#Local Neighborhood (The Town)
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useless-catalanfacts ¡ 1 year ago
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Btw if you come on holidays and stay at an AirBnb instead of an actual registered hotel I hate you personally. Not "I hate the gentrification and touristic massification and the way we can't live in our homes and are forced to move away because of tourism" in an abstract way- No, not just that. I hate you.
#I'm from a seaside town that has become popular with tourists who come for the beach and the mediterranean climate#and the typical whitewashed walls of mediterranean coastal towns#in just a few years the average rent has gone up so much that now the average rent id#*is over 1000€ per month#one thousand!#that's a whole salary!#in the past 2 years they've been building a new neighbourhood. they've destroyed the vinyeards to make a new neighbourhood that will make#the town 1/3 bigger than it is. that's a lot. but all those houses are luxury houses with private swimming pools for rich foreigners (we#already have 2 private British schools high schools and college(in the british sense)/baccalaureate where their kids go and never have to#interact with locals. I teach some of those kids and they're very prejudiced against locals and very bigoted against the catalan language#(which ofc they never bother to learn)#there's a law in catalonia that says that for every certain amount of houses you build you are obligated to build a certain percentage of#affordable housing. so in this new neighborhood they built the bare minumum affordable housing which is still too expensive for us#and since there's so few of them everyone is competing to get them. the city hall and the bank have had to make an official competition for#them but you only classify if the renr would not be more than 1/3rd of your salary which is impossible. my cousins who are in their mid 30s#and have been working a good qualified job for 15 years (and their partners too) are considered too poor to be considered for the#affordable housing#everyone is having to move out to other cities away from their friends and family and current jobs. the only jobs left here soon will be#mostly directed at tourists#and the only way to continue living here if you're a normal person and not rich is if you're an only child who one day might inherit the#parents' house#but we look around at what's happening in nearby cities and we see the next step which will be airbnb taking the houses that are left#in many places (I've posted about thia before) there aren't any flats for rent or sell anymore that isn't an airbnb#I'm still lucky in my town when compared to other places like Barcelona which are already full of the airbnb plague#actualitat#airbnb#tourism#touristic massification#gentrification
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luciality ¡ 6 months ago
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sometimes i forget i live in itaville usa and i go outside and see a gaggle of high school girls in the tackiest taobao prints ive ever seen.... but then i remember i also was pretty damn ita in high school so i continue on in peace.....
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slytherverse ¡ 7 months ago
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BUTT DEEP !!! IN THE SEPTIC TANK!!! DRENCHED !!!! IN GOD KNOWS WHAT!!!! IN THE CLUB!!! IN FRONT OF MY EX !!! AND MILFS !!! AND FRIENDS!!! IN THE CLUB !!! I FELL IN!!! SEWAGE!!! AND I WAS WAY TOO NORMAL ABOUT IT !!! I SAID (WITH ONE LEG INSIDE THE TANK AND THE OTHER SUPPORTING MY BODY SO THAT I DIDNT BREAK MY FEMUR) I SAID "OH...!" WHO THE FUCK SAYS "oh!" (TWINK-STYLE) IN RESPONSE! TO! FALLING! INTO! THE! (FOOT HIT THE BOTTOM) (NOTHING LED UP TO THIS) (NOTHING ELSE MATTERS NOW) SEPTIC! HATCH !!!!! IN THE ACTUAL CLUB. WHICH APPARENTLY HAD A KNOWN THING CALLED "THE HOLE"!!! WHICH IS APPARENTLY GAY CODE FOR THE MOTHERFUCKING SEPTIC TANK THAT IS SO ENCRUSTED WITH DIRT! THAT IT BLENDS IN! WITH THE FLOOR! MY FUCKING BAD! AND PEOPLE I DITCHED EARLIER ARE ALL "OOH HOW DID YOUR NIGHT TURN OUT BC MINE WAS-" I WISH I COULD CARE BUT I FELL INTO A MOTHERFUCKING SEPTIC TANK AND THAT SOMEHOW ONLY RANKS 4TH ON THE ENDLESS LIST OF STUPID SHIT THAT HAPPENED ON THIS ONE ACTUAL DAY OF MY ACTUAL STUPID LIFE!!!!!!
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theragamuffininitiative ¡ 1 year ago
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imwritesometimes ¡ 1 year ago
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gotta love that the local news is like 'residents are saying illegal fireworks activity is especially bad this year and the fireworks sound more like actual bombs and people are very concerned' and the police are like 🤷‍♀️ we have no idea what these ppl are talking abt
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this-doesnt-endd ¡ 2 years ago
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I just saw a titkok of somebody with a book i preordered in like febuary thats not out yet and they said they just got it from their local bookstore, like it was just there
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feeshybeach ¡ 4 months ago
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I live so far away from the nearest larger city that I'd have to walk over 46 miles to get there - likely more due to the fact the place I live has strict laws about bystanders walking on freeways/highways. if I wanted to walk fewer miles, I could walk roughly about 10 to 12 miles (again, just to get there, not round trip).
Have I mentioned I'm disabled? I can barely make it down to the mailbox and back without feeling weak and exhausted. that's at maximum, 70 feet away from the van I live in. If I had to walk to the closest E.R. I'd have to walk 19 miles.
Even when I didn't live in a more rural space and admittedly lived in a larger city with a lot more infrastructure. It was still completely unreasonable to walk to any location - the elementary school (that I didn't go to as I was in middle school and also I did online school but that's not the point) That was a walkable distance - even in my current disabled state. Why? It was. Literally across the street.
the only other major place that was worthwhile for me to go to was a local garden/park area, and even then, that was insanely difficult to get to. The sidewalks were severely under maintained, and some of them were so overgrown that the plant matter was directly affecting the MAIN ROAD!
“America IS walkable, you’re all just lazy” my childhood home was an hour from the nearest hospital (by car)
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whoslaurapalmer ¡ 9 days ago
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still have not heard back from The Government, debating calling them again but unsure if that is, Okay, but meanwhile!! I didn't call the pharmacy yesterday so I must call them. today. I can do that. I can so totally do thatttttttttt
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insaneasylumpsychic ¡ 2 months ago
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hurricane hit us really hard :(
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a-high-femme ¡ 3 months ago
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me the other day: I dunno maybe I’m exaggerating what small town living is like. I haven’t really lived in a small town since 2021, maybe I’m overembellishing in my D&D campaign
me this morning, after spending 6 waking hours in my hometown (in the neighborhood that I based my campaign on): actually it’s more insane than I’ve been leading my players to believe. gotta start getting weirder with it I guess
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katzenschlafs ¡ 8 months ago
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And while shopping small is appealing as a possible solution - find your local store that isn't part of that 60% - it doesn't help your pocketbook today or next month or next year.
Because those small neighborhood stores? Are getting absolutely bilked by producers, who give their best prices to their biggest customers. Not too long ago, a head of lettuce was like $11 at my local grocery, because their producer just... didn't want to give them a better price than that. And of course that gets passed on to any consumer willing to shop at the local store.
Same head of lettuce was like $3-4 at the big box grocery. It's systemic, and shopping local is a privilege many of us can't afford a lot of the time.
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Remember when the media said “greedflation” was a fringe theory?
Now looking back, it’s undeniable.
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sea-salted-wolverine ¡ 2 years ago
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So there are some perks to living in a tourist destination. There are a lot of detractors mostly that you cannot shoot the tourists because you rely on them for your income but you have a semi captive audience with no context for any of the bullshit you spew. You can tell these people anything and they will believe you, the trusted friendly local. Now this is a very much Spider-Man situation where Great Power begets Great Audacity and even worse Responsibility.
My buddy goes on a run and when hes done there is a bar near a creek. So he wades into the creek because the day is hot and the water is cold.
Tourists ask what hes up to, with his running stuff he didn't want wet piled on the shore and him very obviously cooling off in the water. He says he's fishing.
But now here is why I am telling you this story. The universe occasionally aligns in such a way that we get to really really fuck with people and their perception of said universe. The opportunities do not come often and when they come you must seize the day. This is what my buddy did.
So this Creek runs through town and as a result of the highway and neighborhoods and culverts and roads it does not have a great salmon run. It's a short Creek the headwaters are only a few miles from the ocean it never had a great salmon run to begin with. But there are salmon.
One such fish brushes past my buddy's leg. Immediately he knees the fish like he is juggling a soccer ball and pops it out of the water, then slaps it out of the air on to the shore.
This is dumb luck. He could not do this again if he spent years training. Noodling (catching fish with your hands) is a thing that is legal to do with salmon but it is so much harder than literally every other way to catch salmon, including grabbing them with a garbage can. What he just managed is the kind of thing that should make you want to grab the fish and swing it around your head like a stripper with her panties off.
But,
He has an audience.
This is the opportunity offered by the universe.
He plays it cool.
He puts on dead pan straight face on and wades up to shore to grab his fish and nod to the tourists. Someone asks something and he assures them this is the standard way to get a quick dinner here. The tour guide has caught up with his group. He looks at my buddy and his fish and the general lack of fishing accoutrement. Without missing a beat, the guide backs up every ounce of bullshit out of my buddys mouth because if there is one true fraternity it is locals bullshitting stupid tourists.
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caelcstis ¡ 1 year ago
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pre ordered the third volume for erha bc i need my serotonin
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bonetrousledbones ¡ 2 months ago
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fuck it since my birthday is in like one day i'm gonna use my birthday wish to tell y'all to look at the shit going on in southern Appalachia right now after Hurricane Helene. look at it and talk about it and spread resources about it like wildfire because nobody else fucking is and it feels like we're on our own out here.
there are people who are stranded in hazardous areas that are still safer than trying to leave by driving on the increasingly hazardous roads. i'm personally going into my third day without electricity at this point, and haven't been able to get any gas for a generator to even keep our fridge working. there are very few places with power or running water, and cell service has just barely been restored in the last hour. ground crews are working hard to repair things, but there are many, many areas that are entirely inaccessible that may not receive these fixes for several more days if not weeks. i'm afraid my own neighborhood might become one of those areas if repairs don't get to us soon, and since we're much more rural i have a difficult time trying to be optimistic about it.
we're very far inland. i guarantee you damn near everybody here was expecting a little more rain and wind like we usually get during hurricane season, if they even heard about the hurricane beforehand in the first place since most people only got about a twelve hour notice before landfall- after several major areas had already been flooded. our terrain protects us from most major weather events- most locals have never encountered a single tornado or legitimate tornado warning in our entire lives. nobody i've talked to or heard from about it seems to have had any idea that it would be this bad. everybody's wishing that they took it more seriously, but we've never, ever had to before. i've seen people comparing it to Hurricane Katrina and honestly i'm not sure if that's all too inaccurate. today while looking for a single working gas station i drove by a military helicopter parked in front of the elementary school i went to when i was little.
please for the love of god, talk about us. talk about the good memories you had here or the beauty of our mountains, and talk about how devastated we are as we watch historic structures, buildings, and entire towns get wiped from the face of the earth like they were never even there. stop dismissing us as uneducated hicks and rednecks and hilllbillies and fucking help us.
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r/Asheville resource/updates megathread (Asheville is the largest city in western North Carolina)
How to set up disaster roaming for cell service
WLOS Live updates
Duke Energy power outage map
WNC Landslide Map
Hotels accepting locals
Emergency shelter locations
I live in western North Carolina so all of my own resources are centered around that. If anybody from the other impacted areas has additional sources they'd like to add, please don't hesitate to do so.
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themidnightcrimson ¡ 27 days ago
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malevolent ࿏ wm
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summary: in which moving into a new house brings you horrors you never imagined.
words: 7.6k
warnings: forced breeding, strap-on, dubcon/noncon, demonic, horror, gore, top!wanda, evilmommydemoncockwanda4life
this is dark!fic for 18+ only. minors dni. read with discretion.
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The day was cold and bleak. The air had a frostiness to it that manifested in a sheen of white over the long-dead grass that had yellowed at the passing of autumn. The leaves scattered around were no longer vibrant reds and oranges but rather dulled browns. The trees were barren—dark, crooked cracks in the grey skyline. You noticed a pack of buzzards eating at roadkill.
Death.
Christmas was just around the corner but, unlike everywhere else in the country, this town seemed to not be celebrating much. You’d noticed that the very first time you drove through—this sort of head-down feeling about the place that differed so much from what it looked like. The town itself was charming and cutesy with so many little shops and beautiful gathering spaces. It was colorful, too. But something about it seemed greyed, like a ghost town almost except the people were still there. They didn’t talk much, especially not to outsiders apparently. They only whispered to each other with concerned faces and low voices, like they were afraid something lingering around in the air would hear them. They held their children very close to them.
So it wasn’t exactly the neighborliness of Westview that attracted you to move there. The town felt like something very dark had happened in a place that otherwise was a great place to live.
To be quite honest, the housing market in that town had taken a sudden dip down in the past couple months. You didn’t understand the housing market and thought maybe people just didn’t like to buy houses in the winter, but there were a few neighborhood roads that had recent For Sale signs up in every yard. It’s like people were evacuating the town. Running from something.
There was a specific house, actually, that had taken a steep dip down in price. It was put up for sale a couple months ago for a shockingly low price. You were stunned when you found out there were no bids, no one who had showed interest since it’d been put up. It was a beautiful house, a perfect family home. Not that you had any family to put in it. It was just you, but you liked space.
And for a price that cheap? In a quiet town away from the city? You couldn’t pass up on it. You were anxious, anyways, to have somewhere to yourself. Crashing on your friend’s couch wasn’t exactly the most glamorous post-breakup living arrangements, but the apartment lease was in your ex’s name.
Now you stood, on this dreadful day, in front of that house. You couldn’t help but feel like the windows were eyes staring at you, measuring you the way you were measuring it. Evaluating, judging. Maybe your confidence was just shot from all you’d been through the past few months. You had a house now. It was time to make it into a home.
It didn’t so much seem like the dark energy of town had made its way into your house, but rather that the house was some sort of energy field pushing it out into the town. This was a strong assumption to make, but as soon as you walked into the front door, you could feel it. The air was thick with something more than just the dust of time. It was still. So still. You could feel the still air on your face like a thick cloud of smoke that wasn’t there. It was energy brimming all around you. It made your stomach turn.
You couldn’t lie and say that you didn’t feel this eerie energy when you viewed the house. You felt it from the very beginning, but you just needed somewhere, and this house was the only one in your budget.
Cursed, is what the local kids called it. It was cursed because of the family who lived there. When you questioned your real estate agent about it, she sort of brushed it off and said that they just disappeared, that whatever happened to them, happened outside of this home.
You were reluctant to believe that story, but you were a skeptic anyways. If a young family had been axe murdered here or something, it was still just wood and brick to you.
The first few days in the house were busy. The moving company was taking all your stuff from your ex’s apartment and moving it into your house, which meant you had to deal with her calling you and screaming that she definitely bought that chair even though you distinctly remembered ordering it for the living room. You hated having to speak with her, with all her narcissistic tendencies. As much as you mourned the relationship, you mourned how stupid you were for ever putting up with so much for so long.
The house apparently was built in the 50’s and hadn’t been touched since besides the usual renovations every decade or so, which you enjoyed. Older houses had so much more character, like the adorable little partition window between the living room and the kitchen. You opened and closed the little shutters, imagining what 50’s housewife used this for so many years.
So you didn’t have much time to dwell on that eerie energy in the house while the movers brought everything in, until they left. And it was just you and those walls.
Luckily you could focus on unpacking all the boxes stacked around. You did so dutifully, and since you really had nothing else to do, you finished pretty quickly. By the next day you were untaping the last box which was full of random childhood artifacts. Trying to think of where you could put these things that you wanted to keep but didn’t really want just lying around, you suddenly realized that this house had an attic. The agent had vaguely pointed to it previously but you had never went up there.
Going upstairs, you opened the attic ladder and carefully climbed up the rickety thing, instantly inhaling thick layers of dust as your head entered the dark attic. To your surprise, you saw a few boxes lying around.
“Huh,�� you murmured with interest as you swatted away cobwebs, the floor dangerously creaking beneath you as you approached the boxes. Whoever took the previously family’s stuff out of the house must have forgotten about the attic, which you found strange. Were they in that much of a hurry to get in and out?
Crouching down, you wiped the thick layer of dust off the box. How much dust could have accumulated in a matter of months?
None of the boxes were taped, only folded shut. Was it wrong of you to look through their stuff, especially since they were basically considered dead? To be fair, the house was yours now, and you needed to put some stuff up here. So you opened the box and looked inside.
This one was full of different colors of fabric. A red fabric crown of some sort, green tights, a blue headband, a can of silver spray paint for hair. Halloween costumes? All of superhero-esque kind?
Opening another box, this time you find some sort of fake lobster. A doorknocker? There’s some baby stuff in there too—a book about the psychological effects of pregnancy, a crib mobile made of butterflies. You go through all this stuff, the usual family keepsakes that the mother was too sentimental to throw away, until you suddenly come across something starkly different.
A book, but a different kind of book. It’s at the bottom of the box, and it’s heavy. The front is dark and somewhat torn with strange inscriptions on it. Heaving it out of the box, it falls into your lap with a cloud of black dust. What the hell did a family have to do with this? It looked more like a Halloween decoration than anything.
Mindlessly flipping it open, you saw that the pages were full of language you did not understand. Markings, almost, like hieroglyphics. Symbols. You come across a page that has the only recognizable thing you see—the figure of a woman, hair flowing, seeming to levitate on the page. This page is much darker than the rest, and the corners more torn. Like whoever read this book always seemed to seek out this specific page.
A sudden popping noise that sounded like weight on a floorboard startled you, made the book fall (it felt more like it leaped) out of your hands. You turned around to see nothing but the dark empty attic.
It was much too creepy up there.
Leaving your box of childhood memories up there and deciding to swap it out for this strange dark book, you carefully climbed back down the ladder and closed it.
The air felt thicker than ever now. Vibrating. Like it had just woken up.
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You were mostly settled. Things still felt weird in the house, even after you put up every decoration you owned, but you figured it would go away with time. You’d been living off takeout the whole two weeks, hence the pile of Chinese takeout boxes in the corner of the kitchen. Deciding to go shopping to have some real food in the house, you pulled on your jacket and stepped out into the bitingly cold air. There was even a harsh wind, too, that made your nose hurt. Hugging yourself, you walked down your driveway and noticed a woman standing in the yard of the house next to yours. It was one of the few houses still lived in on the street, and you hadn’t even seen your new neighbor until now.
It was a middle-aged woman checking her mailbox. You struggled internally to decide if you should say hi or not, knowing that being all alone in a strange town was probably not the best idea, but something told you to just keep walking. You almost made it to your car until suddenly you could see her head snap towards you out of the corner of your eye. Instinctively, you froze, looking across the yard at her and seeing that she squinted her eyes suspiciously at you.
“H-hello,” you weakly greeted, shivering from the cold.
“Who are you?” the woman called out loudly, turning her body fully towards you now as if she was braced to defend herself. Great, a crazy neighbor.
“I’m y/n. I just moved in.” You tried to give a smile as you pointed to the house.
Looking between you and the house, the woman hesitated before walking towards you. Wishing you’d just ran to your car and left, you tried to be polite as she approached you.
“It’s nice to meet you,” she said gruffly, sticking out her hand which shook yours rather aggressively. You noticed now something neon green on her hip—a watergun? “Detective Agnes. I work for the FBI. I’m working on a murder case here.” She pulled out a black wallet and flipped it open towards you. You knew that there was supposed to be a gold FBI badge there, but it was only a CostCo membership card for someone named Ralph.
“Oh,” you mumbled as she sighed officially and put her “badge” back in her pocket. She was also wearing a purple shirt with a picture of Dolly Parton and the word “Jolene” on it. Who the hell was this woman?
“Better be careful, newbie,” she said, pointing to your house. “The kids love to egg this house. Don’t worry though, I’ve got top of the line security system.” She nodded proudly and pointed to the roof of her house, which you noticed had one solitary print-only Polaroid camera haphazardly duct taped to it.
“Oh,” was all you could say again, feeling the intense urge to run away.
“Unfortunately the department frowns on tasering the little shits even though it’s what those punks need to set them straight,” she said, stretching and tapping on the other side of her hip, which had a toy car on it that she apparently thought was a taser.
Nodding slowly, you started backing away to your car. “Okay, well, it’s nice to meet you.”
“You, too, young lady. Be safe out here. It’s a crime-ridden place.” She dramatically looked around the nice, quiet neighborhood as if she was looking at Gotham City and went back to her mailbox. You got in your car and sped away.
Westview only had a tiny market in town. It was liminal with its old linoleum floors and flickering green LED lights that buzzed overhead. It smelled slightly of rotting meat. You wondered if you could steal Detective Agnes’ fake CostCo card.
It was deserted in there, too, besides the drunk clerk with a scruffy beard who stared blankly at you. This was the point where you started to realize the citizens here did not take well to new people.
In fact, you had noticed the only other shopper in there seemed to be following you around. You didn’t feel in danger, given that it was just an older lady in a sweater buying fig newtons, until suddenly she came out from the other aisle and slammed her cart into yours.
“Hey!” you yelled out, looking at the older lady with short blonde hair.
“Get out while you still can!” she whisper-yelled, her eyes pleading. “You’re going to die!”
“Excuse me?”
“Run! Get out of that house, get out of this town! Wanda! She’s going to kill you! She’s going to kill us all!”
She was screaming now, eyes tearing up, knuckles turning white as she gripped her cart. You stared at her, wondering if you should call the police, until suddenly her face changed into a pleasant one.
“Ope! Sorry, dear! These carts have a mind of their own!” She let out a cheery little cackle before wheeling her cart away, going down the aisle to look at the Pop Tarts.
You stood there dumbfounded for a moment before deciding to just leave and go to Eastview for your shopping needs.
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Your ex thought you weren’t worth much, but you knew she had to miss your cooking. Cooking was an art to you, a hobby you enjoyed sharpening your skills in. Tonight, since you’d been living off of leftover orange chicken for days, you were making a nice ribeye with lemon green beans and garlic mashed potatoes. A comfort meal. Maybe it would cheer up the angst-imbued house.
The interaction with your neighbors, specifically with the lady at the market, was unsettling. Why was she telling you to get out of that house? Who the hell was Wanda and why was she going to kill everybody? Was everyone in that town cracked out or out of their mind?
It was a little cozier, admittedly, as you were cooking that night. The kitchen had plenty of space for all your cooking tools and equipment, which you had a lot of. They were precious to you, so you had spent almost an entire day arranging them in all the drawers and cabinets.
You limited the lighting in the kitchen to the oven range and the little lamp in the living room. Setting your phone up, you let classical music fill the air as you prepped your steak while your potatoes finished boiling.
You felt calm and at home for the first time in a long time.
Until you started hearing a strange clicking noise.
Your first instinct was to check the oven since this was your first time using it. The clicking was not coming from there. You listened all around in the kitchen until you realized it was coming from the living room. Looking through the partition, you saw that the floor lamp on the other side of the living room was flickering.
Your pot of potatoes steaming and boiling, your steak left on the counter, you emanated through the flip door into the living room. You had just put a bulb in that lamp—no way it was dying already.
The closer you got to the lamp, the more it flickered. Faster and faster, causing your stomach to fold into anxious knots, until finally you lunged and turned it off all together. The room dark now, you caught your breath that you didn’t even notice was quickened.
You reached and turned it back on to find that it was no longer flickering. It must have been a weird glitch with the bulb. You were about to turn away when it suddenly clicked off by itself.
“What the fuck?” you say, reaching to turn it back on when it clicked right back on by itself. Taking a step away as fear imbued you, your eyes widened when the bulb in the lamp started getting brighter.
“What the fuck?” you say again, reaching to turn it off only to find that the bulb was so hot it burned your fingers. “Ow!” Stepping away, you watched in horror as the bulb kept getting brighter and brighter, filling up the entire room with light so that every corner and shadow was lit. You could see everything. And then it got so bright that you couldn’t see well. Your eyes burned, your skin burned with the heat of the bulb. The lamp was shaking where it stood, the fabric of the lampshade starting to burn up to expose the hot bulb even more. Even the metal pole was starting to melt where the bulb sat on it. You could hear the classical music playing from your phone in the kitchen, except that it was frenzied, angered, violent now.
It got brighter and brighter until your face was red hot and your hair felt like it was about to catch fire and all you could see was bright hot white, and you screamed a silent scream “STOP!”
With a loud electrical popping noise, the bright white faded away. You were blinded now, everything pitch dark, the heat replaced with a sudden coolness as the bulb popped and sparked on the lamp where the shade had half melted off. When you could finally see again, you unplugged the lamp and stepped away from it.
“What the fuck?” you said for the third time this night, heart beating fast as you rubbed your hot, aching eyes as your vision came back to you.
Before you could even process what had happened with the lamp, you looked over at the partition window and froze. Your heart stopped in your chest. Every hair on your arm stood up. Your eyes instantly watered with fear.
As you stood across the living room, staring through the partition window into the kitchen, you saw that every single cabinet and drawer in the kitchen was fully opened. All of your cooking tools, all the utensils and knives and equipment, hung suspended in the air right above or in front of the drawer or cabinet you had them in. It was like they were all on strings. And where your dining table was, all 3 chairs were hung upside down in the air above the table.
The air felt alive now. So alive you could feel its heartbeat, feel its breath down your neck, feel it on your skin. It was watching you, taunting you, burning eyes into you. There was something else there with you as you stared at all your kitchen stuff hanging in the air by themselves like they were on pulleys. But they were all so still. Nothing swayed or trembled.
A sigh breezed against the back of your neck. And then everything fell.
All of it dropped, every tool and utensil, every chair. It dropped like dead weight from where it hung, like gravity had suddenly been turned back on. It was deafeningly loud, all the metal tools clanging against the hard tile floor and countertops. Even your boiling pot of potatoes went down with a loud splash of steaming water. It was a deafening clatter, pure chaos as all of your stuff went right down to the floor. Even the chairs cracked onto the ground as they dropped heavily.
Things rolled and trembled until finally it all came to a stop. The air no longer felt as thick, but it was still there. It was silent now except for the eerie classical music still playing from your phone, calmly now.
You didn’t know what to do, or think, or feel. You felt fear. You felt confusion. Fingers trembling, you took frightened steps forward towards the kitchen, unsure of what lied in wait for you in there. Flipping open the door, you expected something to get you. You could feel it, you swore. Watching you. You swore you saw something dark swoop down under the surface of the island counter, but nothing was there. It was just you and all your broken tools and chairs. You avoided stepping on the mushed potatoes that still steamed as you walked through the warzone.
On the counter, your steak laid where you left it. Except that it was bleeding now, covered in thick, black blood that oozed out of it. It dripped down the counter, covered your floor. The center of the steak seemed to throb. Too much blood for just a ribeye, and when you touched it, it was warm.
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Not that you had anyone to tell, but you didn’t speak of what happened. Dumbfounded, you numbly cleaned the mess up and went to bed. After the steak, you couldn’t eat beef for a week.
The house felt different now. Still eerie and angsty, but not as devoid as it did at first. Whatever devoid feeling had been filled the day you went into the attic was angered since the day in the kitchen. It felt like the house was resentful, like it was going to snap at any moment and swallow you. Even the doors kept slamming on your fingers when you tried to close them.
You thought about the lady in the market. Couldn’t stop thinking about her. Something very bad had happened in that house.
“Wanda?” Detective Agnes repeated when you asked her about it. You saw her in her backyard, duct taping another Polaroid camera to her patio. You spoke to her over the fence. It was gnawing at you to know what had happened. “Where did you hear that name?” she asked gruffly, perking up and approaching you at the fence, causing you to take a few steps back.
“Some lady at the store,” you blurted. “She was saying something about a Wanda, like it had to do with my house.”
Agnes squinted her eyes at you, and then she suddenly perked up as if she was listening to something. She grabbed a nearly all-brown banana from her hip and put it up to her mouth like a walkie talkie, speaking in a deep voice. “312 on the move. Dealing with concerned civilian. Be there at 1600 hours.” She tucked the banana back into her belt. “You wanna know about Wanda?”
You nodded, wondering if you should even trust what she has to say.
Agnes sucked at her lip and then blurted, “She’s dead. But you didn’t get that from me.”
“I kind of figured… Did she live here?”
Agnes tilted her head. “And what do you plan on doing with that information, huh? You trying to blackmail a federal officer?”
You raised your hands and backed away. “Look lady, I just live here and want to know why everyone is being so weird about the house I just bought.”
“Look,” Agnes interrupted you, “Wanda Maximoff was found dead in the woods. She’s gone, deadso, totally corpsed out, alright? I’ve got her on an operating table over at the morgue if you don’t believe me.”
You shook your head. “But she lived in my house?”
Then Agnes did something weird. She spoke, “I don’t know.” But she nodded her head.
You looked at her in confusion. “What?”
“I said, I don’t know!” she yelled, but she nodded her head again. The expression on her face was angry, but there was something wrong with her eyes. They were almost… pleading. But like she didn’t realize it.
That conversation didn’t make you feel any better about the situation. And when you got home to find that the old book you’d brought down from the attic was sitting on the coffee table open like something had been reading it, you weren’t exactly comforted.
It was turned to that same page, the one with the figure of a woman wearing a crown. Feeling aggravated with the lack of knowledge you were getting from both the internet and your neighbor, you slammed it shut and threw it under the couch, out of sight. If there was something in this house fucking with you, you would not just lay down and take it.
Things continued to feel off in the house. Your TV kept going off and on at random times. Doors slamming, footsteps in the hall at night, knocking on the walls. None of it felt as aggressive as that night in the kitchen, though. You’d come to terms that you had picked a slightly haunted house, though you still didn’t truly believe in all that stuff. But as a logical, sensible person, you knew that there was something strange causing all these strange occurrences that couldn’t be overlooked.
But when all the little events were mostly docile and didn’t get in the way of your usual living, you just carried on. You wouldn’t forgive what happened that night in the kitchen, but you could live with it and try to forget it. Even though you had to buy so much new kitchen stuff.
That was until you were cleaning one day and picked up that old dark book from under the couch so that you could vacuum. You set it on the coffee table and kept on cleaning, forgetting to put it back in its place of hiding.
That night, with a clean house, you decided to take a nice relaxing bath. You lit candles all around the bathroom and turned off the light as the tub filled with hot water. There’d been more flickering lights and knocking on the walls that evening, but you were starting to get used to it. It was an old house, after all. Maybe it was all just your imagination, and it was all very explainable in a scientific way.
But this event marked a point where you could no longer believe that.
As you laid in the tub, muscles relaxing under the hot water, you opened your eyes momentarily and saw something strange. In the water where you lay, you saw foggy threads of red floating through the water.
Were you bleeding?
Sitting up sharply, you check yourself all over. No marks, no wounds or cuts, no time of the month, but there’s trails of blood floating in the water.
Your heart starts to quicken as the air grows thick around you again, that same feeling as the one that night with the lamp. It swarms you.
“Stop,” you whisper, watching more and more blood appear from nowhere in the water, making the water turn crimson red.
Glancing at the reflective metal surface of the bathtub faucet, your heart stops when you see, in the warped reflection, some shadow of black sitting right behind you in the tub.
That’s when you scream and leap out of the water, nearly slipping on the tile floor as you freak out. There obviously was no one or nothing sitting behind you in the tub, but you most certainly saw the dark reflection of one.
The lightbulb above you starts flickering, even though the light was not turned on.
The blood in the water had gone, but during your jump out of the water your foot had pulled the stopper up. The water was draining now, very loudly, making a deep guttural sound as the water drained quickly. When it was all gone, it was silent.
Something dark appeared at the wide-open hole of the drain. It looked liquid at first, like some black substance was oozing out of the drain onto the white porcelain of the tub, but when it started rising up out of the hole and moving in a very alive way, you realized it was fingers.
Blackened fingers rose out of the drain, wiggling, pulling up a hand along with it. The fingernails were sharpened, the slender hand feminine even with its charcoal fingers.
You screamed when a whole arm shot out of the drain and grabbed at the side of the tub.
All you could think to do was run out of the bathroom and slam the door shut, holding onto the knob and listening as you heard the sickly wet sounds of something being pulled out of the drain and slapping against the wet tub, and even the sound of it stepping over the tub onto the floor. Heavy breathing with effort. Distorted wet footsteps across tile floor.
You wanted to run and call the police, but then you felt the knob gently turn in your hand. This bathroom door did not have a lock.
With some sort of screech of breath, whatever thing that was behind the door pulled hard at the knob. Screaming, you pulled the door back shut before you could see whatever was on the other side, wanting to rather die than to actually see what it was. The thing wrestled with you over the door, pulling hard and fast. You held on with all your strength, hands still wet from the bath, putting your foot against the threshold for more leverage. The air was screaming now, loud in your ears, a heartbeat that was not your own beating from inside your own brain. The lights were all flickering, and the house felt like it was closing in on you.
The thing pulled and pulled, screaming and screaming until it got the best of you. The knob slipped out of your hands, and the door swung wide open.
Instinctively, you slapped your hands over your eyes. You didn’t want to see. You didn’t want to see. You didn’t want to see. You’d rather die than see.
Breathing heavily, you waited for something to get you, because you were certain that whatever was in your house was trying to do that all along.
But nothing came.
Inhaling oxygen and exhaling bravery, you tried to ignore all the visions your brain guessed that you would see, and parted your fingers. Through the slit in your fingers you saw… nothing. The bathroom was empty. The tub was drained but clean. The flame of the candles all around were perfectly still.
But then you heard a creaking noise from behind you. Slowly, breath held, trembling, you turned around and raised your eyes.
A black figure clung to the ceiling. It was the shape of a person with soft edges. It was a shadow, in human form.
It jumped down at you.
With a scream, you buckled to the floor and covered your head, trying to shield yourself. Nothing touched you. You bravely opened your eyes again and looked all around only to not see the black figure anywhere. There was nothing but you, naked and wet on the floor.
The air felt empty again. The thing had come and gone. You were safe.
For now.
࿏
It was hard to feel settled after that. Things got more aggressive. It was like whatever demon was with you had finally laid eyes on you and was set to get you now. You couldn’t find that book anywhere. It wasn’t on the coffee table nor under the couch. You looked everywhere to no avail.
Detective Agnes knocked on your door one night to tell you that someone had been lurking at a window at the side of your house. She was holding a full-size Nerf Super Soaker and said that she had tried to snipe the suspect wearing all-black but they had somehow jumped into your closed window (hence the sound of spraying water you had heard on your window). She demanded to look through the house, which she did and found nothing. You’re pretty sure she swiped a pair of your underwear, though. She taped a Polaroid camera to your roof for good measure and said she took photos of “damning” evidence which included unconcerning pictures of your flowerbed. You knew it wasn’t a person, but rather a thing lurking from within the window.
Nights were the worst. You had never been someone to be so scared, but you could barely sleep from how hard your heart thumped with fear as you lay in bed at night.
A few nights after the bathroom event, you managed to halfway fall asleep somewhere around 3 AM when you suddenly heard loud banging coming from within the walls. Waking up with a shot of anxiety in your chest, you heard the banging again, loud and clear, like someone trying to break down a wall from the inside.
Feeling frozen, you forced yourself to sit up when you fully froze at the sight of something horrific. In the corner of your bedroom, right beside the window, was that dark figure hiding in the shadows. It seemed more formed this time. You could see the outline of hips, hands, legs. The worst part was that you could see two red eyes gleaming at you in the dark.
“Go away!” you instinctively yelled, but it came out barely audible due to the lump in your throat.
The figure slowly came forward, and the moonlight from the window casted over it.
It was some creature of a woman. She was decrepid, slightly hunched over. Her eyes were red and glowing, her mouth set wide open as if her jaw has been broken off. But where her face would have been… Where her face would have been, her skin had been stretched upward into two points, like her skin had been stretched over horns, or over a crown. She was unnaturally tall and skinny, her skin pale and yellowed.
Dark red hair laid at her shoulders, and she was wearing some torn and ratted red suit. Her hands were deformed, long and sharp and bony, blackened at the ends. The horrible smell of death and blood suddenly filled your nostrils, making you gag and cover your nose. The creature smelled of death and appeared deformed, demonic, monstrous, evil.
“Who are you?” you questioned, trying to think of what to say or do. This thing must have been some sort of manifestation of the thing that had been torturing you, and so you say the only name you know. “Wanda?”
The creature erupted into a monstrous screech so loud you nearly went deaf, and in a flash, she lunged fast at you. You swore you could feel her push you down onto the bed when you suddenly sit back up, coming out of a horrible nightmare.
You were sweating through the sheets, panting, looking all around your empty bedroom. Had it been just a dream?
Feeling a sting at your shoulder, you look at it to see a bloody claw mark there, so deep it was already dripping blood.
Once the demon had first seen you in the bathroom, she got more aggressive. Now she had tasted your blood… What was going to happen now?
As you expected, everything got worse. The knocking and footsteps got more violent than ever, doors slamming on you, knives throwing themselves across the kitchen towards you. This thing was trying to get you.
You leased an apartment in Eastview as quickly as you could.
You couldn’t move in for a week, so you were stuck there with that thing trying to murder you. Your friend you had been crashing with was on holiday, but you could not stand to sleep alone in that house. So you asked the only person you could think of…
“No worries, tuts,” Agnes said as she strode into your bedroom with an armful of blankets and pillows. “It’s my job to keep my fellow citizens safe.” She threw her blankets and pillows down on the ground right at the foot of your bed.
Awkwardly, you watched her make a pallet. “You know, I have a couch downstairs… That might be best so you can, you know, watch the front door.” You had told her you were having fears of break-ins and just needed someone to stay with you for a night or two.
“No, no, I can do my job best from right here,” she said as she plopped down onto the pallet. “Besides, these nights can get a little…” She undid her police jacket, which was actually just a varsity jersey jacket with the name Bohner on the back, as she looked up at you with a smirk. “Lonely…”
You just stared down at her, with her banana and water gun. “Okay, Agnes.”
Honestly, the night went better with Agnes there. There wasn’t any knocking or footsteps, no creatures in your corner. It was just Agnes’ obnoxiously loud snoring like a lawnmower right in your bedroom that kept you awake, but eventually you drifted off.
You had dreams of red. Of red and blood behind your eyes. Voices, names, memories, all in red. You don’t know what it was that jolted you awake, but something did, and when you flapped open your eyes, you saw her.
She was on your ceiling.
Red scarlet hair hanging down. Her face was not malformed this time, but rather, it was somewhat beautiful. Even with the glowing red eyes and darkness.
“Wanda,” you whispered, somehow knowing for sure that this was her. Wanda, the woman who had died, who had a family in the house you bought, who had been torturing you for weeks. Her fingers, black, clung to the ceiling as if that’s what kept her there, but you could tell it was magic. It was the same magic that froze your body and made you unable to move as she slowly drifted down the ceiling, closer to you, until she hovered right above you.
She didn’t seem real. This beautiful ghost, demon, whatever she was, her nose so close to yours, breathing over you with red eyes full of desire.
“You opened the Darkhold,” she spoke in deep unnatural voice without moving her lips. “You beckoned me.”
You tried to shake your head, but you couldn’t move a muscle in your body except your mouth. “No, I didn’t…” You thought of the old dark book. You had opened it.
“I can live on…” she spoke, reaching out her hand to touch you. It landed on your stomach, causing you to jump. You could feel her hand. You felt silly for expecting it to just go right through you. Her skin was touching your stomach over your shirt. It made you feel fear and excitement at the same time. “I have a womb now.”
Your eyebrows sewed together. “A womb?”
Chills filled you as Wanda’s lips stretched open in a wide grin that was too perfect to be real. Her face looked fake suddenly, like it was just a pretty human mask put over the real face of something horrible. “A womb for my children,” she said without moving her lips.
Suddenly, your legs were spread wide open in the air. You let out a scream of shock and fear, which made Agnes’ snoring finally stop. Agnes jumped up, stumbling, holding her Super Soaker. Her eyes widened when she saw the demon hovering over you.
“Get down!” Agnes yelled to you as she held up the Nerf gun and sprayed a sharp stream of water at Wanda. To your surprise, once the water hit the demon, it steamed and burned. Wanda hissed and turned to Agnes, levitating upright in the air as Agnes continued to spraying her.
Getting out her banana, Agnes yelled, “664 we need backup over here! I repeat! 664 we’ve got a code red!”
Wanda lifted her hand. Agnes rose up into the air, and with a flick of Wanda’s wrist, she was flung right out of the second-floor window.
Wanda turned back to you, and fear jumped at your spine again. Now it was just you and her.
Flying back towards you, she used her magic to peel the sheets off of you, settling herself down on the bed over you.
“What are you doing?!” you cried out as she somehow tore your clothes off your body, exposing your skin to her.
Her hand immediately went between your legs, groping at your core. “I have been waiting so long for you, detka,” she spoke, her voice sounding a little more natural. Her eyes, once robotic and blank, looked softer now. You couldn’t tell if it was real or not.
You tried to squirm but her magic kept you still. Her hand was expert—she rubbed circles at your clit as her other hand snaked up over your stomach, up to your breast which she groped. “The perfect vessel,” she whispered. “I can live on. I can have my children again,” she repeated as she slid her hand down to your tummy again, her hand glowing red. “Your womb is so fertile. I could feel it when you first arrived.”
Your head was spinning as this demon woman worked at your pussy, pinching your clit and slipping two fingers inside which made you yelp. She was gentle yet firm at the same time, somehow knowing exactly what would make you feel good. You were getting wet for her—you could hear it in the wet sloshing sound that your pussy made as she pumped her fingers in and out of you, curling them at their deepest length.
“Fuck,” you breathed, your head feeling suddenly very hot, as if a fever suddenly set upon you.
“You are so good,” she breathed, voice deeper this time as she adjusted where she sat between your legs, now kneeling over you. Suddenly, something large formed at her crotch. It was a strap—long and maroonish red with charcoal darkness at the tip.
“What are you—”
Wanda grinned and shushed you as she stroked her length, red magic glowing from within her strap. “Be a good, quiet vessel, detka.”
Something evil was showing through in her eyes.
“Wanda—”
She used her magic to shut your mouth so that you could only make muffled noises as the demon nestled between your hips, using her hands to spread your thighs further open. She wanted you as open for her as you could be.
Frightened but also some sickly form of turned on, you watched as the demon stroked her cock and brought it to your entrance which she had prepped and made soaking wet for herself. Her cock was larger than anything you’d ever taken. It was throbbing with magic.
The tip pushed through your entrance painfully, and you cried out through the magic covering your mouth as the demon suddenly pushed her entire cock inside you, ripping open your walls. Pain seared through your human body as the demon forced her way inside you, but when she passed a hand over your head, the pain suddenly went away. It turned more into a feeling of butterflies, of throbbing, of pleasure. You could feel blood leaking down your thighs, but she had taken away your pain.
“You are going to give me such beautiful children,” Wanda murmured, cupping your chin with her dark hand as she started to thrust her hips, pumping herself inside you. The pressure came against your cervix in a hot flash of pleasure each time. She was so long and so large, fucking herself so deep inside you that your stomach bulged. The demon pressed her hand on the bulge and cackled, feeling herself fuck you from inside.
You could feel everything, how deep she was, how the ridges of her strap glided against your walls, the way your stomach bulged with each thrust. Your pussy was being stretched open around her demon cock, taking every single inch no matter how girthy.
“The perfect bride,” Wanda said, her demon voice showing through as she started to fuck you harder. Her hand slapped around your throat, holding you down and halfway choking you as her thrusts became quicker and quicker, demonic grunts coming from her. You could feel yourself tightening inside, preparing for what was about to come.
The demon’s cock seemed to swell inside you, forcing you to stretch even more. Sickly squelching noises filled the air. Blood was all over the bed now. You felt nothing but electric, all-consuming pleasure.
“Stay still,” Wanda said as she choked you harder. “You’re going to take all of my seed. You’re going to give me such beautiful children, my beautiful bride.”
She went harder and harder, fucking deep into your womb until finally, the energy broke. She let out a guttural noise, and you could feel her cock go rigid inside you before a load of warmth filled you deep inside. As you shook from your own blinding orgasm, you couldn’t even see the fact that your tummy bulged as the demon kept filling you with her seed which glowed red from inside you.
Sighing, Wanda relaxed against you, keeping her cock inside you. It was still swollen, stuck inside your cunt. “I’m going to keep myself here until I know it takes.” She smiled for real this time as she stroked your glowing, swollen tummy. You were more than feverish now as you felt things start to change inside you at an inhuman speed. You could feel it taking, feel your tummy swelling more and more.
You didn’t know that once you birthed, she would slaughter you like breeding cattle.
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roosterforme ¡ 29 days ago
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California Autumn | Rooster x Reader
Summary: Bradley was drawn to you the minute you moved onto his street. You seemed to bump into one another everywhere, and each time he saw your smile or heard your laugh, he knew he had to ask you out. He wasn't expecting the answer you gave him, just as you weren't expecting to wish he could be the man for you.
Warnings: angst, fluff, adult language, mentions of accident/death, guardianship of child
Length: 3500 words
Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Female Reader
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Early September was brutal in southern California. Each day seemed hotter than the one before it, and even the smallest bit of yard work was enough to leave Bradley sweaty and miserable. He stood in the middle of his front yard, eyes closed, thinking about how beautiful autumn was in Virginia when he was a kid. He leaned against the handle of the rake, picturing a pumpkin patch, a corn maze and all the things he would never find in San Diego.
The sound of something bigger than a car coming down his quiet side street had him cracking his eyes open against the Saturday afternoon sun. A U-Haul lumbered to a stop in front of the house across the street and one door down. The engine settled to silence, and he craned his neck to get a better look. The property had been sitting there with a red and white SOLD sticker over the realty sign for what seemed like months, and now it would appear as though he finally had a new neighbor.
Bradley dropped the rake and had to lunge to grab the handle before it clattered against his stone pathway. The woman who climbed out of the truck, hopping down onto the street in some beat up sneakers, was beautiful. The sun seemed to illuminate her from the inside, and now Bradley was setting the rake down softly as she walked around the truck and slid the back open. It was filled with furniture and boxes, and he watched as an avalanche nearly flowed out as she tried to move one item.
"Shit," he grunted, running across the street as he wiped his dirty hands on the hem of his undershirt. "It looks like you could use a hand," he called out, hoping he wouldn't scare you when he came up behind you just in time to catch a dining chair that was teetering above your head. Then the neatly stacked boxes started to give out as well, and his left hand went to steady them.
You were ducking slightly, preparing for the worst when Bradley realized your back was pressed against his chest. If he moved, there would be a lot of broken furniture to contend with. But then you glanced at him over your shoulder as you stood to your full height, eyes wide and lips parted in surprise.
If you looked beautiful from across the street, then you looked stunning up close, trapped between his body and the truck. "Welcome to the neighborhood," he mumbled like an idiot, but he was rewarded by the smile that curled along your lips.
"Hey, you're pretty good at being neighborly," you replied, gesturing to his right hand holding the chair and his left securing the stack of boxes. His heartbeat quickened at the sound of your voice and how close you were as you told him your name and asked which house was his.
"I'm Bradley. The white cottage across the street." He nodded toward his mess of a front yard with his chin. "I moved in about six months ago." 
What he didn't mention was the fact that he often still felt like a bit of an outsider in town, even though he attended all the neighborhood potlucks and still had some blond in his hair from hanging out on the local beaches all summer. At the moment, all he could do was fight the urge to tell you how pretty your eyes were.
"And you like the neighborhood?" you asked, fully facing him now with a smirk on your face.
He shrugged the best he could without moving too much. "I might like it better now."
Your eyes widened a bit before you ducked your head, looking up at him with a surprised smile like you couldn't quite believe what he'd just said. And that's when Bradley heard another vehicle pull up behind him. "That would be my friends. Here to help me unpack."
He wanted to joke that it looked like you needed all the help you could get with your furniture avalanche, but he heard several voices calling your name and rushing over to help. He was invited to stay, but when he was finally able to safely back away without anything falling, he realized four other people were there to help you out.
Your eyes were still focused on his as he started to back away. "I'll see you around?" you asked before chewing on your lip.
"I would count on it," he confirmed, turning back toward his house so you could get settled into yours.
But he did hear one of your friends ask, "Who is he?"
"Bradley," you replied, just barely loud enough for him to hear. "From the white cottage."
--------------------------------
After that first encounter, he saw you everywhere. You were pulling into the parking spot next to his Bronco when he came out of the grocery store. When he asked how you liked your new house, it sparked a conversation about hardwood versus porcelain tile flooring, and Bradley's ice cream was completely melted by the time he got home.
Then there was the day you bumped into him coming out of the salon next to his barber, and he complimented your colorful nails at the same time you told him his haircut looked nice. He blushed, and you smiled before turning toward your car, glancing back at him a little expectantly. 
Then he ran into you at the farmer's market where you were buying vegetables for the upcoming neighborhood potluck. You asked him what he thought you should make.
"Well, I'm the wrong person to ask," he replied, feeling a little lightheaded as his brain begged him to ask you out on a date.
"Why's that?" you asked, placing your hand on your hip while you held up a head of cabbage. "You're a picky eater?"
He shook his head and took a step closer to you. "The exact opposite. I love food. I will eat literally anything that is edible."
Your bright laughter cascaded across his skin as your head tipped back. The expanse of your neck looked smooth and perfect, and Bradley wanted to have your permission to put his lips there. And that was a startling thought since nobody had really caught his attention like this since he was first stationed in San Diego. Nobody made him feel like he was at home in his house before you started waving to him whenever you saw him outside.
"I guess it makes sense that you love food," you told him with a smile. "You're a big boy." Your gaze drifted down along his shoulders and chest before you started to look a little embarrassed. "I... yeah... I think I'll just grab whatever looks good and take it from there. See you on Friday night?"
"Yeah," he grunted as you walked toward an eggplant display. He would see you on Friday night. And he would be prepared ahead of time to ask you out.
----------------------------
"No," you gasped. Bradley recognized your voice and turned around to face you in Mrs. Diaz's kitchen. "That's what you brought to the potluck?" You sounded appalled, but you were clearly smiling as you looked at what he was holding.
"I told you I liked to eat food, not that I knew how to cook anything."
"Bradley," you groaned, shaking your head at the bag of chips and jar of salsa in his hands. "This is bad. Next time, I'll prepare two dishes so you can pretend you made one."
His heart skipped a beat at the idea of handing you things in his kitchen and watching you make something as nice as the lasagna you were holding. "It's useless," he replied with a frown. "After six months of bringing restaurant style tortilla chips and medium salsa, nobody would believe I cooked anything."
Once again, your laughter had him ready to drop what he was holding and reach for you. He had to ask you out tonight. It had been weeks already since you moved in, and you were definitely giving him a green light. He could think of a dozen different restaurants he wanted to take you to, and maybe you'd like the artsy little movie theater.
But he watched you get swept up in conversation after conversation, and then the opportunity slipped away when you ducked away from everyone to answer a call. You had a concerned look on your face with your phone pressed to your cheek, and then you were rushing out of Mrs. Diaz's house and along her front path before you disappeared from view.
Suddenly it was well into October, and he'd barely seen you at all. There were a few mornings that felt cool enough to coax him to buy some pumpkins for his front porch. He thought about taking one over to your house as an excuse to finally ask you out, but he figured you must be pretty busy right now. Maybe work got a little crazy. He tried not to imagine that someone else had asked you out and that was the reason why you were so scarce.
"Damn," he grunted when he drove his Bronco past your house on his way to get some takeout for dinner on a Saturday night. He just couldn't stop thinking about you. Why didn't he ask you out that first day when he saved you from your dining chair? He ran his hand over his face and groaned, parking in front of the restaurant and yanking his keys from the ignition. If he'd just asked you out that day, maybe he'd be picking up twice as much food and sharing it with you tonight.
A minute later, when he turned to leave the restaurant with his bag, he could not believe his luck. You were walking inside. "Hey."
You glanced up, and for the briefest second, you smiled at him like you always used to. "Bradley." But then your smile started to fade away slowly, and he would do anything to bring it back.
His heart was pounding, and his brain was screaming at him, so he squared his shoulders and did the only thing he could do. "Hey, if you're free tomorrow night, I was thinking maybe you and I could get dinner? Or hit up the movie theater on Pomona? The seats are uncomfortable, but they show some indie stuff which could be fun. Or maybe another night might work?"
The air was silent except for the muffled sound of food being prepared in the kitchen behind him. Your eyes looked so sad as you shook your head and pressed your lips together. "No. No, I'm sorry, Bradley."
Well, fuck.
He backed away from you until he bumped into the wall, and then he focused on getting to the door. "Right," he replied after he had a few more feet between your body and his. "Well, I'll see you around the neighborhood."
For the first time since he moved to California, the air outside was too cold. There was an uncomfortable knot in his stomach as he glanced over at your car. He shivered miserably as he saw the shadow of someone waiting in your passenger seat. Then he drove home and ate alone in his kitchen before going to bed.
---------------------------------
Bradley tried his best not to think about you. One day last week, when he saw your front door swing open, he waited to step down from his porch so you wouldn't have to wave awkwardly to him. And yesterday, for lack of anything better to do, he bought more pumpkins, and he waited in his driveway to unload them until you carried all of your groceries inside your house. 
Today was Halloween, and he spent over an hour carving some of the pumpkins to look like soccer balls before dressing in his usual costume. Handing candy out to the neighborhood kids and trying to guess what they were dressed as sounded like fun. He was determined to have a good night, even if he did have to angle the folding chair on his porch so he was facing slightly away from your house. He would enjoy himself no matter what.
Bradley lit the candles inside his pumpkins and dropped down into the chair with a bowl of candy as the afternoon sky turned dusky. It didn't take long until a toddler dressed as a witch made an appearance with her dad, and Bradley had a good laugh when she reached for three pieces of candy.
"Trick or treat!" shouted three kids dressed as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
"Where's Raphael?" he asked as they collected their candy. 
Leonardo laughed and said, "Nobody wants to be Raphael. He's the lamest one."
"I would have to agree," Bradley replied, about to help himself to a piece of candy as they started to run to the next house.
But then he saw you. And you weren't alone. You were dressed as a soccer player, complete with knee socks and a soccer ball, and you were accompanied by an approximately ten year old kid who looked a lot like you. He was also dressed as a soccer player, and he smiled at Bradley as he said, "Trick or treat."
Bradley stood up, still holding onto the bowl of candy so the child could make his selection while he got a better look at you. "Hey."
"Hi," you replied immediately, looking from his mustache to the whistle around his neck and back up to his visor. "Are you seriously dressed as Ted Lasso?"
"I always dress as Ted Lasso," he told you, and he was rewarded with a smile that made him want to follow you around the neighborhood like a lost puppy. 
"Of course you do," you said, letting your gaze drift toward the child who was currently looking closely at the soccer ball pumpkins while holding onto a Snickers bar. "Somehow you match with us."
The boy looked up at Bradley and asked, "Did you carve these yourself? They look pretty good."
"Yeah," he replied, wishing he actually had taken the time to drop a pumpkin or two off on your porch. "I have perfected the soccer ball technique, kiddo."
The kid nodded but said, "You need to call it a football."
Bradley found himself agreeing. "You're completely right. It's only proper."
When the kid turned back to explore the rest of the pumpkin display a little more, Bradley took a step closer to you. "I didn't know you had a son," he said softly.
Your eyes were alert, scrutinizing his expression as you said, "His name is Max. He's almost ten."
"He looks like you."
You went silent for a few seconds, fiddling with the soccer ball in your hands. When you finally spoke, you were looking at Bradley's feet. "I knew you didn't know about him. I mean, you did ask me out after all." You laughed even though nothing was funny and finally looked up at his face. Then Max started to walk back the way you and he came, and you followed him. 
Bradley called your name. When you turned back, he said, "To be clear, I would have still asked you out if I'd known."
And then you looked so sad again.
------------------------------
To Bradley's amazement, the weather finally cooled to the perfect temperature in November, but he found he didn't want to be outside as much. It was a shame, because if he stood in the middle of his yard and closed his eyes, he could almost imagine he was in Virginia. 
One Friday after work, he cleaned the slightly rotten pumpkins from his porch and dragged his trash bin to the curb. Your front door was open, and he paused to see if you or Max happened to walk past it before heading back inside his empty house.
There was another potluck tonight, but he just didn't even feel like going. He had the usual chips and salsa on his kitchen counter, but he had no desire to socialize with the neighbors. He was about to change into gym shorts and surrender to a cold beer and a basketball game on TV when there was a knock on his door.
When he glanced through the front window, he saw that it was you, and his heart seemed to drag him toward the door. He was turning the knob before he thought better of it, and he was met with your wide eyes and a crock pot in your hands.
"Hi. Bradley."
"Hey." He swallowed hard before he said your name, and your lips turned up into a soft smile. "Is that for the potluck?"
"Yeah," you said, reaching out to hand the crock pot to him. "Well, I actually made it for you to take. Max and I will be bringing lasagna again."
Whatever Bradley was holding smelled so good, his stomach started to growl. "I can't take this. Nobody will believe I made it," he murmured, nudging at the lid with his thumb.
"It's a spicy buffalo dip," you replied, smile growing. "I literally made it with chicken from a can. I'm pretty sure you could trick them into thinking it came from your kitchen. You can even take your tortilla chips, too."
His fingers tightened on the handles when you took a small step closer to him. This was agony, being so close to you when he really wanted to touch you, but knew he couldn't. He whispered your name at the same time you looked up at him and started talking. 
"Max isn't my son. He's my nephew. But I'm his legal guardian now." Bradley's lips parted, but you shook your head and quickly added. "The night of the last potluck, I got a phone call that my brother and his wife were in a car accident. They both died before they reached the hospital. I had to pick Max up from soccer practice that night, and he's been with me ever since."
Tears were welling up in your eyes as Bradley tried to shuffle your crock pot to one hand. He knew how badly this kind of thing hurt from his own childhood. "Shit. I'm really sorry the two of you are going through this. But Max is lucky he has you." When you nodded and shrugged, you looked resigned to the way things were. "I'm also pretty sure Max prefers it when you call it football. Not soccer."
You laughed, maybe in spite of yourself, but Bradley still loved how it sounded. You briefly glanced over your shoulder toward your house and swiped at your tears as you said, "He absolutely does. He also keeps asking me about Ted Lasso across the street and his football pumpkins. I told him you're nice."
Bradley's heart had him dragging his feet closer to you, holding onto the warm pot of buffalo chicken dip for dear life. "Is that so?"
You nodded and stared at Bradley's chest for a few seconds before meeting his eyes again. Your lips parted several times before you whispered his name, and he leaned in a bit closer. After a few seconds, he started to step back, but your hand settled lightly on his shoulder, stopping him. Before he could react, you closed the remaining space, pressing your lips to his in a tentative kiss.
It was over almost as quickly as it started, and Bradley was ready to drop to his knees and beg you for more. But you were rambling now, and he was trying his best to focus. "I wanted you to ask me out so badly. But then everything changed, and I had to tell you no. Max has a lot he still needs to process, and I don't really have time to date someone who just wants to mess around with me."
For the first time in many weeks, Bradley felt lighter than air. He reached out with his free hand and let his knuckles trail gently along your cheek and down to your softly parted lips. "I'm forty years old. I'm kind of over the messing around stage," he promised. And then you were kissing him again.
The three of you walked to Mrs. Diaz's house together that evening. Bradley carried the crock pot, you carried the lasagna, and Max carried the tortilla chips. The conversation was mainly focused on how badly Max wanted to learn how to carve a football pumpkin.
Almost a year later, Bradley was standing in his front yard, smiling at the SOLD sticker placed on a realty sign in front of your house. It made sense to have you and Max move into the white cottage with him, because the porch was bigger. It was the perfect size for an elaborate Halloween display.
----------------------------------
Thanks for reading this angsty yet fuzzy little fic. I hope your Halloween is sweeter than Bradley Bradshaw. Thanks @beyondthesefourwalls and @thedroneranger
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