around the stems of the flowers in his hands and said, “I’ll be with you in a moment, love!” His head bowed, looking at his work because he wasn’t sure he could afford the medicals for the paralysis that was sure to take over his meek self if they made eye contact so soon. Harry needed a moment of homeostasis, his soul adjusting to her dulcet presence. 

The woman he was assisting, Edna, spoke, drawing him out of his daze, but he had been so deeply in thought that he had not heard what she said. 

“What was that?” He asked her. He grabbed Kraft paper from the roll by the register to wrap up her arrangement. 

“The girl. You like her?” She was smiling at him, wagging a finger the way his nan used to do when she caught him with his hand in the cookie jar. “Don’t lie to me, I recognize that look. I’ve given and received that look many times throughout my life.” 

The woman was not wrong. With age, comes wisdom, Harry thought, smiling to himself at being caught. A dimple carves itself into his cheek, nestling onto the space above the corner of his mouth as if he had no choice in the matter. The apples of his cheeks were shadowed with a dusky pink, and the tip of his nose was twitching like a rabbit when it stood on its rear and sniffed the air, only he was coy after just being caught and wanted to avoid the question as much as possible. 

“I’ve got no idea what y’talking about,” he chuckled, keeping his voice low so that the intriguing stranger in the store didn’t hear that their topic of discussion was her. He moved over to the register to ring her up, and even slid in a discount he applied to customers he liked. 

“Next time I come in,” Edna said, passing Harry her debit card, “I hope to hear that you got her number, dear. Don’t let these opportunities pass you up. Life is short. And who knows? She could be the one.” Harry gave her the card back after charging her, and handed her the flowers, too. All the while Edna was grinning at him, shaking her head like she knew something he didn’t. 

“Take care, Edna. And don’t forget to change the water every 2 days with the flower packets I placed at the stems,” he reminded her, sweetly wiggling his red-lacquered nails at her retreating woman as butterflies awakened in his stomach in a furious flood of nerves. The girl was looking around, her hands hovering over the up-turned faces of a bundle of lively sunflowers, browsing and quietly humming to herself as she waited. 

There was no backing out of this, even if he wanted to. And he didn’t! He didn’t want to back out. The girl was a customer, and he would have to approach her no matter what. But she was so pretty it was also intimidating. He doesn’t remember ever being this nervous while approaching someone, especially one he harbored feelings for. His heart was pounding so loud, he was sure it was audible. 

“Hello,” he wanted so badly to add ‘love’ at the end of his greeting. “Are y’finding everything a’right?” He asked her, his hands wringing themselves, palms moist with sweat from his unyielding need to impress her. The pink tip of his tongue poked out to swipe across his full bottom lip, and soon after that his teeth sunk down into it, nibbling with uncertainty. Harry made sure that he was standing straight, body aligned to face hers because in that psychology course he took once, he learned that it was a subconscious tactic to engage interest and pleasant replies to attempts at wooing another. 

At the sound of his voice, the girl jumped, startled at the sudden vibrations of Harry’s husky voice. Her delicate feet, he noticed, skittered on the floor from her tiny jump, and her doe eyes widened, shouldered rising and falling at a quicker pace than before from the new rush of light fear. When she realizes that it’s just him her hand flattered over the base of her neck and her collarbone in attempts to soothe her racing heart. 

“M’s sorry,” he whispers, his hand clamping over his mouth, and then lowering to his chin when he speaks again, “didn’t mean to scare y’love.” This time he can’t restrict himself. It comes so naturally, like the endearment was meant for her, and when a flush covers the bridge of her nose his first instinct is to coo at her for looking so cute. The second is a surge of guilt for having scared her to such an extent. 

“It’s okay,” she says, a little out of breath. The blush on her face was partly because she was embarrassed at her own reaction, while the other was that she had let herself act so freely and uncoordinated in front of someone that looked like him. Handsome and sweet and eyes so green they refreshed you upon first glance. Like the cool burn of water going into a mouth that had just chewed a stick of minty gum. “I want to buy these flowers.” 

God help him. Her voice alone was enough to make him melt. The lilts and melodies of her voice swarming all four of the ventricles in his heart with warmth, and every blood cell that passed contained a glowing heat, buzzing with her energy. 

She points to the sunflowers, her gaze lingering on them with longing. A soft smile toying on her mouth, and Harry could see the tendons in her throat stretch as she inhaled to add another thought to her sentence, “Do you sell vases by any chance?” The girl looked at him shyly, her eyelashes almost twinkling as she blinked, and his heart soared, “I had a really nice one in the shape of a big Coca-Cola bottle, and I accidentally knocked it over, so now I have nothing to put them in.” 

Harry is incredibly enamoured by subconscious gestures that take over her hands as she speaks, fiddling as if the vase she spoke about was in her hands, all in one piece before it was broken. He’s quiet throughout her tiny ramble, listening and taking note of her enticing antics. She’s looking down at the floor or the flowers or her hands, and when her eyes dance over to his steady gaze, “I’m rambling aren’t I?” she murmurs bashfully. 

“No, no it’s a’right. I can look in the back for something if y’like?” He suggested, arrowing a thumb to the ‘back’ he mentioned. “Did y’want anything in particular?”  

“Oh, I don’t wanna be a troubling customer!” She squeaked, concerned with becoming a nuisance she didn’t want to be. 

“Y’not a bother, love. M’promise. I’ll go look f’you. What color did y’have in mind?” He asked her, tone calm and soothing to reiterate his sentiment. She was not a bother. The only thing about her that bothered him was the fact that he did not know her name, and even that was his own fault for not asking her. 

His hands rest on his hips, tattooed cross momentarily hidden by the bunch of his sweater vest  as he waits for her to respond, his eyes locked on her mouth, her own tongue subtly licks her lips, adding a sparkly sheen to it that only drove him crazy. Ever the jilted fool, his mind jumps to what it would feel like to kiss her, or what it would feel like if she kissed him in other places. What fruits she tasted like, and what kind of kisser she was. A timid one? With a patient mouth waiting to be broken open with the force of his own? Frugal? Opening her mouth and giving him everything she had to offer. 

“Something pink, please. If you have it.” That smile again. One that told a million apologies it didn’t owe, with her eyes pinching at the corners with whatever nonsense culpability she felt. Her voice was sweet, Harry thought, like wind chimes on a summer morning. 

Feeling guilty for allowing such dirty thoughts to gallop through his mind when she was so… so pure. Like an angel. Even her way of presenting herself was shy and sweet, yet he was thinking about kissing her. Was that perverted? She was a customer he had seen twice, and his mind was already running wild with luscious assumptions; a sunday topped with a red cherry of sensuality. How awfully dirty of him. 

But! But those were not the only thoughts he had. He wanted to ask her what happened to cause her to drop her vase, and where she had bought it. If it was vintage, considering it was a Coca-cola bottle, and if she had any accidents while cleaning up the mess of broken glass. He wanted to hear her thoughts. No, better yet, he just wanted to hear her talk. He wanted to get to know her. To know if she was as nice as she looked. 

“‘Course,” he mumbled, his eyes shamefully downcast to the floor. “Be righ’ back.”

Harry stalked off to ‘the back of the store’. Truth was, there was no back of the store containing vases. There was only a small closet with boxes of items he might need around the store, like flower food, rubber bands, and decorative paper for the bouquets. A crate of bottled water for when he got too lazy to climb up the back stairs and into his home. 

His home. 

Plucking the keys from his pocket, a ring that held a ceramic swan his closest friend Mitch had gifted him with a humble admission of ‘saw this at a thrift store and thought about you, H, I had to buy it’, and five keys: one to the front door of his shop, one to the cash box in the register, one to the mailbox, another to the front door of his apartment, and one to his car. The one to his front door was painted at the head with pastel pink nail polish, so it was easy for him to pick out when he was dead tired after a long day of being on his feet (spunky shoes that he liked to wear sometimes didn’t help ease the ache on his back, and neither did his posture). 

The back door that led to the stairs had locks on both the inside and the outside. A deadbolt and chain on matching sides of the door to ensure comfortable sleep at night, and peaceful work time during the day. Not having to worry about curious children opening doors or nosy customers relieved him. It was a little amatuer, but the door made a loud noise when opened because it wasn’t quite level, and he had a tiny key so he could lock it from the outside, too. 

A loud shucking noise resonated through the store as he pulled the door open, and then again when he closed it behind him. The delicacy of his dainty yet large hands were nearly comical around the tiny golden pin stud that hung from the chain, almost slipping from his hands with nerves as he slid it in place. Harry didn’t think that she was nosy or anything like that, bit if he was going up to give her a vase of his own personal collection, he didn’t want her to find out and feel even more intrusive that she already did. 

He was a huge giver, and upon hearing her say that she broke her flower pot, his mind was already thinking about the perfect one to replace it. It just so happened to be sitting on his shelf with a bundle of dying lavender. Climbing up the stairs (the ache in his thighs was a mere twinge compared to what it was when he first moved here), Harry huffed and thought to himself all the ways he could ask for her name and number. 

Listen, I really like y’and would like to have y’number?”

Do y’wanna have my number so we can go out sometime if y’feel like it?”

“Is it alright if I get y’number so we can go out sometime?”

“Hey, love. What’s y’name?”

Nothing’s making sense to him. The pick up lines he had stored in his head for the rare times he would flirt with a girl were slipping from him. None of them seemed worded right to use with her. Too abrupt or too brisk. Not sweet enough. He wanted to treat her gently and to be worthwhile of her time. Plus, it also had to be smooth enough that it made her forget she was paying him for flowers or it would be awkward. He was a twenty-six man for crying out loud, not a twenty-one year old smile at the bar looking for a good time. This wasn’t a ‘good time’. This was… a courting. An inquiry to a relationship. A rose rose in a candlelit room. 

Harry opened his front door and moved in a quick jog to a table besides his hi-fi that held a translucent pale pink glass, fat at the base before twirling and widening a few inches at the lip. An image of a nude mermaid puffing out at the front like an engraving. Cuddling it into his breast, he grabbed the lavender, speed walked back to his kitchen where his toe banged against the metal of the trashcan as he pressed on the lever to open it. He hissed fuck under his breath and shucked the dead lavender into the bag before turning back to his door, closing it behind him, but not locking it because he didn’t want to keep her waiting. His feet moved quickly down the stairs, the one hand not holding onto the vase cupping a hand over the side of his hips that held his keys so they didn’t make much noise. 

The button on the chain slipped from his fingers a few times from their repeated clamminess, and when he was ready to finally twist the knob, he paused to take a breath and collect himself. Harry ran a hand through his hair, fixed his collar, and dusted off his pants legs. He wanted to look perfect for her. 

“Don’t be stupid,” he murmured to himself. He had a good feeling about this. About her. And if he messed this up because he looked bad or said something weird he would kick himself into a muddy ditch. 

Taking a deep breath, he opened the door and calmly walked back, “I’ve got the last one,” he said, tapping the tip of the vase with his pointer finger. It was a lie, right through his teeth, but he was happy to tell it in return for the way she was looking at him in that moment. His eyes rounded out as he approached her, like the curves of hearts that made up the heart-eye emoji, or the puppy-dog face. Just another physical display of his growing affinity towards her. 

“Oh my god!” She said,  “It's so pretty!” The trapped crystals in her irises twinkled with bewilderment at the treasure Harry’s presented her with.  She’s got a smile on her face, and he can’t help but think, ‘wow, she looks like a freshly bloomed white lily’. 

There’s a vintage print hanging in his corridor, a ‘flower language chart’ with different types of flowers and a sentence beneath them describing the messages they send. For example, red carnations= my heart aches for you. The description beneath white lilies reads ‘my love is pure’. 

She asked him if it wasn’t too pricey, and he made up some fake sale he had going on about a hybrid BOGO in which if she bought an arrangement she would get a vase included in her purchase (he added “I’ve got a shipment of new ones coming in an I need the space cleared out before they get here” just to make sure his fib is believable.) And he explains this so shyly. Harry can’t keep his eyes locked on hers because she’s staring at him with an intensity that lets him know she's really listening, and it makes him squirm.  The tips of his fingers tap against the vase, and he’s tripping over his tongue, which is ridiculous because he already talks so slow. 

“I guess I was right in waiting then,” she said casually, waiting for Harry to finish ringing her up. 

His finger froze over the touch screen of the sleek, modern device (he wanted nothing but the best for his store) and listened to the exciting roar of blood through his eardrums at her words. I guess I was right in waiting then? What did that mean? That she was planning on coming back to see him and didn’t? Of course, it could also mean that she was going to buy something else somewhere else, but he couldn’t stop the vine of ripe hope that swelled around his chest. And she looked so apprehensive while saying it. As if she was walking on glass and was looking for cracks as she stepped. As if she was waiting on him to catch on to something.

Harry cleared his throat and looked at her through the corner of his eye, trying to be as discreet as possible as his fingers continued their deliberate work on the screen, “What d’you mean, love?”

“I was going to stop by sooner, but I just got in my head about it,” the girl shrugged, and adjusted the ends of her cardigan so they wrapped around her torso. She had a different bag this time, one of those reusable market bags that was made up of holes, and it was filled with two books and a can of green tea from the vegan store down the street. Harry thinks he can make out one of the titles on one of the spines, which looks suspiciously similar to something that he has on his own shelf. 

“Why would y’get in y’own head about coming to m’flower shop, hmm? It’s hardly that intimidating,” he chuckles to play off the dashes of pink and red that are painting themselves across the bridge of his twitching nose, “I don’t bite, either.” 

And he hopes that his wistfulness isn’t meddling with his vision because he swears that he can see a matching reaction on her own doll face. “I know! I know, it’s just that I can’t help it sometimes. Talking to other people makes me nervous.” 

Harry could coo at her right now. He doesn’t, though. He nods and smiles at her before reading her total out to her, “That I get, too. But y’doing just fine with me, love.” 

Waiting patiently as she digs through her bag for cash, he tries to not stare. However, it’s impossible. His eyes had a mind of their own dragging against the forces of his will to feast on her image again. Her hands and the tip of her nose. The base of her neck and gentle swell of her clavicles. The swoops of hair that hung in a curtain from her shoulder as her head tilted in search, and the how her teeth bit down into her lip in concentration. Harry counted the amount of times her eyelashes met her waterline in those few seconds of comfortable silence. Three. 

“I thought I had cash on me today,” something in her bag clicks, and she pulls out the rectangular card Harry’s become familiar with, holding it out to him between two deft fingers, painted with red hearts on a white base. “I guess I used my last twenty at the organic food store down the street,” she said. 

“It is pretty easy to get lost in there, isn’t it?” He took her card from her, and tried not to make it obvious that he was eager to read her name off of it as he inserted it into the machine. The embossed letters into the plastic read y/n y/l/n, and when he turns back to look at her, he can’t help the smile that spreads across his boyish features.

Y/n. 

Y/n, y/n, y/n.

This is what it must feel to be let in on a secret that’s worth millions of dollars. It must, because Harry’s heart is soaring with a closure he didn’t know he needed. Y/n, y/n. Her name tickled him. Stroked him. Lathered him with the honey smoothness of the beeswax shampoo he bought at that fateful organic store. It was a fitting name. Sometimes, one could tell a person ‘you know, I actually thought you were a Amy or a Jessica’, because their looks and style just didn’t match the strength or modesty of their name. But not y/n. It fit her like a glove. There was no other way to make sense of the way Harry’s brain was thinking. The name was her. 

“What?” Her lips quirk up into a smile and her eyebrows dip in confusion. Why was he looking at her like that? Did she have something on her face? Here she was, opening up to a cute stranger and she had something on her face? This, she thought to herself, is humiliating. Her finger dusted off non-existent crumbs from the corners of her mouth, “do I have something on my face?”

“No! No, no.” Harry’s careful beam simmered down from it’s previous brightness, and his hand nervously filed through the swoop of chocolate curls sitting on his head like a cinnamon roll. “I just think y’name is pretty thas’ all.” 

He murmured the last part so that it was practically incoherent, and lowered his gaze as a searing heat stretching like saran wrap around his head and the divot on the nape of his neck.  Oh, God. He was fucking blushing. Great Harry. A normally favorite among the ladies had been reduced to murmurs and thick, uncoordinated movements. 

Like dropping her card when she piped up again. 

Voice as small and quaint as his had been, "you think my name is pretty?” Her fingers are wrapped around the frail straps of her bag, tight enough that her knuckles were white and Harry was scared that she’d bury her fingernails into her palm. 

“I think y’very pretty.” He whispered back. He can’t even bear to look at her in fear that he’s totally fucked himself over once and for all. His logic was this: what girl wants to be told by the guy they’re buying flowers that they’re pretty after he reads her name from her debit card? Especially one who (if outside female sources are to be believed) dresses “the way my mother did when she was a girl in the seventies”? Jesus, fuck. He must’ve looked ridiculous. 

Harry opened his mouth to backtrack and apologize for being so unorthodox in his workspace, a breath sitting on his tongue with words ready to spew out, but the bell began to chime and it yanks his head from the register to the front and instead he said, “welcome! I’ll be with you in a moment.” 

Flustered and full of regret, the flower connoisseur returned his wired gaze back to y/n, who… was smiling at him? The kind of smile that said ‘oh my god, I can’t believe you just said that. Now please say it again’? Was he… dreaming? Did he have to pinch himself in order to verify that he wasn-

“Thank you... what’s your name?” Y/n looked at the card from his hands and sunk her hand- carefully, as to not get her fingers stuck in any of the tiny holes- and there was another clicking noise before she took her hand back out. That angel-like smear of girlish happiness was still on her, decadently radiating positivity and secret affection. Goodness leaked from the seams of her bones; through the cracks of her breastplate, radiating from her chest to Harry’s. He could feel it now. He could feel that his previous assumptions about her nature were true. She was altruistic and tender, like the inside of a bird’s wing. 

“Harry. M’name’s Harry.” This time, he didn’t hide his happiness. Even his eyes shone with a heightened, clear and sparkly shade of liquid evergreen. The joy that bounced inside of him like ricocheting metal balls in a pin game machine. His slender hand, fawn-skinned and graceful like the legs of a deer, stretched out between them. His mother had taught him that along with the first introduction of his name, a handshake must be present, always. Dipping his head slightly, and his words spongy with love-ditz, Harry rumbled, “Nice to meet you, y/n.”  

She placed her hand in his, and was practically swallowed by only his palm. He curled his fingers around her, thumb and middle finger overlapping around the clammy center of hers. So she was nervous, just as he was. Y/n was trained on their embracing limbs, and he could feel a spot on his neck where the skin palpated from the rush of blood as she observed their entwined digits. Their hands moved up and down, up and down between them for longer than necessary until her chin twitched back up to meet his, and she blinked mawkishly, slowly, like the videos of rehabilitated barn owls Harry sees on his Instagram. 

Then, suddenly, as if she remembered she was not the only one present, y/n jolts upright and shakes her head dazedly. “It’s nice to meet you, too, Harry. I like your nail color,” she added. 

He’s cheesing. A shit-eating grin too big for his face and it carves dimples into the flesh of his cheeks. His name on her tongue had never sounded so appealing, like it was made for her and only her to say. Not even the turtle-doves that cooed outside his window in the mornings sounded as beautiful as she did saying his name. And she complimented her nails! She hadn’t scrutinized him like others had, instead, she displayed her admiration for them. No one- well, actually he can’t say that without offending Mitch- no female of his age had ever received him with such open-mindedness as hers. If he didn’t have any self-restraint, he would giggle. Instead, Harry pulled his hand back so that their perfect moment wasn’t sullied with bouts of bad timing, “thank y’love. I like yours, too. You’ll have t’come over sometime and paint mine, yeah?” 

Y/n laughed, and he breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn’t been too bold, “I’d love too!” With glee frozen on her, she turned to look over her shoulder at the customer who was browsing the flowers Harry had in buckets, “I don’t want to hold you back from a customer for so long. I’ll stop by again soon, Harry. Thank you so much for your help.” 

The moment her hands reached for the wrapped bundle of sunflowers and the mermaid vase, a metaphorical grey cloud of rain and thunder manifested in the space above his head, and blocked all of the sunshine from spanning across his toned, lithe body. Did she really have to go? He wanted to whine. Maybe even wrap himself around her ankles like a child that refused to leave the park. They were only just getting to a mutual spot of comfort! Forget the other customer, he wanted to shout. Harry would kick them out and flip the sign to ‘closed’ if it meant only a few more minutes in the presence of her candy-coated charisma. 

But he knows that’s unrealistic, and settles with, “it was my pleasure, y/n,” a flirty wink (at least he hopes it is), “I’ll be waiting f’your next visit.” His taffy lips wrapping effortlessly around his smooth words, fueled by her welcoming receptiveness to his advances. It would be easy to be himself in the future, a little smoother and eloquent in his language and feeling. He was usually clear with what he wanted from anyone, and made it a pleasurable experience in all aspects for both parties involved (once it was three). Harry wanted to sweep her off her feet, and he wanted it to be an enjoyable experience for the both of them. Revel in that feeling of blooming emotions in a new relationship. A healthy one, in which he wasn’t receiving back-handed compliments all the time. 

He wasn’t superficial enough to push anyone off the table based on looks alone, but it did help that y/n had the disposition of an angel. An ethereal voice, supple lips that looked so silky and soft they had to feel that way, too, and hands that felt so tender in his. Perfect for holding on a late night stroll, or over the center console of his car when -if they go out on dates. 

What really hooked, reeled, and sinked him, though, was the fact that she was so nice to him. From the start, she’d been nothing but polite and sweet with him. Don’t even get him started on the way he swooned at the tone of her voice when he said that her name was pretty! So quiet and velvety, careful and calculated like she wanted him to know that it was okay. That she wasn’t thrown off by his comment. He nearly toppled over, clutching his heart with his legs jutting straight up into the air like a frightened goat. 

It wasn’t until the bells stopped ringing the sad notice of her exit that Harry realized he passed up the perfect opportunity to ask for her number, and as he kicked himself over it, he walked with the perfect customer service face he could muster to help the other person in his store. 

***

Harry was having a shitty morning. 

Not the kind of morning where every aspect of his routine is a terrible mishap, but like the water being too cold and the stove not working or the bottle of oat milk in the fridge being empty so he couldn’t make coffee. No, everything was fine and rolling smoothly, as it should. 

His water was the perfect temperature and ran down the toned bumps and divots of his muscles like the relaxing thrums of a lover’s caress in the midst of prowling heat. As soon as it hit his back, he released a sigh of contentment, his shoulders hunching and head rolling back and his hands roamed his shoulders and the back of his neck, rubbing away any aches that existed. The branch of eucalyptus that hung from the golden pipe of his showerhead fused a thick minty scent into the steam that fogged the glass wall, and the calming aroma helped the tendons loosen like the deflating limpness of untied shoelaces. He spent a few minutes just standing there, inhaling and exhaling deeply and feeling his lungs open and stretch beneath his rib cage. 

It almost made him wish that he’d opted to use his tub for a hot bath instead. 

He was able to cook an egg just fine on his stove, with dashes of Everything Bagel Seasoning with a side of avocado and a slice of toasted cranberry walnut bread, the same thing he had every morning. The carton of oat milk was brand new from his trip to the market the day before, and his coffee tasted the same as it always did. But… he was just... sad. An melancholy soreness that eroded against the insides of his body, consuming him slowly but surely and leaving him with a lost feeling of emptiness and unimportance. 

He thinks he might know why he’s feeling this way. 

While he’s stirring his scrambled eggs, he’s wondering how y/n likes hers. Over easy? Sunny-side up? Scrambled, like him? Did she even like eggs in the morning? What did she eat in the morning? He knows that some people ‘aren’t hungry’ in the mornings, though that’s only because they’ve gone hungry in the mornings before for an extended time period, and after so long of not feeding their growling stomachs, their brain discontinues the signals of hunger. Harry hopes that isn’t the case with y/n, and that she’s eating the proper three meals a day every day. 

And while he dipped a mini vegan chocolate croissant that he got at Whole Foods, he also wonders what she likes to dip chocolate croissants into, or if she even likes chocolate croissants. If she was a person who likes sweet treats, like strawberry tarts with powdered sugar over them or something lighter, like fruit cut into small squares in a bowl. When Harry was younger and would visit his nan on the weekends, she would pick fresh strawberries from her garden and cut them up for him when he’d woken from his nap. Sometimes, she would even sprinkle half a tablespoon of sugar over them. He wonders if she’d ever eaten strawberries like that. 

It’s been a week and a half, he still hasn’t seen her, and his heart is yearning. 

Harry knows he’s not in the correct headspace to assist other people with a cheery disposition about an hour before opening time, and decides it’s best if he writes a note on the door about how the shop wouldn’t open that day because he didn’t want to taint the reputation of his business by snapping at a customer for the only bundle of sunflowers he had, or dissolve into a puddle of love-sick tears in the middle of ringing someone up. Though really the notice just says ‘H’s Garden will not be opening today. Sorry for the inconvenience!’ followed by a frowning face and a lopsided, filled-in heart. 

Harry drags his feet back up the stairs, his lower lip jutting out in a discreet but depressing pout, and grabs Owen from his tank so that the chameleon could curl into the shoulder of Harry’s hoodie while he moped on the couch to sappy rom-coms that would only make him think about her more. At least there was someone there with him, even if his small green friend only used him for mangoes and papaya. They sit together for the entirety of Romeo + Juliet, and when it’s over, Harry’s sniffly and standing up to return Owen to his enclosure and to clean because the riotous emotions that whirl within him are too much to process while sitting down. 

Cleaning wouldn’t help him solve his problems, but it would help him cram all of his worries into a tight corner at the back of his mind- sort of like when dirty laundry began to overflow in the hamper and it requires extra force to shove it all in, only to come all back out like a memory sponge. His tormented thoughts on y/n could be compared to a dramatic inner monologue, very similar to how Romeo feels about his Juliet. But, soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and y/n is the sun. Harry has the play on his book shelf (the one with the side-to-side modern English translation because he was never quite gifted in the English department) and as he reaches for a bandana to tie his hair back, he finds himself resonating with a particular line: parting is such a sweet sorrow.

There was no need to change any of his clothing, since he was already dressed in one of his more impromptu outfits; grey sweats and a white t-shirt that read ‘women are smarter’ in black across his chest. He tied the red bandana into a knot at the back of his head, and lifted it over his chin so that it settled on his forehead, sweeping his hair back with a final push back. It doesn’t get in his way when he crouches to clean his various tables, spraying cleaning products with his shirt pulled over his nose, another organic product that’s supposed to be less harmful and smells like cinnamon and sandalwood. His shoulder blades begin to ache because he’s being a little more aggressive than he has to be, but the green tiles were sparkling so he was content. 

He washes the dishes, mops the kitchen floor, vacuums the carpets, cleans Owen’s habitat, and tidies the mail that piled up on the table when he finally calls it quits. Scouring his brain for something to do, to keep him busy- his brain busy, Harry settles on the floor with his back to the edge of his bed. He’s shirtless now, and is in need of another shower but he’d rather not because he knows he might end up crying over the possibility that he’s scared y/n off. There’s a book in his hands and a Frank Ocean record playing softly in the background that mentions something about ‘I've been thinkin' 'bout you, do you think about me still?’ and it’s not helping his case at all.    

It’s no use. 

There’s a plague of darkness buzzing like cicadas in his ears. He fears rejection and criticism. That maybe, she was only pretending in order to make the situation more pleasant so it ended sooner. Most of all, he feared that it would always be this way. That he would never find someone who embraces who he is as a person. Always met with mean side-eye glances or second looks of displeasure and confusion. It isn’t always that way, though, because then that would mean he gets absolutely no action, and that isn’t true. 

Harry is very… well-educated in matters that concerned sexual intercourse, but it was always a one-night stand ordeal. It was never ‘I really like you we should go out sometime’. In fact, he noticed that only time his approaches were well received were those in which he was dressed in a calmer manner. Simple, solid colors with sneakers or a t-shirt. Girls would flirt back, make good conversation, allow him to buy them a few drinks, and when he’d take them to his apartment they’d ask why he lived on top of a flower-shop, and if it was his sister or female-friend’s palace that he was crashing. Sex would ensue, but his heart wouldn’t be as present and engaged as he wanted it to be. 

Wrong. It was always so fucking wrong, and God, if he didn’t get out of this apartment he’s going to breakdown and cry and there’s no one to call to come over because Mitch is on a trip with his girlfriend, Sarah, and his other friend Jeff is on his honeymoon in Sweden. They were the only two on his mental speed dial list during the rare occasions he had a crisis, as they were the two that Harry had ever really opened up to. Mitch was a bit closer to his heart. They’ve known each other since their school days and practically grew up together (at one point they had small crushes on each other, which were confessed years down the line). Jeff was the owner of Winsome where… where y/n had mentioned spending her last twenty dollar bill. He didn’t have an issue opening up to them. He liked opening up to them, but he didn’t understand why they were the only two that ever truly opened their arms to him. 

A walk, he decided, would help him… air out his brain. Calm down. Breathe a little deeper, a little easier. 

He threw his white shirt back on, and a forest green sweatshirt that donned the emblem of the school he went to earn his business degree that fit him wide around the shoulders and felt like a marshmallow. Putting on a pair of beat up shoes, he shoved his keys into his pocket, hobbling and nearly losing his balance because he was moving way too fast. The door closed behind him with a slam, and even though he was still wearing the bandana around his head, wispy stray curls framing his face in a wild mane, his distress palpable through his appearance, but he doesn’t care. He just needs to get out and feel the cool air against his skin. 

There’s a backdoor behind the stairs that will take him to a small alleyway that leads to a back parking lot where other shop owners that live at the top of their stores on the same side of his street parked their cars. He unlocks it from the inside, and throws his shoulder into it, desperate to her out. When it shuts behind him, he doesn’t turn back because it’s the kind to lock from the outside when closed. His fingers curl into the ends of his sleeve so that the tips of his fingers (nails now changed to a sparkling silver color) are the only parts of his hands visible. 

Rounding the corner, he whistled the cheeriest tune he can muster. His lips are puckered and his cheekbones high with the extension of his mouth. He’s not very happy on the inside, though he remembers reading something somewhere that if you pretend to be something long enough, you’ll eventually become it. If he pretends to be happy, then he’ll actually be happy. 

Right?

Harry rounds the corner of the parking lot and turns on to the main street. It’s only two in the afternoon, so there's people crawling in and out of shops anywhere. He even sees a man and a woman peeking into the window of his store, and he would feel bad if he wasn’t in a shitty mood already. He’s so out of it, that he nearly yells ‘get your hands off my windows!’. He doesn’t though, because for a moment the woman becomes y/n and the man becomes him, wrapping a ringed hand around her waist and whispering in her downy ear ‘they’re closed, darling, let’s go somewhere else’ and she straightens dejectedly, pouting playfully and standing up and her tippy toes so that she could press a quick kiss to his lips. 

That image fades though, and the couple continues with their stroll, hand in hand, and his heart is wrenching, writhing and trying to yank itself free from it’s place in his chest because it hurts too much to stay. 

Cars whizz past, and he skirts in and out of people on the sidewalk, keeping his pace fast and focused. There’s no intended destination, he’s just moving with the intent to forget the pretty girl who haunts him. Her voice is all he can hear. Her smile is all she can picture. And the rest of her is all he can imagine, which is exactly what hurts the most. Imagination only goes so far, fulfils so much with uncertainty of what the truth was and what wasn’t. Harry could imagine her with her feet up on the lip of a bubble filled tub, a glass of wine in her hands, but then…what kind of wine did she like? Or did she even like wine? And did she even have a bathtub to stretch out in after a long day? 

He curses the crimes he may have committed in past lives to deserve this torture. This unbearable pain that felt like he was being dunked in a slow-acting acid. He can do nothing about it but keep walking with labored will power. He passed his shop, and a bakery and a small thrift store that sells used clothing for way too much money. At the propped open double-doors of Jeff’s Winsome, he decides to talk in and browse. There’s so many items that smell good and taste good, that it was fun to just walk in and look. 

“Back again so soon, H?” 

Spinning on his heel, Harry comes face to face with Niall, a brunette, fit, Irish bloke with a chummy smile and a killer sense of humor. The two have brokered a sort of friendship, considering the amount of time (and money) that Harry spends there. Niall has even started calling him ‘H’ in silent homage to his flower shop. 

“Y’know I can’t stay away,” Harry attempted to joke, his lips pulling up in a weak smile, “plus, I think I needed s’more of the peppermint essential oils f’my diffuser.” 

“‘Course ya do! You're worse than the bloody vegan mums that come in asking for gluten free baby powder!” Niall cups a hand over his mouth and loudly whispers to so that only Harry catches his verbiage. There was a woman in the back of the store, looking through soaps in the limited kid’s section, the same exact kind that Niall was speaking about. “Go on and look around then, I’ll be here when you’re finished.” He said. 

Harry only nodded his acknowledgement, and moved in between wooden walnut shelves. The entire store had a caramel brown color scheme, with only the inventory adding color to it. Macramé potted succulents and plants added to the natural, outdoorsy feel. Winsome had an interesting mix of smells from all of the aromatherapy based products it housed, but it only added to the appeal. 

Currently, he held a packet of four lip balms that advertised to be ‘100% all naturally derived ingredients with no artificial additives' infused with ‘healing power of crystals’, two of them ‘citrine cherry' flavored, and the remaining ‘garnet guava’. The brand name is something in Italian that he can’t read, packaging thick and a triangle made of arrows in the corner signaling it can be decomposed and/or recycled. He had the same exact ones at home, only they were all misplaced and- 

“Harry?”

A small, timid voice called his name from behind him, and he froze. He knew that voice. It was the same one he had repeated over and over in his head for the past week, waiting for her promised arrival with a hopeful heart. 

His eyes go wide with recognition, body still and stiff like a deer caught in headlights. His heart begins to rump at a furious speed, loud in his ears like a million stampeding hooves. The packaged products in his hands shake, and then she speaks again, “Harry, is that you?” 

Is this really happening right now? He’s embarrassed at having been caught with lipstick in his hands of all things, but he can’t put them back now. It was too late for that. He lets them hang at his side, and turns around. He hopes there isn’t perspiration dripping from his temples because all of a sudden he wants to yank his sweater off. 

Harry turned, slowly. He feared that if he moved too fast she would fly away like a startled dove. 

“Y/n…” He’s breathless, but he manages a pitiful quirk of the corner of his mouth, which he licks over right after, “hi.” 

She’s wearing a dress this time, frilly at the hem which fell just above her knees. It’s pink and covered and lined with blood red trim at her forearms. A string of pearls glistens at the base of her throat, and her lips are covered in a sheen of lipstick. Her hair, however, is a tousled mess, pieces of it framing her face and untucked from her bun as if she had been jostling around. Her cheeks are flushed with the cold, and clearly that thin beige cardigan hanging off her elbows is doing nothing to keep her warm.

Y/n smiles at him, with the same shakiness, “f-for a second I thought I was talking to the wrong p-person.” 

 It’s quiet again, and they’re both fidgeting. Y/n’s knees knock together as she shifts her weight from foot to food, and Harry idly rubs his finger under his nose and sniffs boogies that aren’t there. She’s staring at the ground and rocking back and forth on her heels and he can’t think of anything to say because he’s so paralyzed by the fact that she’s actually standing in front of him, and looks as gorgeous as ever. Had he somehow manifested her presence? 

While she’s hiking up the ends of her sweater so that they’re situated properly on her shoulders, he says the first thing that comes to his mind. “Aren’t y’cold?”

Her head snaps up and she peeks at him from under her lashes while flattening a hand at her thigh, “a little bit.” 

Harry watches her tuck her hair behind her ears and wonders if she came walking from her apartment again. In the cold. Dress as she was. Not that he had a problem with the way that she was dressed! He understood that sometimes when people grew bored they used the smallest occasions to dress up and have some fun and get out of their homes. He did it too, sometimes. To clear his head. Hell, isn’t that what he was doing now?

“D’you need a ride home?” He stumbled over his tongue to backtrack, not wanting her to think that he was a wierdo or anything like that, “t-that is if y’walking, I wouldn’t want you to get sick or anything like that. S’bit chilly out today.” 

Y/n smiles shyly at him, a blush on the highest points of her cheeks, and rubs the side of her face against the fabric of her cardigan, “thank you, for the offer, but uhm… it’s my friend’s baby-shower-gender-reveal thing today and I came with my other friend to some last minute gifts and some flowers. I was going to buy some stuff from here because she’s crazy about the whole ‘no preservatives’ and all but, and I was also going to stop by your shop to buy some flowers, but I saw you were closed so I…I’m rambling again.” She sputtered out the last bit, and pressed the tips of her three middle fingers to her lips to stop the words from coming out. 

Harry smirked at her antics, but it’s more of a repressed smile, and the rest of his humor gleamed in the sea-glass of his eyes like a message in a bottle. 

“S’alright, love.” He’s still holding the lip balms in his hand, and he can feel the moisture that’s collecting on his palms dampening the Kraft like material as he gestured to her dress with the tip of his chin. “Y’wearing pink. I take it y’want the baby to be a girl?”

“Actually, I know it’s a girl. She told me,” y/n pips, shrugging smugly. 

Harry laughs at her this time, “Did you finish with all your purchases here? I can make an exception and open up f’you.”

“Oh, Harry, I don’t wanna bother you! Because if this was your day off then-”

He lifts a hand to get her to stop, and uses the opportunity to twist around and put back what he had in his hands. The conversation is flowing so smoothly now, that all of his previous worries are gone. He can only focus on her and the way her eyelashes fluttered and the crystalline sparkly in her voice. 

“Y/n, it’s fine. D’ya finish here? We can head over to the shop now if you’d like.” Harry points a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the door. 

“Uh, no. I just got here so I still have to go grab some things,” she said, pushing her hair past her ears again. He thinks that she can probably tell the disheveled state her hair was in, because she begins to pop off a pin in her hair to readjust it. He doesn’t mind it, though. He thinks she looks cute. Angel-like. 

He nods, rolling his hands into fists within his sleeves so that the cuffs hang over his knuckles, and tries not to trip over his legs as he backs away. “A’right. I’ll wait f’you in the front, then. Take y’time, love.” 

“‘Kay,” she gleams at him, biting down on her bottom lip, and Harry turns away fully before he starts whining about how cute she is or before there’s a dent in the heather grey fabric of his sweatpants.  

At the front, Niall has his chin at the palm of his hand, and as he gets closer, Harry lifts his head to see that the brunette is wiggling his eyebrows mischievously. There's a shit-eating grin on his face that clearly points to a mountain of teasing in the near distance. 

“A little love-struck, mate?” He said, as soon as Harry was within hearing distance. At least he had the decency to keep his voice down, he thought. 

Harry flips him off, “oh, bug off.” 

Silver glitter sparkling on his nails, and his gaze strays to the floor, bashful of how clear his affection was. He turns to rest his bum against the counter and pulls out his phone to appear busy as he waits for y/n, mindlessly opening Instagram to have something to do (and to stop him from glancing at her ever two seconds).    

“Yup. I knew it. Have y’asked her out yet?” Niall doesn’t stop to let Harry refute his question, “y’know she comes in sometimes, after stopping by your place? And she just will not stop talking about how nice yeh were to her.”

Harry’s head snaps up from his screen so fast, something at the back of his neck creaks with the force. Instagram is long forgotten.

“What? Are you fuckin’ with me right now?” He doesn’t mean for his words to come as aggressive as they do, but the thought of her speaking to someone else about him is… well, it’s thrilling. 

Alarmed, Niall’s hands come up near his face in the motion of surrender, “no, man! Dead serious. Think she likes yeh, honestly.”

He can only say: “Fuck me.”

Niall is about to respond when a quiet voice breaks their stares, “I’m all finished.” 

“Already, babe? I’ll rig ya up, then!” 

He’s quick to slide the few products over the scanning square, and y/n and Harry stand beside each other silently, their height difference laughable. Niall’s gaze flickered between them with no commentary, and his lips pucker with a wiggling smile when he finally announces her total. A bit too much for a small changing blanket, oatmeal-based baby lotion, pacifiers with a lavender infused towel attached to ‘aid with goodnight night’s sleep’, and a bamboo hairbrush with a tuft of soft bristles. 

Nonetheless, she provides the money with a pleasant smile. Harry can see a bit of tightness around her eyes that suggests discomfort, but he doesn’t say anything. Niall hands her a paper bag with her purchase, “there yeh go! Have a good day now, y/n! And be good, to Harry!” 

Harry’s eyes widen at Niall’s last comment, and it takes every bit of self-restraint in him to not reach the other counter and whack him in the back of the head. Instead, he shakes and ducks his head in near shame.

Y/n, however, quips back with “I’ll be nice only if you’re nice,” and bumps her shoulder against his before walking towards the door, looking over her shoulder at Harry who’s smiling wide now, and trailing after her with no regard to Niall at all. 

He shouts something after them about being rude lovebirds, but Harry doesn’t care. He’s floating after this heaven-sent like cartoon characters being led to a freshly baked pie with their nose on the scent. His rump high in the air like the Lorax disappearing into the light in the clouds, utterly ignorant to everything else. 

When they’ve both stepped outside, they speak at the same time, 

“Let me just-”

“Do y’wanna put-” 

Harry and y/n giggle at each other, 

“You go first.” 

“Y’speak first.” 

And then they laugh again. Harry pretends to zip his lips and throws away the key, and she says radiantly, “I’ll drop this off in my friend’s car really fast and we can walk to your flower shop.” 

Watching her approach a car parked two spots away, a girl with blue, pink, and brown hair leans over to the passenger side, seat belt straining against her throat and when she sees Harry, she waves and it makes y/n push her back to her spot behind the driver’s  side. Whoever this girl is, she and Niall have to meet, seeing as they can’t mind their own business. He chuckled and waved back, that girl laughing along with him and it made y/n cover her face with her cardigan covered hands. 

“I’m sorry about Charlotte,” she said when she got back, “she doesn’t know how to mind her own.”

“A bit like Niall, it seems.” Harry said. He waits for her to catch up before beginning to walk down the street. Side to side, shoulder to shoulder. They’re so close, Harry can feel the warmth of her body heat through the fleece of his sweatshirt. It’s cold, and she’s still this warm? 

“Maybe,” her eyebrows raise, and her head tilts towards him, “they should meet.” 

“Tha’s exactly what I was thinkin’!” His voice rises with his excited agreement, and the tip of his nose wiggles as he scrunches his nose. 

As they get closer, to H’s Garden, Harry reaches into his pocket for his keys, fingering through them so that they wouldn’t have to stand in the cold for so long. He didn’t want her to get sick. 

“I’m sorry, Harry. I feel really bad about this,” she whispered beside him, looking up at him with doe eyes as she worried her lip between her teeth, the sheen of gloss adding an extra allure to her image at that moment. “It’s your day off, and I’m bugging you.” 

They stood in front of the door now, underneath the green umbrella cover that extended from the top of the door and down the side of the window. Harry waited for her to step into the little alcove created by the indent of the door before stepping in after her and jiggling the key into the lock. He resisted the urge to pull his lips down into a cooing frown at the look on her face. She really was worried about disturbing him. If only she knew that he spent the entire day moping (and nearly crying) over her. 

He sucked on his teeth, “oh, love, please worryin’ about it. Don’t wanna see that frown on y’pretty face anymore okay?” His confidence was slowly coming back, “s’not my day off, I just didn’t feel like speaking to customers today.” 

Shrugging, he opened the door, and took a step back to allow her to step through first. Y/n ducked her head as she passed him with a murmured ‘oh, okay’, and he followed right after her, wanting to get away from the cold too because he knew that his nose was probably pink at that moment, but what he didn’t anticipate was for y/n to stop right after breaching the threshold, and bend over at the waist to pick something up from the floor, causing Harry to bump into her at such an awkwardly sexual angle with all of his momentum. 

Considering he was half twisted away from her and in the middle of pulling out the key from it’s slot, the amount of force in Harry’s push from behind was enough to cause her to nearly fall forward, a surprised whimper slipping from her lips. Harry, determined not to see her fall, lets go of the key and reaches out just in time to grasp her hips on either side, pulling her back towards him mid-fall so that she doesn't collapse on her face. 

However, in the midst of all of this Harry forgets himself and uses a bit too much force. Not to mention, the implications of their position makes him hyper aware of every single place their bodies touched, her small frame against his lithe, tattooed body. 

This moment only lasts for a few seconds, but he can feel everything. 

He can feel the easy give of the skin of her hips underneath each finger that touched her, the softness of the flesh on her thighs against his sturdy knees. The fabric of his sweatpants is suddenly non-existent, and it’s almost as if he felt every taught tendon of her legs, frozen with efforts of helping catch or brace herself. The heat of her groin is flush against his, and it makes him want to scream with a sudden sensitivity. Her ass is practically seated on him, full and malleable against the points of his laurel covered hip bones. Harry’s semi-hunched, as her weight also pushed him back, and the position is doing nothing to help his frenzied mind settle. He feels like shit because he’s being a horny, pubescent kid instead of asking her if she’s okay, but then y/n moves back into him to straighten fully and their centers grind. Her dress is semi-bunched at the halfway point of her bum, and he can feel heat emanating from her, radiating back on his bloating cock. He has to stifle a moan when she pushes herself up with the tips of her fingers. 

Just as quickly as it started, it’s over. Y/n is dusting her bum off so that her dress falls and covers her modesty, and she’s beet red in the face, not looking at him. Which was fine by him, he was too ashamed to look into her eyes. 

He clears his throat (something he’s doing a lot around her) and asks if she’s okay. 

“Yes. Yes, I’m okay. This was on the floor,” she squeaked, holding up a neon yellow notice sheet in her hand. That damned thing was what caused all of this?

It’s a notice from the delivery men that said, ‘sorry! We missed you!’ with a time and date messily scrawled on the dotted lines. Harry had forgotten that he was getting a shipment of several plants that morning. 

Cursing, he takes it from her, “t-thank you. Now how ‘bout those flowers?”

It’s awkward, obviously, but y/n is severely silent. Harry’s still stuffy in his pants, but he ignores it and doesn’t add any fuel to the fire because there’s more pressing matters at hand than a boner. Y/n is the most quiet she’s ever been around him, considering all of her word vomits and ramblings, and he’s suffering. Definitely beating himself up in his head for having ruined the moment. He held onto her for a second too long, frozen. She must feel so embarrassed, and he was self-endulging like a fucking asshole. 

Harry asks her questions on what flowers she’d like, and she answers by pointing or bringing a stem to him, laying it on the counter without a word. A mixture of dahlias and baby’s breath with a handful of feverfew to make the pink in the dahlia’s stand out. He lays them out on his work table, cutting the ends at an angle where they need to be cutted and laying them out on a sheet of clear, dusty rose paper. Three packets of flower food are strewn at the corner, and y/n busies herself by fidgeting with them. He grows concerned when he makes a comment on the kinds of ribbons he had stored and she doesn’t say anything. Not even a nod or a hum. 

Eventually, he decides he’s had enough of her neglect, and pauses his work to devote her some attention.  

“Love, I’m sorry about what happened,” he said softly, trying to catch her eyes, “I know it probably made y’uncomfortable, and I didn’t do much to make the situation better, but I just didn’t wanna see y’fall.”

Y/n’s head is already dipped, so he can’t see her face, but when her shoulders begin to shake, he knows he’s utterly fucked. She starts to sniffle, and his eyes go wide. The paper crinkled as he set down the baby’s breath he’s holding in his hands. He hates seeing people cry, not because he didn’t know how to deal with it, but because he often ended up crying along with them. Also, he just didn’t want to see her cry. Harry wanted her to be happy, glowing, and smiling. Not dull with dollops of woeful distress in liquid form.

He rounds the corner and spares a look out to the street, wanting to make sure that there is no strange onlooker eavesdropping on their interaction. His hand reaches out to stroke her back or shoulder comfortingly, but he thinks better of it and drops his arm. She most likely would not like to be touched, considering what just happened between them. He drops his head, seeking face-to-face interaction, and speaks as gently as he can, “y/n, what’s wrong?” 

She avoids his search, and turns the other way while sniffling, “you probably think I’m weird now or something after that.” 

“No!” Harry exclaimed, jerking his head back as if he’d been struck, and her words practically had. He can’t believe that she would think that and even go as far as verbalizing her thoughts when he worshipped the ground she walked on and didn’t even know her that well, yet. “No, no. I don’t think that. Y’tripped, that’s all. Happens to everyone. If anythin’ I’m the weirdo for grabbin’ y’the way I did, and I’m really sorry about it.”

Y/n dig the heels of her hands into her eye sockets, “that was so embarrassing, I should’ve told you I was gonna stop or something. I always embarrass myself in front of cute boys and I never know what to do. I just-” 

Harry interrupts before she can dig herself further another hole. He highlights a segment of her words, dropping everything else in hopes of changing the conversation and taking her discomfort away, and mostly because he was bursting with relief and happiness. She had said that she thought he was cute, just how he thought that she was adorable, and nice, and everything good. They were on the same level, their minds in sync. Did that mean…

His voice is airy and light because of what she had just admitted, “y’think I’m cute?”

She stills with awareness of what she’s just said, and a puppy-like noise seeps from the back of the throat before her hands sink further into her eyes, embarrassed. Harry tenderly wraps his fingers around her small wrists and pulls her hands away from her face, murmuring about ‘don’t rub y’eyes anymore, love, y’gonna hurt’ with nothing but kindness. A millisecond of distraction speeds through his mind at the softness on the inside of her wrists. 

There’s a trickle of blubbering in her part, her bitten lips bumping against each other as she attempts to backtrack, “I mean- I- I-”

Harry decides that it’s now or never. It was a bit inconvenient, perhaps, but with her revelation his confidence soared and he was more prepared now to ask than he ever had been. So, he goes for it, “can I have y’number?” 

A moment of semi-uncomfortable silence as the unknown tips the scale. Would she say yes? Would she say no? His head was spinning and he hoped his nose didn’t start bleeding or something because y/n nods slowly, smiling, and then, “okay.” 

He’s elated. He was the polar opposite of what he had been that morning. If only Owen could see him then. He doesn’t waste any time reaching into his back pocket and handing her his unlocked phone. They don’t share any words, only coy glances and flirty quirks of the lips as the tips of her fingers move on his screen. Harry can’t believe that he’s finally getting her number, after nearly a month of pinning. 

When she’s finished, she clicks it off and sets it next to him with an added pat to the back of his suspiciously clean white phone case while he’s tying the flowers together with a loose rubber band at the ends to attach the food packets. He’s fine with working in silence now that she's not crying anymore. He throws occasional glances in her direction, and catches her watching his hands while fiddling with her own. Her brows were furrowed and her mouth was twitching. 

“Will you text me?” She asked him. 

He’s careful not to bruise any of the petals as he sets them down again, pausing with his ministrations to pick up his phone. He wiggles his eyebrows at her and types a quick ‘Hi. It’s Harry :)’. He hits send, “until you’re sick of me.”

“I don’t think that’s possible.” She shakes her head, and Harry’s reminded Rachel McAdams in The Notebook while she’s in complete denial of her feelings for Noah. The comparison makes his heart flutter, considering the romance of the onscreen couple. “How much do I owe you?” 

Harry waves her off, “it’s on the house.” She begins to argue, but Harry stops her before she starts rambling again, “y’better go or you’ll be late, love.” He holds out the arrangement to her, tufts of baby’s breath poking out from between the vibrant dahlias like fluffy clouds, the feverfew looking like miniature white daisies in the center. 

She looks at it, and back at him before huffing, “fine, but you’ll have to let me return the favor.”

“Of course,” he smirks, “with dinner, maybe?” 

They’re both gleaming at each other now, “okay.” Y/n takes a step back, her body half twisted as she walks away, but it remains like that for a moment as her eyes rake him up and down, a murmur following, “bye, Harry.” 

His veins charge with electricity, and his dark taffy lips part at her actions. Had she just checked him out? He doesn’t recover quick enough to return her goodbye because the previous swirl of arousal in his navel was bristling back to life at the implications of that look. Calm, slow, steady, and her eyes remained doe-like and innocent. 

She had to have known exactly what she was doing, whispering his name the way she had, looking over her shoulder and under her eyelashes the way she did. Deviously provoking his thoughts to begin a new with a reinspired fervor. The space in his underwear was growing tighter by the second, a blissful ache swelling. 

Before any other customer stepped in after her, Harry locked the door, and jogged up the stairs to prepare himself a nice, hot bath, simultaneously cursing and thanking the stupid fucking delivery men.  

********

Harry can’t stop thinking. 

Obviously, this is a huge issue for him. He was constantly thinking, and well, who wasn’t? The process of thoughts wisping around in his brain was one that he often put an unnecessary amount of energy into because he had no one to filter these thoughts onto, releasing them through a conversation to prevent the exhaustion of his brain and heart. A prime example of these mishaps being the depressing slump that occupied his demeanor that very morning. 

This?

This was different.

As soon as the apartment door was shut behind him, Harry pulled the suffocating sweatshirt off of his upper body, fingers hooking in at the collar and yanking it off with a swift tug. It landed somewhere on his kitchen floor, and he didn’t stop to take note of its final destination. Instead, his legs instinctively took him to his bathroom. 

Chest heaving, Harry walked to the small window leaking sunlight and rolled the stick between his fingers to close the blinds. His thumb dipped into the waistband of his boxes and dragged them down lopsidedly, the tiger tattoo roaring as it became exposed. When the blinds are fully closed, the white extension clangs against the shutters from his aggressive release. His body was slowly being consumed by a raging fire stoked by the illicit images his brain conjured of the innocent, unsuspecting y/n.

His inner turmoil consisted of guilt for using her image that way and justification from the conspiring rake of her eyes along the upper half of him that was visible behind the counter. He was so fixated by her, that her look alone felt like a tempting caress along his skin. And it all happened in a matter of fucking seconds. That’s how gone he was. That’s how fucking gone he was. Harry guesses that the easy excitement also had to do with the fact that he hadn’t gotten laid in a while (he only ever gets lucky when he goes out to the bars with Mitch or Jeff, and they’d been gone for a significant amount of time) and the strong affinity he had for the girl who bought flowers from him.  

Explanation or not, he had to do something about the problem in his pants. He was painfully hard, and when he shucked his pants off fully, his underwear dragged with the movement and pressed against the tip of his swollen prick. A darkened patch of moisture bloomed where the head was, and he saw stars at the short pressure. He wouldn’t take his pants off just then, though. He liked to stall his pleasure as much as he could so that when he finally did cum, his stomach muscles contracted and his toes remained curled for more than ten seconds. 

He twisted the golden knobs of his tub so that the water would come rushing out at a borderline scalding temperature, and opened the small cabinet above the toilet for a bottle of almond and coconut shea butter bubbles. He uncapped it and bent over the edge of the tip, the cool, porcelain lip touching his crotch and provoking a choked whimper to leave him. Jerking his hips back, he poured the soapy liquid into the spot where the water cascaded, and retracted his hand when the beginning of froth formed along the surface. 

The heady sweet smell permeated the air with the rising levels of bubbles, and Harry couldn’t wait any longer. Because he liked to torture himself, he closed his eyes and slowly dragged the hell of his hand over the outline of his cock, a groan ripping though the silence. It’s so painfully good, that he does it one more time, and he jolts forward. He removes his hand, slips his thumbs underneath the waistband of his boxers, and lugs the fabric down his hips at an excruciatingly slow pace. The head of his member smearing precum all along as he moves and when he gets caught in the ripples of his boxers the muscles in his thighs flex at the ripple of pleasure that zips into his nerves. 

“Fuck,” he hissed under his breath. His mind was a spinning vintage reel of slideshow images of y/n. Y/n on bruised knees, her mouth wide open and her own drool on her tits, the tip of his cock flat on her tongue as she pleads with weepy eyes for him to cum down her throat. When he finally springs free of his underwear, a hefty slap rings out as his dick collides against his abdomen, right on the space underneath his belly button. 

There’s a stripe of liquid on the trail left by the mushroom head of his prick, and Harry’s eyes roll to the back of his head, throat straining as he hovers over the bathtub. He doesn’t remember the last time he’s ever been this hard over a girl before, and it’s driving him crazy. He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to last as long as he usually does. As he swings a leg over the edge of the tub, the hot water encasing his calf, he’s thinking about how soft she is. The inside of her wrist and the palm of her hand. If she’s that soft on an external part of her body that’s used everyday, he can only wither away at the idea of what the inside of her thighs feel like. 

Bubbles are swarming up now, swathing his thighs and buttocks as he sinks into the sloshing water. When he’s completely seated and satisfied with the belly-button level of water, he clumsily throws a hand in the direction of the knobs to shut them off, and reclined his head against the curved end of the tub with his eyes shut. 

He hikes up his knees so that they’re resting against the porcelain walls, and mindlessly ruts up into the water at the filthy images he’s picturing, white foam collecting in sparse clouds over the math on his chest. He doesn’t know what’s gotten into him. It’s as if his body is being transported back to the moment his hips clashed with y/n’s. At the recollection, his mouth drops and his eyebrows pinch in a silent moan. The feel of her flesh underneath his fingertips has him bobbing in the water, and the next ideation has him gripping the base of his cock. 

Vividly, he pictured her on all fours, keening back onto him as her pussy enveloped him in warmth, a warmth that is almost replicated by the temperature of the water, dripping and making a mess of him but what’s turning him on most of all is the easy flushness of their bodies. He had felt the way her bum gave way under his hold, and he imagined the bounce of her flesh as he thrusted into her. 

He moaned a broken call of her name with his eyes still shut, and heard the trickling of water as his fist rolled up his stiff prick, squeezing at the tip so that a few more droplets of precum dribbled out. With his thumb, he rubbed over the red mushroom head and lathered it in slow, leisurely circles, a throb pulsating with the beat of his heart as he returned to flicking his wrist over himself. 

The way that he looked at him and the sound of his name on her lips seared into his memory. Airy and willowy, similar to it resonated in his brain with the fantasy of sinking into her for the first time, stretching her and having her preen and arch with desperate whimpers of his name for more. Harry considered himself to be ‘well-endowed’ and his size was a factor of what sent him careening over the edge as girls mewled over his size after he’d bottomed out. He wanted y/n to mewl under him, both of them falling apart at the seams at the mutual pleasures because if Harry’s this broken over just the thought of her, then he’s sure he’s going to lose himself beyond recognition after he’s buried himself into her velvety walls, slick with her arousal and so fucking warm. 

Just as she had been earlier that day. There had been two layers between them- the fabric of Harry’s pants and her panties- yet, he was still able to feel an immense heat from the apex of her thighs against his cock. He needed more than this. He needed her, not just his hand driving him closer to the edge. 

His jaw clenched as he bit back on a particularly loud moan, for no reason other than he enjoyed self-sabotage from time to time, and the speed of his jerking hand increased. His other hand gripped the side of the tub, and his legs flexed as he began to thrust up into his own fist, a trail of bubbles sticking to the tanned muscles. The cut rectangles of muscles of his abdomen glistened like freshly chopped cubes of apricot with the droplets of water that remained clinging to him. His breath came in labored, strained puffs as the palm of his hand twisted, tightening at the tip and loosening at the base. 

For a moment, he paused and cupped his balls, massaging them as the fantasy in his head continued. His mouth wrapping around y/n’s nipples, her eyes glazed over from previous orgasm that he wanted so badly to give her. She’d whine something soft and quiet to match her personality, ‘please, Harry, please I want more. Need another Harry, please’, and he’d speed up the movement of his hips, driving deep into her and cooing into her ear about, ‘c’mon, darling. Give m’another then. Y’want it so bad, yeah? Give me a’fucking ‘nother’, and she’d release a peircing moan that explodes in his eardrums while arching into him. She’d squeeze impossible tight around him, gushing with her own cum. 

The water in Harry’s tub sloshes around his ankles, and the muscles of his abdomen clench so that he’s closing in on himself, sputtering on an outrageously loud cry that he can’t contain and his hand increases the speed of his filthy ministrations because he’s right on the edge. He’s about to fucking cum and the back of his eyelids burns with the possible variances of y/n’s face in ecstasy provided by him with his nose deep in her cunt, lapping at the sweet honey that spills with every whimper of, ‘please let me cum, Harry. I’ll do anything, I’ll be good, please let me cum. 

He tensed violently, his face contorted painfully as white ropes spurt from the tip of his cock over his fist and onto his chest, blending with the white almond foam. His feet are braced against the edge of the tub and his head falls back and his stomach tenses even further, the final leaks of his cum dribbling out. 

With the fuzziness that comes after an orgasm, his body melts back into the water that’s still warm, and his jerks with a pant as he allows his softening prick to sink into the water. The head on his hair is matted in a chocolate smear across his forehead, and his lips are a raging heart of cherry blossoms, parted with arduous gasps of recovery breath. His hands fall into the water at his sides, and with the lapping movement of the liquid against his sensitive member, he ruts into nothing again. 

Reclined with his eyes closed and heartbeat slowing, Harry murmurs a final, “fuck me,” at the extreme sensations that had raked through his body. 

Somewhere in the muffled distance, his phone dings with the notification of a text message, and with a tired noise of resentment, he sits up and reaches for his sweatpants that lay in a messy puddle besides the tub. His fingers drip darkening spots onto the grey material as he rummages for his phone, and then he finally clicks it on...

It’s her name, lighting up his screen, and the text reads: 

y/n <3 : so… dinner? 

Harry doesn’t think he’s ever crushed on a girl this hard before because even though he’s just completely physically spent himself, there’s something stirring in the depths of his tummy just at seeing the heart she put next to her name. 

He couldn’t be happier. 

*    *    *    *    *    *

and here he is!! what do you guys think?? pls pls pls leave your feedback in my askbox! i’d love to hear your thoughts! and if you really really loved it, don’t be afraid to press that reblog button <3333

[katy-l-wood]

Rebinding paperbacks into hardbacks: a tutorial

I promised a tutorial about how I’ve been doing this, so here we go! First though, I must stress that I AM NOT A PROFESSIONAL. I am making this up as I go based on several hours of research for a single project about ten years ago. But I needed a serotonin boost from a project I didn’t have to buy anything new for, so I decided to just throw myself back into book binding.

Are there people out there with better advice? Yup. Am I doing parts of thing wrong? Probably. But I’m also having tons of fun. So goal accomplished.

Just...don’t do this with any books you adore/rare books without digging deeper into the more professional side of this. Just for fun, okay? Okay.

This will be a pretty long post, so most of it will be under a cut!

First up: Supplies.

Your book! For this tutorial I’m using a copy of The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater because I’ve ended up with three copies of it, so it’s perfect for this project.

Some clean scrap paper.

A cutting mat. If you don’t have one you can use some scrap corrugated cardboard (probably best to have a couple layers, if you do it this way), however the mat is nice because it has angles marked on it which will be important for later.

Rubber cement. (Technically, spray glue would probably be better, but I didn’t have any spray glue so it would’ve violated my rule of “do not spend anything on this project.)

Craft glue.

Ruler.

Scissors.

Creasing tool. Alternatively, a pen with a flat, slightly rounded bottom edge can work well too.

Sandpaper.

Pencil

Water cup.

Ribbon, if you want to do a bookmark.

Papertowels.

Paint pallet you don’t mind getting glue on. A sturdy paper plate works fine too.

A charm for your bookmark, if you want one.

Some kind of book board to form your covers. You can use a lot of things for this including thick, sturdy, non-corrugated cardboard, cereal box cardboard glued together in layers, wood, or actual book board that you purchase online. I am using some chipboard that was used to stabilize and protect something I ordered online. It works FANTASTICALLY. I always hang onto this stuff when I get a package that has it.

Some brushes you aren’t afraid to ruin with glue.

Heavy duty box cutter (if you’re using wood, you may need some sort of saw).

Exacto knife.

Something to form your spine. Again, you have a lot of options here. I am using some faux-leather I had laying around, which I’ve found works best. If you use a regular fabric you’ll have to hem it, and use a fabric friendly glue that won’t come up through the fabric, which is not covered here.

3-4 sheets of scrapbook paper. Thicker cardstock papers work best for their sturdiness, but you can use lighter weight papers as well, you just have to be careful how you glue things so the lighter papers don’t warp.

Letter stickers if you want to do a title on on the cover. There’s lots of other ways to do titles, though, so it’s up to you.

(sorry, forgot to add this in the picture) 6 small binder clips. Like, the half inch sized ones.

(No picture again, sorry!) Something heavy to set on top of your book while it is drying. I just used a box of acrylic paints.

Whew. Okay, onto the actual tutorial.

Step one: Measure and cut your boards.

Measure your book, and then add 1/8-1/4inch to each side EXCEPT the spine. So, if your book is 5x8inches, you’ll want to measure out 5.25x8.5inches. The 1/8-1/4inch part is up to you. I prefer to do 1/4 inch because I like to see a bit of the endpapers even when the book is closed.

Cut out two of these rectangles from your cover material using a ruler to guide the cut and your boxcutter. With chipboard, this will likely take several cuts. I put about half an inch between each rectangle just so that if I mess up a cut I’ll only ruin one of the rectangles, not both.

Congrats, you now have your two covers! Sand down any stray bits on the edges from cutting and you’re good to go. At this point, you can do whatever you want to the things. Paint them. Collage on them. Paper them. Woodburn them. Totally up to you. Just remember, at least half an inch of the spine side will be covered by your spine material, and the insides will be covered by your endpapers, so don’t put anything important there! For this tutorial we’ll only be covering the paper wrapping method, but you really can do whatever you like.

Step 2: Wrap ‘em in pretty paper.

If you are using lighter paper, you’ll use rubber cement for this step. If you are using thicker cardstock, you can use craft glue, but it MUST be watered down (about 1part glue, 2parts water in your paint tray). If you have a printer that is big enough for scrapbook paper, you can also print titles onto the paper before you attach it to the boards. This is what I did for Hunger Pangs. If you do this, you just have to be very careful with your positioning when placing the board so that your title lines up properly!

Take your first sheet of cover paper and lay it face down. Then, take one of your cover boards and apply an even coat of glue all across one face. Plop that down on the boring side of your scrapbook paper, with a couple inches of room on each side, and press it firmly for a couple minutes.

Next, trim down your paper with the exacto knife so it is even on all sides. I honestly just lay my ruler against the edge of the board, then cut along the other edge of the ruler. Quick and easy, no measuring required, and it will be exactly the same every time.

Now trim off all the corners at a 45degree angle, leaving about 1/8inch between the corner of your board and the cut. This is where the cutting mat comes in handy, since it already has these angles marked for you. If you don’t have one, you can just measure out the angles on your own.

Now, use the smoothing tool of choice to carefully and gently fold over each of your edges. Emphasis on gently. Then, using the same glue you used to secure the front side, glue down the edges one at a time. You’ll probably have to hold them in place for a minute or two to make sure they stick.

Congrats on completing the first cover! Now repeat the process for the other one. Again, you can do whatever you want to it at this point. I added a second layer of paper feathers to mine because, well, it’s the Raven Cycle. Feathers and trees.

Step 3: Attach the book.

Lay your backcover down in the proper position, and coat it with watered down craft glue (not rubber cement). For this you want your glue a little thicker, so about 1part glue 1part water. Don’t go quite all the way to the edges, except on the spine side.

Apply book. Make sure it is centered top/bottom, and the spine of the book is lined up with the spine side of your board. Press firmly, then put your weighted box/other books/whatever, on top and let dry for at least fifteen minutes.

Next, apply glue to the front cover of the book, and attach your new cover on top. Again, make sure everything lines up properly, then press firmly for a few minutes before putting your weights on top. Let dry for an hour.

Step 4: Give it some spine.

You can work on this during the hour your book is drying. I’m doing this with faux leather (which, I know, evil plastic, hissssss. But it was what I had laying around in my art hoard from before I knew how crappy faux leather is. Better to use it than throw it out).

Measure the width of your book with the two new covers included. Then add 3/4inches to the width on each side. Measure the length of your book, and then add 2x whatever you added when you cut out your boards to each end. So if you added 1/4inch to each edge in that step, add 1/2inch at the top and bottom each in this step. If you added 1/8inch in that step, add 1/4inch in this step.

Cut that baby out using scissors. (You can also add more than 3/4inches to the width of your new spine, it just depends on the look you’re going for. You can also have fun with the edges, rather than making them straight, as long as you keep that 3/4inches as your minimum and expand out from there.)

Once you’ve given your book its hour of drying time, remove the weights. Using a line of pure craft glue, secure the first edge of your spine in place. Make sure it is centered with an even amount hanging over the top and bottom. Only about 1/2inch of the long edge of the leather should be in contact with the book. Put the weight back on top and let sit for about fifteen minutes.

If you want to attach a ribbon bookmark, now is the time, after that 15 minutes of drying. Cut out your ribbon about 4 inches longer than your book, apply the charm if you want to, and then glue about two inches of it to the outside of the paperback’s original spine using pure craft glue.

Flip your book, and glue down the other side of your new spine the same way, making sure it is even with the front cover. Don’t pull it too tight, or it will keep your book from closing properly. Place it back under your weight and let dry for an hour.

Once dry, apply a line of pure craft glue to the little bit hanging off one end. Don’t make it too thick! Just enough to cover the leather well.

Now fold over the leather so it wraps around to the inside, and use the binder clips to hold it in place. Wipe off any excess glue that gets pushed out, then let dry for an hour.

Step 5: Endpapers!

While that’s drying, cut out your endpapers! You’ll likely only need one piece of scrapbook paper for this, but it depends on the size of your book and if you want to do anything special with the pattern you’re using. Again, if you want to you can use your printer to put text on these.

If you want to have your endpaper covering BOTH the inside of the cover and the first page of the book (and the last page/inside of the cover for the back) you’ll have to do some careful measuring to cut things out and you will need two pieces of scrapbook paper for this. But I like to keep things simple and just cover the insides of the covers, not the first/last pages too, so I just use two simple rectangles. You’ll want to cut them about 1/16inches SHORTER than the measurements of your new covers.

Once the spine is done drying, remove the binder clips and check that your endpapers fit properly and aren’t hanging over the edge. You may have to trim them slightly. Once the size is right, glue them into place using rubber cement. Use your smoothing tool to press down the edges. Do this for the front and back. Put back under weight for another hour.

You’re done!

Congrats on your new book! Enjoy it.

[kaworuscott]

Vaporwave Sanwa Dreamcast Agetec mod done by myself. Vaporwave artwork by @vincenttrinidadart an excellent print I ordered from his shop. All premium Sanwa joystick and button parts. Sanwa mesh balltop. Custom Bison shadaloo clear dustwasher. The best guide online by far is the DC Agetec mod video on youtube by @scanlinecity even if you aren't doing a mod yourself it's a great techie watch. I've done many partial mods but I wanted to mod an Agetec DC stick from start to finish myself. As you will see in the pics, it requires alot of dremeling away plastic to fit in the Sanwa JLF and around the button casings, also had to dremel down the VMU surface plastic as it sticks out which got in the way if art/plexi. The original metal plate has about 28mm button holes which is no good for the standard 30mm buttons arcades use. You have to dremel the metal holes wider to fit. I dremelled mine but I also had a clear plexi cut for me with 300mm holes many years ago from a friend at tournaments and just never used it until now. I would normally solder but instead I tried out heat wire connectors to attach the original cables to the new quick disconnects which worked a charm. I used cable ties and sticky cable holders to tidy up the inside wiring a bit. I also painted the front panel security screws pink to match the aesthetic. Stick works perfectly for all my Dreamcast fighting games and looks fantastic. So happy with it! #vaporwave #japaneseart #agetec #modding #sanwa #sanwadenshi #seimitsu #controller #arcade #retrogamer #instagamer #arcadegame #fightstick #fightinggame #streetfighter #playstation #dreamcast #sega #nintendo #ps2 #gamestagram #retrogaming #gameroom #retrogamingcommunity #oldschoolgaming #gamecollector #arcadegamer #anime https://www.instagram.com/p/CHK42vrn2GO/?utm_medium=tumblr

[drivingsideways]

For the character building meme, 1, 27, 39, Kang Hyeon-min (Tell Me The Truth 'verse) OR Kang Sin-jae, Stars 'verse.

For the meme 

1. Do they have any daily rituals?

 Kang Sin Jae, Stars 'verse:

 1) Do not *speak * to him before his 6.30 am black coffee with three spoons of sugar, ok?

 2) A few months after he tells his mom the truth about her son, he arranges for a memorial in a funeral home. There are no remains, but his mom unearths a baby mobile that used to hang over his crib- 4 small wooden magpies, the blue paint on their tails already faded with age. Sin Jae repaints it, carefully, and that's what they use at the memorial. His mom and him visit every month at least once. He goes alone too, on a bad day, and more and more often, on good days, just to tell him how it's going with the life that he stole. It's not a debt he can ever repay, but he's trying, he swears, and he won't stop, no matter how bad it gets. That's the least he can do.

 27.Turn ons? Turn offs? (sexual or not)

 Kang Hyeon Min, Tell me The Truth 'verse.

 Kang Hyeon-min would have sworn up and down the street that he was very heterosexual, like, women, am I right? What's there not to like about them? They're so cool, and smart, and have soft skin, and as a bonus usually don't smell like the inside of an unwashed sock, and also the way the dip of her waist seems made for your palm, and like, has he mentioned they're smart?

Women know things, they see the world as it is, it's some genetic thing (it's not, he's been schooled on that, thanks a lot, Koo sisters + eomma).

Anyways, forget giving them orgasms- though that's a big plus, the way her body will go boneless under your mouth, and she'll make these sweet, ridiculous sounds,and pet your hair lazily after, it's all lovely, but like, if you make a smart woman smile- a real smile, like the real orgasms- boy, you done good.

 And he continues being totally heterosexual right until he meets his roommate at the CNPU.

Jung Jae-hyuk is six foot one of lean muscle, laughing dark eyes, and a devil-may-care attitude. He can keep up an incessant stream of conversation with everyone from seventy something janitor-ahjumma to the cook's five year old daughter and even Superintendent Kim's permanent scowl seems to be incapable of withstanding Jae-hyuk's charm (and more likely the way Jae-hyuk can effortlessly do a twenty mile run and THEN remain steady handed for target-practice).

Jae-hyuk flirts with every male-looking person in a twenty mile radius, but never with Hyeon-min. And listen, Hyeon-min's always been perfectly friendly, a good roommate, has never, to his knowledge, done anything that might offend Jae-hyuk, and fine, it's not like Hyeon-min wants Jae-hyuk to flirt with him, he just wants to know why he won't, like what, is his nose not on straight or is it that Hyeon-min's taste in music is boring, or does he fart in his sleep and not know it? WHAT?

Go have your sexuality crisis elsewhere, Jae-hyuk says, flatly, after Hyeon-min brings it up, 7 sojus full of courage and something he doesn't quite want to admit as desperation. "I have three years more here and I don't intend to spend the rest of it trying to avoid my roommate when he decides that no, he's a real man who's not into dick and doesn't want to see the evidence that says otherwise." And listen, Hyeon-min has noticed how Jae-hyuk can talk nineteen to the dozen and never say anything that means anything, it's all amusingly flighty anecdotes and blindingly awful printed shirts, and he never talks about his family, does he even have one, for all anybody knows, Jae-hyuk emerged a fully formed 19 year old with delicate wrists and a wicked left hook, and an encyclopaedic knowledge of Indian films songs circa 1940-1960 and nothing after. So, like, this is a bit of a shock,  and Hyeon-min gasps, outraged, I would never,  and Jae-hyuk mutters, that's what they all say mr.nice guy, but there's something vulnerable about the way his spine has straightened against the cheap plastic chair, something that says, he's waiting for Hyeon-min to deck him, maybe, or say something like well, you've lost a friend anyway, so Hyeon-min shrugs and says, too bad your taste in men runs to assholes, I'll have you know that I give *great * head, and Jae-hyuk scoffs, and says, by heterosexual standards, and Hyeon-min says, dude, don't even, making a woman come is an art, guys just don't--- and well, anyways, they settle the argument with Hyeon-min on his knees in the fucking bathroom stall, and later, squeezed together in Jae-hyuk's bed, Hyeon-min realizes that yes, he's maybe having a crisis, but it's not about sex so much as the other thing, the thing where someone's occupied a space in his heart that he hadn't quite realized was there. "Stop thinking so loudly," Jae-hyuk mutters, "It's annoying." Ok, yeah, busted,  and maybe Hyeon-min will have to postpone this crisis till next week when Ryeong gets back from her uni trip to Lake Chon. For now, he's just going to enjoy running his fingers down the length of his lover's (relaxed) spine, and the scratchy feel of his cheek tucked under Hyeon-min's chin, and his hair roughened legs tangled with Hyeon-min's, the weight of him anchoring the rocking boat of Hyeon-min's thoughts, and perhaps, perhaps, it's ok, Hyeon-min isn't going to drown, after all.

  39. What is a gift that they have received that was especially touching or significant?

Kang Sin Jae, Stars 'Verse:

All the birthday cards that Eun-bi and Kka-bi make for him over the years, every single one of them, even the one where 14 year old Eun-bi's written, ps. If you're wondering what to get me for my birthday, see enclosed list.

[foreficfandom]

Mystic Messenger - Their Favorite Gift From MC

-- Zen: Customized Bracelet --

Zen’s sort of an excessive person so he’s almost always the one giving you gifts. He doesn’t want for much and the stuff he does - like skincare products - you used to buy for him but he eventually convinced you to buy it also for yourself so you could do sheet masks together.

When you do buy gifts for him, it can be a bit difficult. His fans send him a bunch of stuff all the time, like baked goods, or fanart, or neckties. He, of course, is a lot happier when you decide to hand him something, but it’s almost never something he’s ever gotten before.

You have to outsource. So you order a custom-stamped leather bracelet from an indie crafter, something he can wear while rehearsing without worrying about it falling off. On the outside, you have ‘I love you’, and on the inside ‘Zen x MC’. 

You give it to him for Valentine’s, his favorite holiday. Zen dedicates the entire day to you and him, and pushes aside the many packages from his fans for later. 

You hand him a little box, and he opens it to gasp dramatically at the bracelet, immediately putting it on and exploring the texture of the leather. The lightly-colored tan matches his complexion perfectly.

First, a kiss for you, then its 904709 selfies with him proudly modeling his gift. It goes on his social media to a slight ruckus, because Zen’s never shown off any gifts he’s gotten before. 

“My love is so thoughtful!!! Such a beautiful bracelet <3333″

Your name isn’t on the outside to maintain privacy, which proves to be a good idea since that picture is circulated like crazy to mixed reactions.

Zen doesn’t care, this is by far the best gift he’s ever gotten. He hugs you tightly and promises to wear it always.

-- Yoosung: Vinyl Laptop Stickers --

You like to buy knick-knacks for each other on occasion. Yoosung’s wallet isn’t packing so he can only get you stuff once and a while, and you return the favor with other little things.

And Yoosung is also kinda already surrounded by little trinkets and other stuff he’s collected on his own. Little figurines and toys from vending machines, plastic reward favors from convenience stores, character-themed pens and mugs and phone charms. 

It can get a little cluttered. His backpack alone is heavily decorated with pinback buttons and enamel pins, and you know he’s home just by the jingling of the many charms hanging off the zippers.

He’s also of a romantic and ‘cute’ mind, so when you give him practical gifts of a headset holder for his gaming desktop, he’s pleased but ... he prefers it when your gifts aren’t quite so banal.

You eventually do some deep surfing for his upcoming birthday, and find this adorable pack of laptop stickers based off of LOLOL characters. These wouldn’t take up anymore of his space, and he could still carry them with him. So during his birthday dinner, you give it to him over cake and he opens it with a gasp. 

“It’s ... oh, it’s so cute! It’s perfect, MC!” He hugs you tightly and immediately has you help him stick them on. 

He uses this laptop for school, bringing it with him on most days, so it was the perfect gift to remember you by. Whenever he opens his laptop in the student lounge, or in class, he sees all those bright colors reminding him of his favorite pastime, but also he thinks of you and how much you love each other.

-- Jaehee: Promise Ring --

You’ve gotten her spice giftboxes for her cooking, a set of cozy loungewear for the both of you, and other cute things she absolutely adores.

But her true favorite? Her engagement ring. A dainty little band that matches yours perfectly. You had proposed to her during a beautiful evening in the park, making her tear up. 

“We’re partners, now,” you said. She gave a watery smile and put her ring on proudly.

South Korea wouldn’t allow marriage between you two, so these rings promised more than a union. It promised a brighter future in the face of adversity. It promised progress in the name of love and equality. 

Jaehee struggles with societal expectations for a woman like her. This ring was like a shield against the worse thoughts, or an anchor during the more tremulous times. She had chosen to pursue you against the world’s wishes, and it was the best decision she’s ever made.

You and her wear the rings 24/7. To an onlooker, it just seemed like the two of you were separately engaged people. But she knows differently. A proud little secret. 

Customers sometimes make comments about them. She’d be ringing them up, and they’ll notice the brilliant white sapphire. “When’s the date?” some have asked. She stammered,  “It’s in the making.” The customer nodded, and wished her a happy union. 

She twists the ring around her finger, looking at you wistfully. It will be a happy union. One day!

-- Jumin: Custom-Made Cologne --

What the heck do you gift the man who could have anything he wanted? Material possessions are never a strain for him. He grew up knowing that any toy, any trinket, any new technology or experience he desired, he would get. He’d ask for ice cream and his father’d purchase an entire chain. 

His current self rarely buys indulgences. He’s had years of being fulfilled already. But he definitely buys gifts for you, almost to ridiculous levels. You can see from the diversity of gifts that he has a reach for any product or merchandise, anywhere at any time. 

When it came time to get him a gift, you had asked the RFA for advice. And everyone was as clueless as you were. Even Jihyun wasn’t sure; the two of them have almost never exchanged gifts throughout the long years of their friendship, since they knew the other was showered in generosity already. 

“You’re gonna have to go custom. Something that can’t be bought,” Zen suggested. So when Jumin announced that he had to go to Birmingham for a business meeting, you came along with him. Which you seldom do, since it’s two days of Jumin being stuck at meetings leaving you to your own devices. But you had a plan.

You looked up a luxury custom perfumery, and with the help of an expert nez you crafted a bottle that would complement him perfectly. On the bottle was a label that said “Love Forever by MC”. 

So for his birthday, he accepted his gift with grace and asked where you bought it. “This bottle doesn’t look like its from Clive Christian, is it? Maybe it’s Dior ...” 

You explained where you got it, and giggled when his mouth dropped open in surprise. He opened it, sniffed, and his smile grew bigger ‘cause it was so much more special now. It was made under your hand, something that will never be replicated. His and his only. 

He loves wearing it to work. It’s so wonderful to be surrounded by a smell that reminds him of you. 

-- Saeyoung: Fingerprint Charm --

He’s a surprisingly complicated man to gift. Like Jumin, he neither lacks nor wants for material needs. Sometimes you’ve given him cute candies or hand-knitted mittens for winter, and meanwhile he’ll give you ridiculously advanced robot cats or he’ll bust out his packing wallet and boom, you’ve got a new Gucci clutch bag.

He kinda knows that he’s hard to gift. So whenever you shyly hand over a six-pack of gag-flavored soda for Christmas or something, he makes a big show of loving it and thanking you with kisses and nuzzles. And he does love it! He’s never had gifts before, not from V or Rika or his co-workers, and definitely not from his mother. Just the thought that someone cared enough to surprise him with trinkets is so heartwarming.

But your anniversary was coming up. It marked the day that Saeyoung’s life turned around a complete 180 for the better. A very important day, one that you couldn’t mark with an exotic beef jerky bouquet or whatever.

One day, while touring a small art fair, you found an indie jeweler who offered custom fingerprint charms. You set up a date to come in and make a mold by pressing your thumb into a block of sand, which was cast into a mold and into which steel was poured. 

You gave it to him over a late-night car ride date. He took the charm out of the little bag and stared at it, you explained what it was. “That’s my very own fingerprint right there. I hope it’s something you can carry with you, and remember me by.”

He was silent for a few long seconds. You saw that his hand was shaking. So you reached over and kissed him, he embraced you tightly and said with a wavering voice, “Thank you.” A sniffle, and he was back to his cheery self. You helped him put it on his keychain, next to his car keys. 

He loves it dearly. Especially when he fingers the print and feels the groves, imagining your hand.

-- Saeran: Sweater --

For a long while, Saeran couldn’t live a proper civilian life and spent many days holed up at home, stuck in an anxious and depressive slump. Any venture outside was an ordeal for him. Bit by bit, through therapy and medication, he regained his confidence.

You found this sweater online, and you knew how much he liked wearing sweaters at home. It had this quote on it that the both of you were familiar with. It had been one of the repeated self-forgiving phrases his therapist suggested. Saeran took to that phrase particularly well. He repeats it in his mind when he feels himself on the verge of a breakdown, and it helps de-escalate. 

You knew you had to buy it. But keeping it secret from Saeran was kinda a challenge because he likes to tour around your internet history when he’s bored. Not for malicious reasons, he’s just curious and wants to know what kind of stuff you like to re-tweet, or what shops you frequent. 

So with Saeyoung’s help, you ordered the sweater under a guise Saeran wouldn’t be able to crack without some effort, and it ended up being a legit surprise when you handed Saeran his gift. 

You watched his eyes trace the quote carefully, and at his fingers tracing the screenprinted flowers. He was quiet for a long while, just exploring the sweater thoroughly.

He can’t remember the last time he’s gotten a gift. Maybe it had been never. His eyes teared up.

You hugged him close and stroked his hair like he said he enjoys. It was almost hard for him to accept this from you; he’d spent years trying to approve others under threat of violence, and he’s rarely gotten to experience true generosity. 

He wears it at least once a week. It’s his absolute favorite article of clothing forever and ever. 

-- Jihyun: Filled Scrapbook -- 

For the holidays, Jihyun had given you a beautiful set of jewelry over dinner, along with a framed photo of yourself that he had taken some time before. He rarely decides to spoil you with his riches, but sometimes the occasion calls for it. 

How can you match up with his generosity? You knew Jihyun would be charmed with whatever you gave him, but you wanted your gift to mean something. 

Once your anniversary began to creep up, you had an idea and began working on your project two weeks in advance - it was going to be a beautiful scrapbook of not just Jihyun’s photos, but also little momentos and decorations on every page, detailing particular moments of your life together up to this point. 

You scoured his instagram, printing out copies onto photo paper and cutting and pasting. You folded within old plane, bus, and boat tickets. There were sightseeing brochures from trips abroad, old restaurant menus, stamps from envelopes he had sent you. You wrote messages and captions with multicolored ink. 

Extra special were the pages dedicated to when the two of you moved into the new apartment together, and when V was officially recovered from retina surgery, and also the first RFA party he co-hosted with you. Some pages touched on more sad subjects.

Finally, you finished the scrapbook just in time for the anniversary, and it was all worth it to see Jihyun completely blown away by the effort you put into it. He spent several minutes on every page, talking them over with you and reminiscing. 

He managed to hold in his tears until the last page, which you kept empty except for a calligraphy script that said, “... and into the beyond.”

[buncry9]

<h1>420 Louis Vuitton Handbags Concepts</h1>

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Armed with this recognition, Louis Vuitton founded his own firm in 1854 and opened his first store in Place Vendôme. The curved top trunks that had been used for hundreds of years have been unsuited to new practices and the stacking of bags, specifically. The ever creative Louis Vuitton created a flat high trunk which was more appropriate for the instances and whch was soon a resounding success. His new leather trunks accompanied an entire new generation of rich travellers, pushed by the expansion of empire, the development of buying and selling posts, commerce, the colonies and a curiosity for international lands. Click right here to explore Louis Vuitton purses out there now on Invaluable. Debuting in 1958, the Louis Vuitton Lockit bag was designed as a part of a group of lighter baggage. Named after the bag’s key feature, a leather-based patch with a padlock on the facet of the bag, it turned favored by the elite because of this ‘non pick lock’ design.

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Informal Purse Fashion College Leather-based Backpack Crossbady Shoulder Bag Mini Backpack For Ladies & Teenage Women Black Brown

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Buy, promote, or consign authentic, pre-owned accessories from luxury designer brands at Yoogi's Closet with free shipping & 30-day returns on each order. One of the oldest names in luxury, Louis Vuitton was based in 1854, in Paris. Louis Vuitton arrived in Paris on the age of 16 and took up an apprenticeship with a successful field-maker and packer. With this expertise Vuitton had turn into a malletier, a trunk and baggage maker, with a rising popularity amongst Paris’ modern and elite.

Louis Vuitton Fuchsia Epi Leather Petite Malle Bag

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Authentic Louis Vuitton Noe Pouch Monogram

By 2001, Stephen Sprouse, in collaboration with Marc Jacobs, designed limited-edition Louis Vuitton handbags that featured graffiti written over the monogram pattern. The graffiti read Louis Vuitton and, on sure luggage, the name of the bag . There have been manolo blahnik knockoffs , which featured the graffiti without the Monogram Canvas background, were solely available on Louis Vuitton's V.I.P. customer list. Marc Jacobs also created the charm bracelet, the primary ever piece of knickknack from LV, throughout the identical year. Today Louis Vuitton is among the world’s leading international fashion houses.

It started as a customized project requested by a widely known alcohol producer for a trendy bag to move 5 bottles of champagne. But after all, its popularity grew so profoundly that Louis Vuitton added it to their unique listing of home icons to be worn as an everyday bag.

[holdharmonysacred]

There’s another F/GO zine going on and this time it has a merch only pack, I need to remember to Save Cash Money to buy it so I can add even more horrible fairies to my ever-growing collection of Oberon keychains.

[jetsandbennie]

third time’s a charm.

summary: after dating ben for four months, you decide it’s time to get over one big milestone in your relationship - your first time.

warnings: loss of virginity, smut, unprotected sex, 18+ pleeease, female receiving oral, fluff

pairing: ben hardy x reader

also want to add that the reader in this story feels that losing her virginity is really important - for some of you guys, you might agree! if you see the concept of virginity as something extremely special for you, that’s wonderful. personally, i didn’t, and if you don’t that’s completely fine. never feel bad if you go through your teen years/early 20s still holding onto your v card. idk this didn’t really make sense. have fun with the story.

You’d almost lost your virginity three times, it should be said.

When you were 16, a junior, you were invited to prom by a senior boy - Marcus - and he was nice, and held your hand and complimented your dress and your makeup and did everything right. He danced with you, and he took pictures and introduced you to his friends. You were, after all, one of the few juniors there, and all of the others weren’t your friends at all. It was a bit lonely, especially when he walked outside for twenty minutes with some of his other friends to take a smoke break, and you sat down and drank your punch and waited for him to come back.

When he came back inside he smelled slightly of weed, and you didn’t quite enjoy the stench but hell, who were you to complain, you thought? Without Marcus, you’d have been sitting home, watching Fresh Prince reruns with a face mask on. And that didn’t seem that bad, really … but no. Prom was nice. Marcus was nice. And when he pulled you into an empty bathroom, far away from anyone else, with his mouth on your neck and his hands roaming your body, it really was nice.

You let him unzip your dress slightly and slid your arms out so he could grope at your breasts - he attached his mouth to one of your nipples and that did feel nice, your back arching into him, your hands going to his head.

But nice wasn’t wonderful. And when he started to unzip his dress pants you had to stop it, really. Would you want to lose your virginity in a bathroom the night of your prom, with someone you didn’t really know, someone you didn’t really want to be there with? No. You put your hands on his chest and told him to stop, kissing his cheek, and he was good about it. Flustered, but good. You zipped your dress back up and fixed yourself in the mirror, wiping lipstick stains off of your chin. The redness in your cheeks didn’t matter. Everyone was sweaty, anyway.

When you got to college the second time came, with a girl in your history of art class who had short black hair and a nose ring, and she was so spectacular that you thought you fell in love with her just upon being partnered up with her. Her name was Emma and she wrote her dorm and phone number on your notebook in swirly, cursive lettering that didn’t match her aesthetic at all. You plugged her number into your phone and sat on texting her for a week before doing it, and even then you were so beyond nervous but she was wonderful. Lovely and blunt, with such sharp opinions and a tongue she didn’t hold back, and upon the first week of hanging out with her you found yourself underneath her.

Her breath tasted like cherry, you noted, and her hair was much softer than you’d expected. Emma ran her hands up your shirt and then dragged one down, unbuttoning your jeans and sliding her hand into your underwear and - and it was moving so fast, faster than you were ready for, and you were fairly positive she didn’t think you were a virgin. And part of you didn’t want her to know, but another slightly stronger part of you thought it was important.

You barely knew her, you told yourself, as she took off your shirt and kissed down your chest. Shouldn’t your first time be with someone special? Shouldn’t you get to know her first before giving it to her?

When you stopped her Emma glanced up at you from where she sat, mouth just below your belly button, your jeans half pulled down your hips. In rushed, panicked words you explained it, how you hadn’t really done much before with anyone and you were nervous and you thought your first time shouldn’t be right now but you did like her, really you did, but could she go out with you first? Please? Maybe get to know each other more, get into the dating side of things? You did really like her, you explained, as she sat back on her heels, gazing down at your half nude figure on her bed.

I don’t do girlfriends, was what Emma said, and she picked your shirt off the ground and gave it to you. And you put it back on and pulled up your pants, and then you grabbed your stuff and left and when you got to class the next day she’d asked to change partners. And Professor Leuschner had agreed. And you never spoke to her again. (It was for the best. She was wonderful, but wonderful wasn’t perfect. You wanted it to be perfect.)

And the third time - was now. Your boyfriend on top of you, his lips trailing across the column of your throat, his hips rocking gently across yours.

But - earlier. Earlier. How you’d even gotten to this point in the first place.

Ben and you had been dating for four months, and to call it heaven was a criminal understatement. Really, you never knew being in a relationship, and especially one with an actor, could make you feel so good about yourself. But that was all Ben did, made you feel like you were on top of the world no matter what. And you always tried to return the favour - he always deserved it.

The pair of you went on dates, hung out most every night, texted all day every day. You met his friends and his coworkers, his parents, and visited him on set more times than you could count. When you were stressed from work, he’d stop at Panera Bread and bring you home your favourite meal. The time you’d ran a high fever, he hadn’t hesitated to call off from work and stay with you all day.

And, sure. You and Ben hadn’t tapped into the sexual side of your relationship but he never seemed to mind. Or, if he did, he never brought it up to you. You two kissed and had hot and heavy make out sessions all the time, but there always seemed to be a valid excuse not to take things further. Like, you had to go to work. Or your best friend called and needed you for an emergency. And sometimes Ben would groan, but it would quickly evolve into a laugh.

You’d been waiting for the right guy - but wasn’t Ben that guy? Couldn’t he be? He was so wonderful, really. You’d love to spend your life with him, to have him for the rest of your days. And if you were going to get the deflowering thing out of the way, you couldn’t envision a better person to do it with.

Marcus or Emma really didn’t compare. You were glad you hadn’t let it get to that point with them.

You and Ben really did hang out a lot. You had date nights frequently, once a week, at least. Typically you took turns planning - Ben loved taking you out to restaurants or museums, or even just a walk around the city. You liked a little bit of everything. Like tonight - your night to plan, and you’d ordered Japanese food for you and Ben and set up a collection of movies. All of his favourites that you knew of, and a few of your own. Hopefully you’d be able to get him to stay the night and … something would happen.

(You needed to get it out of the way, right? Shouldn’t you? It seemed like such a great time, with a great guy. You could tell him, maybe if your kisses got heated, and tell him to take it. Really, you’d been going out of your mind just thinking about it. Every time you two kissed you wanted to tell him, to take it further - but you never did. And you needed to.)

The doorbell rang as you finished perfecting the pile of movies on your coffee table in the centre of the living room. You stepped back, eyes scanning over your couch - you leaned in to fluff the pillows just a bit, then smoothed your hand over the fleece blanket covering the surface. Perfect. Then you turned and set off down the hall, unlocking the door and swinging it open.

And there - clutching two plastic bags, one with the logo of the Japanese place you’d ordered from printed on it - stood your blonde haired Adonis of a boyfriend, wearing a grin that only intensified as he laid eyes on you.

“Hey, love.” he spoke softly, and you wrapped your arms around his torso, feeling rather than hearing him laugh as he hugged you back as well as he could, a bag dangling from each arm. “I - I saw the delivery guy for Jasmine’s downstairs so I thought I may as well bring it up. Make it easier for you.” As Ben spoke he held up the bag in his left hand, then put it down and raised the bag in his right. “This is ice cream. Cookie dough for you, chocolate for me.”

“You didn’t have to get ice cream!” you laughed, grabbing the Japanese bag from him and setting off down the hall to the kitchen and dining room. Ben disappeared into your kitchen and you heard him open your freezer, placing the two ice cream containers in side before crumbling up the plastic bag and putting it into the recycling bin. “Really, I was going to get cookies, but …”

“But you didn’t,” finished Ben with a small smirk, reentering the dining room, and you shrugged. “So I had to pull through and supply the dessert. Which is the least I could do, of course. Quite a large movie collection, honestly.” He glanced towards the living room, eyeing the stack of movies set up for you to choose from.

“I got your favourites!” and you bounded off towards the films. “And some of mine. But you can take first pick, you know.” Ben sat on the couch, running his finger down the stack of DVDs, mouth moving without noise as he read through some of the titles.

You sat beside him, setting the Japanese food on the table, looking up at his face without him noticing. Really, he was so beautiful. Everytime you saw him - it felt like you loved him a bit more. There was no doubt in your mind he was the man you wanted to sleep with for the first time, or the rest of your life, truthfully. You wouldn’t complain about that for a moment.

“I’ve got it.” Ben placed his hand on the top of the stack, tugging out a DVD from the middle section with such intensity that it practically forced a grin on your face. “The Bronze. Have you seen it?”

You shook your head, grabbing the DVD from him and opening it to pop the disk in your DVD player. Really, you watched most of your films on Amazon, but for a date night you felt there was just something cuter about the old timey kind of vibe. “I got your sushi,” you explained, as he reached forward and opened the bag, setting out the numerous different containers. “And lo mein for me - “

“ - no chicken, right?”

You glanced up at your boyfriend with a small grin, grabbing the clear container containing your noodles and settling back onto the couch as Ben tore open his sushi box. You reached for the remote and turned the movie on, and as Ben sat back next to you and you curled into his side, you felt … safe.

The first part of the movie was - good. It opened with a masturbation scene and Ben laughed as you turned your head ever so slightly into his chest, forkful of noodles dangling in mid air. You felt … well. Awkward but really, wasn’t a scene like that just a lead up to the conversation you’d hopefully lead later?

Anyway, that didn’t last very long. And the rest of the movie was good. You finished your noodles in record time and took one of Ben’s sushi rolls, and he didn’t complain much, just gasped softly in mock offense. The pair of you continued the movie, you tugging the blanket up over yourself and him after a few minutes. It was quite funny, and you found yourself enjoying the way Ben laughed more than the actual movie.

And then …

The sex scene was intense. More intense than you’d expected and - quite funny, really, but it brought up the whole sex thing you needed to talk about with Ben. And you felt his eyes on you, as the scene wore on and Sebastian Stan and Melissa Rauch did somersaults across the room. Of course you’d never be having sex like that but - but it was awkward.

“Ben,” you began as the scene wore on and your palms began sweating more, the uncomfortable feeling of him watching you pointedly not look at him going on and on. “Ben, I need to tell you something.” and you reached for the remote and turned the whole goddamn movie off because Sebastian and Melissa were distracting you. And Ben raised an eyebrow but you ignored it. “It might be kind of weird, but I think it’s important for you to know, you know?” “Okay.”

Whew. You rubbed your palms against your thighs and hesitated before saying, “Okay. Well. You know we haven’t really - um - “ you nodded your head to the now-blank TV screen, and Ben’s eyebrows furrowed. “ - you know, that stuff, we haven’t done it before.”

“Gymnastics sex?” He sounded amused, but he turned to look at you, the smile on his face encouraging you to talk more.

“No.” you swallowed. “Any sex. Obviously. And I don’t want you to think I don’t - want to. Because I do.”

Ben was smiling more, eyes crinkled with it. You wished he wouldn’t, now. Now that you were getting more into it - it just made you nervous. “You want to?” he questioned, and then his hand went to your thigh and your brain felt like it was flatlining.

“Yeah. I do.” then Ben leaned in, his lips on yours, and you leaned into it despite the fact that you still had more you wanted to say, but God. He was intoxicating. You could hardly think.

He moved his other hand, pressed on your stomach, and laid you down on the couch. His body was on top of yours, and you hooked your leg around his waist to pull him closer to you, despite how your brain was yelling at you to stop, begging you to push him away and continue explaining, but then Ben kept kissing down your jaw and your throat and you didn’t really want to stop, not yet.

Ben moved his hand down your stomach, down into your pajama shorts, his palm hot against your skin. His fingertips brushed the top of your panties, and then he looked up from his spot suckling a hickey into your collarbone to question, “Do you want this?”

And it was the golden spot to tell him, wasn’t it? You placed your hand on his chest and he pulled his hand from your shorts and pulled himself slightly off of you. “Ben - I have to tell you something. I’ve never done this before. Any of it.”

You hadn’t exactly meant to blurt it all out, barely taking a breath between sentences but hell, maybe it was just good to get it all out.

He looked surprised. That was just the only way to describe it - his mouth fell open slightly and his eyebrows raised and your stomach flipped slightly.

“Really?”

You rolled your eyes at his response. “Um - no. No, I’m kidding. It’s the kind of thing I say to make myself seem cooler.” And then a beat. “I’m being serious. I’ve barely gone beyond kissing. But - I want to do it with you. Really.” You pushed yourself up so you were sitting, and Ben sat back on his heels but, admittedly, it was a bit hard on the couch. So he ended up half sitting on the couch, one leg extended down to the ground.

“Fuck. Darling. I’m sorry.” Ben leaned forward to grab your hand, and you appreciated it. “I shouldn’t - I’m sorry.”

You shook your head. “No. Don’t be. I want you, Ben. Okay?”

There was a moment of silence. Ben looked down at your intertwined hands and you moved your thumb to rub his, waiting for him to speak up again.

Finally he said, “You don’t have to. You know that? If you want to wait. I don’t mind.”

“No.” your voice was firm, and then you moved your unoccupied hand to stroke his cheek. “Ben. I want you. Please.” And then you moved your head back in and kissed him again, and his hand moved back to your waist to push you back down.

It felt right. It always felt right, with him. His lips on yours, and then they were moving down your chin and jawline, and down the column of your throat - it all felt so right.

You reached for the hem of your shirt and pulled it off, dropping it on the ground next to the couch. You’d forgone a bra - didn’t think you really needed one, and now you were thankful, watching Ben’s eyes widen as he took in the side of your chest. It was exhilarating.

Your back arched up as he leaned down, pressing kisses against your left breast before taking your nipple in his mouth, groping and massaging the other one. “Has anyone ever done this before?” he questioned, eyes flickering up at you, voice muffled against your skin. You nodded, mind filled with images of your school prom, of your date doing this to you in a bathroom.

Well, Ben was certainly better at it than Marcus was. Your hand went to his blonde locks as he moved his mouth to your other breast but - well. You wanted more.

You dragged your hands to the bottom of his shirt and pulled it off, forcing Ben to move off of you as you ripped the fabric over his head. Then you grabbed his face, pulling it back up to yours, kissing him with all of your might as his hands trailed down your side, fingers hooking in your shorts and tugging them ever so slightly down your thighs. You lifted your hips up and he pulled them off completely, leaving you in just your panties.

“Wait - “ you murmured as Ben slid off of you, resting on his knees on the ground and pulling you so that his body was positioned between your thighs. “You don’t have to do this. Ben.”

Ben drummed his fingertips along your knee. “I want to. Do you want me to?”

You thought for a moment and then nodded slowly. Ben worked on tugging your panties down as your mind flew into overdrive. No one had ever, ever done this to you before - Emma had, almost, but you had stopped her. And you’d always wondered how it would feel. Weird, maybe, but good, of course. Otherwise no one would -

Oh.

Ben brought his mouth to your core, pressing soft kisses across your dripping folds. The feeling was - unlike nothing you’d ever felt before, really. As soon as his lips pressed against your most sensitive area a jolt rang through your body, and your hand flew down to his hair, running your fingers through his locks (short, too short for grabbing onto like this) and tugging as he continued. Kisses grew deeper, and his hand went to your thigh, pulling it higher to give himself more room.

“No one’s ever done this before?” he questioned again, the muffled words against your pussy causing you to inhale sharply.

“N - not technically, no. But one - “ your head flew back, crashing against the soft couch cushion as Ben attached his lips to your clit, and you cried out, fingers tightening in his hair. Fuck. Nothing you’d ever done to yourself compared to this. Nothing. His fingernails dug into your thighs as he worked his mouth at your core, but just as the burning sensation started to settle in he smoothed his hands back over the half-crescent indents on your soft skin.

Ben pulled away, mouth already wet with your arousal. “You were saying?”

You shut your eyes. The absence of his lips on you was - startling. You missed it already. “A - a college friend of mine almost did. I stopped her.”

He murmured a soft ‘ahh’ before bringing his face back between your thighs, licking a wide stripe all the way up your slit before circling your overly-sensitive nub. Ben focused his attention back on it, drawing small shapes and letters into your clit, a smirk playing at his lips as you writhed beneath him. All too soon Ben had pulled away again but not far, and when he spoke his lips brushed against your folds. “Keep telling me about this girl. How far did she get?”

You ran your fingers along his hair, breathing heavy as he continued lapping at your pussy, slowing down ever so slightly so you could answer him. “Not far at all. Didn’t - didn’t really even get below the pants. Was just kissing my stomach - “ you ran your finger down your chest, stopping just between your belly button and where Ben’s head was situated. “And she put her hand down my panties but really didn’t go further than that.”

Your boyfriend brought his head up, kissing where your finger sat on your skin, before using his tongue to drag a stripe back down to your clit. “Can you come for me, love? Need to hear you.”

You didn’t have to answer as he wrapped his lips around your clit and sucked, because your orgasm was washing over you and you hadn’t even noticed how bloody close you were, how fast he was getting you there. The one thigh that wasn’t being supported by his hand closed around his ear as you cried out, desperately grinding against his face as you rode out the rest of your climax, chest heaving violently.

Ben ran his tongue along your slit a few more times before you jolted away, sensitive after the first orgasm you’d ever had at someone else’s hands, and then he pushed himself up so he was standing, leaning over you, lips crashing back against yours. And it was extraordinary, really, the mix of his familiar taste and this new one, you, the thing you’d never tasted before.

A rather good mix, you had to say.

“Ben.” you grabbed his face, breathing rapidly still, words slurring as though you were tipsy. “That was amazing. Holy shit.”

He brought his hand back down to your pussy and gently ran a finger along your folds, delighting in how you jumped at his touch. “Darling - “

“Ben, I need you in me.”

“Are you sure?”

And you were nodding frantically, and Ben’s eyes stayed on yours for a few moments before he was lying you back down on the couch, reaching for the zipper of his jeans and releasing his member from its confinements and -

Well.

You didn’t think for a bloody minute that he would fit inside of you.

Ben climbed back over you, jeans half pulled down his thighs, and he grabbed your hand in his, running a thumb over your smooth skin. “You need to tell me if it hurts.”

“Will it?”

He smiled slightly and then leaned in to kiss you, soft and light. “Probably.”

At least he was honest.

Ben aligned himself at your entrance, and you felt as though your heart would beat out of your chest. It had all lead up to this, hadn’t it? Marcus and Emma, and turning people down at parties, and keeping your sexual life limited to your fingers. It had happened like that so this could happen so perfectly.

But when he began to push himself in - just the tip at first - it didn’t feel very perfect.

“Oh, shit.” you cried out, and Ben stopped, breathing shallow. He cursed and dropped his head to your shoulder, and you wrapped your arms around his back, keeping him pressed close to you.

“D’you want me to stop?”

Your mind was screaming to say no but the burn you were feeling was saying otherwise, and you contemplated briefly. A small, raging debate in your mind, if the pain was worth the pleasure you’d receive.

“No. No.” you hissed out, and then you hit his back lightly. “Just - just do it all at once. Okay?”

He averted his eyes to you and then nodded, and he sheathed himself completely inside of you and ohshitohshitohshit.

God. God, god, god. That did hurt like a motherfucker, the intense intrusion of such a foreign object, the stretch of your cunt around him. Ben cried out himself, his breathing now much heavier.

“Fuck. Fuck, oh God. Wait. Ben. Don’t move.”

“Tell me when, love - so bloody tight - “

You brought your leg up to wrap around his waist, breasts heaving, but the pain was - considerably lowering. It wasn’t exactly pleasing yet but getting there, and you took a few deep inhales and exhales before smacking his back again. “Go. Slow.”

Ben pulled himself out before slowly pushing back in, and judging by his shaking muscles you could tell the pace was agonizingly slow for him. Every push sent a different wave tunneling through your body - each thrust was less pain, more pleasure, as you grew a bit more accustomed to stretching around him. After a few moments you begged him to go faster, just a bit, and he did, and bloody fuck you knew why people loved to do this.

After a minute or so you kept telling him to go faster, and you could tell he was appreciating the faster pace and so were you - every time he thrusted into you it felt like he hit a new spot and the pleasure was overwhelming. God, your fingers had never made you feel so good! Ben pulled out and pushed back into you, just on the verge of what could be considered fast but not quite there.

“God, Ben, that feels so fucking good, oh my god, oh my god,” you cried out, his name like a mantra on your lips as you pressed one palm against his sweaty back, feeling the taut muscles under your hand. “Oh fuck, babe …”

He grunted into your ear with every thrust, lowering his head at one point to capture one of your nipples in his mouth and your back arched up, pushing your chest further into his lips, and you could feel the workings of your climax deep in your insides. Ben’s mouth moved against your skin, moaning out fragments of sentences, some you could barely make out - “so fucking tight, feel so fucking good on my cock, baby, squeezing so fucking tight - “

Ben snaked one hand down between your sweaty bodies, his fingertips brushing over the spot where your bodies met, over and over, the pads of his fingers landing on your sensitive clit. You sobbed out as he pressed down, rubbing furious circles into the nub, thriving on how you tightened around him, your second orgasm overtaking you as you came around his dick, moaning loudly with no regard to your neighbors, who surely, by now, knew the name of the man doing this to you.

“Ben, fuck! B - Ben …” his fingers kept working at your clit as you reached the end of your climax, arms loosening around him, and he kept thrusting for a minute or two before pulling out abruptly, his hand moving up and down his cock rapidly - you brought your hand down, fingers helping him with his task, before he leaned forward, bracing one hand on the arm of the couch beside your head, ribbons of cum spurting onto your lower stomach.

“Fuck!” Your boyfriend milked out his orgasm and collapsed on top of you, sweat covered bodies sticking together, your breaths heavy and hearts full. You brought your hand up to run through his hair again, fingers combing through the knotted locks.

There was silence for a moment, and then you laughed to yourself. “Bloody hell. In terms of first times, I have to say, mine was probably the best of the best.”

Ben rested his chin against your chest, staring up at you with a mischievous glint in his eye, a grin dancing at his lips. “Doesn’t have to be in the past tense, darling. I could do this all night.”

You shrugged your shoulders, smiling right back at him. “I’m glad. There’s still so much I haven’t done. Surely you can help me with that.”

“I’d be honored.”

[comicteaparty]

January 15th-January 21st, 2020 Reader Favorites Archive

The archive for the Reader Favorites chat that occurred from January 15th, 2020 to January 21st, 2020.  The chat focused on the following question:

What sort of merchandise are you most likely to buy for webcomics you read and why?

carcarchu

does a physical copy of the book count as merch? nothing compares to the feel of a real book in your hands and watching my collection grow is so satisfying. i like having a tangible way to show my support. after that is small prints. i rarely see acrylic charms of webcomic characters but those are nice too

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I know I'm particularly weak for enamel pins - which happen to be the first major merch I made for my first time tabling at a con. They're definitely the most common thing for me to consider purchasing from others. I also like small prints and stickers! And if a particularly cute character is somehow made into a plush... I'd be all over that, too.

Cronaj

For me, I love physical comics. So if a webcomic creator made a physical print version of their comic, that would be the best way to entice me to buy something. Comics almost always look better on paper in my opinion, and I'm a weirdo when it comes to book smell I sniff new books like an absolute degenerate. The other thing I would buy is art prints or art books. I have a huuuuge collection of art prints from creators I admire. So keep 'em comin'! I mean, I'll buy any merch that calls to me, but usually if I can't put it on a shelf, hang it on the wall, or wear it, I probably have no use for it.

Capitania do Azar

I'm a big fan of physical copies and charms of all kinds! I also appreciate stickers and small prints (big prints are nice, but take up a lot of space). Zines with side stories or related/concept art are also a good choice

keii4ii

Storage is a big issue for me, so I tend to not buy physical books unless like... it's a comic I would love to read but can't do so online easily (e.g. if the website doesn't function properly on my computer) I really like prints that have qualities/features that can't be replicated digitally -- e.g. foil, holo coating, VERY special paper texture, etc. (I've even seen one artist offer lenticular prints which I thought was awesome -- just wasn't into the characters that were on the art) Small to medium sized prints are fairly easy to store, so that's also a big plus for me! Also, clear plastic folders? I've never bought them admittedly, but those can look SO nice with the right type of art (some artworks look so special when printed on that clear material). I wish more people offered them so I could actually buy these, but I understand they can be costly to print.

Tired Programmer

I would buy physical copies as well. About the storage issue... Well, when I understand, that there are too many of them for my humble bookcase, I just sell or give old ones away. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ And also stickers. Stickers rock. (edited)

SAWHAND

I agree! If I really like the comic I like to have a physical copy! It feels special since I think a lot of times they're limited printing. I also really like stickers since they can just get put on something I already have and thus not take up extra space. I generally don't get prints because wall space is at a premium and I feel silly not having them hung up, but that's just a personal preference. Other than that it would have to be something really cool or something with function, like a notebook or...I don't know, an apron, or maaaybe a t-shirt.

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Printed comics are definitely my go to fav especially if it's a webcomic I've been really wanting to read but haven't had the time to do it online. Sitting down with a book is a lot easier for me that sitting with my phone or pulling my laptop out. I do also like stickers a lot. I've really gotten into covering the inside covers of my sketchbooks with them the last few years X)

kayotics

I usually go for printed books, pins, or plushies. If there’s a Kickstarter happening I’ll usually splurge for a pin tier if it exists. I don’t use stickers that much but I know a lot of people love them? But it’s not my thing.(edited)

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Usually printed books and phone charms. I will always buy webcomics that go to print and I collect charms. Other things like stickers and pins are nice, but often too pricey. I will go for them when they're bundled into KS tiers with printed books, though.

varethane

Printed books for me! Sometimes stickers, and sometimes enamel pina

Pins

I dont tend to get prints because I wont really do anything with them

(But my prints tend to sell decently, so there is a market for them out there...)

keii4ii

I just like collecting prints! I don't even put them on my wall, I just stick them in a binder kind of like my own custom-curated artbook

I really like seeing the combination of certain artworks and certain paper textures!

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

omg Kei...why have I not thought of that ?? I will now do that for all the print i've collected gosh!! and I agree with Vare, books are top tier merch I go for (zines included) Prints are a second for me, with charms and pins being the thing i least go for bc of space (though I am seeing pin boards come into fashion and I'm def into doing that as well!)

mariah (rainy day dreams)

I do really love pins too, I'm just really bad at remembering to wear them. I probably should get myself one of those clear back packs con goers wear.

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

oh yes ita bags!

varethane

The problem with me wearing pins is that I normally bike everywhere, while wearing a backpack

So if I put them on a jacket, the straps of the bag will rub on most of the good pin locations

And if they fall off while I'm riding my bike they are lost forever

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I tried putting pins on my backpack for a while.... only to come home and realise they fell off at some point during the day.

varethane

Yeah :(

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Ita bag! Yes! Lol I'm always super scared that my pins will just break and I'll loose them X') so when I do remember to wear one I'm constantly checking to make sure it's still on me

varethane

I have one jacket that I've been putting most of my pins on, which I wear to conventions

And it did pretty well except my rice boy pin fell off somewhere in the Seattle airport and is now lost forever :(

Betrayal......

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

i have def...super glued pins to my backpack before and the rubber backings are so bad for pins too bc they never hold

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Oh, patches are another thing, like pins, that I love but usually have to stop myself from getting. I need to find a good patch jacket, because I really love a patch. I've been wanting to make one for my own comic merch for a while too.

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

ohhh yes same-- i stll have patches that i havent done anything yet with bc i haven't found The Right Jacket

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Same TuT

Eightfish

I've got the Property of Hate tarot postcards up on my wall right now. Also partial to a good enamel pin. What I'd love to see in merch is a well designed, stylish shirt, but haven't really found that so far. I find webcomic shirts tend to be too detailed and illustration-y to look good as shirts, and would prefer something more graphic.

Q @CecilieQMT making WAYFINDERS

I'd love to design shirts! Just haven't figured out how to get them printed properly... ^^'

RebelVampire

For me, it's digital copies. So PDFs and eBooks. Unlike many people here, I can't stand print copies for a myriad of reasons. XD But digital copies I can get behind cause it supports the artist, has some nice bonus stuff sometimes, and generally collects everything nicely so some website hiccups aren't a problem. While this has never come up because it's rare, I would also buy plushies. Cause one can never have enough plushies. But alas, I don't think the market is there for that XD

kayotics

Plushies are just really hard to produce and store, same with T-shirts

Well, T-shirts aren’t that hard to produce, but they’re hard to store and keep a good amount of sizes

Mei

I tend to buy books/physical copies of webcomics I like! I really enjoy the physical reading experience! I also really like buying enamel or non-enamel pins. I enjoy collecting them, but going off what people have already said, I also have an innate fear of losing them :(

AntiBunny

If it has a cute character, and the price is in my budget, plushies are awesome. Unfortunately that's a difficult one to do, because small batches of plush that are build by hand are going to be expensive, and a comic has to be very popular to warrant more economical large runs. And I'll also say physical books.

Mei

plushies ARE awesome

I got the coyote plushie from Tom, the guy who does Gunnerkrigg Court

I just really love it

and also I couldn't decide which of the MANY volumes of comics to buy

(i didn't and still don't have space to stock up on a lot of books so I must be prudent sometimes)

((but my bed always has space for plushies))

[nachtgraves]

kuzuhina with 11 or 50?

ty for the prompt(s)! I kind combined ‘em :D

Title: Hinata-Sensei’s Got a Secret // AO3Word Count: 2,125Warnings/Tags: G. Alternate universe, established relationship, kindergarten teacher hajime, unspecified businessman fuyuhiko, surprise your boyfriend at work dayPrompts: kiss out of love/happiness

It’s not often that Fuyuhiko visits Hinata at work. Mostly it’s because he’s been mistaken as a student far too many times and he’s not exactly the biggest fan of children. If he does show his face, it’s at the end of the day to pick Hajime up. But sometimes Hajime forgets things at home, like his bento or his rarely used reading glasses, even his lesson plans on the rare occasion. And sometimes Fuyuhiko’s been away for business and he’s going through boyfriend withdrawals.

So he’s not there often, but he’s been around enough that Hajime’s coworkers know him by name. As do his students.

“Hinata-sensei! Hinata-sensei! Ryu-san is here!”

The five-year-olds who only care about the second half of his family name notice him before their teacher does. But Fuyuhiko gives his boyfriend a pass since he’s busy sorting out some sort of situation between two boys who haven’t learned how to share yet. He’s bent over, hands on his knees and back to the door, and Fuyuhiko can’t help but run his gaze under the tie of Hajime’s apron. He’s missed his boyfriend, sue him.

The other children bombard the door and Fuyuhiko steps inside before they can break it down and escape. He’s interrupted arts and crafts time judging by the desks covered in glue and colored paper and glitter. A million questions are thrown at him ranging from what he’s doing here to how his trip was, what’s in the bag, and did he ‘take care’ of anyone.

“Hinata-sensei told you I was out of town, huh?” Fuyuhiko says before answering the questions he catch down the line: visiting Hinata-sensei, good, lunch, and no I’m a business man where did you learn things like that?

With his short, uninteresting answers, most of the kids leave him for their craft projects. By then Hajime’s settled the feuding boys and comes to the door, brushing his hands against his light green apron decorated with white bunnies and warm yellow suns. “I thought you weren’t going to be back until Saturday.”

“Finished up earlier than planned and I took the next train in.” He was supposed to be gone for two and a half weeks. Hajime doesn’t need to know that he rushed through everything and didn’t sleep for two days to complete almost four days’ worth of work. He slept during the train ride.

“Did you come straight here from the station?” Hajime worries. It’s a bit more concern than Fuyuhiko thinks is really needed but maybe the train nap wasn’t enough. His suit is a bit rumpled.

“Had someone take my travel bag to the office and went to a konbini first, I haven’t eaten lunch. Thought we could go home together when you’re done?”

Hajime looks down at the plastic bag in Fuyuhiko’s hands and his shoulders relax in relief. Odd. “Yeah, if you don’t mind waiting.”

Before Fuyuhiko can question Hajime’s strange reactions, they’re interrupted by one of the kids, a nosy little girl with pigtails that crack like a whip from her energetic and exaggerated movements. She pokes around and tries to look into Fuyuhiko’s shopping bag. “What did you bring?”

“Secret,” Fuyuhiko says, quickly lifting the bag away. He doesn’t want to get Hajime in trouble by explaining condoms to his kids. There’s no way Hajime would let him use them when they got home.

The kid pouts but brightens up and smugly raises her chin, running behind Hajime’s legs. “Well, I have a secret, too! Hinata-sensei told it to us and you’re not allowed to know.”

“Oh really? And what am I not allowed to know?” Fuyuhiko teases, looking up at Hajime. He doesn’t think it’s anything big, but Hajime looks panicked, eye wide and smile strained enough it’s a flat-lined grimace more than anything else. It only grows more trained whe, at the loud talk of juicy secrets, the other kids gather around like ants.

“Hinata-sensei’s secret is a big one!” one of them gloats.

“Yup, we’re not supposed to say anything to Ryu-san,” says another.

Hajime claps his hands together, cutting anyone else off. “Okay, everyone. We’ve still got some time before the end of the day. And we still have to clean up so if you want to finish you better get a move on.”

There’s a loud groan but the kids totter back to their tables of glue sticks and glitter and googly eyes. It’s going to be a nightmare to clean up. Hajime turns to Fuyuhiko, seems to hesitate, but steps close and lightly grabs Fuyuhiko’s wrist. His thumb rubs against the soft, sensitive underside, as close to PDA as he’ll allow himself at work. It’s an innocent gesture but Fuyuhiko’s heart ticks, heat pooling low in his stomach and coloring his cheeks. Hajime tends to tease him there with soft kisses and gentle nibbles and maybe he should have just waited for Hajime at home.

“I…give me a minute?” Hajime asks, voice quiet and soft.

Fuyuhiko wants to lean up and close to the distance to get the kiss he’s been missing but settles for twisting his wrist in Hajime’s loosely linking their fingers. “I’m going to sit at your desk and eat my lunch. You handle the brats. Pretend I’m not even here.”

When he moves to do as he said, he faintly hears Hajime mutter, “That’s impossible.” He doesn’t turn around to check, but he’s sure Hajime’s smiling like a sap.

Fuyuhiko settles himself at Hajime’s desk and gets busy with his food. He’d bought a small karage bento, a bag of karinto, and a bottle of sweet tea. He sets to work on the bento first, all but shoveling rice and fried chicken into his mouth.

Fuyuhiko enjoys watching Hajime work. It’s a different side to him but it’s not surprising. He’s got a calming temperament and he likes kids, and as far as Fuyuhiko’s seen, kids and small animals tend to like Hajime too.

The tables are arranged so Hajime can stand in the center and supervise all the children, easily seeing if anyone is struggling or calling for help. He helps one kid cut hearts, praises another for their arrangement of stickers, and writes the characters for words they don’t know to copy with crayon and markers. One kid’s making a birthday card for their older sibling. She wants to put actual candles on the card, light them up, but Hajime convinces her to just draw them instead.

So Fuyuhiko just observes and before he knows it, the bento’s cleaned out and he moves onto the karinto. He eats those just as quickly, regretting buying the smaller bag but knowing it’s for the best. But now his hands are a bit sticky and he doesn’t have any napkins. Luckily, his boyfriend is a kindergarten teacher, the stickiest class to teach, and Fuyuhiko knows Hajime always has a packet of tissues somewhere.

He’d ask Hajime, but his boyfriend is busy listening to a kid explain the story of his project, so Fuyuhiko goes through Hajime’s desk drawers. The first one he opens is full of stickers ranging from the thick foam ones to the usual flat and sparkly, rolls of washi-tape, sticky note pads, and colorful pens and markers. The second one he opens is all paperwork and forms and Hajime’s glasses case. Hoping third time’s the charm, Fuyuhiko pulls open the next drawer and finds Hajime’s personal office supplies and, finally, his collection of pocket tissues, a whole six pack with a cute farm animal print. He goes to rip the packaging and steal one of the packets to use, but as he moves the pack, Fuyuhiko spies a flash of black tucked towards the back. Curious and feeling snoopy, Fuyuhiko digs out the item, his fingers wrap around a palm-sized box made with a sturdy velvet casing. When he pulls it out, his heart pounds against his chest and his breath gets stuck in this throat.

He’s caught between wanting to open it and stuffing it back in the drawer, pretend he didn’t see it because now was not the time. But he’s frozen in place, holding the ring box. He only moves when a child yells, “Hinata-sensei’s secret!”

“Miyo-chan, what are you…”

Fuyuhiko looks up as Hajime’s voice trails off. His face is pale and he’s staring at the box in Fuyuhiko’s hand.

“I was looking for tissues,” Fuyuhiko says in a daze, automatically. He’s not defensive, he found the box by accident and if it’s what he thinks it is, he might faint right then and there. But he’s not the fainting type so he’s just frozen, stuck in the calm before a reaction he’s still trying to figure out.

Hajime’s flustered. His skin is pale and his eyes wide. Fuyuhiko still hasn’t figured out what reaction he’s falling into but the need to know is overwhelming and he opens the box. Inside is a ring, a silver piece, two threads of metal woven together, one engraved with a reptile-like scale pattern and tiny gold gems spaced out along the waves.

“Fuyuhiko,” Hajime stutters. “I, uh, I can explain.”

But Fuyuhiko doesn’t want an explanation. He’s moving before he can think things through, striding the short distance from Hajime’s desk to Hajime himself. Everything around Fuyuhiko fades into nothingness, there is nothing except the ring box in his hand and Hajime frozen like a deer in the headlights.

And it’s quite convenient because Fuyuhiko can throw his arms around Hajime’s neck, tugging him down for a kiss because that’s all that’s on his mind. He’s smiling, beaming ridiculously he can’t even properly kiss his boyfriend, his soon-to-be fiancé. Questios run through his mind in the background, how long has Hajime had the ring, when was he going to ask, is it the kind of ring Fuyuhiko thinks it is, and more, but he’s too busy being happy.

Hajime kisses him back once he shakes himself of his shock and his arms go around Fuyuhiko’s waist, squeezing him into a hug, lifting Fuyuhiko to his toes and almost off the ground.

“So you’re not mad?” Hajime breathes when the kiss ends.

Fuyuhiko tugs at Hajime’s hair sharply. “Stupid question.” He pulls away, letting Hajime straighten his back. Hajime keeps his hands at Fuyuhiko’s waist. Fuyuhiko holds the ring box between them.

“There are worse hiding places,” Fuyuhiko comments with a laugh.

Hajime huffs. “I was paranoid about losing it, or you finding it somewhere at home.”

“So you stuffed it with pens and pocket tissues.”

“Shut up. I didn’t think you’d be digging through my drawers at work. I was planning this whole thing for when you got back this weekend. And now you’ve got karinto crumbs and syrup all over the box.” Hajime’s smiling, if a touch ruefully.

“I’ll get karinto crumbs and syrup all over the ring when it’s on my finger,” Fuyuhiko retorts. He’s not really thinking and his words register only after they’re out of his mouth.

Hajime’s looking down at him like he’s something amazing, lips parted and curved in a soft smile. He removes one hand from Fuyuhiko’s waist and lays it over Fuyuhiko’s hands, encasing the ring box. “So, can I take that as your answer?”

“Oh no, you’re not getting out of it. Ask me properly, dumbass.”

For a second Fuyuhiko thinks Hajime is going to do just that, get on his knee and propose right then and there. Or he’s going to kiss Fuyuhiko and Fuyuhiko is fine with either scenario.

But reality makes its appearance in the accusing cry of a five year old. “Ryu-san said a bad word!”

Around them, Fuyuhiko observes all the children just watching the two of them. They quickly separate and in their rush drop the ring box. Hajime scrambles to catch it and holds it close. He’s bright red and Fuyuhiko knows he’s of a similar shade himself, probably radiating heat from his embarrassed flush. Hajime clears his throat and Fuyuhiko runs a hand through his hair.

The kids are grinning at them, erupting in chatter about Hajime and Fuyuhiko’s wedding, what the two are going to wear, about Fuyuhiko finding out Hinata-sensei’s big secret, and Fuyuhiko calling their beloved sensei a dumbass.

The day’s almost over and Hajime has a classroom of kindergarteners to get a hold of. He claps his hands in a simple rhythm, and as if entranced the kids echo is back and fall silent, staring up at Hajime and Fuyuhiko with wide, expectant eyes.

“Uh, um,” Hajime stumbles. “It’s almost time to go home so let’s start cleaning up. And, uh, how about we keep this,” he glances to Fuyuhiko, biting his bottom lip as he smiles, “a secret?”

[customboxprinting]

11 ways to reuse corrugated boxes

In recent times, there are various ways introduced to perform a task. Similarly, people have found innovative ways and repurpose the use of corrugated cartons. More than 90% of goods are transported in cardboard and corrugated material cartons every year in the United States of America. This trend will increase in the next few years, because of avoiding plastic packaging. Is there any way to reuse these cartons at some better place or just fill the bins every day? Yes, recycling is an opportunity, still, there are innovative ways to use them. In this post, 11 methods are described that avoid the filling of bins. The fundamental advantage of the cardboard is its flexibility. It could be;

Easily bent

Foldable

Can be cut in the desired shape

Can be tape

Can be paint

Can be labeled

In toxic material

Good for storage

Can be glued

Inexpensive solution

Create a creative playhouse

Kids love the play with dollhouses, train tracks, and prince’s palaces. Fortunately, all these are made up of cardboard. This innovation comes in mind when the used corrugated sheets are available. Few utensils are required for this; scissor, tape, cutter, ruler, diagrams, staplers, pins, ribbons, and tapes. By sketching them on the board, proper cutting and joining end to end sheets can stand large-sized houses for the kids. For rigidity, use double-wall by gluing them and make them stable for a long period. In this way, you will get charming playhouses.

Use them for future storage

Custom printed corrugated boxes, can be used for storage purposes. These are paper made lightweight cartons used for traveling, storage, warehousing, stocking, and transportation. Such containers will help you in storing any kind of domestic product, and this will save the cost of the storage. In the case at hand, the storage will be feasible even when you will switch your town.  

Check the leaks

Checking of leaks will be easy now! What do you need? You will have to cut down a piece of sheet and place under the leakage. This will show you leakage of oil, paint and any other liquid. This would be the best use for the used cardboard pieces. Usually, it is difficult to find a leakage but this technique will help you.

For planting

For environment lovers, the plantation hobbyists the collection of pots and pans for the flowers is a costly solution. Proper reuse of corrugated boxes will manage stylish, decorated and up to the mark pots for your flowers. Such posts will be inexpensive, strong and robust. Even new plants and seeds are also being seeded in them.

Create crafts

Creating innovative crafts trough wood was in trend, but the use of used Eco-friendly material is enhanced. In the future, the creation of crafts will be only done by the cardboard material. A large number of crafts will be formed through them. The main reason behind this will be the best use of sheets as per the required shape and style.

Repairing purpose

Used corrugated sheets are also used for the repairing of the surface. Mostly damaged surfaces, rough structures, and roof leakages are covered by them. For the repairing, the large-sized sheets are required. Used cartons provide the basis for this, small pieces when makes join together and placed on the whole roofs make large size sheets. Such sheets are the best use for the protection of roofs.

Toys for the pet

Alike humans, pets also need protection and safety. Cats, dogs, puppies and snake’s houses are built by use sheets of the corrugated material. In addition to this, playing toys for them, balance stands, huts in the winter season, jumping stands and window houses for the practice are made by used material of cartons. This will continuously use for this purpose because of inexpensive material.

Creation of tags

Tags are used in books, and also used for the hanging purpose. By cutting sheets into the desired shape, tags are produced. A small hole in the top of the tag is punched and a thread is placed inside it. The purpose of the thread to hang the tag easily, make it prominent and look appealing. Tags can be cut in the desired shape, sized and style. So, this will be the best source of tags in the future.

Files and folders

Folders for the storage of domestic files, important documents and notes are being made by the use of used material of boxes. By cutting in the desired size, crease from the center and folding through this crease shape folder. Ribbons, tapes and glued panels inside make a complete folder out of a corrugated box.

Create decorations

Decoration pieces like frames, pots, wall clocks, toys, circles, lamps, and other expensive designs could be yield through corrugated sheets.

Wall decoration and art

In addition to the above-mentioned points, wall decoration pieces, patterns, motives, and other aesthetically made decorations will be produced if the sheet is cut and manage carefully.

Gift wrapping

The most paramount reuse of the corrugation material is the packaging of the gift. Either it is a birthday party, friend gift, carnival, corporate gift, celebration or parent gift; you can pack easily in a used box. What do you need? Jut wrapping paper and tape. By doing at home you can save the money and pack the gift within no time. Add to this, embellished items, ribbons, buttons, glitters, and tapes are also being applied for the packaging of the gifts.  

Picture frames

In addition to the wall frames production, the simple picture frames will also be produced by the use boxes. You can obtain the desired sizes, style and shape for the picture frame. Herat shape, square, circular shapes would be easier to obtain.

The list of creative activities that could be done by the corrugated material is limitless. But only a few have been discussed, by doing so we will save money in many usual activities and invest our time in innovative and creative ways. Such creative activities are always in favor of the kid’s mental health preparation.

Packaging Bee is reliable in developing a continuous relationship with the customers. Give them a chance to fulfill your business and personal needs by placing your order with Packagingbee.com.

[lastchancevillagegreen]

Brought home from Exile, Thursday 6 August 2021:

Carnage Nick Cave and Warren Ellis (Goliath Records)

My last trip to Exile, 23 July, saw me pick up some Record Store Day finds I didn’t anticipate seeing.  I knew there were a lot of things in stock that I wanted, so I had a box of trade out in the car in case they were interested.  unfortunately the manager, Jeff, wasn’t in and I wasn’t going to mess with the manager of the used clothing shop that also is housed in the same space as Exile (it’s an odd arrangement).  I assumed she wasn’t going to mess with trade for the record store portion of the shop. 

Today I blew off the other RSD items I chase (Lou Reed remains in stock and I’d imagine that lonely copy of Magic & Loss will sit there until I’m ready to buy it) and picked up the newest Nick Cave album.  This isn’t a full band album, obviously, since it is credited to both Cave and Warren Ellis, who it seems Cave cannot work without. 

I’ve yet to hear this album and I’m quite anxious as it contains lyrics (according to the credits).  I’ve seen endless praise for the title track on Cave’s Red Hand Files but then of course he is going to promote his latest release through that avenue. 

I’m not keen on the cover because the fad of printing words in this fashion was exhausting (and not very cool) when it began.  I can think of three instances where this style has been used: Criterion’s mega Ingmar Bergman box, Lambchop’s This (Is What I Wanted To Tell You) and now the new Nick Cave.  I know there are novels that do this now and I’ve seen artwork that incorporates it.  Fashionable art is not something I think of when I think of great artists like Nick Cave and Lambchop and the fact that they are doing this points (in my mind) to their being long in tooth, if you will.  Once they credited the trends and now suddenly they are following them. 

The first two photos you see are of the album cover (since it is in plastic, I’ve taken it at an angle so you do not see my charming reflection) and the back of the cover. That cover, by the way, is embossed.  The third photo is of the front of the inner sleeve.  The back of that sleeve is all white and I didn’t bother photographing it. The fourth photo is of the front of the lyric booklet.  It is the size of the album jacket, so this isn’t a CD booklet placed inside an album as so many companies do.  The final two are scans of the A-Side and B-Side of the label. 

I wasn’t sure what Goliath was and I couldn’t determine why this wouldn’t be on the Bad Seeds, Ltd label.  It seems Goliath Enterprises is the creation of Cave and Ellis (a management/label name) and it is the first time they have used this label on their records.  So, why isn’t it on Bad Seeds, Ltd?  Because it isn’t, I suppose. 

(And this is certainly the first Cave/ Ellis album that has been immensely playable.  It’s not at all like their normal ambient/ instrumental albums and soundtracks.  Why it isn’t a Bad Seeds record (especially when it sounds like more of a band than Ghosteen did), I’m guessing because the pandemic kept it from being.