Staying still proves to be a harder command than Shade thought it would be. The tattoo artist started working the ink in along his back which was not so bad until she got to his spine. The pain caused him to arch a little everytime she moved the ink. Next, she turned him slightly and moved to his arm. As she applied the design there, the ink almost tickled him pleasantly, and he had to force himself from wiggling. However, it was a different story when she moved to his ribs.

Oh! That hurt! Shade thought to himself for the hundredth time as she moved the ink through the delicate skin. His abs were getting a workout from the constant flexing as it was the only thing that seemed to dull the pain, and it was not by much. He was oh-so-happy when she finally started working on his chest. At least, it gave his abs a rest for a moment before she returned to torturing him as she finished the design right above his pants line.

It had taken a few hours for Allison, working her mutation constantly, and Shade was sure she must have been tired, especially with the detailed work she was doing. Plus, she looked stiff from the constant kneeling and bending. As she got up, Shade took a glance at the supposively finsihed product.

"It looks great, especially for a girl who isn't even out of high school yet." Shade joked with a chuckle. Then she told him to remove his pants...what?

"Woo, woo! Slow down. You want me to remove my pants?"

“You actually didn’t figure that out. Really? Is this a prank?” Allison wasn’t sure if this was more or less incomprehensible than Shade being that shameless. It turned out, instead, he was that stupid. “Look--” she held the picture he’d given her up, in front of his face, “the tattoo you want goes below the waist. That means I need to put it there. I can’t… well, I might be able to put it on through clothes, but that would mean guessing, and it also might end up in completely the wrong place and would look horrible. So I really can’t. You managed to figure that out about your shirt, why did you think I could magically work through pants?”

“…And I finished high school years ago.”

Yeah, apparently he was that stupid.

The shadow mutant was speechless. He snatched the picture that the redhead was annoyingly waving in his face. Then he groaned as he saw his mistake. Shade had been so focused on the extensive design that spread across his front and back that he had not even seen the tiny little ends that passed beneath the pants line of the person. It such a tiny part compared to the rest of the tattoo, just wrapping the ends up from the main design. And she didn't have to bark at him like that. People did make mistakes.

"Well then, I guess you are old enough to keep this professional." Shade replied, sternly as undid his belt and dropped his pants. However, he could not hide the red that was building up in his face from embarrassment. Turning to face away from the young woman, the shadow mutant gingerly pulled his boxers down to expose just enough of his behind for the redhead to finish her work.

"Just be quick about it." Shade said, as he leaned against the table. This was so demeaning.

Hitting someone in Sanctuary over the head for stupidity was generally not a wise thing to do.

That did not at all mean that Allison didn’t want to, though. Professional? She couldn’t tell whether he was insulting her or very weirdly, possibly attempted-reverse-psychology-connected hitting on her. After, apparently, having previously thought she was underage.

…Was he blushing?

Well, that changed things a bit. Allison was quite familiar with trying to hide embarrassment. Which did not at all mean that she was above picking on his, given the opportunity. Or that she forgave his comments.

“I have a girlfriend.” And if the “obvious” conclusion he came to from that wasn’t actually accurate… well, it didn’t actually matter. And, as a thought occurred to her, her tone switched from mild to annoyed. “And I said pants off, not high school fake ghetto. The tattoo’s going down your leg.”

Shade was not embarrassed! And he did not get embarrassed! He got even. However, that did not change the fact that his ears and cheeks were beet red at the moment. And for someone who had finished high school "a couple years ago", she sure did talk about it a lot. But Shade kept his mouth shut. He was being professional. The only reason why he was in his boxers was to get the tattoo finished, and if he had to get completely naked for her to finish it then thats what he was going to do.

"Fine." Shade said, simply. He ignored the girlfriend comment. At this moment, the nearly naked shadow mutant did not even want to think about what she was talking about. Especially, since he was being professional!

With a near death grip on his draws, Shade slowly lowered his boxers and took a stoat stance of looking straight at the wall in front of him. He couldn't bear to look at the redhead with all his skin beared. Gosh, what he would give for a shadow right now!

"Just hurry...please."

As hard as it had been not to hit him before, it was even harder not to laugh after Shade’s plea for her to hurry. Allison did manage not to, though some amusement might have slipped into her voice. “You’re the one who decided you wanted to come here, and not in my room.”

…Hm. That had implications even Allison noticed. “Stay in my room,” she corrected herself.

She did begin working on the tattoo, though; first finishing the back and front of the tattoo, since those only took a few inches to each point, and then moved onto the side, and began working down his leg. That part went a bit slower, since she had to invent it entirely instead of having the picture to base it off of, but working on all the previous sections had given her a fairly good idea of how the pattern worked, so it wasn’t too difficult.

Shade mentally grunted at the young woman's comment. Maybe it was the fact that he was stark naked that made everything seem so wrong. However, he had his business face on and would not be swayed by such insinuating talk. That still didn't mean he had to look at her, or in her general direction. Instead, he would stare at this blank walk. That way no harm would-

Sh*t! Shade screamed in his head as his eyes shifted down instinctfully down at the sudden touch against his leg. The flaming red hair that he had seen momentarily could have matched the shadow mutant's cheeks at the moment. But it was fine. Just stare at the white plastered wall. Don't think about it. Don't think aobut it. Jesus! Was she almost done yet?

As the minutes passsed and the momentary feeling of embarrassment passed, Shade slowly lost the bright red that was burning his face. The tattoo artist was sure taking her sweet time while finishing the tattoo. But this wasn't too bad. He'd be fine, just as soon as she finished laying out the final touches on the pattern. She had to be almost done by now. Right?

Isabel probably should have learned to avoid the Rec Room long ago. It seemed like every time she stepped foot into that particular area of the Sanctuary something always went terribly wrong. Normally it seemed that the television was the thing within the room to blame for all her bad luck but this time the set hadn't even been turned on. There were no police on the screen, nor any redhead smirking out at the audience. Though, apparently, redheads were also going to become a trend of trouble.

"You've got the be kidding me" she proclaimed to the room and its only two occupants as her hands went to her face, which was no doubt beginning to turn red before her palms ever made it to her cheeks. She wanted very much to retreat from the room, but she couldn't confidently do so with her fingers covering her eyes. She refused to remove her hands, and thus was stuck until she'd received confirmation that someone's pants were no longer down around their ankles. "There are rooms with doors for a reason, you know! People aren't supposed to be doing whatever it is you're doing outside of closed doors! There's minors in this place! And me! I don't want to see this!"

That was a familiar voice.

Allison blinked, turned, beamed, and jumped up. “Lady Isabel! Hello! How… are… why are you hiding?”

It was hard not to laugh at Isabel’s response. “I’m giving him a tattoo. And he’s the one who insisted on coming here, apparently he thought I could magically give him tattoos through his pants even though he figured out that I couldn’t through his shirt….” She paused, considered, and added, “and, ew. I’m still… already… with Aura anyway.”

Aura was walking down the hull interested in the sweet smelling aroma of what had been a leopard in her hand. The plate of freshly cooked meat had been lightly seasoned at the head chefs insistence, even after he learned the animal he was helping her cook was endangered. She had wished the share the meal with Allison had had gone looking for her through Sanctuary. The Pelt of the creature was draped over her shoulder, cured, it lacked the odor dead thins normally carried and simply seemed sterile.

Only the strange sound of Isabel's seemingly distressed voice broke her from the trance. SHe Emerged into the rec room, with her Aura Covering her body. Aura looked confused by the situation, looking to Shade first, then Allison and then Isabel.

"He's only naked" Aura said not quite understanding the issue Isabel was having. Aura looked over shade again. "Besides if she did it through the clothing, while the ink is poisonous if it gets to deep right?" she said recalling an earlier conversation about Allison's powers. Her eyes focused on the pink hummingbirds allison had added. She liked the color, quite a bit.

Now that Alli was almost done with the tattoo- how long had it been? Three hours?- Shade was getting anxious for her to finish. He was tired of his skin prickling like it was expecting a slow spreading fire, he was tired of standing, and he was tired of being naked. The embarassment and subsequental period of shameless bliss had faded. Shade just wanted the ink mutant to wrap up the design so he could go lay on his opposite side to avoid the pain, and just sleep the soreness away. But then the worst possible thing happened. Someone walked in. No wait. It wasn't the worst thing. Because a second person had just walked in.

Instinctively when Shade heard the voices, he turned to look, which was not good for Allison in her current position. However, the shadow mutant did not necessarily notice as his eyes had just caught the bonemancer's gaze as she brought her hand to her face. It was for a milli-second only as she slammed her eyes shut and covered them with her hands, but that mini-second told all. The color drained from his face for a brief moment before he turned back to the corner and tried to scramble back into his pants. However, it quickly began to match the color of Isabel's at her commment. Forget the tattoo! Forget the boxers! Forget everything! Just get covered. Now!

If Shade had taken a moment, he might have realized he was the first person ever to put his pants on both legs at once. And the fact that Aura seemed not to be bothered by the entire incident was not helping the matter. The shadow mutant did not feel the soreness of the tattoo until he reached for his shirt. As he did so, a cramp spread up his side where the tattoo had been inked on, causing him to clutch his side as he tried to respond.

"It was just a tattoo." Shade echoed Alli's words. "I did not want anyone to think...Ah!"

The shadow stalker almost lost his balance as the cramp spread down to his hamstring. He tried to reach for the the table for support, while still putting on the shirt. The result was him, slamming awkwardly into the table before he was able to a hand through the shirt to properly support himself. His face was now beat red and refusing to even look in the women's direction.

Wrong. So very wrong. What kind of idiot got a huge tattoo out in the open like that? And what kind of fool agreed to it? Had everyone in the room gone brainless? What was wrong with them!?

"Yes, naked! That's exactly the problem!" she said as another voice announced the presence of Aura. A rather unimpressed voice at that. Why was everyone here so okay with a sheet-white young man milling about without any pants on? Why was Aura so calm about her girlfriend hanging around naked men? Isabel wasn't an expert on the whole relationship nonsense, but she was pretty sure people got upset when their other half was caught with a naked party. Had all of them lost their minds? She couldn't possibly be the only sane person there.

Shade at least sounded as distressed as she felt and she could only hope that all the shuffling and banging around was him trying to put some damn pants on. She'd found that men in general tended to be rather dull, but this really took the cake. "Didn't know that you had to take your pants off for an ass tattoo. Really? Really?"

Allison missed Shade’s turn entirely. “Aura!” Lady Isabel wasn’t entirely forgotten, but she may as well have been for the moment; Allison was moving toward Aura almost as soon as she appeared, latching onto her arm and snuggling. “Some people are weird about naked,” she said, paying less than half attention to the words. “They think you can only be naked for sex. And this particular ink isn’t toxic, but too much of it in the blood could still be lethal just by diluting it. That’s unlikely to happen from a tattoo though; I’d have to do that on purpose. It’d just look terrible.”

Her eyes opened enough to look at Lady Isabel out of the corner of her eye. Or, in Lady Isabel’s direction anyway; that side was the bad eye, so she couldn’t actually see much more than colored blurs. Still, it wasn’t like she needed to see, anyway, and she didn’t think anyone knew about that. “Though, three years from now you’re wearing a picture frame, Lady Isabel, so I don’t see why it bothers you. Unless it’s just guys?”

The series of crashes got Allison to fully open her eyes and turn her head, in order to blink at Shade. “You’re taking those back off so I can finish the tattoo, I hope you know.”

Lady Isabel’s comment was… really just about word for word what Allison would have said, so there wasn’t much to add. Instead she rolled her eyes and nodded. “Really.”

Aura smiled as Allison moved toward her and latched onto her arm and started snuggling. She snuggled back with a warm smile. She had dropped her aura now. For a few moments her entire focus was on Allison. Aura never much understood peoples trouble with nudity. She realized unlike her upbringing most did not wander around naked but saw no real shame in it either. She pulled her eyes away from the red haired angel beside her to consider Isabel and shade.

ARe you all right?" She asked as she watched Shade fall trying to put on his shirt. Isabel and Shade both seemed the nudity was an issue though from what Aura gathered Allsion did not. "If the nudity is an issue, why not use a bedroom?" she asked curiously knowing their had to be better places to do this if they had cared about interrupted.

"The tattoo looked very nice and detailed" She said offering Shade a smile, as he clearly seemed distressed like Isabel. "I Liked the Bird's a lot She added in remembering the hummingbirds she had spotted. They had certainly drawn her eye to it as she had looked over Allion's work before shad ehad covered up.

Shade was purposively paying extremely close attention to untangling himself from his black T-shirt before pulling his grey hoodie up and over himself. He was pretending to ignore the women as they chatted about his previous nakedness. This way he didn't have to explain himself. It was mostly Allison's fault. She had been so adament on finishing the dang thing that she might have pulled the shadow mutant's boxers done herself. Of course, that would have made things even more awkward.

"I really didn't think it was going to down that far. Allison said she wanted it to go down my leg." Shade demanded, trying desperately to show that he was the innocent one in this plot. Seriously, it was all Allison's fault. At Aura's comment, the shadow mutant turned to the woman and gave a nod of appreciation at her comment.

"Thank you, Aura-" However, he suddenly stopped at her next words. His eyes shot immediately to the young woman who was embracing the physic manipulator. His shut clamped shut as he crossed his arms in front of him. He did that gingerly as the tattoo was still rather sore, but none of them knewed to know that.

"What birds?" Shade said through clenched teeth. Murder flashed in his eyes at the thought of what Allison might have done to his backside where he could not possibly have seen. Allison would be grateful that these two had walked in when they did if she had added something to the tattoo Shade obviously had not wanted.