#Angle Cock Supplier

[kcibathfittings]

Exploring the Best Bathroom Fittings Suppliers in India

When it comes to enhancing the aesthetics and functionality of your bathroom, choosing the

right fittings is essential. India has emerged as a hub for premium and stylish bathroom fittings,

offering a diverse range of products to meet every taste and need. From modern fixtures to

luxury accessories, Indian manufacturers and exporters have cemented their place in the global

market. Let’s delve into the leading suppliers, manufacturers, and exporters who are

transforming bathrooms into sanctuaries of comfort and style.

Unique Bathroom Fittings Suppliers in India

India’s bathroom fittings industry stands out for its creativity and innovation. Unique bathroom

fittings suppliers in India are known for their ability to combine tradition with modern design.

Whether you’re looking for bespoke faucets or intricately designed fixtures, these suppliers cater

to both domestic and international markets with top-notch products.

Premium Bathroom Fittings Exporters in India

The demand for premium bathroom fittings exporters in India has grown significantly. With a

focus on quality, durability, and design, these exporters deliver world-class products. Their

offerings include everything from luxury modern bathroom accessories in India to freestanding

bathtubs, ensuring a comprehensive range of solutions for discerning customers worldwide.

Restroom Fittings Manufacturers in India

Restroom fittings manufacturers in India provide products that blend functionality with style.

They excel in producing wash basins, wall-hung water closets, and massage bathtubs, meeting

the diverse needs of residential and commercial spaces. The emphasis on sustainable materials

and innovative designs makes Indian manufacturers a preferred choice globally.

Modern Bathroom Fixtures Manufacturing in India

Modern bathroom fixtures manufacturing in India has reached new heights. Manufacturers are

adopting cutting-edge technologies to create sleek and stylish products. From the latest

bathroom faucet manufacturers and suppliers in India to overhead shower manufacturers, the

industry offers a wide array of options for every design aesthetic.

Luxury Modern Bathroom Accessories in India

Luxury modern bathroom accessories in India are synonymous with elegance and

sophistication. Whether it’s a high-quality flush valve or a beautifully designed towel rod, Indian

suppliers ensure products that exude opulence. These accessories are perfect for creating a

spa-like experience at home.

Bathtub Manufacturers, Suppliers, and Exporters in IndiaBathtub manufacturers, suppliers, and exporters in India are renowned for their versatility and

innovation. Freestanding bathtub exporters from India are particularly popular for their chic

designs and superior craftsmanship. These bathtubs not only add luxury to bathrooms but also

elevate the overall decor.

High-Quality Bath Fittings Exporters in India

Indian exporters of high-quality bath fittings are committed to delivering excellence. Their

products range from affordable bathroom accessories to premium bath fittings in India. By

maintaining stringent quality standards, these exporters have built a reputation for reliability and

customer satisfaction.

Conclusion

India’s bathroom fittings industry is a powerhouse of creativity, quality, and innovation. From

ceramic basin manufacturers and suppliers to handheld showers and stylish fixtures, the

country offers a plethora of options for transforming bathrooms into luxurious spaces. Whether

you’re searching for affordable bathroom accessories or premium luxury fittings, the best

bathroom fittings company in India ensures you’ll find exactly what you need. With their

dedication to quality and design, Indian manufacturers, suppliers, and exporters continue to set benchmarks in the global market.

[iconic-ponytail]

there's always money in the banana stand

riverdale promptathon week 3: yellow + business

Even as the sun sets, even as the breeze blows, the hell furnace of July in Riverdale burns on. It’s triply as sweltering inside the tiny booth running three freezers, offloading heat to sustain the frozen merchandise inside. “How can it be so hot in there when we are supposed to be selling frozen bananas?” JB complains, at least twice a week.

She’s twelve. Complaint is her new first language. She complains about being left in Riverdale while Gladys went back to Toledo. She complains about living in a trailer park that usually does not have warm water. She complains about their father being imprisoned for covering up a gruesome murder. But most of all, she complains about working in the banana stand.

Child labor laws aside, Jughead can’t blame her for that one. He hates the damn banana stand, but it’s their best shot.

Gladys’ monthly check covers rent and utilities for the trailer. Everything else is on him, now. The idiot eighteen year old who decided to petition the court to be his sister’s legal guardian. Well, and his idiot mom who signed off on it. So he needs money, and the Jones family has never been particularly flush with cash, just trampled over by FP’s failed “business opportunities.”

Enter: the banana stand.

It’s not the fastest revenue stream, Jughead finds. But it’s got potential.

Initially, Dilton doesn’t let him sell during the Twilight Drive-In’s concession stand hours. Before or after the movie, sure, but no overlap. “I’m not worried about competition, Jones. It’s just too humiliating for me to watch you sweat through that horrible yellow polo you call ‘branding.’”

But when customers asked him more than twice a night when the banana stand would be open, Dilton caved.

It’s not like being open during the screening hours is a whole lot more preferable. He only just transferred from Southside to Riverdale High last spring; now he’s the rising senior who hands out phallic symbols from inside a giant phallic symbol. Not exactly a boon to his popularity.

Still, recently the money is enough to pay the internet bill and keep JB fed for dinner when she can’t go to the summer breakfast and lunch program at the local park district. It’s still not enough for him to eat particularly well, and the smell of hot dogs and slurp of his classmates’ slushies makes the heat feel like a minor inconvenience.

He eyes the tip jar, willing himself to wait on rampaging the concession stand until the beginning of the film roar dies down. It’s a double feature tonight, which means maybe he can score enough cash to cover those damn college application fees his counselor will start hounding him about week one of school.

Then he sees her—Betty Cooper. She’s laughing, watching Archie Andrews try to catch popcorn in his mouth, tossed by his paramour, Veronica Lodge. She pauses to sip from her slushie straw, her lips—which he’s watched argue against homophobic and racist comments in their advanced lit class, or pressed to the cheek of her other best friend, Kevin Keller. Which he’s imagined, doing slightly less savory things, though the mere thought of said imagining has his heart pounding wildly.

(Jughead’s been eating way too many fucking bananas. Someone needs to check his potassium levels.)

His absolutely pathetic gaze, once available three times a day in their shared classes where Jughead has still not managed to exert any confidence whatsoever regarding speech, eye contact, or general acknowledgement of Betty Cooper’s existence other than whatever drooling may or may not be happening, all of which he finds he has no control over… is all interrupted by the absolute polar opposite of Betty Cooper. Hiram Lodge zooms up to the banana stand on his segway, angling to a stop just before taking out the stand’s foundation.

“Still getting a hang of that, Mayor Lodge?”

Hiram grimaces. “Just checking that you’ve renewed your business permit, Jones.”

They do this once a week. It’s still the same permit.

“You know,” Hiram starts as Jughead rustles for the paperwork to make him go the fuck away, “I could find you an arrangement with a better banana supplier. For a discount. If you’re interested.”

Jughead rolls his eyes. “I’m not interested in your GMO, black market bananas, Hiram.”

Hiram gives him a pointed look. Jughead rolls his eyes even harder. “Mayor Lodge.” He proffers the papers, Hiram waves them away. “I’ll take one chocolate peanut butter dip. With peanuts.”

Jughead kisses his teeth. “That will be $3.50.”

Hiram’s whole face goes serpentine. “Not between business partners, Jones. Put it on my tab.”

Jughead grits his teeth, handing the finished banana so aggressively he hopes that the chocolate splatters and stains Hiram’s $500 tie. It is only slightly worth it to watch Hiram struggle with navigating the segway one-handed, frozen banana in the other.

He muffles a chuckle before realizing he’s used the dead end of the chopped peanut topping, and exits the stand to update the order board hanging on the outside. It’s mostly an excuse to feel a ten degree drop in temperature, a sweet relief he might be able to extend by grabbing a hot dog before the intermission rush.

He’s crossing off peanuts from the topping list and spinning around when he hears a shriek and a sudden, cold slosh across his chest. The yellow polo drips with artificial blue slushie, but Jughead swallows his fucking hell when he sees that the shriek, gaping stare of horror, and stumble in question all belong to his very own blonde kryptonite.

“Oh my god. Oh my GOD, jesus, shit, I’m so sorry!”

Jughead is frozen while Betty grabs about half his napkin dispenser and starts pawing at his shirt in a vain attempt to right the giant sticky blue mess all over his chest.

Finally, Jughead swallows the golf ball in his throat and chokes out. “Honestly, it’s fine. That stand is a sauna. I needed that.”

Betty stops, both her blotting and her stream of apologizing (which includes a fair bit of cursing, and he is a little revolted with himself by how much this turns him on).

“It’s going to get very sticky, soon. Maybe I should buy a bottle of cold water?”

Jughead can’t help himself. “Oh, impromptu yellow t-shirt contest?”

Betty grins.

I did that.

“Do you have any employees who could bring you another shirt?”

Jughead shakes his head. “Just my sister. She’s playing video games at home. There’s no earthly way she’ll bring me a spare.”

Betty cocks her head. “I had a feeling you were more than the silent back row kind of guy.”

The fact that Betty Cooper has, at any point, considered what kind of guy he is triggers full-on nervous blathering. “I’m usually very tired at school. I have this little sister—but I’m kind of um, her guardian. So I’m doing this stupid banana stand thing because it’s like one of the three assets to our entire family name I guess? Anyway, it’s hard to engage with Haggly’s basic discussion questions at eight in the morning when you spent the whole night dreaming about wholesale banana margins.”

He’s essentially vomiting words, but Betty is still smiling.

“Anyway, I should crawl back into my fruit-shaped purgatory and let you go back to your friends.”

She’s biting her lip, hedging. “Honestly, they’re probably using the alone time to make out in the car, and I’d rather let them get all their sexual tension out so that I don’t have to feel it radiating off of them for the whole second half of the double feature.”

Jughead laughs and tamps down the impulse to offer her a frozen banana, because he cannot possibly say something like that without making it sound sexual.

“What are frozen banana profit margins like, anyway?” Betty asks, either genuinely interested or legitimately flirting with him. Jughead finds both potentials baffling.

Jughead hesitates, then ducks inside the stand, pulling out his spiral bound notebook. “I’m still kind of figuring it out. All my records are in here.”

Betty sidles up to the stand, taking up the whole window. They’re both leaning over the scribbled line items on college ruled paper; he can smell her shampoo. She takes the notebook, scanning thoroughly.

“Do you have a pencil?”

He hands her one and observes her going to work, writing out some algebraic formula and calculating quickly in her head. There is a calculator within his reach, but he thinks handing it to her might come off as an insult. (Jughead wouldn’t know; he assumes Betty is in an advanced math class. Jughead is not.)

After a few minutes of watching her devoted focus, thinking about her hands touching his pencil, thinking about her hands wrapped around his hand, or his—

“I don’t know how to tell this to you, Jug.”

The shortening of his name stops his heart for a jolt, and his response is embarrassingly delayed. “What is it?”

Betty winces but smiles through it, a combination she’s surely learned to use when delivering bad news. It’s well earned, it really does soften the blow.

“There’s no money in the banana stand. At least, not with these margins.”

Jughead finds himself less than devastated by this news, mostly because it makes a hell of a lot of sense. The messenger doesn’t hurt, either.

“But,” she interrupts. “I don’t know if you’ve nailed down your course load for senior year. But I’m taking AP Econ? This could be, um, a good project. Like, if you want to take the class. Or even if you don’t. Not that you’re like a project or… whatever. I’m just saying we could figure it out. Make lemonade out of… bananas.”

Betty Cooper is extremely cute when she stammers.

Jughead doesn’t know what to do, so he gives her an easy out. “I can’t like, hire you, if that wasn’t obvious by the whole… deficit spending or whatever the whole negative circled number at the bottom of the page really means.”

She flushes. “No, that would be highway robbery. I just thought there might be an… opportunity. For um, us. I mean, for you and I. I mean—” she clears her throat, as if it’s closing up. “An academic opportunity. Or, in your case, professional. Well, a betterment of your livelihood. Okay, um, shit, just… I should go!”

She turns away, her face the deepest scarlet he’s ever seen.

“Betty, wait.”

She pivots back, eyes down at the ground.

“How about I buy you a new slushie and you come back into the booth. Tell me everything I’m doing wrong for the rest of the night.”

Betty looks up, biting the corner of her smile. “Sounds like a deal.”

They shake on it.

[mischiefandmystics]

#1 Crux

“Please, Śūn’ra, I’m sorry. I only told them enough to let me go! Nothing about you! Just that there’s this Keeper..!” A sharp-toothed smile spreads across his lips, almost too bright to be real, but glistening all the while with the light of the full moon that hangs heavy like an unspoken confession on a cloudless sky. “Suh yuh do tell dem ‘bout mi…” Comes the rumbling purr of an accusatory reply as the claw-fingered grip on the man’s cream, frilled collar tightens, though the teasing, almost genuinely playful look in his captor’s pinprick-pupil’d eyes strengthens. He finds it disarming in a way, friendly even, falling in line with the bandit’s usual unbacked and toying posturing.

For a split-second he feels brave enough to attempt to brush the other off, though his efforts are dismissed by an immovable grip of steel that sparks a flash of genuine concern to flash across his visage. “Only that my supplier is a Keeper from Ul’dah! You just have to avoid the city for a while, that’s all! Nothing important!” He cannot help the near panicked tone and speed that seeps into his explanation, Desperation is evident he knows, but he withholds his regret; the Bandit seemed to like that after all, and he hopes that it in turn sparks a feeling of compassion or understanding within the man who holds the Midlander aloft as if he were nothing. Despite, or perchance because of this, there is no immediate reaction from the figure before him, the unblinking, reflective vivid-violet eyes boring holes so deep into his skull that he suddenly isn’t sure if the headache he begins to feel is truly due to the uncomfortably chocked position or from the intensely focused attention.

“Mi kno,” the bandit croons their agreement in their rumbling, accented tone, though the grip upon his collar refuses to ease up as he would have expected it to. A chill runs up his spine at the realization that perhaps a line had been crossed, his hands clawing a bit more frantically against the bandit’s forearm, velvet shoes kicking out helplessly into the air. “It juss…  Sumtimes life give yuh a choice, uh?” He watches as the bandit’s head cocks counterclockwise like a mechanical metronome, a tick in time with each of his concerted flails.  

“An’ sumtimes yuh nuh kno dere even be a choice till aftah yuh mek it.” He finds the words cryptic, a worried furrow etching across his brow before a sharp intake of breath as air fills his lungs, the electricity of a nearly telepathic understanding running through his upheld form. “Sumtimes dat choice be less, ‘ow Mi waan avoid death?’, an’ more, ‘Which death Mi waan pon di moment?’” The bandit’s explanation is provided as casually as one might relay the weather, his blade finding not the man’s throat, but his cheek, and pressing his face against the bark of the old tree behind, not aimed to cut through, but instead angled to peel. “Lemme sho yuh why yuh choose wrong dis instance, uh?”

The Elementals, occasionally magnanimous to the cries of Man, this time exceptionally silent, finding neither harm, foul, nor concern of the forest at large, as the Hyur’s cries of agony echo through the boughs, the all-too-familiar sound or another’s suffering tuned out by the regularly stationed Adders. Via grit teeth and focused, pleasant reverie.

[wingedwarren]

  ❛  oh fuck, i can feel you doing it around my cock. i can feel you – that’s it, baby. fuck yourself on me.  ❜   //cuz he could still be tied down or up....

@meretrixious   ||   meme

     they talked about it. joked about it. remy whispering he wanted to do this a few times and warren, never one to shy away from challenges or from a bit of verbal banter, had dared him. try it, lebeau. see how far you get.      they’d gotten close a few times, inching just a little bit closer to the roles reversing, the goal being the winged mutant to be the one to be laid bare and getting ravished for once. wandering hands, slick fingers in the heat of the moment, or in that warm glow afterwards when warren wasn’t as keen to jump right out of reach. remy purring sweet bullshit that made warren feel way too much like a fucking girl so it was just met with huffing and ‘shut up’. but they both knew where this was supposed to be going, and remy didn’t seem to want to let up on that goal. fucker.

     apparently tonight had been the night. after months of hooking up, casual stuff that was free of any strings for both so it was comfortable, low expectations, no reason to be cutesy about anything they did or didn’t want. they knew what to expect from the other. usually that meant remy was absolutely prepared for warren to blow his mind with sex he’d feel for a few days afterwards.      this time it was different.      the mood, for starters. it wasn’t awkward exactly, and it was probably just a lucky moment on remy’s part to catch warren in a mood that contributed to the situation at hand. just a quick text to know they were both in the same area and twenty minutes later war had been sitting on the balcony of his hotel room, looking a little heated but like an absolute vision. jeans tight, a thin cotton shirt with geometrical print under his leather jacket, the collar popped up. he could show up in anything and make it work, they’d found. but he put effort in tonight, and remy was more than welcoming.      from the get-go it was clear where remy wanted to go with it. and though warren was more than skilled at changing those plans, make the other crave him crawling over him and make him feel exactly why they hooked up so often, this time... he wasn’t doing any of that. he let remy peel his jacket off, kiss his neck, pull the shirt from his jeans to slip open the buttons. hands sliding across his skin, never pausing at the scars but halting when fingers caressed along warren’s new little additions. oh, he’d been more than a little thrilled when he found the piercings, grinning into the hollow behind warren’s ear and making even the angel get a little red on his cheekbones with a well-placed comment about them.      he’d had a surprise for warren. newly purchased. he’d been excited to show him and warren caught on instantly when remy tossed him the bundle of hemp rope, a deep blue colour and he knew immediately there’d gone some research into it -- it was strong, sturdy rope that definitely came from one of the better suppliers.      and warren was always down for a little bit of tying up, of course.

     he’d let remy perch and pose him, undoing his belt so he could work him out of his pants, his underwear, even his socks had to go -- no, keep the shirt on. it’s cute. i promise i won’t get anything on it. warren had no shame in his nudity when he was put on the bed and the other went to work on his ropes. a harness first, hands careful as they drew warren into it, tying until the rope was flat against his skin everywhere, knots in the right places and remy feeling rather pleased with the way he’d put warren’s... assets on display. the nipple jewelry was definitely a good choice.      then his arms. a simple tie to bring them together behind his back, attaching them to the back of the harness. he watched warren pull on them, the way the skin chafed against the rope, how the muscle moved under it in attempts to pull free. no such luck. there was an edge inside warren he tiptoed right that moment, knowing he couldn’t run now if he wanted to, and it showed in his eyes when remy sat on the bed in front of him. was this what he wanted to to? right now? he swallowed thickly.      remy looked hot. shirt undone, jeans open but without letting everything hang out -- warren definitely enjoyed the view. at his hand winking him closer, the angel started awkwardly shuffling over, wings making it surprisingly difficult to keep his balance. thankfully the room wasn’t all that big so in absolute case of emergency he could dig his claws into the cheaply tiled ceiling for support. once he was where remy wanted him, though, the hands on his thighs kept him steady enough to no longer worry about it.

     ‘so pretty,’ remy’d said, making warren grunt with disagreement. ‘don’t say that shit,’ he replied, but all it got him was a hand so close to his face that for a moment he thought remy’d be into choking -- but no, thank fuck he wasn’t. just a touch to shut him up, thumb tracing his bottom lip, pulling just slightly to expose his teeth. like appreciating a beast, something untameable that he’d somehow gotten his hands on. a trophy.      then warren had been subjected to a slow handjob, edging him a few times until his head leaned back, lips wet with saliva and the hotel room filled with panting. that was when remy’d switched tactics, grabbing the lube he’d put on the nightstand for preparation, and when his hand traveled over warren’s thigh to his backside, their eyes met. both hungry for this encounter, remy’s asking silent permission for this next step and warren’s heavy with challenge. it was always risky with him, this moment. sometimes he’d dare remy and the second fingers came even close to him, there had been biting, pulling away to flip remy around on the mattress and take control the way he liked to do.      but he couldn’t quite do that this time. his breath stilled when remy rubbed at him, last chance to back out, warren -- and then eyes squeezed close, brows furrowed and his expression a grimace when two fingers pressed inside him. reluctant. nerves. nostrils flaring. he didn’t like this. he didn’t like that he felt strung out already, everything inside him so tightly wound that it was exhausting.      then there was a soft press of lips to his own, a silent apology and promise they could stop whenever warren wanted. it did little to soothe him, but oh, a soft sound escaped him when remy paired the invasion with other administrations. tongue and teeth on warren’s throat, a warm hand stroking his erection to help him distribute his focus. the fingers moved, aware of the squeezing each time he went in to the last knuckle, but even that faded with a bit of effort. he just needed warren to relax, to figure out that remy wouldn’t subject him to something he hated.      and it wasn’t that warren hated this. he did, but not because it wasn’t pleasurable to him. he just... god, he expected pain around every corner, degrading words to add salt to the wounds. he had a high tolerance for that kind of bullshit, but not when he was tied up and all he could use to say no were his words. words weren’t his strongest feat, after all.

     ‘are you ready?’ remy whispered to his neck, nibbling at him, tasting the salt on his skin, and warren’s confirmation was breathless, a little wheezy. the quiet moment of being left alone while the other worked on everything he needed left warren in a bit of a daze, tumbling between wanting this and wanting to give a jerk of his body until he was on the floor, claws digging at the hardwood under him. thoughts were right about the spiral out of control when remy was right back with him, touching his body, fingers toying with the ring through his nipple to get his attention back to the present. tugging a little to get him to sit up on his knees, give remy a bit of space to finally push his pants and boxerbriefs down.      warren didn’t even look. knew he’d probably chicken out if he did. but with closed eyes he listened to softly whispered words of comfort, the slick sound of remy getting himself ready as well. sucked in a breath when remy’s hand rested on his waist to make him sit back down, feeling him against the curve of his buttocks, eagerly rubbing up to him. fingers hooked into the front of the rope harness to lean the angel forward until remy could trap his lips in a kiss, much more desperate from warren’s end in a search for validation while he felt the hand around him press remy’s arousal closer to him.

     and then remy pushed him back to sit up. slowly. and warren couldn’t bring himself to make a single sound at the intrusion, which also at least meant no complaints for once. no witty remarks, no mean comments to let his personality shimmer through discomfort.      when he was back upright, god, he couldn’t quite find his breath. his adam’s apple bobbed in the faded light from the bedside lamp, chest shimmering with sweat, and a soft, choked sound lingered on the tip of his tongue. only a slight shift of remy under him, the light adjustment of the angle and the drag of him inside warren finally allowed the blond to drag in a rough gulp of air, chest heaving against his restraints. no doubt he was beautiful to watch like this, wings knocking against the ceiling in search of a way to let out everything that was twisting inside him.      to test the waters, remy gave a slow push of his hips upwards and the noise that dripped from warren’s wet lips was something sounding completely foreign to them both, deep and throaty and hoarse. a hand curving around him was all he needed and then remy’s chest was painted with white streaks, the last spurts dribbling lazily along his wrist. oh.      both hands ended up on warren’s thighs, fingertips digging into the straining muscle and plush flesh to guide him, find a rhythm until warren caught on. his head lolled back forward and his blond curls were sticking to his forehead, feet tucked under remy’s thighs for leverage when the pressure of the hands eased so he could move the way he wanted.      it was a slow rhythm. slowly up and slowly back down. no rush at all even if he felt a pang of shame whenever he ground down and could feel remy pulsating inside him. how far were they going to take this? did he want to... did remy want to...? how did he even put it into words without feeling absolutely disgusting? it wasn’t completely unpleasurable, that was for sure, but it was just... not warren’s thing. this. being on the receiving end. was this how others felt with him? that couldn’t be right.      eyes opened faintly when remy spoke up to see his jaw tighten. that wasn’t a face of disgust. warren had seen plenty of those and this wasn’t it. his hips changed angle and the next time he slid down over remy, his eyes shot wide open and he jerked on top of him, knees pressing at the other’s sides and a thread of saliva dripping down from parted lips.      ‘fuck,’ warren croaked, hunched over. remy under him took the next moment to push up with his hips, making that same sensation spark through warren like electricity, prickling all the way from behind his eyes down to the very tips of his toes. and remy was laughing softly down there, doing it again until warren was squeezing so tight even he let out a chuckling ‘ow, ow, stop, don’t do that --’. it was painfully obvious that warren had never been subjected to this kind of pleasure, quickly building up already.

     the ceiling was already ruined, claws having pushed through the tiles to find the steel skeleton hidden there to hold onto with his claws, the material already ever so lightly deforming under the pressure.      ‘just breathe,’ remy told him, hand stroking the curve of his torso, feeling the skin ripple from how he was leaning forward, but then he did it again and warren just couldn’t, a whine as a reply to his ridiculous request. warren didn’t feel ridiculous very easily but like this he definitely did: face red, the blush blotching on his neck and chest, and he couldn’t even find the action he needed to take to stop drooling, mouth feeling dry and a throat like sandpaper.

[ansgar-martinsson]

The Best Intentions - Part 3

The Best Intentions

Part 3

“It is no imposition, believe me,” Ansgar replied. “As much as I despise the fact that your building is suffering problems, I do enjoy solving them now and again.” He surreptitiously allowed his gaze to follow the path of her hands as they straightened out the denim of her skirt. He saw a strength in her movements, a power in the way her muscles shaped beneath the fabric - a power matched by her forthrightness. Not overwhelming, mind you… not false… not pretentious… just… present. This one - she knew what she wanted and how to get it, that much was obvious.

And admirable.

“Perhaps,” he continued, “you would like to change into something more suitable for structural investigations before we begin.” With his eyes, he indicated the Louboutin pumps, still lying discarded on the stage floor. “Why don’t I go take a look at the sprinkler heads installed backstage, and you tell me where to meet you when you’re done.”

Jo’s comfort came in the form of a pair of old broken in trainers (stained with paint from the tech shop), faded, ripped jeans (exposed knees from load-in from her last theatre job in Paris) and a ratty, old, black short-sleeved t-shirt (sprinkled with holes). She kept a wardrobe on hand in her office for days like this. Box office days, she dressed smartly, prim, proper for all the old biddies spending their pension on Puccini. Tech days, she wore black from head to toe. On opening and gala nights, she felt at home in a little black dress or a gown. Dressing for an office meeting felt like work.

The computer and its dancing screensaver called to her in the corner to research the lighting issue. The ramifications meant long hours of interviewing new candidates for her design or technical team. But that would have to wait… the rest of the repairs needed another pair of eyes, the haunted blue of the engineer. Something weighed on him, a brooding quiet, a dark hurt, a something that she couldn’t quite read yet.

She breathed a sigh of relief as the oh-so-soft denim whispered against her skin. She blew a kiss at her borrowed Louboutins, promising another night in them… soon-ish. She returned to find Ansgar wandering around backstage, making notes on a clipboard, knocking on walls with his fist, shining his torch this way and that, and testing the pulley system for the flies.

“Thank you,” Jo said announcing her presence, “I… this works.” She threw her arms out beside her palms out, displaying a tattoo on her left forearm. “Much more me for days like this.”

“Where do you need me?” he tucked his notes under his arm. His gaze followed her arm and the flash of color he saw.

“Ah, under the stage.” She pointed below her feet. “The sprinklers may have caused water damage? The hydraulics for the turn table works only when it wants.”

“Temperamental,” he commented with a chuckled grunt. He took control, leading them off stage right to the staircase for the other area. “Have you used the pyrotechnics down there?”

Jo followed closely at his elbow, anticipating questions about the integrity of the areas she showed him. “Not since… not last season.”

“Any of the directors turn in specs for it for the upcoming?”

She shook her head though he didn’t look at her. “Not yet. The designers haven’t either. We still need to find a team for The Flying Dutchman.”

Jo asked Ansgar to look over the box seats and the arrangement of it. The dip of the seats had started scaring some of the older audience members, fearing they’d fall into the orchestra below. The wall between dressing rooms seven and eight had begun to warp. The floor in the rehearsals spaces needed patching and sanding. She toured through with a careful ear listening to his tips and concerns, and possible hidden agendas amongst her crew.

When they were through the laundry list of items, Jo found some relief. She stood at the top of the orchestra, hands gripping the back of a red velvet seat. “I love my work, Herr Martinsson. I haven’t an ounce of talent of my own, but I love this place. I’d love to see it sparkle again. And so would Harold.”

Ansgar stared, his focus narrowing on her. “I’m sorry. Harold?”

“The opera ghost,” she teased. “He’s been with us the entire time.”

He humored her and offered her a good natured laugh, stepping in to stand beside her, looking over the sea of red. He placed his hands on the seat beside her. “Well, Joline… and Harold… I think I can help.”

She looked down and quieted the tiniest of swells of disappointment in her belly when she saw a wedding ring on Ansgar’s left hand. Attractive men were always married; she should know, she’d married one. “We both appreciate it. Harold and me.” She pushed a smile to her lips and brushed his shoulder with hers.

“Well,” he said, “we’ve a duty to our ghosts; to make sure they’re happy with the things they’ve left behind, don’t we?” Ansgar’s speech slowed as he spoke, the impact of his own statement not lost upon him.

His thumb, in an autonomic motion, tucked into his palm, the tip of it rubbing against the underside of the golden band that remained around his finger.

“I’m sure Harold will be supremely happy,” the woman by his side quipped. Ansgar’s lips quirked into a small smile, partly at her praise, partly at the fact that she had missed his passing discomfiture altogether. Or so he’d hoped.

In further hope of distraction, he raised his clipboard, running his finger down the list he’d made. “Well, Froken Lindberg,” he said, “if that is all of the issues, then, I think I ought to get back to the office and get this to my project manager. Get her on contacting the subs and suppliers immediately, get warranty claims made and bond claims if need be.”

“You mean Froken Wiessing?”

“No,” Ansgar shook his head. “But I think… well, Julia and I will have some other things to discuss.”

“Anything I need to worry about?”

Ansgar looked down at her and smiled. “Not anymore. Listen,” he said, “I apologise for all of this happening, I apologise for my company being so unresponsive, it’s… it’s not like us… not like me at all. Quite the opposite.”

“I know,” she shrugged. “It’s fine. It’s all being sorted now, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” he affirmed. “Are you sure?”

“Well,” she grinned up at him. “There is one more thing you can do.”

“Name it,” he challenged.

“Take me to lunch. I’m starving.”

Ansgar laughed. It felt good to laugh again… very good. Truly, honestly good. “Of course,” he bowed his head, smiling. “You name the place. It’s the least I can do.”

Jo discovered Carousel her first week as House Manager. The Mediterranean outdoor café suited her low-key wardrobe and Ansgar’s higher end threads. The grilled rib-eye tasted of heaven on a plate but Jo loved making a meal of the appetizers instead of gorging herself on mains. As she angled into the wooden bench, she wiggled-slid behind the oblong table, “The gazpacho and watermelon should be a sin.”

Ansgar folded himself into the chair at the head of the table, to her left. Grinning at her, he took in the colorful and lively atmosphere. It all seemed so… normal. So ordinary. Comforting normality of his home.

Her voice dropped to a sensual moan. “The sweet and the savory…” She rolled her eyes skyward. The grumble in her stomach wasn’t just hunger but curiosity about her lunch companion and this need to prove herself worthy as House Manager. After months of chasing attention at Martinsson Construction, she now felt consumed by this mad drive to show him that the house and how it ran remained safe in her hands.

“I brought the mockup of our final mailing and advert campaign… the last push to get asses in the seats for the new season.” Ticket sales and revenue secured her position. As it was her first full season as manager, it was final examinations on her worth. “We open in September with The Marriage of Figaro.”

His finger traced along the glossy production photographs of women in wide elaborate frocks and taller wigs. The text read clean and concise, listing titles of the upcoming operas, dates, the box office website, and other means to purchase tickets or sponsor levels. “Impressive,” he nodded.

“Did you get your invitation to the opening night gala? My staff sent them round to all the executives at your company.”

“Uh… no… no. I’ve been away,” he repeated his mantra from earlier. “I’ve not caught up on correspondences. I assume that Britta has added it to my calendar.”

Jo wrinkled her nose, “This is boring to you.”

“Not at all. Your… passion is admirable actually.”

Her wide blue eyes met his and kicked herself for flirting with him. She shouldn’t encourage this. She couldn’t.

But it was one lunch. One lunch couldn’t hurt.

It’s only lunch, Ansgar thought.

But it was true what he’d said, he admired her passion. it seemed to permate every inch of her, seep from her pores. Passion - well, it was extremely attractive. Her passion for her job, her passion for her art - for it was her art, he knew. Even if she wasn’t the Prima Donna, or a visual artist or a composer or even if she wasn’t a musician or a set designer or a lighting designer, it was still her art.

Like his work with steel and glass in structural engineering, he knew her expression of her self came with the craft of engineering logistics.

“Tell me,” he said, stabbing up a forkful of spinach salad, “what’s your talent utilisation style?”

She cocked an eyebrow at him over the rim of her water glass. “My what?”

Ansgar swallowed and nodded. “I mean… your management style. How do you… how do you manage to keep all those….”

“Artistic types in line?” She chuckled. “Sometimes it’s like herding cats… cats who have been rolling in catnip and have eaten an entire bag of Smarties. You just have to know how to use the right toys to fiddle them out and get them to pay nicely together.”

“Oh.” Ansgar laughed. “Sounds a bit like my situation, except sometimes my cats have been chewing on the Valium tablets or tippling at the brandy. Most sluggish, and they simply do not want to come out of their hidey holes.”

She inhaled through her nose. “So I’ve noticed.” She flashed him a closed-mouthed grin followed by a slight cringe at the brazenness of her words.

Which again made Ansgar laugh. “Touche,” he tossed. “Okay, change of subject,” he smirked. “This Gala of yours, this opening night do you’re organising.”

She shrugged. “What of it?”

“Well, I suppose I’d like to know when it is.”

“Why, do you want to go?” Her sudden burst of eagnerness made her grimace. “I mean,” she composed herself. “Do you plan to attend?”

Here goes nothing, Ansgar thought.

“I believe I do,” he said, plainly. “That is, if you will allow me to accompany you for that evening. It’s the very least I can do.”

Jo pushed her spoon through what was left of her gazpacho, watching the bits swirling round the bottom of the bowl. She smirked, her head bounced slightly on the sound of humor. “When I stormed your castle this morning…” She chanced her gaze back up, “I… well, uh… I didn’t think…” she spread her hands wide and circled around the half eaten dishes they’d consumed, “this would happen.”

Ansgar laughed with her, matching her mirth. The exaggerated and animated gesture unexpected but none the less amusing. He dipped his head in an almost bow. “Admittedly, this wasn’t my agenda for the day.”

She pointed upwards and nodded, dropping the last of her pride, and then shrugged, “It was the least I could do.”

The imitation of him was spot on and he gave into a good-natured chuckle at his own expense. He’d extended that precise statement to her more than once, to assuage his guilt, to be the attentive and present CEO that he should’ve been, to be the man he believed himself to be. “Fair play, fair play.”

As their laughter faded, Jo addressed the elephant that sat between them, pink and plump and ripe for a tickle. She chose her words carefully, mincing them so as not to wound or offend. “I don’t want your obligation.”

Then she waited, stealing another glance at the ring on his left hand, curled around a pint.

Don’t entertain it, Jo. Not for a breath, not for an afternoon, not for a thought or some scorching hot sexual fantasy. Your mother had a sense of humor, naming you after Dolly Parton’s other woman, but don’t be that woman, Jo.

You’re not that woman.

Clearing her throat, she covered her pause and stray thought. “Well, that’s not entirely true. I do actually want your obligation.”

This was met with a furrow of his brow and his fingers brushed the sexier than sin stubble at his chin.

“My professional self would feel satisfied… I’d get off—I’d celebrate it!”

Pull it together… Jesus, Jo!

“As CEO of the company that built my building,” she carefully spoke without a trace of arrogance, “I absolutely want your obligation. But me? Jo, me?” To illustrate her point, she splayed her hand over her heart, inadvertently accentuating her breasts. “She… she doesn’t want your obligation.”

Ansgar lowered his pint from his lips, his movement slow and controlled. He seemed to consider her words as if each one were a bead of condensation that hung on the glass. “I think you’ve misunderstood me…” That was the moment he struggled with a way to address her.

“I understand it. Your company and your name are in jeopardy, but I’m not looking for that kind of publicity. I won’t say anything to the press. As long as the work in the theatre is fixed by opening,” she waved her finger between them, “we’re sorted. Hell, make it a restoration special, to the press if you want… your good deed for the community, for Stockholm. We’re square.”

Ansgar couldn’t help but smile at her take on his invitation. A diplomatic and thoughtful, perhaps even pragmatic solution to the complication that brought this woman trampling down the door to his office. If he read her correctly, he’s piqued her interest, if the lack of drink thrown in his face were a sign. She remained his lunch companion, another indication that he hadn’t piqued her anger. He couldn’t use work obligations to spend an evening with her.

Using a different tactic, he began, as his grin intensified, “Well, as long as we’re square—“

Before he could say anymore, she cut him off, “Hey! I got an obligatory lunch for my efforts.” She grinned over a piece of seasoned bread she shoved into her mouth. “That was the least you could do. My gala,” she shook her head, her speech muffled by bread, “would go above ‘the least.’”

[docholligay]

Smoke and Ashes

This is a fic I wrote mostly for me for once but also for @rosepetalrevolution and anyone else who is interested in These Western Fucks, namely Yael, McCree, and Ashe. You can find it in the timeline: here. 3,300 words I would love to know if you enjoy it!! 

“Please don’t!” Tears ran down his face. “For Christ’s sake, please!”

“Wrong audience, motherfucker.” Yael cocked her gun, and fired, an impressive spray of blood spackling across McCree’s boots.

He looked down at them and frowned. “I just polished these, Yael.” He picked some of the brass off the ground. “That was quick.”

“Easy when it’s a bunch a little boys pissin their pants.” She knelt down and rifled through the dead man’s pockets, “Jacinta! You done over there? Quit bein’ so fuckin’ dramatic.”

The echoing fire of a gun was the reply, and Jacinta walked around the end of the truck. “I would think you’d appreciate lingering on this a little bit.”

“It’s not about enjoying the job, it’s a practical matter,” Yael took the cigarettes out of the dead man’s jacket, tapping one out of the pack and lighting it, taking a long drag as she leaned her elbows back onto the dead man’s chest, “Though I don’t hate it. Goddamn, even their cigarettes are terrible, Jesus fucking wept.”

She sat up and put the cigarette out in his cheek.

“Nice cache a weapons, though.” McCree set an AK to the side of the truck.

“Welp,” Yael slapped her knee, “Alls well that ends well, then.” She gave a chuckle and slapped McCree on the shoulder. “We’ll eat good tonight, tell you what. Already have a buyer.”

“Didn’t you,” McCree pushed the brim of his hat back a touch, “Specifically tell me, more n once, not to sell anything you ain’t got in hand?”

“Yael thinks the rules don’t apply to her.” Jacinta put a crate of ammo into the back of the truck, “Thinks she is special.”

“You’d know.” Yael grinned.

Jacinta tried to scowl, but smiled anyhow, as she checked a rifle for a round. “You are not cute.”

“Yael you ever think that the people we sell these to, are gonna go back and sell em to these poor fucks again?” McCree had said it quite without meaning to.

Yael’s internal compass was its own creature, and McCree could never quite puzzle it out. She was happy enough to take the boxes of illegal arms from these people, but the suppliers they sold to probably didn’t exactly ask for an essay on intercultural exchange before they sold them. It’d just fall back, that they’d be back where they started.

“Not those poor fucks,” she tipped her head to the one on the ground, his head split open, flies buzzing around his brains, “cleared that right up.”

And that would be the end of the debate, McCree knew, in the way he knew he’d never stop thinking it. There were certain things, rhythms, in the gang, that flowed through everything they did like a bends of a river, and McCree knew how to point his canoe by now.

McCree had come to them three years ago, but it might as well have been a lifetime. Cody Stenslund was an old man with a scraggy group of hungry young kids, and a smaller band of old men like him. It was the assumption they’d picked up these kids to pass the torch to someone, and it had proved successful, and he hadn’t wanted McCree. No one seemed to, back then.

But Yael was clever, and she was a connoisseur of people who survived when they weren’t meant to, and she’d stood for him. He’d been with them ever since, through his own training and scrapes and Cody’s retirement, and he couldn’t see leaving. Yael was Yael about near everything, but McCree never worried about where he was going to go, what he was going to eat, and the drifting tumbleweed decided this was a fine fence to be caught upon.

Besides that, he’d reflected at Jacinta and Yael’s wedding, it was a kind of a family, and McCree needed all of that he could get.

Carey loaded on an unopened crate to the back of the truck, and flipped up the tailgate, leaning against the back of it and giving McCree a grin, the soft green of his eyes flickering with excitement.  

“Yael said beers are on her tonight.” He tapped out two cigarettes, and offered McCree one, which he gratefully accepted.

“Better be,” he lit the smoke and took a deep drag, “much as she’s had us all runnin around Hell out here.”

Carey chuckled softly. He was a few years older than McCree, like most of the gang, tall and thin, his dark brown hair clipped neatly. He had no idea about McCree. McCree barely had any idea about McCree, even when he thought about walking over to Carey’s bunk in the night and kissing him as the moonlight streamed through the window.

There was nothing for McCree to be ashamed of, and he knew that, but somehow he still couldn’t bring himself to say the words. Yael had done it. No one questioned her or so much as said boo about it.

But the rules didn’t apply to Yael, you know.

“Well boys,” Yael circled around and tossed the keys to Carey, who caught them handily, “let’s get to gettin.”

_____

Ashe stood outside the bar, adjusting the collar of her shirt and trying to get the right angle of the hat on her head. She’d known the Deadlock Gang was going to be here, it was an open secret that they protected this bar and the bar did the same to them, a scrappy outpost at the edge of the world that no one seemed to much care about and that seemed fine to everyone inside.

She walked in the door, the dark and agining place exactly as she’d imagined it, and found the gang immediately. The leader was just as she’d read, when she decided this was the career path she wanted to take, when she got sick of everything her parents expected for her, tired of being a show pony and ready to take it on her own. She was a scary story to tell in the dark as much as she was a person, and Ashe wanted that for herself.

She strode confidently to where she sat, and a lean, green-eyed man to Yael’s right put his hand on a gun.

But Yael just watched, leaned forward onto her elbows, as Ashe approached.

“Yael Rabin?” She cleared her throat, puffing her chest out.  “Been looking for you. “I’m here to join the Deadlock Gang.”

No one said anything for a moment, and Ashe wondered if the entire concept of sound had gone from her, the chatter and music fading away from the space and leaving only Ashe, standing there.

Then Yael drummed her fingers on the table.

“You just looking for trouble in alphabetical order or somethin’? Barstow Boys turn you down already?”  Yael picked up a toothpick from the holder and on the table and placed it between her teeth as she studied Ashe.

It was the sort of look Ashe had not yet become accustomed to, though she would learn it for herself, in time. It was a look that scanned over every inch of her, that took the information and made conclusions, and locked it away until it was needed. It was the searing eye of a hawk setting on a rabbit, and Ashe squirmed underneath despite herself.

“Nice boots you got there, Tex.” A sly smile crept across her face and her collected gang spit out hoots of laughter.

Ashe didn’t give her the satisfaction of looking down, but she noticed the beaten and scuffed hat Yael wore, the way her shirt had faded in rings from being pushed up to her elbows in the sun, and had a sudden moment of realization that the same things she wore that impressed the folks when she did barrel were a mistake here.

Didn’t matter. She was a trick of a rider, she could shoot a gun, and Ashe knew, above anything else, that the infamous Deadlock Gang could only profit by adding her to the group, even if they did make fun of her bright silver buckles.

“Name’s Ashe.” She jutted out her chin and extended her hand.

“Sure it is.” Yael chuckled and leaned back in her chair, and Ashe crossed her arms, her mouth forming into an angry twist, which Yael handily ignored, “You even old enough to be in here? Go home, kid, I ain’t got time to play dolls.”

“How old’s he?” She motioned her chin to the man at her left, though it was hardly fair to call him man, not yet filled in, still gangly with the edge of teenagerhood.

“Jesse?” She turned to him and smiled, “I dunno, how old are you?”

“Forty five this July.” He took a drink of his beer.

“That’s about what I thought, why, thank you Jesse.” she picked up her own beer, “Well, there you have it.”

Ashe popped like a corn kernel.

“You were younger than me, sixteen! When you joined the Deadlock Gang, and now you’re only afraid--”

“I ain’t afraid of shit,” Yael laughed, “You think you can compare yourself to me, Tex? What’s the worst thing ever happened to you, Daddy tell you no new pony this year? Shiiiit.” She chuckled again. “Swear to god, they get stupider every year.” She stood up. “You ain’t hungry enough. You don’t need it enough. You got a net, girl, and we perform without one.” She turned back briefly to her gang. “Gonna go find Jaci and have a smoke.”

She turned her back to Ashe as she left, completely unafraid of anything Ashe could do, and all she could do is stand stock-still, fuming and furious and embarrassed and ashamed and hungrier than Yael could ever know.

___

McCree didn’t ask too many questions, at this time in his life.

It would sound stupid to say it out loud, as he heard the dogs barking in the distance outside the shitty honky tonk, the party having briefly broken up from their reverie, but the last three years had been the most stable in his life since his mother had died. It wasn’t much of a life, rolling along the backroads and still-quiet ways that barely seemed to exist except as corridors anymore, but it was his, and it was consistent, and he knew what he was meant to do and why, and what he brought.

He wasn’t interested in shaking up the flow he’d come to understand in his life, and he wasn’t sure what someone so rich would want with the Deadlock Gang anyhow. Could be that she was an agent trying to infiltrate, but McCree hoped they’d send someone a little better than some little blonde thing fresh out of the ranchwear store. Maybe that was the trick, that they thought it was so stupid Yael’d fall for it.

They didn’t know her very well.

Ashe breezed by him after Yael, having had a few moments to think to herself and still not giving up, and he chuckled. She had plenty of sand, that much was sure, and if he was going to be so stupid as to tell Yael her business, he’d say that a sparrow who’s willing to chase after a hawk with no fear of nothing wasn’t the stupidest idea for the gang. Yael had a kill count that rivaled a small army, and there was no way Ashe didn’t know that. It just didn’t seem to matter. She had an idea of what she wanted, and maybe Yael would have to shoot her to get her to find another one.

They didn’t usually meet people like this, who wouldn’t take Yael’s no for an answer. Yael was particular about her crew, even at the best of times, and though she’d help other hard up folks set up complimentary organizations, or reinstall them their lives back home on their farms and ranches and wilds, her Deadlock Gang was a tightly closed group, only people she would happily sleep with her back to. And this girl was in no way Yael’s kind of people. This was all more stuff she should’ve known but didn’t seem to care much about.

There was a part of McCree that respected that.

Carey walked up next to him and sipped his beer. “What’s the over under on Yael shootin her where she stands?”

McCree smiled over at him. “She’s had, what, three beers? Say ten minutes.”

“You’re a regular optimist, Jess,” Carey clapped him on the shoulder, and McCree looked away from him into the night, “say that much for ya.”

McCree wasn’t sure he’d call himself that, but there was something that told him this girl who called herself Ashe was gonna be a thorn in everyone’s side for a long time.

___

Yael didn’t seem to be listening to her, just walking along and tapping out a cigarette as she looked up at the half-clouded moon.

“You don’t know what I can do!” Ashe spat, the injustice of the situation, the hopelessness of it, drilling into her head.

“But I do know that it’s my gang, and, I don’t like you.” She put the cigarette to her lips and flicked her lighter, shielding it from the wind. “Don’t need no prissy little rich girls whose daddies bought em their titles.”

What Yael needed and what Yael ended up getting could be very different indeed.

“Elizabeth Ashe?” A voice came out of the darkness, and Ashe’s hair stood up at the sound of her name.

She turned around and her eyes met with dark brown ones, ones she did not know but clearly knew her. It was not a question so much as a confirmation, but whatever it was, it furrowed Yael’s brow.

“You know her, Jacinta?” Yael stood up from where she leaned against the beam.

Jacinta took her eyes off Ashe for a moment, meeting Yael’s gaze, and let out an exclamation of rapid-fire Spanish, which Ashe suddenly wished she had opted to take in all of her private schooling.

“Huh,” was all Yael said by way of hint, before asking Jacinta a question Ashe could not understand, and receiving an answer Ashe wished she could know. “I dunno, Jaci, bad idea to me.”

Her ears perked at the English, and she looked back to Jacinta, wondering where she could possibly know her from. She was a handsome woman, dark with glossy in a low, tightly wound bun at her neck, but Ashe could not quite place her name, or where they might have seen each other.

Yael walked over to where she and Jacinta stood, and waved Ashe off. “Git.”

It was the first command of Yael’s Ashe would obey, and it would not be the last, and at her hand she would learn how to give a command so it never seemed like a request, to men twice her size, but right now all she could do was back up until she nearly hit the two young men who had been sitting beside Yael in the bar.

Carey shrugged at her. “Jaci’s your best chance, rich girl.”

Ashe fumed, but didn’t say a word. There was someone, for whatever reason, who was fighting for her, and the argument seemed to be growing more heated, Yael shaking her head, her eyebrows in a knot as she looked to Jacinta, who waved a hand in fury even as she tried to cross her arms in front of her.

“If she wants you,” McCree drawled, “well, Jaci’s the only one Yael’l ever listen to.”

“I don’t know why she does.” Ashe hadn’t meant to say it, but it had slipped out, her thoughts as to all the reasons why filling the space in her head meant for a tough showing.

McCree looked over to her, a brief recognition of her inability to understand that made her blood boil, and chuckled. “Best not to.”

Yael threw her arms in the air and kicked the dip bucket by the side of the back porch, spraying wet tobacco across the wood. Jacinta seemed unimpressed.

“¡Bueno! Christ,” She took her hat off and nearly threw it into the dirt before reconsidering. “You win, alright?”

Ashe felt a swirl of excitement rise in her chest, and pride. She was going to be a member of the Deadlock Gang, the kind of gang that people whispered about, the kind of gang that even someone like the Barstow Boys held in high regard. And she would be, in no time, she was sure, be at the right hand of the hawk, Ashe, a legend in her own right.

These fantasies of her own grandeur were quickly brought back into the reality of the situation as Yael walked up to her and grabbed her by the collar, almost pressing their faces together. Yael and Ashe were nearly the same size, but Ashe was shocked by the sheer strength of her, the grip of her claw next to Ashe’s neck.

“Now listen here. This is against my better judgement or will, Tex, so I want you to take very careful notice of what I’m bout to say.” Ashe nodded as Yael stared deep into her eyes, but she did not break her gaze or let her lip quiver, “You want to be a part of this gang, you’ll come to find there’s work to be done that ain’t all in the papers and glory, and when I say jump, the only thing I wanna hear out of your goddamn mouth is how high. I will teach you to be a gunslinger and an arms runner and every terrible thing you wanna be, and you had better pay me back with your unending goddamn loyalty or I’ll shoot you myself.”

She let go of Ashe’s collar and half-tossed her back into Carey and McCree, who caught her gently by the shoulders.

“Married life’s a whole thing, ain’t it, Yael?” Carey laughed good naturedly.

“Carey, I will leave you in the ditch I found you in.” But she sighed, seemingly forcing herself to make peace with the new, shiny-booted, crisp shirted, silver trimmed reality in her life.

“You won’t regret it, I promise.” Ashe tugged at her shirt, rolling her shoulders back.

“And I ain’t callin you Ashe, so best get used to that idea.” She grinned, and her voice turned sickly-sweet, “Elizabeth Caledonia, pretty little miss of the Texas debutante set. Jesse!”

“Yeah?” he took off his hat and ran a hand through his shaggy brown hair before looking back to Yael.

“You’re off smoker duty tonight, other’n showin Bitsy here how to scrub it.” She waved her hand to McCree, “God knows you’ve earned it. And God knows you will, us having to teach her an honest day’s work.”

“She’s alright once you get used to her.” Carey gave his usual casual grin and shrugged. “Give her a year or two to warm up. Carey.” He gave a tip of his hat.

“Jesse.” He nodded to her.

She gave a snort, jutted her chin out, and looked at the two men who were now her teammates.

“Ashe.”

Carey chuckled as he turned to go. “S’not what Yael said.”

Ashe crossed her arms across her chest in frustration. When she had planned out the life she was going to create for herself, the infamous legend and outlaw she was going to become, this was not how she’d seen her first day on the team. She would learn, at Yael’s hand, how to scramble, how to deal, how to play a low card, but now she was a frustrated trainee.

“Welcome to the team,” McCree said, tipping his hat, “Come on then.”

Ashe gave the smallest smile, and she remembered she had won a victory today. It didn’t matter if she were Tex or Bitsy or whatever Yael wanted to call her today, because she had to call her one very important thing.

A member of the Deadlock Gang.

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Have these 14 rescue pets that were mistreated, disregarded or even left behind for dead. There are several 100% natural pet foods availabled on the market place today for you to choose from. As a rather expert Mega-E Canine owner, every thing on this article is right and completely beneficial and effective to work. When the audience uses just what you created about canine ownership towards exotic pets, I loved this ... extremely assumed provoking. You could find out a great deal regarding pet actions and also instruction through seeing a properly competent bitch along with her puppies, also; if you get the option to do thus. Not a bunch of individuals perform acquire that chance, which is why coaches are actually therefore practical. After that it is actually essential to offer him the best medicine, if you dog performs come to be unwell. And also a set from doggy psychics providing services for "interspecies interaction" carried that information to their individual equivalents Sunday during the course of the second yearly Off-Leash Pet Exhibition at the Sepulveda Container canine park. Youthful new puppies should only use a standard fastening collar as ought to any sort of canine that could should be linked. Healthandlive2you.Info Coach potato - driving wind and also downpour can put off one of the most seasoned from canine pedestrians yet if you 'd rather possess a companion in comparison to a physical exercise partner you are far better to adhere to a much smaller species like a Pug. Sometimes after taking out the growth a canine will certainly be merely alright as well as live a long lifestyle and be actually healed without any returning lumps. As this kind of the policy from when to clean hair throughout pet dog cleaning in the house is going to apply typically to those house creatures with prolonged or moderate time frame hair. Just like when folks obtain cancer, the kind of cancer, the place from the cancer, and the overall wellness and also grow older from your canine all influence the last solution to For how long performs a canine stay if it possesses cancer?" The treatment choice is just like necessary for the outlook as the medical diagnosis from the cancer cells. Plus, because of a high requirement of GPS tracking system for dogs, much like any kind of innovation, numerous suppliers coming from Magellan to Garmin to numerous others offer canine FAMILY DOCTORS tools. If your pet spends the majority of his time outdoors, it is crucial for canine proprietors to earn certain they winterize their pet dog house in addition to their own human property. Determine even more about dog health issue when you visit this comprehensive site today. You will locate it trembling or even cocking its own chief regularly and also at an unusual angle if your pet is suffering from this health and wellness issue. When out from sight for merely a min (need to possess guarded her), dog gotten rid of by hill lion.

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