#i might continue working on this!

[cringefailprogrammer]

Hey, welcome to my motorcity mecha au! Not all that developed yet but I made all the designs for it one morning a month ago in a manic episode! One detail I have for this is that the Mutt-Dog mech's piloting isn't the same as it is in the show. How it works is that instead of Mike driving and Chuck doing the technical work, they both drive, in addition to Chuck doing the technical work still! The mech can still work fine without one or the other, but they move in sync when together! Mike is better with the combat side of things, but Chuck can get them out of things in a pinch since he's Moreso on the strategy and mobility side.

For reference, these mechs are about 40-50 feet tall depending on which it is.

[narusasuart]

I love them a normal amount

... The normal amount is a lot, right?

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

come get yer juice (aka some 'stocks i never posted </3)

[theoneinmultiplefandoms]

introducing my Gravity Falls AU i've been working on since August of this year: "Codename: Caged Canary"! 🐤⚠️

(or at least, still working on - i've been busy everywhere else though GDJDB)

AU Synopsis:

"During one of the sea trips, Stanley Pines got a vision / message from The Axolotl about Bill - that he'll be stuck in Stan's Mindscape watching through Stan's eyes and ears for the time being (thankfully powerless) as part of his "Exposure Therapy". As a fair trade, They also decided to transfer Bill's powers onto him for extra protection - although Stan didn't get them until later, which was quite a surprise for everyone involved.

Does Stan know why he's being the test dummy for this whole Exposure Therapy™️ shtick? Does Bill know why The Axolotl suddenly decided to torture him more? Even so, does Ford know why would all of this happen to the three of them now?

The answer to all three: Nope. No direct answer can ever be given by the pink-frilled god, sadly... at least, not yet."

[starflungwaddledee]

i wanted to do a piece to commemorate all the amazing waddle dees who entered the @kirbyoctournament this year! as starstruck is the last dee standing in the mainline tourney, that's a big legacy to carry, but she's doing her best...!

if you want to help her keep fighting the fight for the Humble Waddle Dee against all these super cool knights, dark matters, gods, and ancients, you can vote for starstruck here!

additionally with the first round of second chance voting now open, all these dee's are back for more, and you can give them your vote in the second chance bracket!! sadly a few of them are up against each other, but from top to bottom, here are links to vote for your favourites!

galaxia // ideena // pip // fondue // starry // mimi // daisy // rainbow // wadhat // wridee // stellar // rope mf // keyper // seam // lemon // flower // and of course starstruck being squished to within an inch of her life there 😂

character credits, from top to bottom!

galaxia @centellazul // ideena @tazmilygray // pip @emmyp0ps // fondue @moonmacabre01 // starry @staring-at-a-blank-pagee // mimi @clownie-rainbow // daisy @starrygoober // rainbow @cali-kabi // wadhat @iwontusethis255 // wridee @mxmanynames // stellar @drawscutestuff // rope mf @mint-termsandconditions // keyper @bloodiegawz // seam @cloud-the-forgotten // lemon @snazzyladreal // flower @eliastheownerof0axolotls

i hope you all enjoy it!! best of luck to everyone and their wanyas in the tourney and second chance!! 💖🙏

[rawbin-hsr]

OMGGG Your latest smut fic is so amazing!!! The smut is absolutely delicious! but....the angst is breaking my heart so...could you please write a continuation or part two where the reader confronts Aventurine's dark internal thoughts and comforts them? A fic where they actually get him to believe that they love him for real, where they tell him that he's not a monster and that he wasn't ruining them.

You've got it ! (˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧

Aventurine x Reader

You treat Aventurine with more respect than he deserves. (Part 2)

Read part 1 here !

CW: dehumanisation (internal, thoughts Aventurine has of himself, referring to himself as a “monster”), lots of mentions of death, passively suicidal Aventurine, violent imagery (through metaphors, nobody is actually physically harmed), intrusive thoughts, Aventurine thinks kind of vicious things about you (refers to you as "stupid", "brainless", "naive" etc), cursing.

Lmk if there’s anything else I should warn about !!

Small note: Spoiler alert sorry, but you will not completely fix Aventurine in this fic. Making any real progress would take YEARS. The trauma he's gone through and his beliefs about his own humanity are EXTREMELY deep-seated, just one conversation would not be enough to make him truly believe he was loved. Super sorry since I'm sure that's not what you wanted (you specifically requested they "truly get him to believe that they love him for real", but this does still end on a hopeful note so I hope you won't be too disappointed (•ᴗ•,, ) )

Sometimes Aventurine gains enough clarity to remember where he stands. More importantly, he gains enough clarity to remember where you should stand. That is to say, as far away from him as possible. Unfortunately, you are never keen on doing that. 

In these moments of clarity, he distances himself. If you won’t do it, he has to. He needs to. He needs to even when he can feel the little pieces of him that you’ve managed to haphazardly glue together splinter into tiny shards again, even when it feels like every step away is a step walked on shattered glass. He can hardly be called a ‘person’ anyways, what does his suffering matter? He has already lost so many good things, why not add another loss to the tally?

He reads your texts, but he doesn’t respond. He hangs up on you the moment you call. By doing this, he makes sure you know he is alive. Both because he knows it would devastate you if you thought he died, but even more so to make sure you know he is intentionally ignoring you. He hopes at least some part of you hates him. He thinks part of him hates you.

But he can never stay away for long. Like a werewolf called by the full moon; like a vampire to blood; like a siren to a sailor. Thoughts of you always cloud his mind too much to do what is right. He reminds himself he will destroy you. He comes back anyways. He is too selfish not to. 

And you welcome him with open arms every time. Sure, sometimes you yell. Sometimes you berate him. Sometimes you cry. But he never does something beyond the bounds of what you’ll forgive, even though he tries to. You’re patient to a fault. Though he feels bad, he never takes it fully seriously, because you always hold him with so much sweetness, even when your words are filled with righteous anger and justified hurt. You always end it by reminding him that you love him. Something clenches in his chest; something that is not his heart, because he has none. He claims he is sorry, but you both know he will do this again. He always does. You know he will hurt you over and over, even if you don’t know the extent. You know he will test you, that he will ignore you, that he will cling to you and that he will taunt you. You don’t know he will drag his claws through you and tear you to ribbons; you don’t know he will sink his teeth into your neck and drink all your blood; you don’t know he will lure you to sea and drown you. You are never aware of the true danger you are in. 

Maybe that’s why you one day feel comfortable enough to corner the creature that has taken on the appearance of a lover. You sit down next to him in bed one evening after one of his many attempts to push you away, your expression grim. You look straight ahead, right into his dead eyes, unaware that a monster is towering over you. 

“We can’t go on like this,” you say. For one moment, the crushing relief and devastation threatens to consume him, and he’s not sure which of the feelings is stronger. For one moment he can’t breathe. 

He hacks our a laugh, his skin straining. Something is shifting beneath his flesh, something ugly and dangerous. He needs to leave and he needs to do it quickly. 

“You’re right, we can’t,” he agrees, his voice a lot more steady than he feels. He feels the urge to grab you and shake you until you pass out. He feels the urge to suck out your life force until your body is an empty husk. He feels the urge to slam your head into the bathroom sink in the next room over. He feels the urge to shoot himself in the head, because he does not want to do any of that. 

“I love you,” you say, unexpectedly. Or maybe it’s not unexpected. You always say such stupid, brainless things. (You say it with sweetness. The only sweetness he can offer in return is the sweetness of bacteria digesting rotting meat. Is the flesh his, or will it be yours?) He laughs again. 

“I thought we were breaking up,” he says. Smirking, as if it’s funny. (It isn’t.)

“No, we’re really not,” you say firmly. He snorts. 

“Maybe we should.”

You don’t answer. Instead, you come closer. 

Get away, he thinks. Run, you fucking idiot. 

You don’t have many flaws, but the ones you do have are insurmountably big. You are too forgiving, you are too kind, you are too selfless, you are too naive. You will kill yourself doing this one day. You will let him kill you.

Your arms wrap around him. He can’t help but relax. The thing lurking under his human disguise grows more restless. 

“I don’t hate you,” you say, unexpectedly. And this one really is unexpected, because what made you say that? Your arms squeeze around him tighter. “I thought I was being obvious enough about that, but you’re so bad at understanding it.”

The feeling he has is the same as the feeling he gets when he realises a deal is going awry. You are the highest risk stakes he has ever made a bet on: will he ruin you, or will you ruin him? What you could do to him is so much more serious than death. He knows that he is holding a losing hand. He doesn’t even know what he stands to win.

You kiss his neck. He shudders. 

“Why are you so scared of me?” you ask. 

Scared? He is not scared. What an outright laughable concept. Neither of you are scared, but if one of you was, it should be you, but you aren’t, for some reason.

“What gives you that idea?” he chuckles, but his voice is not as steady this time, and he can feel his smile slipping. (What is wrong with him? He doesn’t want to think about it. The answer is always ‘everything’.)

“Your hand is shaking.”

It is, but that is not because he is afraid. Fear is a human response, borne from the desire to live. It is instinctual. It means kicking and screaming, it means clawing your way out of hell for the chance to see another day, it means fighting for the life you don’t want to end. He cannot die, you see. Death cannot occur twice. Just because his body reacts, that does not necessarily mean he can truly fear any longer.

(Then again, maybe his reaction does not come from the thought of his death.)

“I’m not scared,” he says, and his voice sounds a lot weaker than he had expected. You pull him closer, cradling his head against the crook of your neck. His blood is pulsing too quickly.

“It would be okay if you were,” you murmur. “I know you don’t know how to be loved. That’s okay. I’ll teach you. You just have to let me.”

Squash. Slice. Tear.

Maybe you are the monster. He can feel your claws prying his chest open; he can feel your teeth dig into his flesh; he can feel something that is not air fill his lungs. The biggest difference between you and him is that he devours, while you give. You painfully shove something back into the cavity meant to contain his soul, you pump blood back into his system, and you fill whatever gaps are left in him with something that is first cold but quickly warms. 

(He realises, belatedly, that something is pumping inside his chest again. But it can’t be a heart, can it? He lost that so long ago.)

“I’ll kill you,” he manages through gritted teeth, claws digging into your shirt. It is not a threat. It is not a warning. It is just the truth.

“You think too much,” you admonish him. Your tone is as gentle as your words are cutting. “I wish you would trust me more. You’re so determined to ruin your own life, and I don’t like it.”

“That’s just how I am. Deal with it or leave.”

“I’ll deal with it, then.”

Like a werewolf called by the full moon; like a vampire to blood; like a siren to a sailor. He will destroy you. But you accept it. 

He has tried time and time again to push you away, but he is weak. So incorrigibly weak, and though your flaws are insurmountable, his are all-consuming. He is a monster in all the ways that matter. But you stubbornly will not leave despite that. 

(Maybe that makes him a little more willing to try to change his nature. Just a little. Just for you. If you will not leave anyways, maybe he could try to make his presence a little less torturous.)

“Just… please stop ignoring me,” you sigh, nuzzling into his hair. Tenderly, tenderly, tenderly, so tenderly it makes his skin crawl. Your claws are softly piercing into him and he is helpless, unable (unwilling) to fight back. “I can deal with everything else. I just hate it when you do that. I can’t keep going weeks without speaking to you. I know you have some kind of… weird ideas that I’d be better off without you, but that’s not true. I love you, and I love being around you. I can’t help you when you cut me off at every corner.”

Cut, slice, slash.

Something in him breaks. Something he knows cannot be salvaged. Something he knows you would not want to salvage. Something he is not sure if he wants to salvage either, now that it is broken anyways.

He breathes a shaky breath, his fingers — his fingers, not claws, not this time — digging into your back. He buries his face into the crook of your neck, and he does not feel the urge to bite down. Though his eyes feel wet, it would not be enough water to drown you. 

He knows your line of logic is wrong. He knows the fact remains unchanged: he is a monster of a man. He will ruin you. But maybe your presence sparks enough electricity to keep his heart pumping, just for a little while, and maybe he can wait until things actually start going downhill before he lets you go. Maybe he can remember how to be a human for a bit, maybe he can pretend he is. 

“I just… don’t want to do something I can’t take back,” he whispers. “Not with you. You’re the… the only good thing I have left. I don’t know what I’d do if I…”

“That’s sweet, but I’m not as weak as you think I am,” you reply. “I’ve held out this long, haven’t I? Put more faith in me.”

He smiles.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

---------------------------------------------------------

My inbox is open, feel free to send in asks or requests, I'd love to ramble about things <3 Also reblogs are EXTREMELY appreciated the final push I needed to finish this was from a very kind individual who reposted and analysed my writing I've been riding that high ever since they did that ily bro

[eiloveir]

→﹐naruto hc! <3

‹𝟹 :: ⭑⭒  🗨 !!   𓏲  what naruto men would be like as boyfriends!

✰ pairing: them x f!reader

✰ warnings: none, except maybe being a bit cringy? it’s rushed too, there might be errors since i didn’t proofread.

i was bored and had nothing to write, so i came up with this idea to occupy someone’s delusional thoughts — though the characters might seem out of their usual paced.

the sunshine boyfriend

uzumaki naruto, rock lee, inuzuka kiba, akimichi choji

a surge of energy that is consistently buoyant in your life. they make you laugh with their jokes and antics, and their contagious laughter and lively humor makes your day. they are the gregarious person that infuses the group with spontaneity and a sense of joy during social events. they may be that social, but beneath that there’s a side that comes out in the way they treat you. they always make sure you feel supported and loved—paying close attention to your happiness and well-being. they are there for you with effort and loyalty, whether it’s celebrating your victories or providing you with comfort during your most vulnerable times and they constantly bring warmth and positivity into your being—in your life, like a ray of sunshine.

the reserved and protective boyfriend

uchiha itachi, hyuga neji, gaara, aburame shino

prioritizes your happiness above all else, their actions speaking volumes about their commitment to your well-being. they don’t rely on words to show their affection; instead, they express their love through thoughtful gestures that make your heart flutter. their confidence in your bond is reassuring—as they know your heart belongs to them alone. they’re attuned to your every need and desire—noticing the smallest details that make you feel truly understood and loved. your relationship with them resembles as each other’s safety nets—like the archers, both are holding onto one another.

the ideal boyfriend

uchiha obito, hatake kakashi, nara shikamaru

they radiate a sophisticated poise and a playful charisma. they always know how to make you laugh and feel at ease while adeptly balancing a relaxed style with courteous care. their dependability make you feel consistently loved—their protectiveness guarantee that you feel safe and treasured. they are the kind that are good at flirting—the tease one and those who can be called a “playboy”—but they are extremely loyal. they are often perceived as having many women in their lives, but in reality, that is just their aura; they only have one person in mind, and that someone is you. they are the combination of carefree and playful, which makes them an ideal partner in every way.

the black cat boyfriend

uchiha sasuke

someone who, like a feline, keeps a cold exterior, appearing remote and aloof. despite his outward demeanor, his heart races in your presence, and he blushes when he sees you. he may reject inquiries about his thoughts with a flippant “it’s nothing,” but his actions scream louder than words, much like a black cat’s intriguing charm. although expressing feelings vocally is difficult for him, he expresses caring through actions and intimate moments shared only with you (just like with the second one)

[drawnfamiliarfaces]

👻❄️ &🔥🐉

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Creative Hubris takes another unsuspecting victim.

[sweaty-toothed-mad-woman]

GUESS WHAT DAY IT IS

THATS RIGHT ITS THE FIRST DAY OF AUTUMN

[kheprriverse]

I might be a little obsessed with this design...

[ohnoitsz1m]

Uhh post canon Barney

Man who has not had a break since the rescas and refuses to start now. Alyx and Gordon are hiding his gear as we speak while Kleiner distracts him.

I was sposed to do Alyx too but I blinked and it was 3 am so. Next time

Oh also I forgot to make a note but he does carry a sidearm

[katiekatdragon27]

your flatland art is SO GOOD RAHHHHHH

Thank you so much! I'm happy there are still people who enjoy my silly occasional Flatland art lol. I need to start posting more of these guys cuz as much as I love the Flat Dreams stuff, I wanna see my silly pookies more. The true Flatland content /j

Take a doodle for the ride btw, I'm happy you like my art^^

Have a lovely day :)

[bloomfish]

It's so weird that in angel s5e2 they do a little flashback to Spike's blaze of glory moment in the last episode of Buffy... but they leave out Buffy saying "I love you". It's such a blatant omission, the ONLY omission from that scene, that it feels totally deliberate and kind of dishonest. Considering a lot of the Spike and Angel moments in S5 revolve around their jealousy and rivalry towards each other, and a LOT of that is to do with Buffy like... Why would you leave it out? It's a pretty big moment for Spike's character in general.

As far as I recall they don't even mention it, they just mention the fact that Spike and Buffy have had a lot of sex compared to bangel's ONE disastrous time (that they remember) but it does kind of cheapen it for Spike. A big motivation for him not leaving LA could have been him not wanting to hold Buffy to her words, since he clearly doesn't believe that she loves him (even though she does, as per Whedon). He presumably thinks she only said that to make him feel better in his final moments, because she wouldn't have to actually follow through on her words. Which is sad. But it makes much more sense as a motivation than the weird 'it cheapens my moment of glory' excuse like since when does spike give a shit about that

[tinyq]

An evening out.

[redwinterroses]

That was the seventh ravager skeleton he’d seen in the past two days.

Jimmy turned his head slowly as the train rattled past, squinting into the sunset and trying to figure out if this one looked like it had been hunted, or had just… died that way.

Probably hunted. Most of the wild ravagers had been hunted at this point—you had to go deep into new generation to find the herds that used to cover this area of the plains. 

But the further he rode, the wilder things got. It had been two days since the train had passed through an actual town—and no, that hotel-and-pub at the last station didn’t count. That was a waystation, even if they were insisting on calling it Oakville. 

“Have to have a village to earn the ville,” he muttered to himself, resting his chin on his hand and staring out the window at the passing countryside. “Didn't even have an oak.” 

The setting sun cast bruising shadows from the scrubby trees and the tall, jagged boulders that broke up the flat landscape. Some of the formations were as tall as houses, and for a moment Jimmy let himself consider what it might be like to build on one of them. Use it as the foundation for a house, terraform around it—make an oasis of green in the dusty plain.

Then he shook his head and sat back from the window with a sigh. Not far enough, yet. He still had days—maybe weeks—of travel ahead of him.

The train gave a sudden jolt, and Jimmy winced as his head bounced off the hard wooden edge of the seatback. “Ow—” He touched his head gingerly. “What the—”

There was another jolt, harder this time, and the sudden high-pitched whine Jimmy had learned to associate with the brakes. The train was stopping.

But… here? They were nowhere near the next station. Wouldn’t be for hours yet.

The pit of Jimmy’s stomach flipped, and he stood, grabbing for his duster to slip it on over his suit. The bone-handled revolver hiding in his pocket was a comforting weight against his side, and he took a deep breath to slow the sudden racing of his heart.

Nothing good came of trains stopping suddenly in the middle of nowhere. Newsreels he’d seen in theaters back spawnwards flickered through his memories: desperate vigilantes, settlers who’d turned to crime… There were stories of entire trains being dismantled while the passengers sat for days in captivity, abandoned when the robbers had stripped the vessels of anything of value or use.

Jimmy quickly flipped through the people he’d interacted with while on the train. No faces stood out, no one had given him special notice. This was probably just a fluke occurrence: nothing to do with him.

Which meant he might be in real danger. 

He’d bought a cabin ticket, content to sleep on the flat horsehair mattresses on the train rather than risk a dodgy hotel or boarding house every night. It also gave him a private space on the train—no risk of a seatmate getting too friendly. 

The downside was that he was isolated from the rest of the train by surprisingly noise-resistant walls. Which meant he had no idea what was going on further up the line.

As the clacking sounds of the wheels on the tracks continued to slow, Jimmy drew out his revolver, checking the barrel with a practiced glance. Then, thumb on the hammer, he slid open the cabin door and leaned cautiously into the narrow hall.

A shout, half-muffled, echoed from the direction of the engine. Another voice yelled something back, and then there was a loud pop, like someone breaking a board.

Even over the sound of the train, Jimmy knew that sound, and he rubbed his thumb against the recoil shield of his revolver. Someone just taken a shot—hopefully not at another person. 

For half of a heartbeat, the smell of spent gunpowder and blood flooded his memories, and Jimmy swore. He pulled back into the cabin, pressing the heel of his free hand against the bridge of his nose, eyes squeezed shut. 

Deep breaths, you gump, he chided himself, sweeping the flashback away into the depths of his brain. His hand was trembling and that was not what he needed in the middle of a… whatever this was. Train robbery, most likely. 

There was another shot in the distance, followed by two more in quick succession. Nearer, too. 

Jimmy gritted his teeth and forced himself back toward the door. 

I gotta get out of here, he thought. His cabin was near the forward end of the cabin—if he could get to the outer door, he might be able to jump from the car while it was still moving, get away from the train before anyone noticed him gone.

Or you could help the people stuck here, a spiteful voice in his mind suggested. But you won’t. Coward.

It’s not cowardice to try and keep a situation from getting worse, he told himself. The only problem was that heading for the outer door also meant heading toward the gunshots. He took a deep breath and started for the door.

He’d taken only a single step when the outer door burst open and a red-headed man in a battered derby came running full-tilt into the car. Jimmy had barely time to move his finger away from his revolver’s trigger before he was bowled over, both of them tumbling half into the sleeper cabin.

The stranger swore, his elbow going into Jimmy’s gut as he scrambled to his feet. 

“Watch it, greenhorn!” he snapped. His eyes went to the revolver, and narrowed. “Can you use that thing?”

Jimmy gasped for air. “When—when I can breathe, yeah,” he managed. 

Another shot and the scream of a woman in terror sliced the air. The train was barely moving now—maybe as fast as a horse at a trot, and Jimmy shoved himself to his feet.

“What’s going on?” Oof, his side ached sharply when he moved. If this idiot had broken something—

“It’s the Greysides gang,” the stranger said. He glanced outside the cabin, then slammed the door shut, whirling to look around the tiny space. “They’re harmless, mostly—”

A shot, a shout, and a crashing sound put doubt to that statement, and the stranger winced. “Emphasis on mostly. They just want diamonds. And, uh… me.”

“What?” Jimmy’s skin was itching with the need to run. From the criminals sacking the train or the stranger talking to him more directly than anyone had in weeks, he wasn’t sure. Toss up, really. But the sounds of altercations were getting closer, and they were running out of time.

“Nevermind,” the man in the bowler said. He glanced at the window. “Does that open?”

“Probably?” Jimmy hadn’t tried it. “But it’s at least a four block drop—”

The sound of the door to their car splintering open cut him off, and the stranger sprang to the window, flinging it open with deft fingers. He glanced back at Jimmy, and there was a glint of something in his eyes that wasn’t fear—something that almost looked like he was having fun.

“Coming?” he asked, and then he was gone, jumping from the window and vanishing into the dusk outside. 

Jimmy hesitated exactly two seconds—long enough to hear heavy boots tramping toward his cabin—and then with a gritted dammit he decocked his revolver, shoved it into his pocket, and leaped out the window. 

For an instant, the world was a silent riot of sunset shadows and the flash of lit windows passing him so quickly they blurred into one long line of golden light. And then he was slamming into the rocky ground, the wind knocked from his lungs, and rolling through the dirt and scrub.

He pitched to a stop in the low branches of a scraggly bush, gaping up at the emerging stars as his chest spasmed, desperately trying to figure out how to breathe again. The world was still spinning. Or he was still spinning. He was going to be sick.

With a heaving gasp, air came rushing back, and with it a whole host of new bruises and cuts and if he was lucky he was dying because every inch of him hurt like he’d been stomped by a ravager and there was a hand grabbing his arm and pulling him out of the bush and—

“Get off, get off—” he groaned, smacking weakly at his attacker. 

“Hey, you’re alive, good.” The red-headed man leaned over him, blocking the stars. He was smudged and his hat had a brand new dent, but his face was split with a wide grin. “First time jumping a train?”

Jimmy just groaned, and closed his eyes. The world would stop spinning in a minute. Probably. 

“No time for that, bucko.” There was a hand gripping his wrist and pulling him upright, shouldering under his arm and helping Jimmy stand. “Those pillagers are gonna notice I’m not on the train soon enough, and then they're gonna come looking.”

“So get going,” Jimmy said. He squinched his eyes half-open, testing to see if the horizon had gone back to staying in one place. “I’ll find my own way.”

“I’d love to, really I would.” The stranger started walking, and Jimmy was forced to stagger along with him or fall over again. “But I don’t like the idea of getting a kid killed, and if anyone saw you follow me—”

Bad cess, Jimmy grimaced, and pulled away from the stranger’s grip. “Killed?” he said. “You said they were harmless!”

“Yeah, well—” the stranger stepped back and gave him a rakish grin. “That doesn't really go for bounty hunters that infiltrate their gang and wire their location to the authorities right before a big diamond heist.”

“Bounty hunter?” Jimmy kept his voice level, but his hand twitched toward the gun in his pocket. He didn’t think the man noticed, not in this light. He wondered if he could draw fast enough.

“Tango Tek,” the man said, doffing his bowler. “Bounty hunter, trail boss, and occasional inventor—at your service.”

Jimmy hesitated a moment. Then: “James,” he offered, watching this "Tango" person's face closely. “James Solidarity.”

There was no flicker of recognition in the man’s expression, and Jimmy allowed himself to relax, just the smallest bit. 

“Nice to meet you, James Solidarity.” Tango glanced back at the train, which looked like it had all but slowed to a stop maybe three hundred blocks down the track. “Now, I say we head off before those goons get the idea to look outside for us.”

“For you,” Jimmy reminded him.

Tango flashed a big grin. “You’re stuck with me for now, Jim,” he said. “Leastaways until we hit a town. No offense, but you don’t look like you’d last long out here on your own.”

Stuck with me for now. The words stuck in Jimmy’s throat like gristle, and he swallowed past them.

“Right,” he said. “Lead the way.”