First and formost! HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY SHANNEN! *yodels* (your card is on the way!) and HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO

laria_gwyn! *smooches you both*

Today is one of those day that make me wish I were a violent person or at least a more selfish one. Since I hate hate hate feeling like that, let's have a post full of happy things!

Let's start with how awesome people in fandom can be! I'm sure all of you have heard about the earthquake in Christchurch. Well, someone organized a fandom auction to help those people get back on their feet:

help_nz
Go check it out and offer, bid or even just boost the signal :) My thread is here, btw.

Another thing that is very awesome? This Sherlock fanart by

squashbee! I love every single thing about it! EVERY SINGLE THING! And you should check it out and tell her how charmed you are by it!

More happy-making things!
• this IBB fanart by

essouffle is so beautiful, you guys! I love the style and the colours and the texture!
• Panic! boys being ridiculous and UNF! How are they so ridiculous and also UNF at the same time? How?
• Being spammed on twitter with beautiful pictures(&

saba1789;)
• Being tweeted a story about Steve and Danny going to a tattoo parlour ♥
• All the art for

i_reversebang. I keep going back to the claiming post to fill my eyes with all the pretty <333

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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♥!

all those pretty pictures *___________________*

i hope youre feeling better bb *hugs*

So freaking pretty omg! <333

Much, much better *hugs*

*smooches and hugs you* Aw, sweetheart, thank you! :)

I hope your day is going better, bb. ♥

*twirls you* You're welcome bb :D

Today is way, way better <333

♥♥♥♥♥

Damn comment length limits. *shakes fist*

The first one was an impulse. He was barely eighteen and mostly on his own and six weeks from sailing away from everything he'd ever known. He'd seen his mother's funeral, but not his high school graduation. His little sister was a faded photograph in his memory, creases where all her annoying habits used to be, laughter softened by distance and time. And his father's voice was always there, deep and rough in the back of his mind, guiding.

It's faded now by years of sun and saltwater. Nothing can really stand up to treatment as rough as the life of Steve McGarrett requires. It started out vibrant, a splash of green down his shoulder, delicate and detailed vines that curved and tangled. He'd been alone when he'd gotten it done, late at night because he couldn't sleep with everything that loomed in front of and behind him.

On his bicep her eyes were covered, because he didn't want his to be.

His arm ached when it was over, felt heavier than it ever had, a throb that he couldn't do anything but breathe through. It was like running too hard or swimming too long, a kind of ache that went deep, made him feel alive and reckless and victorious. He paused whenever he pulled his shirt on or off for a week, the splash of color in his peripheral a brand new rude awakening every time. He studied, and trained, and slept through the night, his eyes on the horizon waiting for him.

The second was years later, when he was still too young to be making decisions that lasted forever. He was unsteady on dry land the way he never was at sea, like his legs weren't meant for something solid anymore. He had two fractured ribs, and a head that was swimming any time he wasn't. He was in a country that spoke a language he didn't, fast and bright and loud the way things couldn't be where he'd been and where he was going.

Steve had a bar fight whim and the surety that he would lose. It was a swell of anger, his tongue thick with frustration and his steps unstable. He wanted to do something he couldn't take back. He stumbled when he walked in the door. He picked something with a borrowed legend, something with myth and meaning that was told to him in a slow, steady tone over the buzz and sting of the needles. He didn't need to know the words to get the meaning, though, and something settled as the story did, warm and bright like the colors that were being pushed under his skin. Like a volcano being brought to a boil, like the flowers his mother wore in her hair once, like a place he wasn't sure he'd ever see again.

The hurt from that one settled deeper. He carried it further, across cities and countries and deep into jungles. He moved, and moved, and moved, and it stayed the same.

There's something about going back again that stings worse than anything else ever could. Something that pulled every mistake into the sunshine, threw them on a map just to highlight all the wrong roads that'd been taken. Steve had spent a long time thinking that the Navy was the first choice he ever made for himself, only to realize it was never a choice at all. He followed footsteps, and every pattern, every road took him through there.

Only a fraction of them ended up in a place like home.

The third was stupidly, carefully planned. It wasn't that he grew out of rash behavior, just that he let it take over, push out on all sides until action came before thought. Thought was harder, let too many doubts in, got too many people hurt.

He was tired of people getting hurt. He was tired of the weight on his shoulders and not looking around because he was too busy looking ahead. He had the other two, a little more dull, the edges pulled away from sharpness by wear and time, and he was done. He was done having to carry everything with him.

Danny turned a little green when the needles came out of the package, his fingers wrapped around a mostly empty coffee cup, wearing a t-shirt with a collar that'd been stretched down. Steve wanted to laugh, wanted to offer to hold his hand, but the table was cold and Danny was looking at him like he could have half an idea what this even was.

He had epics hanging off his shoulders. He had memories and meanings and lessons learned. And Danny curled warm fingers around his wrist when the buzzing started, as lines were drawn over a scattering of scars at his hip. There wasn't a lot of flourish, not too much style, nothing but black building, and building, and making something real. Giving him something indelible, a reminder he would always have, just in case.

"Aw, babe," Danny said, soft, like he was witnessing something completely unexpected, like he was awed.

Steve smiled, letting go, breathing out. "Yeah," he said. The air conditioner hummed in agreement, blew over his wrist behind Danny's thumb. Steve set down an anchor in every way he knew how.

*SCREAMS*

OMFG NIC! This is so freaking beautiful I don't know how to deal with it ç___ç
I love, love, love this Steve and how he lives, that the first was an impulse but still had significance (On his bicep her eyes were covered, because he didn't want his to be. this! This this this!), that the second stayed the same exactly as he needed it to, that the third was different from all the others!
I keep going back and reading it all over again and I have had this comment box open for half an hour and still can't come up with something that will let me express exactly how much I love this. And you.
Thank you so freaking much, Nic. ILU ♥

Okay, so I kind of love tattoo fic even though I am reasonable sure I do not have a thing for them in real life at all. But this is just-- ugh, gorgeous and kind of settles under you skin.

So pretty much: ♥ ♥ ♥

Oh my fucking god, this is GORGEOUS, dsfhdsjfdsf I just cannot even. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.

this was lovely, dude. totally worth the time you put into it.

*__*
That was... far more than I was expecting. Not that I don't expect brilliant things from you, but this was so lushly descriptive in a way I didn't plan for. <3 Beautiful!

This is just really incredible, I loved it! I especially loved how it reminded me of my own tattoos, of the feelings and the permanence and the shock of looking down and suddenly seeing that flash of colour and meaning.

I really liked the way Danny was there for his last one and how different that was.

*HUGGGGGG!*

*TACKLEGLOMPS*

You find all the great things on the internet ♥

I have a radar! A radar that finds all the pretty things! Like you! ♥

Smile smile smile

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I've got conversation and a bottle to keep us warm 1/2

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