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beyondthesefourwalls · 1 year ago

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The Over/Under

Summary: Your friends insisted that the best way to get over someone was by getting under someone else. But you had been over your ex for a long time before you ever signed the papers, and you had no intention on hooking up with anyone. Then an attractive man with a mustache that really shouldn't look as good as it does catches your eye, and you suddenly forgot why you were hesitant in the first place.

Pairing: Bradley Bradshaw x Reader (no use of y/n)

Word Count: 6.2K

Warnings: Language, smut, talks of divorce

Notes: Written as a fun little surprise for my best gal @roosterforme for her birthday today, because what better gift is there than porn shared amongst friends, am I right?

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“What about him?”

“No way. I can practically feel that guy’s ego from here.”

“Him?”

“He looks like he’s barely old enough to be here.”

“Okay, what about him?”

“Hmmmm. Oooh. He’s cute. Hey, I think we found your guy!”

The words were followed by an excited jab to your side, and you hissed out an “ow” as you swatted the hand that had done so. Your best friend wasn’t phased in the slightest as she grinned at you, her eyes already a little glazed from the tequila shot you had taken upon getting to the bar - the very patriotic, very uniform filled bar, that was not your normal stomping grounds by any means.

Not for the first time since arriving a little less than thirty minutes ago, you huffed out a breath of disbelief. “Isn’t tonight supposed to be about celebrating being single again? Why are you trying to scope out guys for me?”

“Because what better way to get over someone than by getting under someone else?”

You couldn’t help but snort into your drink as you took a long sip. Truthfully, you had been over your ex-husband for a long time now. The divorce was nothing more than a logistical means to an end, which the bastard had dragged out for far longer than it needed to be. You had felt single for damn near years at this point, but as of earlier this week, you were legally so, as well. Finally.

“And what if I want to be on top?” you dared to ask, raising a challenging eyebrow. “What then?”

Your friends all burst into laughter, talking over one another as they weighed the merits of your question, unsurprisingly veering off into debates about the best positions for maximum pleasure. You rolled your eyes fondly, but tuned them out as you let your eyes scan the crowd. It was apparently their mission tonight to get you laid, which you honestly should have caught on to as soon as they had thrown a brand new lingerie set at you earlier that night. It was strappy and lacy in all the right ways and you hadn’t hesitated to put it on under your tiny black dress because it had made you feel good. Sexy, even. You deserved to feel that way just for you, so you had thought nothing of it. Now, though, their insistence made sense.

Pure curiosity had you looking in the direction of the man they had been trying to point out. He had that classic All-American look to him, all blonde hair and dimples, and you could see his shiny white teeth from across the bar as he laughed with his friends. He was cute, you supposed, and everything that your type used to be. But now he reminded you a little too much of your newly-made ex-husband, and you felt nothing as you looked at him. You let out an internal sigh as your eyes shifted to the left.

You paused, your head cocking to the side as you took in the man sitting beside him. Now he…oh, now he was something. He was very something. He was handsome in a way that was different from your usual type. He had dark, tousled hair that curled on his head, and a mustache that you’d normally find hideous but that only served to enhance his very attractive look. His features were sharp, with a strong jawline and eyes that you couldn’t quite make out the color of from this far away. He was dressed casually in jeans and a ridiculous looking Hawaiian shirt over a plain tee. Just like the facial hair, it was a combo that you were sure would look ridiculous on anyone else - like the pretty boy sitting beside him - but that he was somehow pulling off. Something about him seemed to exude confidence without being cocky, and it was intriguing.

You took another sip of your drink, feeling your heartbeat a little faster with strange anticipation. In principle, you had been single for a long time now. You weren’t planning anything tonight, but you also hadn’t felt that familiar tingle in your tummy since before you got married.

Your thoughts were interrupted as your friend jabbed you in the side again. "Cute, right?” she asked eagerly.

You shook your head, your gaze still fixed on the handsome stranger. "No, not him," you said, your voice low. "The one next to him.”

Your friends followed your gaze. "Oh, damn," one of them breathed out, her eyes widening with interest. "He's hot."

You didn’t pay attention to whatever your friends were talking about as you stared, swirling the remaining liquid around in your glass. He was broad, and even seated, you could tell he was tall. He was thick in all the best ways, and you wanted to know what he looked like up close. Almost like he could feel you watching him, he cut his eyes in your direction. They connected with yours, and instead of shying away, a flash of boldness had you raising your glass to your mouth to take a small sip. You swiped your tongue over the moisture left coating your bottom lip, eyes never leaving his. A slow grin spread on his face and a thick eyebrow raised before he turned back to his friends. You smiled to yourself. It was a rare moment of feeling powerful and in control, and you relished it.

He was looking back at you now, and you felt a flutter in your stomach at the intensity of his gaze. You shifted in your seat, feeling a sudden urge to be closer. It was an unfamiliar feeling, and you didn’t quite know what to do with it. It had been so long since you had tried to pick up a guy, and you weren't sure you remembered how

A moment passed and he looked away again. Feeling emboldened, you downed the rest of your drink and pushed out of your seat. “I’m going to get another,” you announced before you could talk yourself out of it. It was a bad cover and you knew it, and by the way your friends cheered and started egging you on, they did too.

You took a deep breath as you tried to quell the flutter in your stomach. You made it a point to not look at him as you approached the bar. You leaned against the counter, ordering a tequila shot and splurging for the top shelf when the kind, pretty bartender asked for your order. You weren't sure if the drink would help settle your nerves or make them worse, but you needed something to distract you from the intense gaze you swore was burning into your back.

She slid the shot across to you with a grin, nodding when you asked her to put it on your tab before quickly moving on to other waiting customers. That tingling sensation of being watched came back stronger, and you had to remind yourself to breathe when a warm presence leant against the bar at your side, facing you. You turned your head, and oh, wow. He had a smile on his lips that made your knees weak, and from up close, you could see faint scars that had faded with time. He had eyes the color of dark honey that sucked you in, and even that ridiculous mustache looked soft. Your whole body tingled at the proximity.

“Hi,” you said, and you were surprised at how breathy you sounded. His smile widened as he looked you up and down.

“Hi.” His voice was deep and husky and you fought the urge to groan at how delicious it sounded. "Can I buy you a drink?" he asked.

You grinned, feeling a little giddy. "I just ordered one," you said, holding up the full shot glass. You felt embarrassment heat your face when a little bit of the clear liquid sloshed onto your fingertips, but you forced yourself not to break eye contact.

He chuckled, cheeks tinting red, and leant in a little closer. "Then let me join you for one.”

You pretended to think it over, humming in fake consideration. When you finally nodded, that charming smile of his turned just a touch toward a smirk. He called the bartender by name when she passed, asking for a shot of whatever you were having. The woman, Penny, huffed out a laugh that sounded amused but not judgemental as she efficiently poured it and slid it over. When she walked away, he raised it to yours.

“Cheers,” he murmured, voice low. You shivered in delight.

“Cheers.” You downed your shot, and he followed suit. The liquor burned its way down your throat, but you didn’t care. All you cared about was the way he was looking at you.

“What’s your name?” he asked. He sat himself down in the barstool you had been standing beside, and you couldn’t help but glance down at his legs, spread in a way that you would be standing between them if you shuffled just the slightest bit to the right. His denim clad thighs were thick and looked so inviting. When you met his eyes again, they sparkled like he knew what you had been thinking.

“What’s yours?” you asked instead. You were trying to get some of that control back that you had felt on your walk over here. You inhaled a subtle deep breath, catching another whiff of his cologne.

He chuckled lightly, ducking his eyes and looking at you through thick lashes that you envied. Your knees threatened to give out. “Bradley,” he introduced. He extended a hand. You took it, feeling the roughness of his palm and the strength of his grip. You couldn’t help but imagine those hands on your body, exploring every inch of you. You told him your name, and hummed in appreciation, repeating it. The syllables sounded like velvet coming from his mouth. “What brings you here tonight?”

“Oh,” you breathed. You drew your bottom lip between your teeth as you contemplated how to respond. You were proud of your decisions - of finally being free. But you weren’t sure how that would come across to a stranger you could definitely see yourself having a good time with. “Just…celebrating,” you settled on.

“Celebrating huh? Is it your birthday?”

“Maybe,” you shrugged, hoping it came across as playful and coy. By the laugh he let out, you thought you had succeeded.

“Okay, a woman of mystery I see.”

You smiled, lifting a shoulder again, not bothering to confirm or deny.

“Alright, mystery woman. Can I buy you a drink this time?”

You glanced over your shoulder, catching sight of all of your friends. They weren’t even trying to mask how they were staring at you, one of them even shooting you a thumbs up that made you roll your eyes. Bradley was still staring at you when you turned your gaze back to his, and you got lost in those dark honey eyes. It was sobering how quickly and intensely you were responding to him. You couldn’t remember the last time a man had that effect on you. That aspect of your marriage had been dried up long before the ink on the paper was. When the two of you finally separated almost a year ago, you had spent the time focusing on relearning who you were on your own, standing on your own two feet. You were cautious by nature, and it had been so long since you felt desire toward someone - even longer since you felt desired in return.

But when you shifted, you felt the straps and the lace comfortable against your skin under your dress, and you realized that maybe giving yourself the opportunity to show it off that night wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Maybe your friends had been onto something after all.

“I’d like that,” you finally said, and he was already smiling as he opened his mouth to respond, but you held up a finger to stop him. “But I have one condition.”

“Name it,” he said immediately. He was already waving down Penny behind the bar, and his lack of hesitation was so sexy.

“We move out of sight of my friends. I’d rather not feel them watching us the whole time.”

The laugh Bradley let out this time was loud and free, and you couldn’t help the giggle that escaped in return. His smile turned into a devilish grin and he leaned closer like he was going to share a secret. “Deal,” he said, “and also incredibly relatable. Don’t look now, but I’m pretty sure my friends are doing the exact same thing.”

Now that he said it, it did feel like there were multiple sets of eyes on you coming from opposing directions, and you giggled even harder. Once your drinks arrived, he stood up from his stool and offered you his hand. You had been right about him being tall, and you had to tamper down the sudden urge you felt to climb him like a tree. Instead, you took his hand and murmured for him to lead the way. You followed him closely as he led you through the crowded bar, feeling his warmth radiating off his body. The spicy scent of his cologne was intoxicating, and you found yourself wanting to breathe him in even more.

The cool night air was refreshing once you walked through the back doors and further down into the sand. Bradley kept a tight grip on your hand as you stumbled in your heels, but luckily it wasn't too far before he stopped next to a few sunken beach chairs.

You could still hear the music and the chatter from inside the bar, but it was quieter. There were string lights along the railing and torches in the sand that provided the slightest bit of light to where you could still easily see around you. You were far enough away that you could have privacy, but close enough to where you could easily scream and catch someone’s attention. You doubted it would get to that, but it was good to know your self preservation instincts were still working amongst all the things this man was making you feel.

It was nice out here, you decided, and before he could ask if it was okay, you were letting go of his hand and sidestepping him to sink down onto one of the oversized chairs. You patted the spot next to you as you looked up at him, and Bradley didn’t make you wait before he was squeezing onto the seat beside you. He was so close that his thigh pressed a delightful line against yours. It was all you could do not to melt into him.

You took a sip of your drink, the cold liquid providing some relief against the heat building in you. Bradley took a drink of his own, his eyes never leaving yours, and you couldn’t help yourself when you glanced down at his lips for a second; you wondered what it would be like to kiss them.

“Tell me something about yourself,” Bradley said, breaking the silence.

You thought for a moment, trying to think of something interesting to say. It was almost like you suddenly forgot every intriguing thing about yourself. You glanced down at the drink in your hand, swirling the liquid in the glass. “I’ve always wanted to learn how to fly,” you decided on.

Bradley sat up a little bit straighter, and pressed just a little bit closer. “Oh yeah?” he asked, and he sounded genuinely interested, almost excited. “Planes?”

“Yeah,” you nodded, and then couldn’t help the snort you let out. “Well my preference would be Superman style, but something tells me that won’t happen. So a plane will do.”

He smirked a little, taking another sip. He licked some of the liquid off of his mustache, and you wanted to know how the beer tasted off of it, too. “You’d look good in the spandex tights, though. No doubt about that.”

The line should have been gross and offensive, but coming from him, it felt like a compliment, and you couldn’t help but laugh as those butterflies erupted in your stomach again. “What about you?” you asked, and you didn’t know if it was your increasing level of comfortability with this man or the earlier tequila shot hitting your bloodstream, but you knocked your shoulder into his as you spoke. “Tell me something about yourself, Bradley.”

His smirk fell into a soft smile, and either mischief or the reflection of the moon was making his eyes sparkle. “You won’t believe me if I tell you.”

“Try me.”

He leaned so close that your breath caught, and for a moment you thought he was going to stop the conversation all together and kiss you. You were ready for it, even. But instead, he leant just a little bit to the side and whispered to you like he was sharing a secret, his lips brushing your ear. “I’m an aviator,” he told you, and his proximity made it so that it took a moment for the meaning to register to you.

“Oh my God,” you gasped, eyes wide, and he was already chuckling as he pulled away. “You fly!”

“I do,” he laughed, the sound deep and infectious, before tacking on in further explanation that he flew for the Navy.

“Wow,” you breathed, after he finished regalling you with more details about his aircraft and how long he had been flying, and the different planes he had gotten in the cockpit of over the years. He talked about it with a passion that you knew he wasn’t bullshitting or trying to impress you - he genuinely loved what he did. You toyed with the words before you spoke them, taking a deep breath and laying your palm on his thigh. You tried to keep your voice light and playful, despite your body humming. “Maybe you can teach me some time.”

“I’d be happy to,” he told you, “if you think you can handle it.”

It was a challenge, a proposition clear as day, and you knew it was your out if you wanted him to back down. But that’s not what you wanted. Not even a little bit. You swallowed thickly at how his gaze intensified. It felt like he was looking right through you like no one else ever has, and you liked it.

“I think you’ll find that I can handle a lot of things,” you murmured, and even you were surprised at how raspy your voice came out - sexy in a way you hadn’t felt in a long time. “I’m more than what I may seem.”

“So I’m discovering.” There was a moment of silence between you, but it wasn't an awkward one. Rather, it was charged with anticipation and desire. You could feel the pull between you, and you tracked the bulge of his adams apple as he swallowed. He cleared his throat and shook his head, and it was refreshing knowing you were having an effect on him, too. He held his half full glass up to yours, clinking them together once you did the same. “Here’s to discovering more.”

It got later and later as you sat out in the sand talking and getting to know this beautiful man sitting beside you. And the more you learned, the more you liked. He had a sense of humor that matched yours and a voice that sent shivers down your spine, and you hung onto every story with rapt attention that he returned whenever you spoke. Bradley was easy to talk to, and you found yourself getting lost in the conversation. The warmth of his body against yours was addicting, and you found yourself leaning into him even more.

“Can I make a confession?” you asked, after a particularly enrapturing tale of racing his best friend in an F-18 and almost getting caught doing so.

“I want to know all your secrets,” he said in return, and you almost moaned at how smooth the line was. Instead, you playfully rolled your eyes before you chewed on your bottom lip, trying to figure out how exactly to say it. He waited you out patiently, the hand from the arm he had draped across the back of the seat a little while ago tracing your shoulder so lightly you almost didn’t feel it. Your empty glasses were in the sand in front of you, but neither of you felt drunk on the limited alcohol you had consumed.

“I told you I was out celebrating tonight,” you started, and Bradley made a noise of recognition that let you know he remembered.

“Is it your birthday afterall?” he teased. You laughed softly at the way he put you so at ease.

“No, not my birthday. My friends actually insisted on taking me out tonight to celebrate some news I got earlier this week.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Mmm,” you hummed, before taking a deep breath. “My divorce was finalized earlier this week.”

If he was surprised or bothered by your words, it didn’t show. In fact, he didn’t flinch at all, just sat as relaxed as he had been all night while his fingertips continued to cause goosebumps to erupt all over your skin from their contact with your shoulder.

“How do you feel about that?” he asked, and you couldn’t help but marvel at his nonchalance. You weren’t sure what you were expecting, but you don’t think it was this. You sighed happily in response to his question, and was delighted when he laughed a little. “That good huh?”

“That great,” you corrected. You shrugged, and his hand steadied on your skin, a nice weight on your shoulder. A soft smile played on your lips. You knew you didn’t have to tell him - truly, it was probably better if you didn’t. But something made you want to be honest with him. You tried not to read too much into that. “It had been a long time since he made me feel the way a man should make his wife feel, you know? We were over way before I ever served him with the papers, which was almost a year ago now. So it was a long time coming.”

“Enough time to get over him?” Bradley asked. Your breath caught because you swore there was something like hope in his voice. You desperately wished you were right. Regardless, you didn’t hesitate in nodding.

“I’ve been over him for ages,” you confirmed. “Just took awhile to make it official.”

He made another noise of understanding, and leaned in closer. He lifted a hand and your heart raced wildly in your chest at the way he cupped your cheek, his thumb tracing your bottom lip in a way that made you gasp quietly. The way he was looking at you made it feel like you were the only two people in the world.

“He was a fool for letting you go,” he said, so quietly you wondered if he meant to say it out loud.

Bradley leaned in closer, his lips hovering near your ear. You felt the heat emanating from him, and your body responded with a shiver. "You deserve to be wanted," he whispered, his breath hot against your skin. You turned your head to look at him, and for a moment, you were lost in his dark eyes. You felt a sudden urge to kiss him, to taste his lips that looked so soft and inviting. You leaned in, closing the gap between you.

The kiss was electric, sending shivers down your spine. His lips were soft and full, and his tongue was warm and intoxicating as it slid into your mouth. You moaned quietly, feeling a rush of desire pulse through your body. You wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him closer, deepening the kiss. He responded with a low growl, his hands gripping your hips tightly. You went willingly when he pulled you into his lap.

You broke the kiss for a moment, gasping for air as his tongue slid along your chin, down your neck, leaving a burning trail of heat. He bit at your collarbone playfully, smiling up at you. It was wicked and full of promise.

He used his grip on your hips to pull you down onto him, groaning at the friction. His own hips arched up to meet yours, and your head fell back as you both let out a moan. His teeth grazed along the soft skin of your neck, and you couldn’t help but claw at his shoulders and the back of his neck as you felt the rush of heat already pooling between your legs. He was hard, you could tell, and you wanted him so badly.

You had no idea what was happening or what was going to happen next, but it didn’t matter. All you wanted right now was to feel his body against yours. You heard his breath hitch as you let your hands roam his chest, hard and warm against your palms, the muscles firm and toned. You let your fingernails drag down his abs, eliciting a groan from him, and you grinned in satisfaction. You wanted to see more of that reaction, see more of him.

You moved to scoot back, intending to unbutton his jeans, but he grabbed your wrist before you could.

“Let me take you somewhere,” he murmured, and you let out a breathy laugh even as you nodded.

“Bathroom inside? Your car?” You leaned in for another kiss, but Bradley pulled back. He cupped your face in his big hands. The pad of his thumb rubbed a smooth line on your cheek.

“You deserve more than a quickie in a bar bathroom or a parking lot, Sweetheart. Can I take you home?”

“Yeah,” you breathed. You were blown away at how he continued to make you feel, how he was treating you like you were worth something. You wanted him so much, and you thought it was more than just physical, even as you were aching.

Your friends were still inside, clearly having had more to drink while they waited for you, and flirting with a few men in uniform of their own. You made quick work of letting them know you were leaving, and you didn't stick around for their catcalling as you followed Bradley into the parking lot, your hand held tight in his. You were trembling as you sank into his front seat, and you know it’s not just from the chill in the air.

He kissed you again before he put the classic Bronco into gear, your address plugged into his GPS. His hand was heavy on your thigh during the drive, and part of you was glad he didn’t do more than let it rest there, a reminder of his presence. You weren’t sure you could handle any more without losing control.

He pulled into your driveway and killed the engine, and for a long moment, the two of you just sat there, breathing heavily as you looked at one another. Finally, after a long moment, he raised that gentle hand of his and tucked some of your hair behind your ear.

“Beautiful,” he whispered, and his voice sounded reverent.

“Bradley.” You let out a shaky breath, swallowing down all of your nerves. “Come inside.”

It was a miracle that you managed to open the door without dropping your keys as Bradley kissed down the side of your neck, and you pulled him inside eagerly. You didn’t bother giving him a tour as you guided him up the stairs to your room. There would be time for that later.

You bypassed the ceiling light to turn on one of the bedside table lamps instead, casting a soft glow throughout the spacious bedroom. Bradley was right there when you turned, the two of you moving at the same time. His hands stroked down your sides as you pressed yourself against him, his mouth hot and hungry against yours. You let out a moan as your tongue tangled with his again. You threaded your fingers through his hair, just as soft as it looked, and tugged. He hissed out a low, sexy sound of approval.

You pushed the Hawaiian shirt off his shoulders and then tugged at the white shirt underneath it. He took the hint, detaching from you to pull it off over his head, baring his chest. You stepped back for a moment and let your eyes wander over him. He was incredible, toned and muscular, and the light dusting of hair on his chest made you bite your lip. You wanted to trace the lines of his muscles with your tongue, feel him against you. Your eyes moved down to see his erection straining against his jeans, and you licked your lips. You were so ready for him, and he was ready for you. You could tell. When your eyes trailed back up to meet his, the look he was giving you was hungry.

Before you could overthink it, you were tugging at the side zipper holding your black dress together and lowering it. You pushed it off of your shoulders and let it fall to the ground. Bradley blinked once, his gaze inevitably dropping. His eyes widened noticeably as a deep groan tore from his throat.

“Jesus Christ, baby.” The wonder in his voice was evident as he took in the lingerie that your friends had thrown at you earlier in the night, and you made a mental note to thank them tomorrow.

He seemed to be struggling for breath as he swallowed and stepped forward, sliding his hands up your sides to cup your chest. His thumbs brushed across your nipples, and you moaned at the sensation, arching into him. He leaned in and kissed you again before he began to trail hot, open-mouthed kisses down your neck, over your collarbone, down to one breast. You dug your nails into his scalp, whimpering as you felt his teeth tug at your nipple through the lacy fabric. His tongue teased it, flicking over the sensitive skin. And then, with no warning at all, he was lifting you up and laying you down on the bed. You raised up on your elbows as he made quick work of taking off his belt and unbuttoning his jeans. He pushed them and his briefs down all in one go until they pooled at his feet. Your eyes widened at the site. His cock was hard and huge, and you grew wetter just looking at him.

You held out your hand without a word. He crawled onto the mattress, looming over your body as he braced his hands on either side of you. He kissed you again, his mouth hot and hungry against yours. Your hand wrapped around the back of his neck, pulling him closer. He kissed you for a long time, so long you thought you were going to be drunk off of it. When he did pull away, it was only to trail his lips down your neck, making you writhe as his mustache brushed against your sensitive skin. His mouth moved to your collarbone again, then down to one breast, and then the other. You keened at the sensation. Then his lips were on your stomach, and he shimmied himself down the bed until he was between your thighs. Slowly, he tugged your panties down your legs. He spread you wide, his eyes never leaving your center. He leant forward and inhaled deeply, groaning at the scent - your scent. He pressed a featherlight kiss to the inside of your thigh where it was settled on his shoulder before looking up at you.

“I’m going to devour you,” he stated. Before you had any time to react, his mouth was on you.

He was ravenous, lapping at you as if you were the best thing he’d ever tasted. You felt it all the way through your body as he moaned against you, your body writhing against his mouth. You were so hot, so ready for this man to take you. You let out a loud moan as he licked your clit, then took it into his mouth and sucked. It was almost embarrassing how quickly he brought you to the edge as his mouth worked you over expertly.

You don’t remember the last time a man had his mouth on you, let alone made you come from it. When you came, it was hard and loud, your hands buried in his hair, his name a mantra on your lips. He crawled back up the length of your body and kissed you, letting you taste yourself on his tongue. His thick cock twitched against your sensitive pussy, and the feeling of him settling between your legs was enough to have you pulling away from his kiss, breathing deeply.

His eyes were dark with lust as he looked down at your body, and you felt your face heating up at his silent perusal.

“I’m clean,” you whispered urgently, “if you want…”

He answered you with a groan of your name, his forehead pressed to yours, his cock twitching. “I am too. You sure?” You nodded, and without a word, you reached for him. You watched his face as you stroked him slowly. His eyes fluttered closed, and he leaned into your touch. He let out a throaty moan when you guided him to your entrance.

“Please,” you whispered. His eyes opened as he slid into you, filling you up entirely. He stilled for a moment, letting you adjust to the feeling. He was so thick and hard inside of you; you felt so impossibly full.

“You feel incredible,” he told you, still not moving, but you could feel how much he wanted to.

“Bradley,” you begged, and he withdrew slowly until just the head of his cock was still inside of you, pressing against your clit. He slid back in again, filling you up until you couldn’t think of anything but the feeling of him deep inside of you. You could feel it all the way to the top of your head, all the way down to your toes, and you moaned as he pulled out and thrust back in again.

His pace was tortuously slow at first, in a way that could only be deliberate, driving you crazy. You could feel every inch of him leave and enter you, over and over again. The feeling of him moving inside of you was almost more than you could stand, but still, you wanted more. You were ready to beg him to go harder, faster, but you didn’t need to as he finally, finally started to pick up the pace. You wrapped your legs around his hips as he found a steady, powerful rhythm. You cried out with every thrust, and he groaned out your name, his arms shaking with the strain of holding himself up above you. Soon, he was fucking you hard. Every thrust drove him deeper inside of you, hitting that spot that made it almost impossible to breathe. You could feel yourself getting close.

“Come on, baby,” he panted. “Come for me.”

You were drowning in him, and when he pulled you in for another kiss, there was so much passion you thought you might be swept away by it all. You’re not sure what to do with yourself, but you know you don’t want this moment to end. Your walls tightened around him as you let go, and you could feel him shuddering as he came with you.

He stayed there, kissing you softly for a long time before he gently pulled out, rolling onto his back beside you. He wrapped an arm around your shoulders and pulled you with him. You pressed a kiss to his chest before you rested your cheek on his sweaty skin, listening to his heartbeat as it began to slow. He kissed your head lightly, and for a while, the two of you just laid there, basking in the afterglow.

It was Bradley who finally broke the silence, and your whole body trembled at his words.

“Rest for a little bit, sweetheart. I’m not done with you tonight.”

Your pussy clenched. You could still feel his cum oozing out of you slowly from round one, and if you were honest with yourself, you had been wet since you first laid eyes on him. You picked your head up to look at him. Your voice was breathy with anticipation when you asked, “Is that so?”

“Yes. And then, I’m gonna convince you to let me stay the night. And in the morning, after at least one orgasm, I’m gonna cook you breakfast.”

Your breath caught and a lump formed in your throat. He said it so confidently, like it was an indisputable fact. You were surprised at how much you longed for it to be just that.

This was not at all how you had anticipated your night going.

“And after that?” You dared yourself to ask.

He traced your cheek with a sated smile on his handsome face, his mustache twitching and his dark honey eyes sparkling. “I told you, you deserve to be wanted. And I want you.”

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Main Masterlist

Notes: Happy Birthday Em! Thanks for being born. Hope you enjoyed this! Now go do fuckboy things and celebrate 🎉💚

Thanks to @mak-32 for the banner and for all of her help with this!

Tag List: @roosterforme @mak-32 @wildxwidow @gretagerwigsmuse @lilyevanswhore @too-fangirl-to-fuction @fav-fanficssss @notroosterbradshaw @teacupsandtopgun @sometimesanalice @sunflowersteves @littlezee80 @je-suis-prest-rachel @khaylin27 @infamous-reindeer @hotch-meeeeeupppppp @yanna-banana @avengersfan25 @wkndwlff @sylviebell @lt-spork @indynerdgirl

@mssleepy876b @kassieesworld @mizzzpinkk @a-serene-place-to-be-be @sexualparkourr @sadpetalsstufff @almostgenerallyalways @alilstressyandlotdepressy @ccbb2222 @taytaylala12 @shelbycillian @mavrellover911 @vici1111 @lunamooncole @blackwidownat2814 @pisupsala @bellaireland1981 @jynxmirage

@greatszu @na-ta-sh-aaa @callsign-magnolia @chaoticassidy @thedroneranger @cherrycola27

#alli writes #bradley bradshaw x reader #bradley bradshaw imagine #bradley bradshaw x oc #bradley rooster bradshaw #rooster imagine #rooster smut #rooster x reader #rooster x you #tgm fic #tgm smut #tgm fanfiction #bradley bradshaw x you #bradley bradshaw x female reader #bradley bradshaw x y/n #bradley bradshaw smut

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nimpnawakproduction · 1 year ago

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The ultimate reference sheets for all of Vash's outfits in Trigun maximum (with commentaries)

IT IS DONE. I'M FREE. Now I can forget all about Trimax and draw Trigun stampede designs only hahaha (just kidding I have things for Trimax on the stove).

Trigun bookclub was an awesome initiative, I loved the manga with my all heart and wanted to honor Nightow's designs ;w; I also wanted to help my fellow artists with references for Vash's clothes because DEAR GOD it's difficult to understand how the hell he dresses himself in the morning. I have a lot of fun dressing and undressing him like a barbie doll. My hyperfixation is completely healthy.

I put a "read more" section to avoid spoilers :) !

The July coat

The very first coat in Trigun chronology and the one he wores during the destruction of July ! There is not a lot of panels to take references but I tried to stay as close as possible to the manga. I don't know what number of prosthesis he had before but let name this one Prosthesis 1.

Scars map

Next, nakey Vash ! There's A LOT of changes between one panel to another. Scars changes places and forms panel to panel and the design evolved from the first chapters of Trigun, the time we see him naked as Eriks and his undressed state while he was a prisoner on the Ark. I drew the scars that appeared more than once or were in clean view in a panel (but really you can do like Nightow and draw as many scars as you want without thinking about consistency, this boy has been in a meat grinder)

After July underclothes

Or the jumpsuit that gave me grey hair. His suit does not make ANY sense, I don't know how the hell he dresses himself in the morning with this. My solution is that it's very long gloves and chaps strapped to a belt. The position and shapes of the belts changes IN EVERY PANEL. Same for his knee guards, sometimes they're here, sometime they cover his shins, sometimes they are tiny..... I gave up in the end and draw them as we see them in the very last panel he wears this suit. But damn he looks good in it.

Also in all of the 13 volumes, there is not a single panel with a clear view of his holster (I checked...) so here is my interpretation.

This is prosthesis n°2, the design is a little different from the first one so I guess Prosthesis 1 got destroyed (this happens a lot).

After July coat

The very first Trigun coat he wears in the manga ! Very simple, very basic, it gives him impossibly wide shoulders but Vash deserves it. The first one is worn Post July until Vash's confrontation against Brilliant Dynamite Neon. The second one is the state of his coat after the sandsteamer incident. He loses his prothesis after his fight against Monev the gale. He meets Wolfwood with only one arm and stays that way while he fights Knives for the first time.

Eriks

I took liberties with colors because there's no colored panels with Vash as Eriks. Yes I drew him without suspenders because he has them for like 5 panels and then Nightow drew him without them for the rest of Eriks arc so I made choices ;w;

I love the fact that Vash choose to wear tight jeans even in his casual outfits, this boy will not let his skin breath. This is now Prosthesis 3 ! It's way less advanced than the ones he wore in the rest of the manga, the other ones seem to replicate skin.

After his years as Eriks

And now the first Maximum coat, he wears it until the famous Yuri hospital arc! Finally an undersuit that makes sense, I love it, too bad Nightow-san decided that I had to suffer and changed it again to add BELTS EVERYWHERE. We only see his legs in this part of the manga so I gave him the same top because I can.

The tubes he has on his waist are filled with bullets, he can connect them to his prosthesis to have a mini machine gun.

We are now at Prosthesis 4 !

Hospitalization on the Home ship

The famous Yuri hospital phase! Vash definitely shared his wardrobe with Wolfwood, you can't tell me otherwise.

The first outfit still shows Prothesis 4 but he keeps it for like 5 minutes and lost it again against Nine-lives. I don't really know if the prothesis comes with the integrated glove or if there's synthetic skin under it but why would he keep the glove on if it's not intergrated?

The second pictures is the different outfits he wears during his convalescence. I took liberties with the colors, I drew this in like 10 minutes, everything seems easy when you don't have to draw BELTS. We are now on Prothesis 5 ! Nightow drew it as a regular arm so I guess Vash wears gloves on top of it??????

Back on the road in pursuit of Knives

He wears this one after his stay at Home, throughout the Dragon's nest ark and until his 2nd fight against Knives.

I liked the design of his jumpsuit until I looked closer at the panels and saw that the design change ON EVERY ONE OF THEM. Knee guard on only one knee? No kneeguards? Two??? WHO KNOWS ??? I tried to make it work but really go wild with this one, even the author does not know how his pant looks.

Still prosthesis 5, BUT UNTIL WHEN?

Prisoner on the Ark

THEY MASSACRED MY BOY. Did they even feed him at least in 7 months? Those pictures are the definition of the drenched kitty cat left under the rain. Give this man a blanket and a therapist.

Bye bye Prothesis 5 ! And see what I mean when I say that his outfit does not make sense????? It comes out in parts????

After his imprisonment on the Ark

The last suit in the manga! He keeps this coat until the end of the story. From this point, only his hair changes (or the color of his coat).

I adore the little angel wing symbol on his left arm, such a cute addition. Too bad it appears in one of the most traumatic event of his life.

Speaking of his jumpsuit...The return of belts.... But at least this outfit stays relatively coherent except for his kneeguards who appear and disappear panel from panel but most of the time he doesn't have any, so no kneeguard it is. Prosthesis 6 hello !

Final battle and end of the story

It hurted to drew those outfits ;w; And working on the design of his coat when he fights Legato made me realize where Orange studio took inspiration to chose the colors for Vash's coat in the final episode of Stampede ! Great job ! I tried to color the same effects as one of the illustrations showing dark Vash but I'm not really good with colors..... He actually radiates energy but with some purple undertones, I took some liberties because those are my drawings I do what I want.

I'm not sure at 100% that he has a tuft of blond hair left when his outfit turns black but his hair is all black at the end of the fight. His prosthesis is destroyed at the end of the fight. He got another one in the final chapter. So 7 prosthesis throughout the story!

#play with vash like a barbie doll #I love reference sheets #took years to do but it helps so much when drawing comics #or writing fics #how the hell do you expect me to show him undress if I don't know how his clothes work #anyway enjoy #vash the stampede #vash #trigun #trigun maximum #a's art

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calliesmemes · 1 month ago

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YET ANOTHER ROUNDUP OF ASOLUTELY UNHINGED COMEDIC RELIEF

ASSORTED SENTENCE STARTERS FROM AROUND THE INTERNET, including quotes from Tumblr, Pinterest, TikTok, and X (formerly known as Twitter), for when a muse wants to be a bit silly <333

CHANGE gendered words and in-universe phrases as needed.

SPECIFY muse for multimuses.

❛ I am not merely a clown; I’m the entire damn circus! ❜

❛ I will bite you if you continue this behavior. ❜

❛ Being a dramatic ass bitch isn’t a personality trait; it’s a lifestyle! ❜

❛ Trauma? Oh … you mean, my lore? ❜

❛ why must I cite sources? is it not enough to just say ‘trust me, bro’? ❜

❛ sorry for being a perfect sweetie and a genius it will likely happen again. ❜

❛ forget about touching grass; I need to touch WATER I NEED TO GO INTO THE OCEAN I NEED TO DIVE INTO THE SEA!!! ❜

❛ I’m attracted to men with muppet energy and no i will not be explaining. ❜

❛ you want me to make friends with people? the thing that killed julius caesar? ❜

❛ what’s your birthstone? mine is rock bottom. ❜

❛ I absolutely hate that I’m not bioluminescent. Pathetic. ❜

❛ ohhhhh my god i have got to stop mourning the past or whatever. ❜

❛ you expect me to act like a normal human being? I’m wearing a turtleneck! ❜

❛ i don’t struggle with same sex attraction I’m actually very good at it. ❜

❛ unfortunately i often find out without even getting the chance to fuck around. ❜

❛ I’m bisexual which means that I’m attracted to anybody who can defeat me in physical combat. ❜

❛ all anyone needs to know about me is that i’m a dumbass and i love women. ❜

❛ sorry but philosophers aren’t impressive i came up with stuff like that when i was 12. ❜

❛ I pay my own bills; I can cuss all I want! ❜

❛ I don’t have rizz; I have sad eyes and a weird presence. ❜

❛ my demons are chasing me and they’re doing the Naruto run. ❜

❛ honey we are ALL doomed by the narrative. it's not that serious. have some fun with it. ❜

❛ dating me is like interviewing a psych ward patient. ❜

❛ being a girl with very large brown eyes comes with great responsibility. ❜

❛ i’m autistic in ways that you can’t even begin to imagine. ❜

❛ being a loser may be a phase to you but its a lifestyle for me. ❜

❛ entering a magical portal in the woods would fix me. ❜

❛ I’m lonely but not in a hot mysterious way; more like in a pathetic way. ❜

❛ life is so unserious just say womp womp and move on! ❜

❛ you’re vibing? In this economy? ❜

❛ just because I’m small doesn’t mean I can’t kick your ass. ❜

❛ my primary motivators are fear, spite, and aesthetic longing. ❜

❛ sorry about the chaos; I needed attention. ❜

❛ WHAT IS UP GIRL you look foreboding and malicious! ❜

❛ baby i can be your problematic bi wife. ❜

❛ i don’t think any of you understand how important i am to the plot. ❜

❛ what if we are both red flags? what then? ❜

❛ any dream can be a prophetic dream if you’re willing to do some really weird shit. ❜

❛ my hobbies include being right, being gay, and being a hater. ❜

❛ i have a phd in Loving The Color Pink And Also Glitter. ❜

❛ being a menace to society is a full time job and I am dedicated. ❜

❛ my life has been a bouquet of oopsie daisies. ❜

❛ i survive on spite, anxiety, and blasphemy. ❜

❛ if you’re not obsessed with me, why would I wanna be with you? ❜

❛ the hottest thing a man can be is a little afraid of me. ❜

❛ my love language is being a hater. ❜

❛ i don’t get enough credit for acting far less insane than i actually am. ❜

❛ the A in my name stands for always right. ❜

❛ Jesus is my homeboy but God has a lot to answer for and I will continue to be rebellious until he does so. ❜

❛ I’ll see a man with long hair and then remember that I’m not above temptations of the flesh. ❜

❛ i’m going to be honest with you I’m not going to be honest with you. ❜

❛ stop asking me if I’m ok I’ll literally make out with you. ❜

❛ part of my masculine charm is that I’m literally insane. ❜

❛ are you sure those are demons bro? or are they consequences from the choices you made? ❜

❛ i do not identify as a boy or a girl. i identify as a nuisance, an irritant, a fool, and a problem. ❜

❛ praying on someone’s downfall isn’t enough i need to participate in it. ❜

❛ we all need to chill. i won’t do it first but it’s something i noticed. ❜

❛ not to sound like a Victorian woman suffering from hysteria but going to the sea would fix me. ❜

❛ the silly goose convention called; they asked if you could be their keynote speaker. ❜

❛ i deserve unrestricted access to old castles and old churches i want to know all the secrets. ❜

❛ doesn’t matter if you’re cringe or based we’re all just here to suffer. ❜

❛ I’m no longer comedic relief I’m now serious panic. ❜

❛ this is getting difficult to romanticize. ❜

❛ done healing my inner child. next up is my inner teen. her highness needs a sword. ❜

❛ i am God’s silliest experiment. ❜

❛ i’m very vulnerable right now if anyone wants to take advantage of me. ❜

❛ sorry i overshared do you still think im hot? ❜

❛ I can yap for days and still maintain my air of mystery. ❜

❛ good luck sending me mixed signals; I don’t even understand normal ones. ❜

❛ not all of your life decisions have to be smart. some can be purely for cinematic value. ❜

#askbox meme #askbox prompt #rp ask meme #ask box #roleplay sentence meme #sentence starters #roleplay prompts #roleplay sentence starters #* sentence meme #rpc help

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genericpuff · 6 months ago

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Hello! I’m just here bc I’m a little confused on what you meant by Smythe drawing out “each individual asset” when she was making comics? Now, granted, I can see that it made her file ginormous, but me personally as someone who knows nothing about making online comics but is really wanting to get into it (and also as someone who has a ‘too many layers’ problem myself), is there a way to avoid using too many layers?

My current way of making comics has been to draw the panels individually and then format them (which I know is terrible management wise and also messes with the quality) but I honestly have no other idea of how to do it properly, and seeing how stunning Lore Rekindled looks, I don’t know how you would manage to put all that lighting effects and little details on the same layers. (But also I may be thinking of it wrong so I’ll let you talk qwq)

Ah I can actually give you a visual breakdown of what I meant by that!

So in this you can see there are a TON of layers, and not even all of them are visible because some of them are stuffed into FOLDERS that have been left closed. BUT if you look REEEEALLY carefully-

^^^ These layers right here? That's specifically Minthe from this panel in Episode 61:

(the unique pose here makes it real easy to tell that this is the corresponding panel, you can see the matching body shape with the dark shading that's clipped to the base layer below it!)

So what this means is that Rachel didn't draw all her characters on one base layer, she drew every single character in every single panel separately. Now of course, she could merge all these layers together as working on separate layers helps make it easier to work on elements that collide separately (like one character being 'underneath' another character like Hades is here) but because she has all of those clipping layers with the shading already added in, she likely didn't merge them afterwards because that would actually create MORE problems (because if she merged the Minthe layer in with Hades, then the shading for Minthe that she painted outside of the lines would show up on Hades and then she'd have to erase it which is just a bunch of extra work).

You can also tell all these characters are on their own layer because the layer thumbnail EXCLUSIVELY shows those characters. A layer will show as much canvas length as it needs to cover what's in that layer, so if the thumbnail is only showing one character, that means there's NOTHING ELSE on that layer. If there were more elements on this layer than just Minthe, the layer thumbnail would look more like this:

Now let's compare it to Rekindled's layers! I'll use a completed page to make it fair as we use a lot of extra layers in the post-production phase where we add the texture effects and glow and all that fun stuff, plus I'll even make it a more complicated page like that big nymph explanation spread from Episode 51:

So I'll break it down to make this make more sense:

BG 2 Copy (technically this is supposed to be BG 1) - Basically the panel shapes, what I'll do is mark out the panels with flat blocks and through that we'll add background elements in a clipping layer (usually done by Banshriek). Often times they'll do multiple layers to make the process easier and then merge them all together in the end. With these shapes operating as panels, it means I can just auto select the whole layer, invert the selection, and easily erase whatever's outside of it (such as the lineart and base colors that I put down afterwards). I could just use masking layers like I did in [AFTERBIRTH] but I find this way works better for the process of making Rekindled.

BG 2 - This is where we add objects / foreground elements. So stuff like furniture, interactables, anything that needs to be kept separate from the larger background to make it easier to work with. This can also include "floating" panels that need to be above other panels, such as this:

All of the backgrounds are then nested in a folder for organization purposes (we also sometimes use clipping layers on top of those folders to apply extra effects over anything contained within that folder without affecting other folders, that's a common technique that Banshriek applies)

Then we get into our Characters folder:

BASE - This is where I do the majority of my work, all the characters in every panel on a page are flatted into this layer. Sometimes I do have to create separate layers to, again, make it easier to work with overlapping characters, but usually those layers will be merged before I go into the shading process. I simply shade on a single layer by using the lasso / magic wand tool to select my area for painting, the flat colors make it really easy to do that. Sometimes I need to create a secondary shading layer if I've put down dark colors that start to bleed into the lighter colors, but again, I merge when I'm done into a single shading layer. We also sometimes employ an Add (Glow) layer into the clipping set if we need a glow effect that's exclusive to the characters and doesn't travel outside of their base colors.

There's a (leaves) layer here that I used for the dryad because I needed the leaves to be above the base layer, after that I selected the leaves elements so that I could erase the lineart in the layer above it where needed.

LINEART - It's lineart, enough said haha That said, I do think Rachel actually uses clipping layers for her lineart in places, it seems to be visible in some of her process videos where you can see the lineart present in a clipping layer, and that would explain why there are panels where the lineart suddenly 'cuts off' and doesn't travel outside of the base layer, like so:

GLOW - This is where we do an Add (Glow) layer that isn't restricted to the base layer, it's where we add all the fun lil' glow and sparkle effects over the characters !

The CLOUDS layer is, like the leaves, a background element that needs to be above the base layers rather than constricted to the background.

Above the Characters folder you can see what I mentioned earlier where Banshriek has added more post-production effects that are exclusively clipped to the contents of the Characters folder. This means the effects / blend modes do NOT affect the background layers or anything above it.

The BLUR (Overlay) layer is something we just started doing over the past several episodes, it's a technique I actually picked up from 66 of City of Blank where I merge all the layers into a new visible layer which I then apply a Gaussian Blur to at around 60% and then set to Overlay (and then I adjust the layer opacity until it looks right, usually around 25-35%), it gives it a bit of a softer "dreamier" vibe in the final colors and really helps unify everything!

CANVAS - This is an Overlay layer which is also set to an opacity of 25-35% where I go over the panels with the Add Canvas brush from the Kyle Webster set, unlike the Canvas overlay texture in CSP I can actually choose the colors I want to use which means I can match the canvas texture color to the mood and environment of the scene (ex. I'll use a very light blue for scenes in the Underworld). Not only does it give it that signature texture from S1 of LO, but it also helps balance out the effects of the BLUR layer.

The SKETCH layer sits on top of everything and gets turned off once all the base layers and lineart are down, and ofc the SPEECH folder is just where all the text is kept.

I know everything I just laid out is a LOT but ultimately it's how we operate, it works for us! But it also begs the question of why Rachel operates the way she does because a lot of it seems extremely unnecessary and more likely to bite her in the ass (the more layers there are, the bigger your file size gets, the risk of drawing on the wrong layer increases as well as the risk of posting a panel that's missing elements because the layer was left turned off by mistake, etc.) And it's more so concerning with how she operates with her assistants because if she's still using this many layers when collaborating with other people, hooo boy. Though based on what I've observed of what her assistants contribute, I get a lot more of the sense that she circumvents this by having the artists do the flats separately and then importing them in as separate assets that she then just imports into the page and places them where they need to be. Still not a great workflow IMO because it's what's led to a lot of the issues of characters "floating" rather than feeling like they're actually in the environment-

-but that's still an issue that could be solved by Rachel just taking more time to actually flesh out the backgrounds and lighting to give more of an impression of the characters actually existing in the space. Like that Hestia panel could easily be fixed by just giving the background a bit more detail and putting actual shading underneath her (and lighting from whatever direction it's coming from).

Either way, regardless of whether or not Rachel's process is productive or not, I hope that breakdown helps explain how we do it in Rekindled! Learning how to manage layers is definitely a skill that can be tricky to harness, but once it "clicks" there's a lot you can get away with. Ultimately how you do it is up to you, but my best piece of advice to offer is to just be open to other types of workflows because you don't know how much you might be shooting yourself in the foot doing things the hard way when there are often way easier and more efficient ways to get the same job done. That's basically the vibe I get from observing Rachel's workflow, it seems like she's still using methods that she thinks are working for her (and probably did work just fine for her when it was JUST her) but could be vastly improved for her and her team if she'd just get over the initial hump of stepping outside of her comfort zone. Would probably make for a better comic too LOL

I hope that helps! Good luck! ( ´ ∀ `)ノ～ ♡

#ask me anything #ama #anon ama #anon ask me anything #lore olympus critical #anti lore olympus #lo critical #lore rekindled #webcomic advice

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facioleeknow · 8 months ago

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Time for love ° Hwang Hyunjin

Hyunjin. the immortal Adonis, falls for a human.

WC: 2094 Genre: Greek mythology AU, angst, smut

TW: make up artist reader, model hyunjin, smut, masturbation, thigh riding, handjob, mention of cum, borderline asshole hyunjin, greek gods and goddesses, mention of blood, angry hyunjin and angry deities

AN: thank you from th ebottom of my heart to th elovely @leeknowsallyoursecrets , for giving me her opinion about this.

My Kofi if you want to support me <3.

Hyunjin was old. Hyunjin was really really old. Eternal youth they called it. When one thinks about youth, they imagine freshness and fun; a colorful, colorful phase when you get to try new things and explore the world. Hyunjin’s life was anything but; he had seen every corner of this earth and tried every experience that was humanly possible. His life was flat and gray, there was nothing more to do and he was bored.

He remembered his first life. His name was Adonis and he was considered the most beautiful man in the whole world; he was so beautiful that goddesses soon appeared on his doorstep and asked to share his bed. That’s how his story became myth, or what people thought it was.

He had lived many lives from then, he had taken many names and done many things, he lived a tranquil life and minded his business; had sometimes taken a couple of lovers but nothing that had stuck to him.

His life and pattern of change had come crumbling apart when one day the gods decided to come out in the open and introduce themselves to humans. With time everything was uncovered and the protagonists of every myth became their own kind of celebrities. He had never been more famous in his life, but he also had never been more lonely. He was beautiful and that was a fact, and with the fame came the modeling offers. He modeled for the most famous maisons of fashion of the world and people loved him. No they didn’t love him, they loved his body, they loved his face, they loved his fake smile and fake confidence.

His days were always the same, he would wake up at an insane hour, get on set, get ready, shoot, get unready, check social media and then go to bed, just to do it all the following day. Day after day the cycle had never been broken, for years on end. Until it had.

When he walked inside the photo studio, he could sense something had shifted in the air. He hated changes. A heavy hand smoothed back his unruly hair, his eyes closed almost on instinct after he sat down in his makeup chair. He had requested a special chair, made of one of the softest furs he had ever touched, where he could sleep and relax.

Something warm and small suddenly touched his shoulder, hesitantly. He hissed and his eyes shot open, his staff knew better than to interfere with his pattern.

His breath hitched in his throat when he opened his eyes. This wasn’t his usual make-up artist.

“Sorry to disturb you Mr. Hwang, I am Y/N L/N, your new makeup artist,” your voice was sweet, way too sweet to be human, but he knew all deities by heart. Perhaps some kind of creature.

“What happened to Ha-na?” his eyes bore holes into your skull, his gaze held a fiery passion you had never seen in your life. Is this how an immortal looks?, you thought.

“She’s on maternity leave, sir,” you had never felt that nervous in your life.

The conversation died off after that but his eyes were fixed on you. There was something about you that Hyunjin couldn't quite pinpoint, his inside felt like they were lit on fire. His head told him that if he looked away from you, something bad would've happened. He had to have you, one way or another, he didn't even care if you were human or not.

Since that day Hyunjin had always waited anxiously for your arrival every morning. You would always greet him with a tight lipped smile while you closed into fists your obvious shaky hands. He liked to think your hands were shaking and your heart was beating out of your chest because of him.

At night Hyunjin would lie awake and think about you, your hair, your lips, your hands, your eyes, but most of the time he would think about what laid under your clothes, how your curves would look and how they would feel in his big and soft hands.

He had to have you, he didn't care if you were human or not.

The second time Hyunjin spoke to you, it was weeks after your first encounter.

“What are you?” his eyes bored into yours like the first time you met.

“What do you mean sir?”

His presence felt almost overbearing, it looked like he was towering over you, it felt like he was everywhere, you couldn't run from him. But in reality he was still sitting in front of you.

“Don't play coy. What kind of creature are you?”

“Creature? I'm human, sir,” your eyes wide as saucers at his assumption. You? A supernatural creature?

“Are you lying to me?” His tone was stern and demanding.

“No, sir, I would never.”

He didn't reply.

He was scary. Immortals were scary and dangerous for humans more than anyone else. You should've been fearful of him but a familiar throb between your legs kept growing and growing and you couldn't help but feel ashamed.

Hyunjin could feel your arousal, he could read it on your face. After centuries he could read human emotions quite well.

“Everybody out!” His tone left no space for arguments. The staff and photographers scurried out of the room with their hearts in their throats.

“Come sit.” The immortal patted his spread legs, his big hand encased your wrist.

“Excuse me?”

“You don't want to?” he sounded cocky now, a new emotion he let you see.

“I didn't say that,” you stuttered.

“Then be a good girl and straddle my thigh.”

His hands never left your body, not even when you complied and positioned yourself how he asked. He was in control, he was the one guiding your movement.

A small gasp escaped your lips when you felt him ground you on his strong thigh.

“Please sir, touch me,” the shame fueled your pleasure like never before.

“No can do, get yourself off like this or don't at all.”

That was the best orgasm of your life.

After he touched you, Hyunjin couldn't get enough of you. He thought your voice was sweet at first, but your moans were even sweeter, your skin tasted like nectar and your pussy like ambrosia. He was addicted.

Sleep came easier to him now but not even in your dreams he could escape you. Your voice, your sweet whines, your skin, your scent, they all clouded his brain even in his slumber. He'd wake up hard as a rock every night and leaking. He would fuck his fist roughly, just how he liked it, he would use all of his toys and cum again and again until his seed had permanently stained his satin black sheets. But it wasn't enough. It was never enough. He had to feel you clench around him, he had to feel you rake your nails down his back, he had to push your legs to your chest and see fat tears roll down your cheeks.

So he would get up and drive to your house where he would fuck you until you both passed out. It became some sort of routine, one that he followed religiously. But the more he saw the bigger a foreign and strange feeling grew inside him. It started at the pit of his stomach and then spread through his chest like a warm blanket enveloping him in a tight hug. It was comforting and that unsettled him.

He was confused and ignorant, he hated that. But he knew that it didn't come from him, somebody was attacking him. That's how Hyunjin found himself in front of the goddess of love, Aphrodite, herself.

“What have you done to me?” he yelled. He knew yelling at a deity was not a smart move but the anger was consuming him, mixing with that strange feeling and making his blood hot.

“You cursed me, didn't you? You cursed me because I don't want to share a bed with you anymore, you selfish woman.” The moment those words came out of HYunjin’s mouth he regretted them. The room started shaking along with the anger of the goddess, everybody knew not to anger Aphrodite. he was foolish, he thought he could get away with it because he used to be her favorite lover. The goddess grew in stature, the light bulbs in the room exploded, leaving the only light her angry eyes.

“You foolish human, how dare you speak to me like this,” this was not Aphrodite the goddess of love, this was the goddess of fiery passion and victory, “ I did not curse you. You do not hold significance in my eyes anymore, you are a mere human. Humans all fall in love, it’s their destiny.”

The walls of the pristine white room they were in started to crack under the gravity of the goddess full immortal form. Hyunjin knew that the fact he was not dead meant that Aphrodite let him live as a sign of charity and because of the time they shared their bed. But she did not give second chances, she never had so he quickly kneeled and when he felt the presence of the immortal get gradually less overbearing he got up and walked backwards until back hit the door as a sign of respect and then left.

The drive home was pure madness, flashes of rage traveled through his body like lightning before leaving like nothing had happened. Hera was punishing him for angering her daughter, nothing was less expected from the goddess of family. When he stumbled into his house, with shaky hands he grabbed his ceremonial cup and offered his bloods to the gods to appease them and as a thanks for sparing his life.

The following day Hyunjin avoided looking at you in the eyes, he had never looked away from you, not even once. You were so used to having his fiery gaze on you that now your whole body felt cold as ice.

‘Maybe he’s tired,’ you thought while you worked. Tired or not, you felt him miles away from you even if you were touching his skin with your very own hands. Something had shifted between you.

The next day felt like a deja vù, Hyunjin still had his eyes closed and he still refused to talk to you. You felt wronged and cold. The following days followed the same pattern, it felt like a terrible nightmare. His nightly visits had also stopped and so did his texts.

Anger and frustration were eating away at you. Work had started to get tougher and Hyunjin’s attitude was making your mental health drop. The last straw was the pouring rain, you were stranded at work, with no umbrella, when all you wanted to do was go home, eat ice cream and sleep.

Fat teardrops started dropping down your cheeks, why was this all happening to you? Why couldn’t you live in peace? Why was Hwang Hyunjin doing this to you?

“Are you crying?” That voice. Hwang Hyunjin.

“That’s none of your business, Hyunjin,” you furiously wiped at your cheeks.

“It is,” his hand cupped your cheek and you had no strength to fight it, “ it is because you are the only woman i’ve ever loved in my long life.” Your breath hitched in your throat.

“Say that again.”

“You, “ he paused, “ are the only wo-”

You didn’t give him the chance to finish his sentence, your lips attached to his and you richest deflated with relief. Kissing him felt familiar and natural. The recognizable desire that always lit within you when you were with him started spreading through you like wildfire. Your hands quickly traveled to his pants and unbuttoned his pants without thinking, you had done that countless times. His dick was already hard and leaking, waiting for you. Your soft hand wrapped around his velvety skin and tugged and moved just how you knew he liked, how you knew drove him mad. Your lips found his neck and nipped and sucked at his pulse point, his weak spot.

“Oh, baby, I’m not going to last, I think I’m cumming.”

A quick swipe of your thumb against his slip made him spill all over your hand, his head thrown back in ecstasy and his eyes tightly shut.

“You’re gonna be the death of me, lover, but first let me return the favor.”

A hand on his chest stopped him.

“Take me on a date first.”

“Whatever you want, lover.”

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is-the-snake-video-cute · 1 year ago

Note

I'm new to snakes and have just realised how cute they are, especially hognoses. Do you have any fun facts about them?

Sure thing! Hognoses are awesome!!

Hognose snakes (genus Heterodon) are venomous! Their venom isn't medically significant to humans, though, and they're very unlikely to bite in self-defense. They're still awesome pets!

They're what we call rear-fanged venomous. That means they have little grooves in these big fangs near the back of their mouths, and they have to chew venom into their food as they eat.

Hoggies are known for a pretty unique behavior - when they feel very stressed or threatened, they'll play dead. They're great actors, too; they'll flop over on their backs, stick their tongues out, and sometimes even pop blood vessels in their mouths! If you try to turn them over, they'll flip back onto their backs to prove how dead they are. (Even though the dramatics are kinda funny, never harass a snake who's playing dead - they feel really scared and should be left alone!)

That adorable little nose is made for diggin'! Hognose snakes have such a big rostral (nose) scale because it lets them use their face like a shovel to dig their burrows.

Their dramatics don't begin and end with playing dead! Anyone who's kept a hognose snake knows they're not shy about telling you what they think! An annoyed hognose snake will also puff out their cheeks, spread their neck out (like a little cobra!) and hiss and bluff-strike (basically striking with their mouth closed), although, like I said, they almost never bite in self-defense.

Their hiss is super loud because of that upturned scale! Despite their small size, hoggies hiss like a much bigger snake.

Although western hognoses are most popular in captivity (for good reason, they're awesome pets), I think easterns can be even more beautiful. They have a very wide variation in natural colors, from a stunning red phase to common melanism.

Life wouldn't be the same without hognose snakes!

#not a rating #hognose snakes #snake facts

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cal-kestis · 2 years ago

Photo

HOW TO: Make a Pantone “Color of the Year” Gif

A few people have asked about my Pantone sets which use the “Color of the Year” swatch design. So, here’s a full tutorial with a downloadable template of my exact overlay! Disclaimer: This tutorial assumes you have a basic understanding of gif-making in Photoshop.

PHASE 1: PICKING A SCENE + PANTONE COLOR(S)

I’m starting with this because it’s crucial for planning your gifset as well as making sure the execution is smooth sailing. The steps in this phase won’t necessarily be literal steps but some tips for how I usually go about making a Pantone set:

1.1 – Picking a scene. Scene selection is everything. To make things easy on yourself, I suggest choosing scenes where the background is mainly ONE color — for example, a scene where the subject has a clear blue sky behind them. To make things even easier, choose a color that isn’t the same color as the subject of your gif. Like, if your subject is a human, I’d avoid using a gif with a red or yellow background unless you want to do a lot more work to mask their skin.

Rip me using a scene of green lil Grogu in green grass lmao. But I guess that goes to show you could really do this with any scene (I just did lots of masking and keyframe animations to perfect this green shade). BUT selecting your scenes wisely = a lot less work.

1.2 – Picking Pantone colors. People often ask me how I choose my colors and there are a few methods which I’ll go over below.

But note that not all Pantone colors have a cute name, or any name (fun fact: only Pantone textiles have official names and they end with TCX, TPX, or TPG).

METHOD A: Google Search “Pantone [Color]” Source: Google Easy but not always fruitful, all you do for this method is open Google and type “Pantone [insert color here].” For example, when searching for teal colors, I searched several things including: Pantone Teal, Pantone Turquoise, Pantone Blue, Pantone Green, Pantone Blue Green, etc. Then, just sift through the Google results and click on whatever comes up from the official Pantone website! Since Pantone’s site blocks some info behind a paywall, you won’t be able to get a hex code from them. But you can just screenshot the swatch from their site, put it in Photoshop, and use the eyedropper tool to figure out the color.

METHOD B: Color-Name Site Source: https://www.color-name.com/ This handy website lets you search by colors using the upper navigation bar. Or you can just type something like "magenta" or "blue pantone" or even “frog” and see what comes up lol. Color-name can put together palettes too! I like that this site also tells you the hex code of a color, which is really helpful for getting the right code to put in my overlay. Note: Not every color on this site is a Pantone textile, so not all of these names are Pantone-official names. You can tell it’s official if, in the Pantone row of the Color Codes table on the middle of the page, it has a code that’s 2 numbers, a dash, 4 numbers, and either TCX, TPX, or TPG.

METHOD C: User-Made Pantone Colors Archive Source: https://margaret2.github.io/pantone-colors/ For my Wednesday characters as Pantone colors set, it was all about matching the color name to the character’s vibe. So, before looking at the actual colors themselves, I wanted to find the perfect color names. I stumbled upon this page. The pros = it lists pretty much all of the current official Pantone names. The cons = it’s not convenient since there’s no filtering tool. You can do Command+F and search for keywords, but that’s it. I literally scrolled through this whole page for my Wednesday set and read every single name, which... I think means... something’s wrong with me /lh /hj

METHOD D: Official Pantone Color Finder Source: https://www.pantone.com/pantone-connect This is last on my list because I don’t actually recommend it. Unless you already have access to this resource from your school or work or something, I would never pay for it and it is a paid feature only. Boooo 👎 But there is a free trial (which I’ve never used), so if you want to see what it’s about, you can definitely go for it.

PHASE 2: MAKING THE BASE GIF

Again, just some super quick tips for making a gif that, I think, looks best with this kind of set — but if you’re still learning how to gif, I do have a basic gif-making tutorial here for extra guidance!

2.1 – Uncheck “Delete Cropped Pixels” before cropping your gif. When you use the crop tool, this checkbox appears in the top toolbar. Unchecking it allows you to move the positioning of your gif later on, which is handy in this case when you want to choose which part of your gif will be underneath the Pantone swatch. You can read more about this tip in my basic gif-making tutorial (linked above; Step 1.5 – Tip B).

2.2 – Make your gif 540px width. My gifs for these sets are usually 540x540px but I think 540x500px will also look good. I think it’s more impactful though to make a big gif to show off your coloring.

PHASE 3: ADDING THE PANTONE OVERLAY

3.1 – Download my template I made this template myself, so all I ask is that you don’t claim it as your own and that you give me proper insp or template credit in your caption if you decide to use it! Get the PSD with the transparent background here!

3.2 – Download the font Helvetica Neue Bold The font I use (and I’m pretty sure it’s the same font Pantone uses) is Helvetica Neue Bold, with some very specific letter spacing (which I determined by studying Pantone’s official Color of the Year Very Peri design). It’s already set in my .psd but here are specs in case: color name spacing = -40, color code spacing = -75 (sometimes I’ll do -25 for the numbers after the dash if I don’t like how tightly they’re packed together).

I uploaded Helvetica Neue Bold to my dropbox here!

3.3 – Import my overlay You can either drag the whole folder onto your gif from tab to tab or right-click the folder, select Duplicate Group, and select your gif as the destination document. Just make sure this overlay group is above your base gif!

3.4 – Fill the color swatch In my .psd, on the layer labeled “Pantone Swatch,” just grab the hex code of your chosen Pantone color and fill that layer using the Paint Bucket tool! I’ve already put a layer mask on the layer for you so it fits perfectly inside the square outline.

If you’re using my .psd, all the blend mode settings are already in place! I usually set the colored square behind the Pantone logo to the Color blend mode, but sometimes, I prefer the way Hue looks. It’s up to you!

You can also adjust the drop shadow settings to make your text more visible as needed. The layers are arranged in this order so the drop shadows don’t interfere with the semi-transparent part of the colored swatch.

3.5 – Insert the color name and code My .psd has two versions to choose from: (1) a color name that fits on one line and (2) a color name that requires two lines. Use the one that applies to your color name and simply type that and color code into the corresponding text layers!

Note 1: Pantone doesn’t keep their font size uniform for every color of the year. They’ll sometimes shrink the text to fit longer names, but I like being consistent. So, I use this one font size for all my colors.

Note 2: My template has all the text left-justified and matching the starting point of the P in Pantone. BUT, sometimes the gif looks better if you nudge the text a bit so it looks more centered. Use your discretion when aligning the text!

Note 3: Btw, you definitely don’t have to use the TCX/TPG codes like me. (I’m a nut and there’s no way I’ll ever do a Pantone set and not use those types of codes to maintain uniformity across this series lol.) I’ve seen others do sets inspired by mine using different color codes or even just the hex code itself!

PHASE 4: COLORING THE BASE GIF

The key here is to make a majority of your gif feature your chosen Pantone swatch. If you’re really smart with your scene selections, this should be a breeze! If you’re stubborn like me and want to use specific scenes with the opposite color of your chosen Pantone swatch, there will be a bit more color manipulation involved... However, this isn’t a coloring tutorial, so again, I’m going to give some tips and resources that will hopefully help you out!

4.1 – Color matching. Now that you have the Pantone swatch on your gif, you should be able to reference that center square set to Color/Hue to match the rest of your gif to that color. Feel free to paint a little blob of your color onto another layer anywhere on your gif so you can refer to it closer over a specific part of your gif. For example, I put a little circle over Grogu’s head to see how closely I matched Pantone’s Peapod color, then I tweaked my adjustment layers a bit more until the colors matched near perfectly and I couldn’t tell where that blob begins or ends. The left is the solid color and the right is set to the blending mode Color (like the square):

4.2 – Moving the base gif. This isn’t really about coloring... but remember when I said to uncheck “Delete Cropped Pixels” in Step 2.1? Well, here’s your chance to adjust your canvas and move the gif around so the exact part you want under the color swatch is in the right position. I personally think these kinds of sets are more impactful when you put a differently colored part of your gif under the swatch so you can see through it and the difference is clearer. In my example, I put Grogu in the center so the green box would cover some of his brown potato sack robe.

4.3 – Color manipulation. Color manipulation is when you transform your media’s original color grading into a completely different color. The Grogu gif isn’t a great example because the original scene was already a green-yellow color:

I mean, the difference is still pretty drastic but that’s mostly because my file was HDR and washed out as a result.

So, here’s an example I made using a gif from my first Pantone set for ITSV (I’m not doing this demo to the Grogu gif because it’d be too much work to manipulate a green background with a green subject. This ITSV scene is perfect bc the majority of it is blue while the subjects are mostly red.)

For the “basic coloring,” I did everything as I normally would: mostly levels and selective color layers.

For color manipulation, my fav adjustment layer is Hue/Saturation (those are the screenshots that are on the gif above). When you’re smart with your scene selection, it’s pretty easy to manipulate colors with one Hue/Sat layer because you usually only need to tamper with 1-2 colors and, hopefully, they shouldn’t interfere with skin tones (obviously you’ll do other layers to further enhance your gif’s brightness, contrast, etc. — but I just mean the heavy lifting usually only takes me one layer with a good scene choice).

All you have to do is figure out what color the majority of your gif is, toggle to that color’s channel, and fiddle with the hue slider. In the gif above, you can see that I played with both the Blue and Cyan channels. Here’s why:

If I only adjust the Blue hue slider, I get those speckles of cyan peaking through in the gif above. Unless you’re working with completely flat colors — like 2D animation with zero shading/highlights — a color is never just one, solid color. Blue isn’t just blue, it may have some cyan. Purple isn’t just purple, I often have to toggle the Blue channel too. So, yeah, be mindful of that!

I’ll sometimes go in with the brush tool and paint over some areas of my gif to really smooth out the color and make it uniform. When I do that, I just set that painted layer to the Color blend mode. Some of the resources below go into that technique a bit more!

4.4 – Coloring resources. While not all of these tutorials cover the same type of color manipulation I did in my gifs, I think the principles are similar and would be helpful to anyone who’s a beginner: – color manipulation tutorial by usergif/me: I go a bit more in depth here (I think lol) – how to change the background of any gif by usergif/fionagallaqher: a great tutorial for using keyframes so you can manipulate the background of a gif with lots of motion – bea’s color isolation gif tutorial by nina-zcnik: this tutorial has more tips about hue/saturation layers as well as masking your subject – elio’s colouring tutorial by djarin: this tutorial shows a lot of examples of first manipulating the colors then brushing over the gif with a matching color for extra coverage

And just one last note on coloring, I always try to appreciate gifs with the mentality that “good” coloring is 100% subjective. One of the only things I would classify as “bad” coloring is when you whitewash or [color]wash someone’s skin tone. So, as long as you keep the integrity of your subjects’ natural skin — especially if they’re a POC — you should feel good about your coloring, because it’s yours and you worked hard! <3

PHASE 4: EXPORT

That’s it!! If you work in Video Timeline like me, just convert from Timeline back to Frames, export your gif, and voila!

Easy PEAsy. 🥁

If you have specific questions about this tutorial, my ask box is open <3

Also, check out these other Pantone-inspired sets by my friends @nobodynocrime (Mulan set) and @wakandasforever (Ponyo set)! There are so many ways to use Pantone colors in your set, so I hope this inspires you to create something beautifully colorful <3

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its-dean · 1 month ago

Text

It's a BareBones Brigade Halloween!

I'm sad that I don't have something new to post for this year's leadup to halloween, but this is an illustration from last year that's still very close to my heart. Everyone on Caliosteo is here celebrating together, the patrol team, the former commanders of the BB Brigade, and even Joe Wildwest himself. What's more, it seems they all decided to collaborate and dress up with some BB Brigade flare (maybe it reminds them all of the good old days).

I remember working tirelessly on this one for a near month, and it was honestly a really fun project in hindsight that I wish I could replicate. I have the distinct memory of staying up all the way until Halloween morning making sure that it was perfect, and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Since the image is a bit widely cropped and not the most "mobile friendly," here are some close-ups on the batches of characters scattered around Ribular Isle. Dina and Rupert sticking close together (as usual), Cole lashing out at Lester after finding out that he stole some of his hair dye (as usual), and Pauleen's Amargo acting snarky, Todd getting himself into trouble (as usual).

Here are also some WIPs from this one. This was the beginning of the phase where I started refining my sketch lining rather than doing a whole separate layer of lineart on top of an original sketch. It's honestly super satisfying, and I recommend anyone who likes drawing to try it out!

As for the lighting, when I do a shading layer I like to change everything underneath to be a solid white, it makes it easier for me to create realistic lighting in a 3D sense, almost as if I'm forming the shape of a sculpture. Plus, when it comes out like this before adding in color everyone here looks like a ghost >< (how appropriate)

One more thing, I made these little pfp icons to go with the Halloween vibe, also making one for Kris (one of the characters from my own Fossil Fighters sequel story). All of their last names are purely headcannons of mine, but there's still a bit of meaning behind all of them.

Being that I'm half Greek, I've always seen Dino and Dina as being short for Κωνσταντίνος and Κωνσταντίνα respectively (also because that happens to be my Greek name, where Dean comes from ><) so I think it makes sense to give them a Greek last name that may or may not also connect to something in my own story.

As for Rupert (still going with my own headcannons), both he and Kris originally hail from Bockland, a European-based Fossil Park that's just as big as Vivosaur Island/Caliosteo. Both of them act so posh and well-mannered, and I'd love to come up with a reason for imagining Rupert with a slight British accent. Kris's story comes a good 9 years after the events of the first 2 games, but she shares a lot in common with Rupert back when he was her age, much more than just being from Bockland.

Thanks if you read this far. I'm both happy and sad to be able to share and talk about this illustration again. If there's anyone here on Tumblr seeing this for the first time, then I'm very happy I can share with you.

I hope you all have a happy week leading up to Halloween night!

#mine #fossil fighters #fossil fighters champions #fanart #fossil fighters dina #fossil fighters rupert #joe wildwest #halloween #fossil fighters odyssey #kris (oc)

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keelt9 · 6 months ago

Text

Chapter 3

Masterlist

After 5 minutes watching people come and go, I lost track of time. The steps I take forward are the half I walk back; the entrance was already further than the first time I stopped. I’ve told Liam I spent the weekend in the apartment, he needed to make a quick trip home to set a few things with the team, this is the kind of meetings he didn’t want to do in the distance.

“Come on dad! We are already late!” A small kid keeps pulling his father's hand as they run to the entrance. The noise inside confirms that everything is set for the opening ceremony.

My hands tremble, as I hold the name tag, tapping the floor waiting for someone to answer the phone. “Y/N you better have a good reason.” I called a half-sleep Mia; she knows absolutely nothing about this, and I bet she will forgive me with the promise I tell her everything when I feel ready.

“Fuck! Are you really in Silverstone? Like right now?!” She is fully awake now, so she can easily distinguish the sounds she can hear in the background. “Wow, what are you waiting for?”

“What do you mean?” I hear her bluffs.

“Go, have fun. Go, watch the race when it finishes, go to a nice place, have lunch by the night you’ll be at the apartment, safe and sound.” Mia clearly thinks my problem is having fun, and she is right but not totally in this case.

“Y/N that shoulder won't get worse if you have fun, actually it could be helpful, you know relaxing the muscles, the br…”

I laughed at her tendency of speaking without thinking first. “Mia you beat around the bush.”

“Yes, right, now go, and don't call me unless you are inside your apartment late at night, ok? Love you, bye.”

So disrespectful to her older sister.

I take a deep breath and walk with the last persons arriving to the track, I show my name tag and one of the boys with a neon yellow jacket conducts me through hallways, rooms where a bunch of people are coming and go; someones with casual clothes another with clothes of each team; I startle for the screaming of people and the sound of the cars.

“Strident, right?” The boy smiles with fascination coming from his eyes.

The last room we passed made me realize, it wasn't a simple pass like Max told me, I started to see the navy blue color, red and white all over the place.

“Here.” The boy gives me a quick tour around the room full of unknown people. “And here is where you can watch the race without problems, have fun!” Those were the last words he told me, until he apparently remembered something.

“Here.” He gives me the cap is been carrying all this time in his hand. “It should be illegal, you won't have anything on the team.” That makes me giggle, I take some air and start to calm.

The race passed without changes, Max won with 7 seconds ahead the second place; it's totally different to hear the commotion outside, the screams while you see him jumping to his team, raising his hands in victory.

“Let's go, for the award ceremony.” A woman smiles at me and walks with me; as we get close to the track the noises become stronger. We reached a place where a lot of people were waiting at the other side of the fence, clearly people of the team and relevant people. Slowly the pilots enter to the higher platform where the ceremony will take place, Max enters at least, smiling big.

He looks out of this world with his race suit on, his blue eyes shining bright and that soft shade of pink in his face.

He listens carefully to his national anthem, celebrating getting wet in chapmange clearly loving every moment. After taking some photos he seemed to be looking for something on the ground but he was called one more time and conducted to the back of the stage.

Slowly people start dispersing all over the place. It’s time to leave, the phase two of Mia’s plan concluded, I start to thinking where I could go and have a nice lunch-dinner meal when I heard someone shouting my name

A blond girl clearly has a sight of what I look like, because when I slightly turn around her expression is a total relief.

“Oh thank god, you're still here.” The girl extends her hand and smiles at me. “Oh, I’m Violet, part of the team Red Bull. This way please.”

Violet didn’t give me the chance to answer, just walked beside me explaining they looked for me before the race for I could be in the garage but they couldn’t find me. I told her what actually happened and smiled when she heard I actually watched all the post race ceremony.

“Max will be relieved he almost went and looked for you by himself.” Violet dropped those words so casually that I almost let it pass. She guided me to different places until I reached the garage where cameramen, photographers and reporters came out, just people from each team there.

“Have you seen Max?” Violet asks as we enter the garage. I felt out of place, maybe it was my anxiety running through my body but I feel the multiple eyes on me, doesn’t bring me good memories lately. “Thanks.”

Violet smiles at me apparently realizing my uncomfortably. “Don’t worry, no one of us bite.” I laughed, making me feel a little bit at ease. We start to walk one more time as she keeps me closer. “One more room and we’ll b…”

“THERE YOU ARE!” Max appears almost crashing with us, his suit stuck at the level of his waist, his hair tossed in different directions, dripping in what I bet is a mixture between Red Bull and champagne, still with a warm smile on his face. “Thanks Violet.”

She nods and puts her hand over my arm. “A pleasure, nice to meet you Y/N, anything you need.” Leaving us in a less crowded room.

“You get a cap, nice.” Max lifts the visor a little bit. Probably he didn’t know but he makes me feel happier, more than I wish. “Still, wrong number.”

I adjusted the cap one more time, still feeling shy. “What? 11 it’s a nice number.” He rolls his eyes.

“I can mend that.” He points with his head to the hallway behind him, as a sign that I should go after him; I choke my head, still he didn’t give me time to react because he grabs my left wrist and pulls me so I can follow him.

When Max left my wrist, we arrived at a more private room, no one inside, there were a couple of small couches, a small center table, on top a black bag.

I grab my wrist feeling the comfy sensation he left.

“Open it.” Max gives me the bag. First, the only thing I could see was a blue navy clothing, after pulling out I see, a T-shirt. However it wasn’t a Red Bull shirt, I actually recognized it when I lifted it in front of me.

“Is this?” My scoff didn’t leave me ending the sentence, smiling big at him. “You remember!”

Two weeks ago we were talking about “uniforms” and the fact I don’t feel comfortable with the thousand of logos around and how lucky I feel when we used one, just three of them were all over our T- shirts, as the talked evolve I mention in a joking way I didn’t mind wearing one of his merchandising with the lion in the center, especially the blue one.

“That’s not all, see right sleeve.” I don’t know who is more excited, me or him.

A target, with all right the colors, yellow, red, blue, black and white, a cute and small target.

“NO WAY!” I scream and jump to hug him, a natural impulse from me but apparently leaving him frozen. “Sorry, sorry.” I split, grabbing the shirt tightly in my hands. “It’s amazing, thank you so much.”

After I lift my face one more time, that shade of pink turns softly into a red one.

A soft knock on the wall distracts us. “Max, last one, please.” A young woman appears and leaves as she comes with an apologetic smile.

“Hey, give a couple of minutes and we leave all right?” Max starts to walk but stops when I open my mouth to ask what he means with “we.”

“What? Do you actually think I will invite you and then let you leave like that?” He giggles and shakes his head after my plain <Yes> “The brochures are for you to pick a restaurant, so we can go eat. I’m starving.” He rubs his belly a little bit.

“Max, wait…” I pursued him but already a couple of people were waiting for him.

“I’ll be with you, don’t worry.” Max just smirks softly and points at the shirt I’m squeezing tightly in my left hand. “You have a small me.” He refers to the Lion in the shirt.

The reference makes a slight smile on my face. After he left, I reached one of the couches; I lay down quickly, causing piddling pain in my shoulder, but my hand goes to my chest at the level of my heart.

<Boom, boom, boom> A crazy heart rate, surely not for the eccentric day.

Leaving the paddock was easier than getting in; I waited for 25 minutes, then Max entered the room one more time fully changed, dry with casual clothes; as we walked to the exit he received the last instructions and I suspect he was barely listening because just nodded with a serious face.

I chose “The Nook.” A cozy restaurant in a quiet street on the outskirts of the city, far away from the spotlights, hustle and prying eyes. We enjoy a calm dinner talking about our news in the weeks we haven't seen each other; he keeps bother me about how hard it is to get a message from me, the reason why he used rustic methods for inviting me.

My wherefore is simple, I don’t want to bother him when he is probably on the other side of the world and it’s late at night.

“You never bother me, the opposite, you make me feel at ease.” A proud smile appears on my face as I take a bite of the brownie I order.

The buzzing in my purse interrupts us. <Liam> reads in the call ID. I apologize to him and stand for picking up, almost choking with my food.

“Hello, is everything all right?” Liam asked but his voice sounded uncertain, almost like he didn’t want to speak to me.

“That went wrong, huh?” I ask him, leaning my back against the wall. I hear him taking a deep breath and clearing his throat.

“It’s not bad, they are just as nervous as all of us.” I low my head.

After the competition where I came out with the injury, all the people who are responsible for me and the team I conformed talked to me. They met me when I was 9 years old and took me under his wings; but the first impressions after the injury didn’t promise good things. They sent me with Anton with the hopes I fully recovered, but their eyes told us a different thing.

“Liam…” I whisper, feeling a knot in my throat.

“They will go in one month, want to see in person how you are, after that we will deliberate if you are still in or…”

“Take me off another year.” I can perfectly picture the meeting, my team, the coaches and the tension that could surrender the office.

“We won’t let that happen, ok? We are advanced in your rehabilitation. Anton told us that, at this pace, big things will happen in one month.” This time Liam's voice is cheerful and optimistic. “Y/N we don’t surrender, we fight and we hit the ten, remember that.”

I don’t realize a tear slips off my cheek; the truth is I’m afraid, I’m frightening actually.

“We’ll do it.” If I start to feel down I won't get anything so I clean my face and take a deep breath.

“That’s the Y/N I know.” I can imagine his proud smile. “Are you all right?”

I turn around and see Max eating his fruit pie, and giggle. “I am, right now I am.”

“Great, I’ll be back tomorrow night and I’ll see you for the session on Tuesday, ok?” I laughed seeing Max stain his jacket with a grape that fell from his spoon.

“Say hi to my family, please.” Max turned around, looking side to side and caught me observing him with a wide open smile on my face, he hid his face between his hands, laughing.

“Oh count with that. Y/N, I don’t know what you are doing but whatever it’s lovely hear you like this.”

After I got back to the table we talked until the night started to fall over us. I'd better leave or Anton will kill me if I miss my session tomorrow.

“I’ll have to go.” I say to Max playing with the napkin between my fingers. “I had an incredible day Max, thank you.”

Max looks at me with those mischievous blue eyes. “Hm, what about if I drive you home?” He has gone crazy, even Milton Keynes, it's not that far, is still a long drive.

“No, I mean… You have to rest, it’s ok, I know how to get home.” Max stretches his arms.

“I have more than a day for that, I’ll promise, I will take my time to get you safe and sound.”

#fic #max verstappen #max verstappen x reader #f1 x reader #f1 fanfic #f1 x female reader #max verstappen imagine

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skylarsblue · 2 years ago

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✦Random Sinclair Headcanons✦

(I was bored and I have nowhere else to put them)

Lester's got a slight allergy to certain citrus fruits. It's not terrible, but it did get stuff like orange juice banned from the house when the brothers were younger. But that's Bo's favorite. So he always has a jug specifically for himself in the house since Lester's no longer living with them.

Vincent's hair is well kept in turns of how he washes it, but their lifestyle ruins it constantly. Some parts of Vincent's hair is a lot shorter than the rest cause he got too much wax caught in it, so they have to snip a strand. It's like terrible layers.

All the brothers have bad teeth, Bo's looks the best on the surface, but mans got at least 8 fillings in the back.

Bo is shit at telling people's accents, Vincent's decent at it. But Lester? Somehow he's the gibberish translator. Someone could come through with the most unintelligible accent and he'll somehow know what they're saying.

I've said Bo can play piano, and so can Vincent, but they're more adept with the violin. Lester can probably tear shit up on the harmonica

Vincent's art mediums are; wax sculpting(duh), painting, and charcoal.

Bo's art mediums are; photography, musical(though he dropped that one), and he used to be pretty good at pen doodles(but he dropped that too, fuckin' thanks Trudy)

Lester's art mediums are; scavage-crafting, wood/bone carving, and scrapbooking.

Bo had a phase where he was really good at producing poems/poetic song lyrics. But he stopped doing it because he got made fun of once. Basically anytime he does anything artistic, he drops it, because he gets made fun of or told Vincent is better.

Bo & Lester bond over old cars and Lester knows a good amount about cars because of it. By proxy, Bo knows a lot about Lousiana wildlife thanks to Lester.

Lester & Vincent bond over sculpting & carving. I think almost everyone agrees Vincent's dual dragon knives were carved from bone that Lester found.

Lester wasn't good in school but mans was fantastic in woodshop. He outdid everyone. Without even trying! Fuck a bird house, get a bird MANSION.

Vincent's an insomniac, Bo's got night terrors, and Lester is the type to wake up every hour. What's funny is that when they were younger, Bo was the insomniac, Lester had night terrors, and Vincent was the one who woke up every hour. They all switched problems somehow.

They all have two matching moles on their lower ribs and right beside their belly button.

Bo's first job was at a mechanic's shop, Vincent's was at a music shop, and Lester's was at a gas station. Bo was fuckin' trash at customer service, Vincent silently judged people's music choices, and no one talked to Lester(sadly).

Lester makes all his food too damn spicy. He adds spice to already hot things. Both his brothers think he's a demon as they watch him add chili flakes to things.

Bo hates reality TV, but in the way that he'll stick around to watch it and yell at the TV if he sees it on. It's actually pretty funny.

There is one mixtape in Lester's truck, it's the only one he listens too, and it's an old one he stole from Bo when they were teens. Bo still wonders where it went but Lester refuses to tell him.

Bo says he hates hugs but somehow gives the best ones. They're like, engulfing dad hugs with the perfect amount of pressure. Lester's hugs are a bit too tight but it's cute. Vincent's are soft and delicate, like a blanket.

If Bo's had a night terror and he can't calm down, he'll look for Jonesy. And she'll lay on top of him on the couch until he calms down. Vincent's found them a few times, but chooses not to comment on how Bo holds the dog he swore he didn't want like a teddy bear.

Vincent had a Greek Mythology phase, Bo had a WW2 History phase, and Lester had a Dinosaur phase.

Vincent's favorite colors are beige & lilac, Bo's are midnight blue & charcoal black, & Lester's are fern green & dandelion yellow.

Lester's house is cleaner than the twins, ironically. It's cluttered, yes, but he actually keeps a decent living space. There aren't even coffee rings on his tables, he made his own coasters. He's got a messy job so he likes his house to be clean.

Bo & Vincent don't know how to load a dishwasher. They wash their dishes by hand, but, they also don't cause they hate doing it When the sink is too full, they do rock, paper, scissors. Bo tends to lose.

#bo sinclair x reader #vincent sinclair x reader #lester sinclair x reader #lester sinclair #bo sinclair #vincent sinclair #house of wax #slasher headcanons #slasher #slashers #slasher community #slasher fandom

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gravitycavity · 8 months ago

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Sunshine (Pomni x Ragatha) Chapter 5 - And Fresh-Fallen Rain

[Click here to read from the beginning on AO3!]

Cover art by @blukiar

It was only a matter of time before Pomni blinked herself awake.

Wave after wave of pulsing pain, synchronized with the beat of her heart, relentlessly pounded the back of her skull. A landscape of crimson curls, wild weeds, and shimmering stars expanded, contracted, and twisted before her half-lidded eyes. The disorienting sight was more than enough to make her stomach do flips — and fail to stick the landing every single time.

But even so, it was hard to feel anything but content.

The wind was fierce and frigid, but Pomni didn’t know it. She didn’t feel the bitter cold, even as gale after freezing gale slashed her skin like the crack of a whip. All the pain in the world wouldn’t have phased her, not as long as the wind’s touch highlighted the slightly-wet spots where Ragatha’s lips had so lovingly grazed her face.

Stalks of overgrown grass wavered as a brisk squall flew across the yard; a palette of fallen leaves, which just so happened to be sleeping in its path, was cast into the sky. Red, yellow, orange, and brown — the cozy colors swished and swirled through the air, then drifted back to their resting spot below the jungle-like lawn.

It only took a moment for the breeze to return. Coming from the other direction now, it passed through Ragatha’s red yarn hair before pummeling Pomni’s face. All at once, the saccharine aroma of the ragdoll’s locks — strawberries and soil and fresh-fallen rain — introduced itself.

And it was heavenly.

Pomni’s eyelids drooped further, and a dumb, wobbly smile blossomed on her face. As her tiny arms wrapped around Ragatha’s plush, guffawing belly, she didn’t worry about how embarrassed she was to have fainted, or what Ragatha’s little kisses had meant, or why someone like her even deserved to be treated with such affection. Those pesky doubts were for future Pomni to agonize over; for now, they crumbled to pieces with each precious peak of Ragatha’s laughter.

“Oh! There she is!” Ragatha flinched as Pomni’s arms enfolded her. “I was starting to worry I up and killed you…”

“Nope! Still kicking.” Pomni chirped, “But just barely…”

Slowly, Ragatha’s giggles began to peter out, but their spirit still tickled every word she spoke. “Goodness me — aren’t you in a good mood! Your head didn’t hit the ground too hard, did it?”

Pomni waffled. She decided not to tell Ragatha about the big lump on the back of her head — the redhead would just worry herself sick, after all. “...I’m fine. Just a little bit dizzy.”

“I really am sorry.” Ragatha placed her soft hands atop Pomni’s, idly dragging her digits across the jester’s worn leather gloves. “I should have warned you before I…” she paused. “Well, y’know…”

Pomni could feel the heat rising in Ragatha’s hands. She waited patiently for her to finish, but as the silence dragged on, it became increasingly clear that she’d have to be the one to break it.

“No, it’s okay! Really! I just, um, wasn’t expecting…that. And if you think about it, it was actually my fault. I wouldn’t have fainted if I had just listened—”

“No, no! It was sweet! I don’t know. I just figured…” Ragatha said, a nervous tilt to her tone, “...since you were having so much fun getting into your character, I ought to return the favor.” Ragatha's hands were twitching now, “And…”

Somewhere nearby, a ladybug crested a wobbling blade of grass, flitted its wings, then buzzed away to who-knows-where. Another brisk gust wandered through the dilapidated yard, sending an armada of dandelion seeds sailing swiftly through the air.

“And…?” Again, Pomni was the one to shatter the silence.

“Oh, nevermind.” Ragatha forced out a laugh. Pomni swore she could hear the woman’s blush. “I think I’ve just got an overactive imagination.”

Another pause. That made three.

Pomni’s heart was beating a mile a minute. Unsure if this was even real, she slipped her hand out from beneath Ragatha’s, eager to simply trace the woman’s strong, soft frame…

… but her finger didn’t get very far before arriving at the gaping hole slashed across the ragdoll’s abdomen.

Guilt flattened Pomni’s heart like a speeding train. Holding Ragatha close, the jester sat up in a snap, examining her friend’s injuries with a level of determination that could only be described as ‘obsessive’.

Talk about a mood-killer — it was as if Pomni had never even bothered to stitch Ragatha up at all. Stuffing leaked out of the ragdoll here, there, everywhere. Nearly all of Pomni’s makeshift threads, nowhere close to well-crafted, were already failing — if they weren’t coming loose, the strings themselves were coming apart.

Pomni clenched her teeth. Her brow descended, and her lips trembled fiercely.

“Hey, hey! Don’t cry! You don’t have to worry about me.” Tenderly, Ragatha pushed herself against Pomni's little frame, “As long as you’re with me, I’ll be okay, Sweetheart.”

“I’m not sad.” A stormy look came to Pomni’s face. “I’m angry.”

“...Angry?”

“Stupid #$&%ing tree monster. Stupid #$&%ing Caine!” Pomni bared her teeth, “Stupid #$&%ing circus!”

“H-Hey, now! Take a breath, okay? Let’s not get ourselves worked up—”

“No! I’m pissed!” In a snap, Pomni leapt to her feet, firmly holding Ragatha in her arms. “I’m not gonna let you get hurt anymore,” she said, making a beeline toward the haunted mansion, “Not a single scratch, from now until we escape this horrible circus together — I promise!”

Ragatha’s eyes were sparkling, though Pomni was too focused on climbing the front porch’s creaky staircase to notice. “Pomni, Y-You don’t have to do all that…!”

“Too bad. I want to.”

“O-Oh…” Ragatha’s breath felt warm against Pomni’s chest. “I see…”

Without another word. Pomni summited the porch stairs, where a pair of double-doors patiently awaited her arrival. She eyed the doorbell, but her hands were full — so she opted for three mighty kicks at the doors’ expense instead. “Hello? Anyone home?”

Pomni and Ragatha waited for an answer. And then waited some more. Pomni’s shrill voice echoed at least a dozen times in the stiff silence.

“Hellooo!?” Pomni’s ill-fitting boot pounded the door thrice more. “We don’t have all day, you know! Open up!”

“Pomni! It’s been five seconds!” Ragatha chided, “Don’t be rude!”

“Rude? What am I doing — interrupting supper time? They’re NPCs.”

“I know that! But still. It just feels so wrong…”

A relaxed smile found its way to Pomni’s face — at this point, the jester wouldn’t have been surprised if Ragatha were hiding a pair of angel wings underneath that pretty dress of hers. “Let me guess. You’re the type of person who feels guilty about not giving equal attention to all of your stuffed animals, aren’t you?”

“I—” Ragatha sputtered, glancing off. “N-No! I’m thirty years old! What makes you think I own stuffed animals?”

Pomni raised an eyebrow.

Ragatha had been caught red-handed, and she knew it. It was incredible how quickly her face flushed completely pink. “Okay, first of all, how dare you attack me like this—”

Before Ragatha could even finish her tongue-in-cheek response, both girls simply lost it. Their uncontrolled, side-splitting laughter — one giggling, one cackling like a witch — spun together into a harmonious duet, and for a fleeting moment, both captives felt like they were home.

“Alright, alright.” Ragatha wiped at her eyes. “Enough joking around. How about I just ring the doorbell for you, Sweetheart?”

“Huh?! No way! You have to stay still or you’re going to rip yourself! Look, I’ll just set you down—”

“On the dirty porch? Are you out of your mind?” Ragatha reached for the ornate button beside the door.

“Hey! What are you doing?! I just told you—”

“Oops!” Ragatha poked the button, then quickly fell back into Pomni’s arms like a helpless princess. “Sorry, dear. Didn’t hear you!”

Pomni grumbled, and the doorbell replied with its signature chime. Windswept shutters battered cracked windows as Pomni and Ragatha stood there, waiting for something, anything, to happen.

Pomni’s patience was in short supply. She stamped her foot, and the old porch whined. “Seriously?”

“Maybe the entrance is around the back? My old apartment building was like that.” Ragatha said. “Ordering anything by mail was just the worst. It’s like — I get that the mail carriers had to stick to a tight schedule, but they would never read the signs. Oh, and trick-or-treat was a nightmare every Halloween—”

Ragatha’s riveting tale was cut short as, at last, the double-doors swung open at the sound of the magic words — trick-or-treat.

Ragatha’s mouth fell open. Pomni wrinkled her brow. Both women studied the other’s outfit in stunned silence — and suddenly, Caine’s choice of costumes didn’t seem quite so arbitrary.

“Ohhh…” They nodded in sync. “Right…”

Cautiously, Pomni poked her head through the door frame. If the scent of stale tobacco pouncing upon her senses was any indication, the surprises weren’t over yet.

“It’s…” Pomni breathed, “...an elevator…?”

“Ooh, and an old-fashioned one, too!” Ragatha tapped her fingers together, excitedly peering inside.

The interior was nothing if not visually striking. Each of its four walls, carved from cherrywood, hosted polished panels gilded with gold. Winding bands of white and black and gold and blue danced a tango across the smoke-stained carpet. An expensive-looking chair sat in the corner; an equally-elegant end table, complete with a flickering lamp, complimentary cigars, and a half-filled ashtray, sat to the left.

“Gosh, and just look at all these little aesthetic flourishes!” Ragatha gushed. “Folks back then really put effort into making every little thing look beautiful. You know what I mean?”

“Uh-huh. S-Sure…”

“Sometimes I wish that attitude would make a comeback. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just an old soul…”

Pomni blinked, regarding the elevator’s interior through empty pupils. She would have instinctively eyed the exit had she not already been standing in the middle of it.

The jester couldn’t recall something as simple as her own name — but, by some cruel twist of fate, everything else about the life she’d had stolen from her remained crystal clear in her head: including her swarming, overcrowded menagerie of obsessive anxieties.

Back home, Pomni’s teeny-tiny cubicle — something she couldn’t believe she actually missed now — was located on one the higher floors of her employer’s drab highrise. Entering the lobby, a lengthy carpet led the eye to a conveniently-placed pair of lifts. Their metal doors, constantly opening and closing as employees funneled in and out, was a sure sign that another busy day of work lay ahead.

Pomni was quite familiar with the contraptions — which was reason enough for the tie-wearing twenty-something, armed with her trusty backpack, to begin each morning with a hard left towards the musty concrete stairwell instead. By the time she’d reach her floor, the young accountant would be out-of-breath, weak in the knees, and far sweatier than any sane person would ever like to be. In her book, though, it was worth the trouble. She would do anything in her power to avoid the sensory torture that was riding in one of those cramped sardine cans.

Elevators were awful. Just awful. Women wearing far too aggressive perfume; men who had forgotten to wear any deodorant at all. Extroverted co-workers trying to make small talk; creepy strangers trying to hit on her. Idiots with no concept of personal space; morons with no respect for the fire marshall’s occupancy limit clearly posted on the wall in big, bold letters.

But being stuck inside of a tiny box with eight other people was a dream compared to the experience of riding alone — where her mind could wander, and the simmering fear of some catastrophic malfunction could consume her thoughts. What if the power went out? What if she got stuck? What if she were trapped inside and ran out of oxygen? What if the cables snapped, and the final moments of her life would be her screaming in horror as the car was sent plummeting down the shaft?

Nope. Pomni didn’t like elevators. Not one bit. Sensitive to Ragatha’s feelings, however, the young woman tried her hardest to force a smile onto her face. “Wow. C-Classy…”

For a moment, Ragatha didn’t even react. “...You’re nervous.” she tilted her head in concern, “What’s the matter, Sweetheart?”

“Nothing! Nothing’s the matter!” Pomni lied, and rather poorly, at that. “I was just…” she floundered, “...admiring the craftsmanship! Gee, don’t you wish they made stuff like this nowadays?”

“...Yeah. I just said that.”

“Right…! S-So…! Anyway…!”

Pomni closed her eyes, ducking her face behind Ragatha’s shoulders. Oh, come on! What are you waiting for? Just go! It’s just an elevator! You’ve had your whole life to be a coward — now’s the time to be brave. For her! You can do that, can’t you!?

The shaking jester steeled herself. The sole of her oversized boot departed from the sturdy wooden porch, swung forward, flirted with the elevator’s artsy carpet, pressed down…

…and the entire car shifted with an ear-splitting creak.

Pomni’s whole body seized up — she couldn’t stumble back onto the porch fast enough. Nope. Nope. Abso-#@%$ing-lutely not.

“Pomni! You are nervous!” Ragatha rubbed at her chest, “Oh, no — Ugh! I’m sorry! Are you afraid of elevators?”

Pomni squirmed in place. Her gut commanded her to keep up her defenses — to deny, deny, deny, because showing the slightest inkling of vulnerability had been punished so severely in the past. Despite all of her strongest instincts, however, the soft look of concern on Ragatha’s face hit her like a magic spell.

“Um,” Pomni’s shoulders slumped, “Maybe a teensy-tiny bit...”

“Oh, Sweetheart…” Ragatha drew closer, “Forget it, then. Why don’t we try looking for another way in?”

“N-No! It’s fine! This way is the fastest!”

“But I want you to be comfortable, too…”

“You’re worried about me?!”

Ragatha twisted her lips. “Is that bad…?”

“Yes!”

“O-Oh…”

“God, Ragatha — can’t you just be selfish for once in your freaking life!?” Pomni’s voice was sharpened to a fine tip. “I mean…look at yourself! You’re falling apart at the seams — literally!”

“Pomni! Don’t be ridiculous!”

“Watch me!” Pomni squished Ragatha against her chest before the ragdoll could even think to protest. Surging with adrenaline, she clenched her jaw, made peace with her god, and barreled forward.

The ancient elevator quaked beneath her feet; each time it stirred, her body seized, preparing itself for the whole contraption to plummet into the endless abyss below. Pomni quailed at the sound of squeaking metal, cowered at the buzz of hydraulics, and pined after the whistling wind outside the car — a beacon of safety and stable footing.

She shivered, choking on every haggard breath that just wasn’t enough — but somehow, the slight weight in her arms gave her the courage to open her eyes and face the music.

“I…” Pomni stood in the center of the elevator. She looked down at a begrudgingly-happy Ragatha, each stammered word framed by bouts of breathless laughter, “...I did it!”

Ragatha beamed, practically singing. “You did!”

“Yes, indeed!” A series of polite claps sounded from behind. “Jolly good show, darling!”

Pomni just couldn’t stop smiling. “It was, wasn’t it?” she agreed. Sticking out her chest, the young woman pulled in a deep breath, and then…

…Wait a minute! Pomni spun around on a dime. Who said that!?

A ghostly figure, surrounded by an otherworldly aura, sat with her legs crossed in the elevator’s cushioned chair. Her outfit, equally as old-fashioned as her surroundings, evoked all the stylings of a suffragette. Her wide-brimmed hat cast a spooky shadow over her face. Her ruffled shirt was tucked neatly into a long, floral-print skirt. A silk sash spanned the length of her chest, bearing a progressive slogan spelled out in a simple typeface.

An eerie smile crawled across the phantom’s ashen face. Slowly, she looked up from the book in her lap, and the lamp’s struggling flame gasped its final breath, “Going up?”

Pomni SHRIEKED.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance.” the ghost marked her place with a bookmark, closed her tome, and sharply raised her other hand, “Dining room. Fifth floor.”

With a light ‘ding’, the elevator’s sole exit slammed shut, casting the car in total darkness. The elevator rumbled as if caught in an earthquake, rusted gears whirring and whining all the way.

“Uh…” Ragatha’s face fell. She looked up at Pomni, who was taking things exactly as well as you would expect.

“WHAT?! HEY! NONONO! WHAT’S GOING ON?!”

“There’s the handrail, darling.” the ghost pointed with a wink, “You might want to make use of it sooner rather than later.”

“NONONO! LET ME OUT!” Pomni pounded her foot against the door, “WAITWAITWAITWAITWAIT—”

The ghost shrugged. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Suddenly, the elevator shot into the air at gravity-defying speeds, thrusting Pomni and Ragatha roughly into the floor — and pinning them there for the remainder of their abrupt ascent.

🎪 🎪 🎪

The haunted lift halted the same way it had started.

Painfully.

The doors slid open with an innocent chime, and the girls shivered in sync as the ghost’s ethereal high-heels passed straight through them.

“Right this way, ladies.” the phantom twirled her fingers. A magical aura surrounded Pomni and Ragatha, dragging their aching forms behind the ghost as she stepped gingerly out of the car.

A cozy dining room awaited beyond the threshold. Autumn-toned streamers stretched across the ceiling. A perimeter of potatoes, turnips, and radishes, strung up on strings and carved with grotesque faces, was proudly displayed on each wall. A large banner pinned to the wall read ‘ALLHALLOWTIDE GREETINGS’, just in case the apple-bobbing stations weren’t sufficiently on-the-nose.

A long, wooden table was situated in the exact center of the room, dominating the space. The ghostly woman sat herself at its head, and, with a flick of her finger, sat her dazed guests across from each other.

“Well, well, well!” The ghostly specter fanned her face with her weighty novel. “Do my eyes deceive me, or has another troupe of wayward rabble-rousers dared to trespass upon the esteemed estate of—”

“Oh, God!” Pomni, green in the face, scrambled to slap her hands over her mouth. “Oh, holy #$@%—” She swiped the closest open receptacle she could find — a gorgeous Edwardian vase — and held her mouth against the opening. Her whole frame crumpled forward as her body quite ungracefully emptied itself out.

“P-Pomni!” Ragatha’s fingers grazed the side of her face. “Oh my goodness — are you alright?!”

The jester groaned. Plopping the vase back onto the table, she weakly nodded, trembling hands hugging her ailing stomach. “I’ll be fine. J-Just…give me a second…” she faceplanted into the large heap of candy corn piled on her plate. “This happens more often than you’d think…”

Ragatha pouted, watching Pomni’s face sink deeper into candy corn mountain. Individual pieces slid off of the young woman’s plate and scattered across the table. “Remember your breathing, okay, Sweetheart?”

Pomni flashed a flaccid thumbs-up.

“My word! What is the meaning of this?!” The ghostly apparition clenched her fists, lips curled back in disgust. “Perhaps if your detestable generation spent less time listening to that boorish ‘jazz’ music — and I’m being generous calling it music at all — you’d have room in those cramped skulls to remember proper etiquette!”

In a flash, she tore open her book — the cover read, ‘THE LADY’S BOOK OF COMMON ETIQUETTE & ASSORTED DEMONIC SPELLS — 1860 EDITION’ in embossed, glossy lettering.

The ghost loudly cleared her throat. She pointed to the text with a manicured fingernail, “Immediately upon entering the parlor, find your hostess, and speak to her first. It is very rude to stop to chat with other guests before greeting the lady of the house.”

Ragatha blushed, shrinking in her seat like a scolded child. “Ma’am...”

“Hmph. As appalling as your conduct is, I suppose you aren’t completely hopeless. It’s worlds better, at least, than that infantile rabbitoid or that foul-mouthed modern-art abomination.” The haughty ghost shook her head. “But I digress — what business do you mortal wretches have in the decrepit domain of I, the great Margarethe MacGuffin?”

A long, drawn-out pause ensued — longer than usual. “Um…” Ragatha rapped on her chin, “…Who?”

“Who? What do you mean ‘who’?”

“Come to think of it, I’ve completely forgotten what we’re even supposed to be doing here. Pomni…?”

Groggily, Pomni lifted her head; more than a few candy corns came along, sticking stubbornly to her cheeks, chin, and forehead. “Brooch,” she sighed. A single morsel tumbled off her face, “We’re looking for the—”

“Brooch, you say?!” Margarethe flinched at the word like a trained dog hearing its name. Her sour mood shifted in an instant. “You couldn’t possibly mean…” she drew closer, “...that brooch, could you? The legendary MacGuffin family heirloom? The priceless treasure forged in the highlands beyond Hadrian’s Wall, passed down from generation to generation—”

“Uh-huh! Sounds about right!” Pomni abruptly pushed her chair out, sending an avalanche of candy treats pittering and pattering across the hardwood floor. She wasted no time racing to Ragatha’s side — and gently, so gently, hooking her arm around the dolly’s. “So where do we go? What do we do? How do we leave!?”

“I…” Margarethe balked. “Sit back down this instant, young lady!”

“Uh, hello?! Do you not see that my friend is practically in pieces, here? We don’t need your stupid theatrics — none of this is even real, anyway — just spit it out so we can go back to the tent and get her fixed!”

Margarethe’s posture was as sharp as a tack. “For shame! Never in my sixty-seven years have I witnessed such uncharismatic, uncouth, unbecoming behavior from a young bachelorette. Simply appalling — you’ll never find a husband with that attitude.”

“Aw, really? You mean it?”

“I beg your pardon?!”

“HAHAHA!” Ragatha slapped the table, “G-Golly, Ms. MacGuffin! This glassware is just to die for! Wherever did you procure such a stunning collection?”

Margarethe hesitated — but then curtsied in appreciation. “Well! I’m glad you noticed. They’re just wonderful, aren’t they?” she proudly mused, “The help says they’re made of this newfangled, petroleum-based material that’s cheaper than glass and impervious to breakage. Bakelite, I believe it’s called — the material of a thousand uses!”

Pomni flicked the nearest goblet. She whispered in Ragatha’s ear: “I think they’re plastic.”

“Indeed — we are truly blessed to be reaping the plentiful fruits of the industrial age. Now, where was I…?” Margarethe tapped her bottom lip, “Ah, yes!”

Margarethe launched herself in the air with a flamboyant pirouette. “To make a long story short, the MacGuffin clan is, sadly, no more — our treasured brooch is the only artifact that remains of our storied legacy. My life is long behind me, but alas, as the matriarch of my kin, I cannot pass on into the next life until I find a soul brave enough to carry on the great MacGuffin legacy. Someone like…you two!”

Pomni and Ragatha looked at each other. “Us? You’re sure?”

“Certainly! But a MacGuffin knows no weakness.” Margarethe continued, “In order to secure my brooch, and carry on my proud family name, you must venture through my audacious abode…and confront your greatest fear!”

“Greatest fear…?” Pomni stammered.

Margarethe flexed. “Then, and only then, can you consider yourself a true MacGuffin!”

“G-G-Greatest…” Pomni repeated, almost choking on her words, “...f-fear…?”

“Why, of course, darling! You didn’t expect this to be a walk in the park, did you? It wouldn’t be much of an adventure without a little bit of challenge!”

Pomni stared straight ahead — but her pin-sized pupils didn’t perceive a single thing.

Greatest fear.

The room shrank.

Greatest fear. Greatest fear? What in the world was that supposed to mean!? Pomni didn’t have a greatest fear — as far as she knew, the obsessive thoughts that constantly terrorized her mind did so with total parity. How was she supposed to know which one had cost her the most sleep over the years?

Car crashes, plane wrecks, train derailments, high-speed transportation in general, being bitten by a wild animal and dying of rabies, stepping on a rusty nail and dying of tetanus, contracting some other horrible disease after forgetting to wash her hands and dying from that, being stalked by weird men, being assaulted by weird men, being kidnapped and murdered by weird men, weird men in general, disappointing her friends, disappointing her parents, disappointing her boss, people in general, her boss in general, being late to work, performing poorly at work, being fired from work…

Pomni’s eyes bulged.

Work — oh, no. Work. WORK.

Pomni’s mind had already overloaded itself merely accepting the notion that she was trapped forever in this weird, obscure computer game — so overloaded, in fact, that the horrific question of how the world was proceeding without her hadn’t even occurred to her.

Until now.

How long had she been gone? One week? Two? Even more? Her blood ran cold at the realization — even if she were to escape the circus this very instant, there was no way she hadn’t already been fired, no way her cubicle wasn’t already cleaned out to make way for the next poor sap to apply to that god-forsaken office.

Oh, no. No, no, no, no. That couldn’t happen. What was she going to do? Beg for her old job back? Apply for a new one? How the hell was she supposed to do that when her degree sucked, her resume could fit on a sticky note, and all her single reference could forward a potential employer was years and years of middling performance reviews?

Even if her boss was merciful, her rat bastard of a landlord wouldn’t lend her a single shred of sympathy. Not in a million years. The clock was ticking for Pomni to locate an exit before next month’s rent was due. Should she fail, and she certainly would, she’d return home to find someone else living in her apartment. Her space. The only place in the whole entire world where she felt safe.

Her belongings would be auctioned off at best, and thrown away at worst.

And…oh, God. She was a missing person. There were probably posters all over town. Posters plastered with her face and name, front-and center. Stapled to telephone poles, printed in the paper, pinned to those little bulletin boards at the supermarket. Everywhere. Millions of eyes, looking at her face. Reading her name.

Pomni could already feel them burrowing into her back. Judging her. Pitying her. Laughing at her. The best thing they could do was look away in apathy.

Her friends and family were probably searching high and low — but their resolve would dull as the months paged over into years. Embers of hope, pining for her return, would still burn in their hearts until the very end, but it wouldn’t matter in the long run. In the back of their minds, they would know she wasn’t coming home.

The few friends she had, unwilling to carry the burden of their grief, would almost certainly make an effort to forget her. Just to ease the pain. Her voice would be forgotten as old videos and voicemails were deleted. Her face would be next. And then, one by one, each of her friends would speak her name for the final time.

Pomni whimpered, burying her face in the soft fabric of Ragatha’s arm. Her chest was tight, pressing harder, harder, harder against a hollow core. Each heaving breath sent shockwaves of pain throughout her shrinking, shivering, pitiful body.

Time. She was running out. Running out of time. She had to find a way out. A way out. A way to get home. Home. Home. Home. Time. Running out. Get out. She had to get out. Get out get out get out GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT RIGHT NOW BEFORE EVERYTHING SHE’S WORKED FOR CRUMBLES TO DUST AND SHE’S DEAD AND FORGOTTEN AND AND AND AND AND AND—

Pomni choked back a scream as a dreadfully-familiar, searing pain stabbed the tips of her fingers. Blackened flesh creeped like cancer toward her palm, each heinous step piercing her skin like a thousand poison needles.

“R-Ragatha!” Pomni gasped. Abstraction shackled her wrists as the tips of her fingers sank into the ragdoll’s downy flesh. One, three, five, ten twitching eyes sprouted beneath her gloves. “No…no, no, no! I’m going to—!” She couldn’t bear to say it. “I…I need to—”

Ragatha turned. “P-Pomni? What are you—”

“I’m sorry!” Pomni strangled the ragdoll’s wounded arm, squeezing the bulky limb hard enough to force clumps of cotton out of her own failed stitchwork.

Her eyes squeezed shut.

Her breathing slowed.

Shaky breath in, shakier breath out.

In and out.

In, and…

The grandfather clock announced the hour with a half-dozen chimes. Pomni cracked open a single eye. Like magic, her mind was calm and clear.

Her weary gaze swept over Ragatha’s shredded arms, over her shoulder, her neck, her furrowed brow, her gnashing teeth, her wincing eyes.

“P-P-Pomni! I said let go!” Ragatha’s complaints finally fell on Pomni’s ears, “That hurts!”

Flinching, Pomni released the doll’s arm, “Ah! I’m sorry! I-I—”

“What’s gotten into you?! Is everything okay!?”

“Y-Yes! Everything’s just fine! I just, uh…” Pomni slumped over, still gasping for air. “Um…” she shrank beneath the shadow of Ragatha’s stern gaze, “...just needed a hug?”

Ragatha’s stony face didn’t crack. “You’re hiding something.”

“What?! No, I’m not!”

“Don’t lie to me! What’s going on?! It looked like you were just about to—”

Margarethe hissed. “Alright, alright! That’s quite enough chatter!” She clonked Pomni’s head with her hefty book. “In case you forgot, I was in the middle of explaining—”

“HEY!” Pomni barked like a dog, rubbing the back of her head. “Who the #@$% do you think you are, you ancient &!$#% !?”

“Heel.” Margarethe’s razor teeth flashed a ravenous smile, “...If you know what’s good for you.”

Pomni growled — but wisely kept her big mouth shut. It helped that a small part of her was thankful for the excuse to drop the subject with Ragatha.

Margarethe chuckled. Referring to her book once more, she flipped to a specific page and began chanting a hex under her breath. Before either Pomni or Ragatha could ask what was happening, a pair of blindingly-bright orbs had already emerged from both of their chests. The magical objects drifted toward MacGuffin’s outstretched hand.

“Now. Let’s begin with the darling coquette. What are her nightmares made of?” Mararethe peered down at the two white spheres orbiting each other in her open palm. Studying one for a moment, she cocked her head with a sneer. “Hmph. Typical.”

Ragatha slouched, looking sullen.

“Centipedes. It’s centipedes, right?” Pomni leaned on Ragatha’s chair. She had only just walked herself back from the verge of tears, but she had made a promise to protect Ragatha, and she intended to keep it. “Don’t worry — you’ve got me by your side, remember?” She spoke through a confident facade, “I-I’ll squash ‘em for you!”

Ragatha covered her mouth like she was about to vomit. “Ugh, Please—” she shook her head, “D-Don’t make me think about their guts...”

Margarethe flicked Ragatha’s orb back into the ragdoll’s chest, leaving only Pomni’s circling her palm. She cleared her throat. “As for the untrained whelp…” she was already laughing as she lifted her long-fingered hand to her face — but the moment she gazed into the orb, her smug affect faltered.

The phantom’s cold, soulless eyes ping-ponged between Pomni and Ragatha. “Well.” Grinning, she flicked Pomni’s orb away, “Isn’t that sweet? I wouldn’t have taken you for the type, darling.”

Pomni jerked her head. “Huh? What type? What do you mean sweet?!”

Mararethe’s face simply radiated superiority. “I suppose you’ll just have to wait and see, now won’t you?” She mocked, fanning herself. “Oh, shame on me! I haven’t been this worked up since the summer of nineteen-aught-five. This is going to be fun…”

Pomni’s knees locked together as the ghost faded away. “Wait! Where are you going?! What’s my fear?! What—”

“Best of luck!” The candles flickered to the rhythm of Margarethe’s cackling laugh. “You’ll need it…!”

With minimal fanfare, the door to the next room swung open all by itself, creaking horribly on its rusted hinges.

🎪 🎪 🎪

Margarethe MacGuffin’s maniacal mansion was truly massive, and, within the last few hours, Pomni and Ragatha had been treated to a terrible tour of every last nightmarish nook and creepy cranny. Just as Caine had advertised, an assortment of ‘tricky traps’, ‘perplexing puzzles’ and ‘supernatural sentries’ had been set up for them to navigate, ranging in difficulty from ‘mind-numbingly easy’, to ‘psychologically traumatizing.’

Surprisingly, Pomni’s accounting skills had come in handy in the manor’s ‘money-counting room’. The horrifying puzzle, involving the petty minutiae of tax codes and estate settlements, was easy pickings for the seasoned number cruncher. Still, no one was perfect, and Pomni’s sole mistake — in which she’d forgotten the purpose of box 12D on form 5E-344-B — left her at the mercy of a swarm of greenbacks-turned-paper-cranes.

In the music room, Ragatha would have taken the opportunity to show off her cello skills, but Pomni, concerned that Ragatha would worsen her injuries in the process, had flatly refused. A small back-and-forth had ensued — but in the end, both parties agreed to disagree once the instruments, magically stirred to life, started to viciously attack. Poor Pomni had never sprinted so quickly in her life.

The place where Ragatha’s expertise did come in handy, however, was the stables. A pack of raging horse skeletons ran rampant, threatening to trample anyone foolish enough to stand in their way. Ragatha’s prior experience with equines, however, gave her all the tricks she needed to quickly soothe the wild herd. In retrospect, the room’s main obstacle wasn’t even calming the horses — it was reassuring a shivering Pomni after the jester had learned first-hand what a horse’s skull looked like. It wasn’t pretty.

In all of that time, not once had either of their so-called ‘greatest fears’ reared their ugly heads — or even so much as teased them. Every single task, no matter how asinine, was turned terrifying by the prospect of transforming into an unimaginable nightmare at any point in time.

The sheer anticipation was a torture all of its own — but the girls’ latest assignment, apparently designed to drive them straight to the precipice of insanity, was a close second place.

“Ohoho, don’t fret! It’s quite simple!” Margarethe had announced shortly after Pomni and Ragatha had arrived at the spacious ballroom. The phantom hadn’t even tried to hold back her laughter — she truly was having the time of her life. “The door to the next room is just a hop, skip and a jump away. All you have to do, honored guests, is locate the key.”

In a snap, Margarethe was gone, and Pomni and Ragatha had looked at each other with dread in their eyes. Nothing in MacGuffin Mansion was ever that simple.

Every part of the ballroom was sculpted with painstaking precision. The moon peered in through a series of extravagant French windows; long, velvet drapes, slightly darker in color than Ragatha’s licorice locks, spanned the length of each one. The checkered marble that spanned the floor hosted a spattering of perfectly-set tables; a crystal glass and a set of unsoiled silverware framed each empty plate.

A mountain of keys — brass, silver, and gold — sat upon each plate, sparkling in the moonlight. The drinking glasses beside them were similarly filled to the brim…with keys. Keys, keys, keys. Keys were floating in the flower vases, floating in the wine bottles, floating in the air.

Finding a key would be a cinch — finding the key, however, was a task tedious enough to make Sisyphus himself blush.

And so, there Pomni was, kneeling in front of the locked door, sunken eyes looking like they hadn’t had a wink of sleep in years. The young woman glanced down with a harsh sigh — the marble floor wasn’t exactly the softest surface, and her knees were starting to hurt. A lot.

Head drooping low, she half-heartedly held out her hand. “Next…”

Ragatha, slumped against the peeling floral wallpaper, perfectly matched Pomni’s energy. Without even bothering to look, she stuck her hand into one of the myriad piles of untested keys that surrounded the pair. A moment later, she plopped a plain-looking one into Pomni’s palm.

The jester ran her finger across the dented brass surface of what must have been the thousandth key to pass through her hands in under an hour. Her eye twitched.

This was the one. Their ticket out of this god damned ballroom. It had to be. She had no rhyme or reason to explain why — she just knew.

With a curt nod, Pomni crammed the key’s metal teeth into the lock and turned her hand clockwise. She leaned forward just a touch, listening desperately for a ‘click’ — but of course, just like the nine-hundred and ninety-nine attempts that came before, the stubborn door simply refused to accept her offering.

So Pomni stared. And smiled.

Slowly and silently, she stood, squirming grin blooming into a wide, razor-toothed smile. She turned to face the nearest pile of keys, filled her chest with a patient, hearty breath…

…and drove her foot into the metallic mound with all the force her skinny little legs could muster.

“Pomni!” Ragatha shouted. Hundreds of keys clinked and clanked as they skated across the marble floor. “Really?!”

“This is it, isn’t it?! My greatest fear?!” Pomni shouted, “Isn’t it!?”

“Pomni!”

“Trapped with no way out, taunted by an exit just out of reach, forced to perform pointess, tedious tasks until I go insane?!”

With every word that Pomni spoke, Ragatha’s furrowed brow disappeared to make room for a look of grave concern. “Hey! Are you listening to me?!”

“The same thing, over and over, never changing…” Clutching her head, Pomni let out a laugh, strained and dry, “As if I’m not already living that nightmare every single day!?”

“Pomni, stop it! You’re scaring me!” Ragatha finally raised her voice. Acting on instinct, she reached out to touch Pomni’s arm — but the doll’s fragile skin punished her with another gut-wrenching tear. Pain warped the doll’s face as she crumpled forward.

That brought Pomni’s breakdown to a screeching halt. “Ragatha!” snapping herself out of it, the jester immediately scrambled to Ragatha’s side, eyes pleading forgiveness. “I-I’m sorry! I was just… I didn’t mean to—” she clenched her fists, grunting in frustration, “Are you okay!?”

“Are you?!” Ragatha snatched Pomni’s shoulders. Her face was brutally stern. “You are freaking. Me. Out! Tell me what’s going on! Right now!”

Pomni swallowed. She tried to answer — she really, truly tried, yet no words came to her blanking mind.

Ragatha frowned. “Y-You’re doing it. You’re acting just like the others. Just like him.”

“H-Him…?”

“Tell me the truth. Back in the dining room, when you were squeezing my arm, did you...” Ragatha’s voice wavered, “Were you…?”

Pomni’s pupils were the size of pins. Buried memories — of her bedroom, of the forest, of the mansion’s dining room — swarmed like locusts through her mind. She could practically feel the blood freezing over in her veins again, feel the despair grabbing hold, feel her whole body rebelling against her, transforming against her will into a mindless, violent beast.

“...abstracting?” Pomni tore away, arms coiled tightly around herself. Her strong voice was stuffy and rigid, “I-Is that what you’re too scared to say?”

Ragatha’s eyes softened in an instant. “Oh, no. No, no, no! I didn’t mean to—” she winced, holding her arms out as far as they would go. She was this close to tearing open another wound. “Just…come here.”

“Wh…What are you doing?”

“I’m sorry,” Ragatha said, “Come on. Let me hold you...”

Pomni looked the other way, still hugging herself. She tried her best to look disgusted, to pretend to be angry, to act indifferent. “P-Put your arms down. You’ll hurt yourself…!”

“I don’t care.” Ragatha’s wavering smile held true, bending just slightly under the weight of her pain. “It hurts so much more to watch you cry, Pomni.”

“I’m not crying!” Pomni’s voice cracked, widening gaze sweeping across Ragatha’s arms. Her trembling arms weren’t helping her case. “I’m just…”

“...Just what, Sunshine?”

Sunshine. Pomni’s eyes were wet. She blinked away the unwanted sensation, shaking her head all the while — but it was no use. Ragatha really was the nicest person she’d ever met. “...R-Ragatha?”

“Yes…?”

“Why do you keep calling me that…?”

“Calling you what?”

“Sunshine…” Pomni’s lip quivered. She tried with all of her might to quell the storm, but there was little she could do now. A pair of shimmering streams traced the length of her face, and at long last, she cracked, collapsing into Ragatha’s open embrace.

“Oh, dear…” Ragatha wrapped Pomni up as tight as she could, squeezing the little jester like she would never, ever let go. Even she was trembling now. “Do you like that name?”

Pomni nodded.

She felt a lot of feelings. But most of all, she felt loved. So very, very loved.

🎪 🎪 🎪

The ballroom had nary a clock to announce the hour, and the eternal night gleaming through the windows wasn’t much help in telling the time, either. Pomni had no idea how long she’d been venting — just talking, talking, talking through the tears, explaining everything that had happened over the past few days.

“...and it’s happened three times now.” Pomni spoke softly, at last lifting her head from Ragatha’s chest. However much time had passed, it was enough for her eyes, shocked by the sudden influx of light, to immediately recoil.

She rubbed her eyes, easing them back into the light. “...it just happens. Like a nightmare. My mind starts racing — thinking the same obsessive thoughts, over and over, until the thoughts take control. And I…” Pomni winced, shaking her head. “...w-won’t say anything else.”

Ragatha hummed. She listened quietly, finger tracing winding lines around Pomni’s back.

“...But every time, I’ve managed to stop it.” Pomni said. She cringed a little at her own words. “Well, I guess that’s obvious...”

“Obvious or not…” Ragatha’s voice was calm and clear, “I’m glad.”

“Glad…?”

“Glad you’re still here.”

“O-Oh!” Pomni perked right up. Almost hypnotized, she stared into those beautiful, mismatched eyes. “Um, th-thanks. Me too...”

Ragatha giggled. “Sorry to interrupt.” she said adoringly, lightly stroking Pomni’s backside. “You were saying?”

Pomni felt light, absentmindedly curling a lock of red yarn hair around her finger. Never before had she felt so heard, felt what it was like to have someone hanging onto her every word. It felt good.

“I don't know, Ragatha. When I start to abstract, it’s not easy to bring myself back from the brink, but…” she breathed, “...it’s kind of like what you were saying before.”

“Oh?”

“I try to think of a silver lining. Something that makes me feel safe. Something…”

Ragatha’s thumb shooed away the final, thin teardrop drying on Pomni’s cheek. The ragdoll’s hand felt just like a cloud — softer than anything the jester had ever felt before. “Something…” Ragatha mused, finishing the jester’s thought, “...that makes life worth living?”

“Yeah…” Pomni welcomed a cautious smile, “Something like that.”

“Ah-ha!”

Pomni flinched. “H-Huh?!”

“There she is!” Ragatha snatched the jester’s cheesing cheek and gave it a little wiggle. “There’s my funny girl!”

Pomni tried her hardest to squirm out of Ragatha’s embrace — but the redhead had her decisively pinned. “Ow! S-Stop it!” she protested — but her sunny laughter only encouraged further torment, “That hurts, you jerk!”

At last, Ragatha relented. “Sorry, Sunshine. Couldn’t resist.”

Pomni’s first instinct was to do the same thing back — to even the score, so Ragatha could see how it felt — but the woman’s words left her melting, all the way down to her soul.

Sunshine.

She was putty in the ragdoll’s hands. What in the world was happening? What was this fluttery feeling? Why did her face feel hot enough to burn her fingerprints clean off?

“R-Right! In any case!” Pomni pushed herself off, lest she faint a second time. She could hardly believe how quickly her heart was thumping .“Th-thanks for listening and everything, but…” she glanced around in a panic, “...We should probably get back to it, huh?”

Ragatha didn’t react right away. “...You’re sure?” She surveyed the endless piles of keys that surrounded them — many of which were now scattered about the floor thanks to Pomni’s most recent tantrum.

“Of course I’m sure! Wh-Why wouldn’t I be?

“Well, it’s awfully sudden. I don’t mind talking a bit more if you need to! Really — I’d watch paint dry as long as you were next to me. Um! Not to say that listening to you is boring…!”

“It’s fine!” Pomni giggled. “Honest.”

“You’re feeling better?”

Pomni nodded.

“You’re sure?” Ragatha squinted.

“Yes! I’m sure! We can’t keep stopping like this, Ragatha. We’ve got to get you back to Caine, remember?”

“I…suppose we can get moving again, if that’s what you want.” Ragatha sighed. She glanced sadly at her freshly-vacant arms. “Just do me a favor, won’t you?”

“Yeah?”

“If we get stuck, try to keep your lid on — for me?”

“Y-Yeah. Sorry about that…” Pomni turned, scratching her head. The very moment she caught a glimpse of the piled-up keys, however, her face scrunched up. “This just — this sucks! How did the other members figure this out?!”

“Pomni.” Ragatha groaned. “Breathe.”

“Right. My bad…”

Despite herself, Ragatha still managed to look amused. “Think of it this way, Sweetheart. If the rest of those goofballs can figure this out, then so can we. We just need to put our heads together — think outside of the box.”

“Outside of the box…” Pomni stepped across the checkered floor, scratching her chin. “Like…maybe what we’re looking for isn’t a literal key?”

She scanned the ballroom through her pouting gaze. A series of large chandeliers, far grander than the tacky setpiece in her own bedroom, supervised the spacious room from above. On the northern wall was a small stage, complete with chairs, instruments, and music stands for performing musicians. A piano, paired with a small chest, sat at the far end.

The jester’s mood soured, and not just because of her recent run-in with haunted musical instruments. Keys, keys, keys — what did any of this stuff have to do with keys!? Ragatha desperately needed help, but here she was, stuck in the world’s most contrived escape room. Ugh! Did people in the real world really do this kind of thing for fun? This stupid puzzle—

Suddenly, Pomni perked up. She eyed the piano.

Piano. Keys.

Piano! Keys! Of course!

“Ragatha!” Pomni raced to where the other woman was sitting, frantically waving her arms in the air. “Hey, hey!”

“Hm? Did you figure something out?”

Pomni nodded, smiling broadly. She scooped the ragdoll into her arms, hopped atop the stage, and set her down in one of the chairs arranged neatly across it. All told, she only knocked over three music stands, two metronomes, and one priceless clarinet in the process.

Pomni turned Ragatha’s chair so that it faced the piano. “Watch this!” she chirped, dashing across the stage. Her fingers pressed down on the piano’s lowest white note, and then the lowest black; the hammered strings within the instrument sang a long, colorful scale as Pomni dragged her digits across all eighty-eight keys.

Hands clasped in hope, she spun around to check the door — but her face fell when, despite her genius plan, the door remained firmly in place.

“What? But—” Pomni’s fingers pecked a low Do, a high Re, and the middlemost Mi. “They’re keys! Pianos have keys!” She laid her hands flat on the ivory, and the piano unleashed a dissonant, un-musical scream. “Are you kidding me? How is that not the solution?!”

“No, you’re right!” Ragatha clapped her hands together, “Good thinking, Pomni! You’re definitely onto something!”

“I…am?” Pomni blushed, “But I already pressed every single key — every one! And that stupid plank of wood still won’t open!”

“Maybe it’s not about pressing one specific key.” Ragatha scratched her chin, “Maybe it’s a special combination. Notes can have letter names — A, B, C, et cetera — so perhaps they want us to spell a certain word?”

“Ooh! A keyword! That’s good!” Pomni snapped her fingers. She didn’t hesitate to start sniffing out clues for such a solution — and it didn’t take long for the old chest beside the piano to catch her eye.

Her heart skipped a beat when she saw the lock — but, thankfully, it was only for show. Breathing a sigh of relief, Pomni opened the lid. The antique chest was filled to the brim with a series of long, frayed, dust-coated cardboard boxes.

Curiosity piqued, Pomni opened one and cautiously unfurled the bulky scroll stored inside. A series of small, perfectly-cut holes stretched across the yellowed paper. Some existed in isolation, while others were grouped together into long lines — as if a leaf-munching insect had eaten its way through the fragile material.

Pomni’s tonge prodded the inside of her cheek. “Ragatha? You said you played the…” her gaze flicked aside, “...violin, right?”

“Violoncello.” Ragatha deadpanned. “Why?”

“Well, I was just wondering — since you’re a musician, do you have any clue what these weird rolls of paper are for? They seem related to the piano somehow, but…”

“I’m so glad you asked!” Ragatha gasped, clasping her hands together. “Those funky bundles of paper are called piano rolls!”

The redhead had responded to Pomni’s question in plain English, but the baffled look on the jester’s face suggested otherwise.

Ragatha clarified. “Back in the day, these were used to play piano tunes without the need for a human performer. Each one plays a different song when loaded into a player piano.”

“Player piano…?”

“Oh, right. Sorry! That’s a special type of piano that plays itself. I’m not quite sure how it works either. But back to the topic at hand — see those little holes cut into the paper? Each one represents one music note. As the roll slowly unfurls, a sensor reads them and tells the machine which keys to strike.”

“Ohh…” Pomni ran her fingers across the parade of perforations that spanned the scroll. Slowly, she nodded. “...So it’s like a music box?”

“Now you’re getting it!” Ragatha beamed. The look on her face as she watched the concept click in Pomni’s head was a painting of pure joy; was it any wonder that she had worked as a teacher prior to her captivity?

Pomni sighed. She planted an elbow on the old chest and cradled her cheek against her palm. “Your students must have loved you...”

“Well, I did receive my fair share of apples.” Ragatha shrugged. “Never had to pack a lunch.”

“Wait, seriously…? That’s a real thing?”

“No. Not really.”

A silly smile teased its way onto Pomni’s lips. Heart stumbling, she turned away, fingers unconsciously fiddling with the old chest’s loosened lock. “S-So, um, is there anything else you can tell me…?”

“Nah — telling is overrated. In my classroom, I always liked to take a hands-on approach.” Ragatha said. She admired the antique instrument seated on the far end of the stage. “There’s a player piano right there. Why don’t you give it a whirl? It’s been a while since I’ve listened to music.”

“S-Sure thing! I’ll find a good one!” Pomni said, eager to please. Just about tearing the lid off of the antique chest, she rifled through its tightly-packed contents with purpose, scrutinizing the faded titles printed on each box. She didn’t recognize a single song, much less any of their long-dead composers, so it was anyone's guess as to what the music would actually sound like. She may as well have just swiped a roll at random — and, as a matter of fact, that’s exactly what she did.

Pomni set the bulky scroll inside the automatic piano after a bit of clumsy fumbling — and more than a little help from Ragatha. With the flip of a switch, the paper started spinning, and the premier notes of a lofty, leisurely tune stirred to life beneath the ballroom’s vaulted ceiling.

Pomni’s fingers drew circles on the mechanical piano’s smooth, wood grain exterior. For a moment, she forgot where she was, utterly fascinated by the simple elegance of the century-old contraption.

It was funny. The long-forgotten piece it played, humbly subtitled ‘a ragtime two-step’, had set her up to expect something more peppy and up-tempo. As the piano roll steadily unfurled, however, the melodic constellations impressed upon the paper sang a far different tune.

It was the type of jaunty music one would expect to accompany a silent film, just…polished. Refined. All of the musical tropes of the era were present — the driving bassline, the active, syncopated melody — but the piece’s dignified pace and finely-crafted harmonies would have sounded out of place in a rowdy, turn-of-the-century saloon.

Here in the ballroom, though, it was right at home — at least, that’s what the haunted furniture seemed to think.

Looking impressed, Pomni tapped her foot, wholly oblivious to the perplexing scene unfolding behind her. “Not bad...” She grinned, turning to face Ragatha, “To tell you the truth, I actually kind of ohmygodwhat’sgoingon—”

Pomni stumbled backwards, then forwards, then backwards again into Ragatha’s chair. The ballroom’s inanimate denizens — the one-hundred-odd tables and chairs scattered across its marble floor — moved all on their own, dancing in time with the mellow melody. A backing band of squeaking wood and clinking keys added a percussive flair to the player piano’s charming, just-slightly-detuned sound.

Ragatha, for her part, was busy cracking up at Pomni’s complete and utter bewilderment. With a quick breath, she managed to compose herself. “Well, when in Rome…” The ghost of a giggle still lingered in her tone as she offered up her hand, “Shall we?”

Pomni let out a mousy squeak. “Huh?” She flinched, head feeling light, dots flitting across her vision, “But—”

“Come on. Don’t make me beg.” Ragatha batted her eyes, “It’s unladylike.”

Pomni blushed. Without a word, she swallowed, shuddering like a frightened animal as she reached for Ragatha’s hand.

Her fingers curled snugly around the ragdoll’s, plush and doughy. Both women’s palms — one big, one small — fit together perfectly.

Pomni slid her other arm behind Ragatha’s back, powerless to stop the nervous little whimpers sneaking out of her as she lifted up the lightweight woman. For a moment, their faces were close enough to feel each other’s warmth — and it took every ounce of restraint Pomni had to resist asking: ‘Can I please kiss you?’.

With a brief, peppy fanfare, the music transitioned to a new section; the enchanted furniture, as if controlled by a single mind, adapted its routine in perfect sync.

“I, um…” Pomni’s knees trembled. This stupid furniture was making her look bad. “I don’t really know how to dance…” She winced at the thought, and then at the sight of Ragatha’s grave injuries, “And even if I did, how are we supposed to—”

“Shh.” Ragatha’s thumb glided across the back of Pomni’s hand. “Just…hold me.”

Pomni exhaled.

Holding her dolly close, the jester closed her eyes, synchronizing her trembling breaths with every other downbeat. Her foot matched the two-step’s gentle pulse, and before she knew it, her whole body was swaying to the rhythm.

Ragatha nestled her head against Pomni’s chest; a blissful sigh escaped her shuddering smile. The tension in her body dissipated note-by-note, phrase-by-phrase, as her darling rocked her back and forth, here and there, to and fro.

Back and forth they went. Pomni held her plain little ragdolly as tight as she could, finger tracing zig-zags across the curves of her fleece-soft figure. She adored the sound of her peaceful breathing, the way her hands cradled each other as she lay in her arms, all of her happy little fidgets as her body responded to the music.

Here and there they swayed. Pomni’s desperate eyes wandered to Ragatha’s lips, plush and glossy. Her heart was glowing, but just beyond, a profound emptiness, like nothing she had ever felt before, opened up within her. It begged to be filled, and pained her to resist.

Swing, swing. To and fro. Ragatha was weightless in her arms. The whole wide world, and everything in it, was wonderful. Just wonderful.

“Ragatha…?”

“Hm.” It took Ragatha a moment to respond. She jostled herself as if she’d just been woken from a deep, restful slumber. “What is it, Sunshine?” She said, keeping her eyes closed.

Pomni swallowed a shuddering breath. “Do you remember the day before yesterday? When we were trying to film the new intro?”

“That was quite a day.” Ragatha cracked a smile. She nestled herself closer, basking in the rhythm of each gentle sway. “I didn’t know you could scream so loud. Zooble, either.”

“Yeah…” Pomni tittered. “When you were showing me the way to my room, I remember feeling so exhausted, so frustrated. I didn’t understand why all of this was happening to me. What I did wrong to end up trapped here. I was taking it out on everyone, including you. But…”

“But…?”

“But you were still kind to me.”

Ragatha giggled. “Oh, come on. Don’t give me too much credit. You might hate to hear this, but you’re awfully cute when you get all worked up. If I’m being honest, the hardest part was not eating you up.”

“Cute...” Pomni felt butterflies. Her rocking slowed down, falling out of sync with the beat of the music. “That’s what you said about my hat hair. Remember?”

“I do! And I stand by it.”

The social contract of conversation required Pomni to respond with a laugh, or a ‘that’s funny’, or even a small, near-imperceptible exhale of breath — but instead, she simply stood there, thinking, utterly silent. And when she did get around to opening her mouth at last, her voice took on a noticeably different tone.

“R-Ragatha…?”

“Yes?” Ragatha’s mouth curled slightly — and not in the good direction. “Is everything alright? You sound like you have a frog in your throat.”

“Do you—” Pomni swallowed, “D-Do you remember what we talked about before? About…” she took in a shaky breath, “...something to live for…?”

Ragatha’s eyes flashed open with a jolt. The doll palmed the wet spot on her cheek, and flinched again when another droplet pelted her face. “P-Pomni! Are you—” she stammered, “Why are you crying?!”

“Because…!” Pomni’s face crinkled up, “B-Because, if you hadn’t said that…” she gulped down a long, shaky breath, “...if you had listened to me that day, if you had just left alone like I said…”

“Pomni…?”

The young woman’s tear-studded chin curled inward, coming to rest against her heaving chest. “... If it wasn’t for you, Ragatha, I don’t know if I would still be here…”

The old piano roll reached its end with no pomp or circumstance; the haunted furniture took a final bow, shuffling back to their places as the two-steps’s final chord faded away.

A century of stillness stretched between the jester and the ragdoll.

Ragatha pressed her hand to her lips. Pomni couldn’t blame her for her silence. What could Ragatha possibly say? Pomni didn’t know, and, given Ragatha’s flat, stunned gaze, it seemed the ragdoll was equally lost.

“R-Ragatha…? I don’t know how else to say this…” Pomni’s whole body felt twice as heavy. Her body was a paradox, sweltering beneath overwhelming heat and flinching away from wisps of unbearable cold. “I think I, u-um—”

Enough was enough. At long last, the two hearts spoke as one, crackling voices intertwined in an impromptu duet.

“I’m sorry, but…!” the jester squeaked.

“That’s it!” the ragdoll gasped, “I can’t take this anymore — I’m just going to say it!”

Together, they forced out the exact same words: “Can I please just kiss you?!”

…And time slowed to a crawl.

Each woman was the other’s reflection, looking back from the other side of the proverbial water. Ragatha stared, at a loss for words, gawking mouth twisting into a little half-smile. Pomni stared back, eyes aglow, wearing the world’s dumbest grin without a care in the world.

Smiles became snorts, snorts turned into giggles, and giggles bloomed into fits of gut-busting laughter. Pomni’s tears flowed still, but their wet, winding trails framed a face brightened by hope. “Did that just happen?!”

Ragatha giggled, pawing at her face. If she felt any pain — and she certainly did — it didn’t show. “Well?” she remarked at last, “I’m waiting.”

“Um…!” Pomni frantically nodded. “Right! O-Of course!” A bead of sweat traveled down her brow as relief gave way to worry.

She hadn’t the slightest idea of what she was doing.

Pomni’s stance bent backward at a curious angle. Ignoring the added strain on her back, she swallowed, tilted her face closer to Ragatha’s, and then…locked up. For what felt like an eternity, she just stood there, knees chattering, staring into Ragatha’s eyes with a vacant, absolutely petrified expression.

“...Uh, Pomni?” Ragatha blinked. The moment was ruined. It was horribly, terribly, soul-crushingly awkward. “What are you doing?”

“K-Kissing you! Obviously!” Pomni shifted around, forcing a shuddering smile. “I’m just, um, y-you see—”

“Is this how you usually do it?”

“Um, no. Not really…!” a beet-red Pomni shook her head, “To tell you the truth, I’ve never really, um…” her voice shriveled further with every word, “...I’ve haven’t exactly done this before…”

“Pomni!”

“Wh-What?! Is that bad?!”

“Goodness gracious. What am I going to do with you?” Ragatha playfully rolled her eyes. “Well, you already lifted me up. That’s a…start? I suppose? Look, just tilt your head for me.”

“Oh! Sure!” Pomni did — with gusto. “Is this good?”

“No! Not that much!”

Pomni let out a soft little whine. “O-Okay! Sorry!”

“There. That’s better.” Ragatha’s yearning gaze closed the distance, “Next, close your eyes...”

“Like this?”

“Well, yes — there’s only one way to do it.”

“Oh! Right…”

“God, you’re cute...” Ragatha filled her chest with a long, savoring breath, “...Now hurry up and kiss me.”

Pomni’s pounding heart was due to give out any second now. This couldn’t be real. Was this really happening? What had she gotten herself into!?

Slowly but surely, she moved her lips closer, closer, closer, until she could feel the warmth of Ragatha’s hushed breaths on her face. Her stomach twisted into a tighter knot with every burst of humid heat — but she’d come too far to quit now.

Carefully, very carefully, she—

“Ugh! Fine, then — I’ll do it!” Huffing just like a princess, Ragatha seized Pomni’s tunic, pulled her in, and pressed her lips against hers. She shuddered, squealing with joy as their souls linked at last.

Pomni’s eyes were wide, her belly flat, her face a bluish hue as every last gasp of air was suddenly forced out of her chest. Sharply, she breathed in again, and a familiar scent stirred her heart like a siren song:

Strawberries and soil and fresh-fallen rain.

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