#late at night works too
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class swap design masterpost for convenience (from top to bottom: bard!riz, cleric!gorgug, sorcerer!kristen, barbarian!fig, artificer!adaine, and rogue!fabian)
#dimension 20#fantasy high#fhfy#fhsy#fhjy#riz gukgak#gorgug thistlespring#kristen applebees#figueroth faeth#adaine abernant#fabian seacaster#my class swap stuff! oh yeah I think I got a tag for that I'll call that#fh class quangle#gna slowly go back and get that tag on relevant posts too. for organization's sake#even tho I didnt really intend this blog to be that kinda blog lmao. we were all just gonna be out here dealin with that at our own pace#anyways uh! they! u know all the lore for the designs already I put em in tags. but otherwise this also collects like the#color keys kind of for these. mostly the things that change between designs#doing this did make me realise half of these are a Lot more consistent in color keys than the other half lol#like kristen's palette stays pretty much the same. and fabian's. the hit's mostly in the construction#a lot of this is overall like an exercise in remembering what high schoolers would actually wear and how to work in Costume pieces#on this point at least I straight up have No relevant recollection lmao all the basic education establishments I went to have uniforms#and outside of school I was. well kind of a shorts and tee guy. so#on that topic I feel like fabian's is the furthest stretch lmao. like if a guy in high school wears the same bright yellow raincoat#to school every day that's like. people would Not like that guy. fabian really is saved by being cute and a rogue#he will still have stans when he's deep in his fishing arc in junior year he's the manic pixie dream bf#anyways uh. things to do! stuff to get done. sleep first tho. have a good night lads#I have not caught new nsbu yet! seems I mostly catch them like two to three days late nowadays.#so please uhh. don't reply on my posts with nsbu spoilers? we are all excited and having fun but that's rude#ok thank u. signing off for the day have a good night#!!
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one of my favourite little things about the murderbot diaries is how present all secunit's friends are even if they're not actually physically present. it doesn't do the annoying thing where it jumps through hoops to bring back characters that aren't really relevant to the narrative but it also doesn't do the other annoying thing where it pretends they never existed either. like secunit talks about art and mensah all the time even when art or mensah aren't in the book. it's clear how bharadwaj has impacted its personal growth even when she's literally on another planet. it complains about gurathin and pin-lee when they're not there. it's still sad about miki and don abene and it mentions tapan and maro and rami even though it only knew them for a few days (because when you're new at being a person every interaction with other people is important even if it's short). iris reminds it of mensah. iris also reminds it of ratthi. its hair is fluffy bc it let amena play hairdresser off-screen and it messages her so she knows it's okay. it doesn't have to worry about protecting volescu anymore because volescu retired thank goodness. it's still using thiago's language module. etc etc etc
it's such good writing because it's such a little thing that gives the characterization and relationships greater depth and also reinforces the running theme of friendship in the series and then also subtly gives this sense of 'the people you love are a part of you/your story' and also reinforces secunit's role as a storyteller because it's constantly telling little stories about all its friends.
#theyre good books brent#murderbot#dont mind me apparently when i have an evening nap and no work the next day#i stay up late possessed by a spirit of literary analysis.#oh hell im probably going to have another super nerdy literary dream tonight ffs.#the fact that this has happened multiple times is both sad and embarassing. i know we should all just be ourselves and embrace the cringe#but dreaming about literary analysis is really going too far i think.#if youve read all these tags you should also read the murderbot diaries. thank you and good night.
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“there may be something there that wasn’t there before”
💜: Mmh... Jamil, I didn’t know you were so warm.….
🐍: Prefect, you can’t just say things like tha—
🐍: …..
🐍: Did you fall asleep on my lap? Good grief.
#huwhsahsga#jamil couldve easily left her to sleep somewhere else#but he didnt.#he kinda just.. let her sleep soundly on his chest#anyways a doodle from late last night bc i didnt want to do work 🤡#now im behind on assignments a bit 🤡🤡🤡#the urge to draw them is too strong#stronger than me even#i need to feed myself SOMEHOW#[—✦-#-✧ my art#twst art#twisted wonderland#twst#twst oc x canon#jamil viper#jamiyuu#jamil x yuu#twst yuu#twst yuusona#(💜) yuusha#(💜) curry noodles#-✦—]
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“The Thinking Woman’s Sex Symbol,” took me the FUCK out. I, too, am always saying this about David Dastmalchian.
#late night with the devil#late night with the devil spoilers#david dastmalchian#honestly love that he got to not only play a leading man this time#but a super hot and DEEPLY fucked up one too#i mean he’s always hot to me#but the 70s styling really works for him
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I assume this has been done like a hundred times already but I had to get it out of my system
(where else to find me)
#artists on tumblr#metal gear solid#mgs art#solid snake#otacon#otacon mgs#otasune#i know otacon isn't that small let's pretend he is sitting down or smth#'uh oh i hope this doesn't awake anything in me'#this is something i did in a fugue state too late at night during the work week#kojima what did you do to me
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[ID: A colored, digital two page comic featuring Danny and Jazz from Danny Phantom. Danny wears a baggy hoodie over a shirt and jeans. Jazz wears a v-neck sweater and shorts.
Fentonworks, after curfew: Danny reaches for the doorknob to his bedroom, breathing out and gripping his shoulder.
"Where were you?" says Jazz, hands on her hips, making Danny jump. "Look, I know that Mom and Dad don't really care, but I do. You can trust me." She looks sad. "What's going on with you?"
"None of your business, Jazz." He looks irritated. He reaches for the doorknob again, muttering, "Just lemme sleep."
"Wait!" is written in all caps. Jazz reaches out, pulling at the hood of his jacket. Danny turns and raises his arm out of his hoodie, revealing an ectoplasmic injury. "Fuck off!" he yells.
Jazz pulls her hand away, startling backwards. Then, she looks sad as she says, "Oh, Danny…"
Fade out. They now stand in the Fentonworks bathroom, with Danny sitting on the toilet and Jazz hovering over him, cleaning a wound on his left shoulder. He's now in a binder and the original ectoplasmic wound has been treated. She scolds him and he grins nervously, curling in on himself. End ID.]
happy holidays @torscrawls !
#doodles#dp#danny phantom#danny fenton#jazz fenton#phandom truce 2023#12/18/23#i tried to include as much prompts as possible but it didnt work out too well#i still ended up burning myself out anyway 💀#basic thought was: new fentonworks security device (activates at night/when ppl arent home) targets danny when he comes home late#jazz catches him and promptly freaks out when she discovers his injuries#this is SUPPOSED to be in an au where she finds out before my brothers keeper or just. never finds out#but i wasnt able to fit that in#even still; i hope u like it!#this was done in my 'dey needs to loosen up and not care abt their lines' brush. shoutout to that. wouldnt have gotten it done otherwise
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gojo would kill your work husband. but if he were the work husband, that's a different story
REAL!! he’s such a hypocrite because if someone mentioned you had a work husband, his entire world would stop and he wold devise the absolute worst plans to make sure that your co-worker, everyone at your job, and everyone in the next building over knew that he was happily committed to you
but if he is the work husband, he’s very........ dutiful in his role. there’s a loose office/lawyer au in my head where satoru is your secretary, and for all intents and purposes, your personal assistant, and he’s good at his job, but mostly because he considers his job to be pleasing you. he has coffee for you when you arrive, he moves your schedule around without you asking, he has answers to questions before you can even ask them, he has fresh flowers on your desk weekly, pokes into your meetings to pretend to hand you a file that’s really just maybe a single document in a manilla folder with candy on top of it—he’s made himself your business, your partner; he’s made himself irreplaceable, and he loves to remind everybody of that fact.
he’s also extremely loyal. sure, he could day a week’s worth of work done in about a day, but that doesn’t mean he’ll just use his talents for anybody. he’s your secretary, so he’s at your beck and call, and everyone knows it. they know he’s the best, but also that he’s off limits—not because you won’t share him, but because satoru won’t let himself be shared.
he also extends his duties beyond work, of course. when he hands you a print out of your schedule for the day and you’re confused by the three-hour block of time you have in the middle of the day, satoru just helps you shrug your coat of your shoulders and smiles, “that’s for the lunch date you have with me, of course!” hanging up your coat in your closet for you, “i’m paying, see you soon, sweets.” and because you’re great at your job, and satoru helps you be great, nobody really questions when the two of you have time for a 13-course tasting menu at 1pm on a tuesday afternoon. and if they did, all satoru would say that you two had a lovely date
#anonymous#he's like donna from suits but worse because he's like if harvey were donna LOL#i have soooooo much to say about him#he doesn't really Have to work he's a nepotism baby supreme#but he met you maybe in undergrad? and he's been obsessed w you since#he knows youre a workaholic so he's dutifully sat by your side all these years through college through grad/professional school#and when you told him you got to hire your own assistant he was the very first applicant#because getting paid to spend his days with you and take care of you? he was already doing that for free might as well make it official#everyone in the office knows satoru loves you except you honestly#he probably has his own masters/JD but elects to be your assistant anyway bc that's so much more fun#what he Really wants to be a househusband but first he's gotta ask you out and propose and all that good stuff (cue him rolling his eyes#and going on about formalities and boring systems and blah blah blah)#also in the office au in my head: nanami (also senior partner) higuruma ofc <3 beloved (managing partner) and TOJI!#WALK WITH ME!#its honestly probably satoru's influence that gets toji into law... as someone who so feverently broke it in the past#idk maybe there's a megumi situation that makes gojo be like yk if ur this good at skirting/breaking the law youd probably be half decent#at enforcing it... or at least helping other people get around it too#and so lawyer toji is born#does he screw around w the rich people who r stupid w their money? absolutely#but you nanami and higuruma just let it be bc he brings in those settlements better than anybody else....#hmmm... i kinda wanna make megumi somebody's associate but also..... yuuta.....#i think i just like sticking yuuta in a tie if im being real#but anyway... satoru is your Work Husband and everyone knows he wants to be your real husband#but they just let it slide bc rumour has it even tho hes just a secretary hes got equity in the firm?? and besides that his heart eyes give#away his hopeless devotion from a mile away#the day you actually start seeing somebody outside of work... oh theyre in for Trouble#satoru x reader#him dragging you out of ur office late at night and u protesting so he just. puts u over his shoulder#and ur telling him to let u down but he's insisting u go home and then nanami pops out of his office#and ur like wait nanami this isnt what it looks like but he's so dead in the eyes when he just sighs
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Been watching sm drawtectives, season 3 will be insane 🧚♂️🧜🧞♂️🧟♂️
#drawtectives#rose#york rogdul#grendan highforge#drawfee#my art#havent been able to draw much for myself lately :[#too many projects to work on#but i found some time last night at midnight to doodle these out#love these 3 sm#will draw eugene too just u wait#also paint pens my love#theyve been sm fun lately i love slapping color on and scribbling
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Tom: no one really loves me
Harry: are you sure?
Tom: yeah
Harry, aggressively pointing at himself: are you fucking sure?!?!
#tomarry#tom riddle x harry potter#tom riddle#harry potter incorrect quotes#harry potter#incorrect quotes#this could work with their lines switched too#lord voldemort#voldemort#tomarrymort#harrymort#daydreamer’s late night posts
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Caught.
#hello from too late on a work night#thinking about that person who told me “every new drawing from you of these two the tension somehow gets higher” a month ago or w/e#like are you still here#hoffstrahm#coffinshipping#mark hoffman#peter strahm#saw#saw art#drawing
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in my cousin oskaar era where I'm yelling about how it's dark all the time and how I want to take walks but I can't since it's DARK OUT and I'm slowly losing my mind because night time comes too soon and I'm forgetting what the sun looks like!!!!
#i had to work late and was like okay i have too much energy lets go for a walk but guess fucKING WHAT THE SUN IS GOOOOOOOONE#not that I can't walk at night but i enjoy seeing the trees and the SUN#and thank god tomorrow is my last work day this week!!!!!
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i like the depressed robot too
#>dev art#art#ultrakill#mirage#ultrakill mirage#fanart#ultrakill fanart#digital art#illustration#doodle#i wake up in the middle of the night a lot and its too late to work on stuff so its doodles it is#dont know if i wanna be her or be with her
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Sebastian’s definitely not a big fan of the fact that Noelle is an animagus… ft Clora <3
I promised a comic with Clora @choccy-milky and so TA DA 🎉 plus a little extra… I kind of got carried away 😂 I hope I did Clora justice, it’s a bit of a thank you for drawing Noelle, I still can’t believe it tysm!💙🤍
Cat Noelle definitely has a knack for bugging Sebastian, this is definitely not the first time lmao 😂 she’s an absolute menace, if anyone wants to get anything from Seb, Noelle will for sure get her little claws on it. I imagine they have a friendly rivalry where they can’t stand each other but yet they end up hanging out because of Ominis and other MCs lmao
#I actually had a blast working on this cloras design is so fun to draw 💙#I promised a comic with Clora and had this fun idea I really hope you like it#there’s for sure some cursed knowledge in that diary I just know it#I hope the comics clear i finished it late last night so it might be a bit rocky to understand sorry#I have too much time on my hands lmao#hogwarts legacy#hogwarts mc#slytherin#ravenclaw#hogwarts legacy sebastian#hogwarts legacy mc#original art#hogwarts legacy oc#hogwarts legacy meme#hogwarts legacy comic#choccyart#animagus#slytherclaw#slytherin common room
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seafood trio portraits !
+ some alts. with spoilers !
#this is how they look after the 3yr jump 👍#pretty proud that i managed to capture how i usually imagine them :0 ! been in an art slump so this was a pleasant surprise#idk if ill b able to draw them consistently tho . so these designs r for my brain only#might try to color these but i havent eaten lunch yet so thats a problem for another day#solar-drawss#my art#han sooyoung#kim dokja#yoo joonghyuk#yhk#yoohankim#orv#orv spoilers#omniscient reader's viewpoint#omnicient reader's view point#cackling at how miserable sp and 63hsy look compared to kdj in the middle#her whimsy … shes living her best life rn#……i lied i think i just gave him My face straight up jfc . get that off of u asshole#anyways if u didnt already notice ! yoohan have matching eyebrow scars 🫶#kdj has one on his nose in that first one#the second kdj has cracks all over her which i forgot to add is inspired by hehearse’s works !!#the reason why they dont show up in the first one is bc aileen covered it up before he went to 1863#like . hoseki no kuni style ✌️#fun fact i sketched that hsy the night before her birthday skfjsjf had to give up bc it was too late tho#so now im repurposing it for this#NO WAIT I SHOULD JUST GO BACK AND GIVE HSY A CLEFT LIP …. dam lost opportunity. well whoevers reading this just kno she has one now
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I've been writing my dissertation like that gif of the cat frantically slamming a keyboard (you know the one) but it's got me thinking about professor Bucky and how he might incentivise you to get your work done for his class 😏
"You're not getting an extension. Don't even think about e-mailing me for one." The hardest part of dating your lecturer isn't actually the sneaking around; it's that he's a hell of a lot tougher on you than the rest of the class.
"But Bucky I-" You begin but he cuts you off and you know by the look on his face that there's no point pressing it.
"No. You're more than capable and you've got plenty of time to get it done. You don't need an extension, you need to apply yourself."
God, he's annoying. You know you can do it, you never said you couldn't. You just don't want to. There's a massive difference.
He pulls his copy of the required reading out of his bag, setting it on the desk beside your laptop and it takes everything in you not to bury your head in your hands.
"There. I've helped you enough." He nods towards the textbook but when you don't move, he flicks through the pages with a sigh, leaving it open at the chapter you know you should start with.
You sit there for another few seconds in a foul mood, mentally preparing yourself to sit here for the next few hours.
"How about I help you? I get the impression you need an incentive." He knows you too well, there's nothing more motivating than a little treat. "You have 12,000 words to write. For every 1,000 you write this week, I'll give you an orgasm."
Maybe you should complain about his assignments more often.
"Deal." Hell, if you'd known this was coming, you'd have started ages ago.
"Good girl." He laughs, amused at the rate at which your fingers begin to dance over the keyboard.
Getting started isn't too hard. You type out a quick plan of your chapters, dropping in the sources you know you'll need before starting your introduction and with your focus on your work, you hardly notice Bucky sinking to his knees under the desk.
You feel his warm, open mouthed kisses trailing up your thighs under your skirt and his soft groans drag your attention away from the laptop.
"Don't stop working." He insists, licking your sex through your cotton underwear, letting you enjoy the delicious friction on your cunt. "You're almost at the first thousand and it reads well so far." You feel his hot breath against the now wet cotton while one of your hands falls to tug his hair.
"If you stop typing, I stop licking." He threatens, pulling your panties to the side, gliding his tongue against your skin and groaning at the taste of your arousal.
You have just over 200 words until you reach your first thousand and it should be so easy but it becomes even harder when he sinks two fingers into you and you're able to hear how wet you are already.
His lips engulf your clit, sucking gently while flicking his tongue in vertical strokes in time with his fingers curling inside you. "Such a smart girl. I'm so proud of you." He hums before giving you a few broad strokes with a flat tongue.
He knows what his praise does to you and with your thighs clamped around his head, you fly your way through a few hundred more words. He chuckles when you proudly announce you reached a thousand but you don't stop typing at the same frantic pace.
"Sweetheart, if you want to get all 12,000 done this evening, I'll sit here as long as it takes." He smiles against your skin before giving you everything he knows you need. His tongue flicks quickly over your clit and his fingertips rub against the soft, spongy spot inside you and in no time you're gushing against his face, gripping his hair and riding your high out on his waiting tongue.
#becca's thots#becca writes spice#professor!bucky#professor!bucky smut#professor smut#look#I'm not saying I'm COMPLETELY screwed#but I think I've girl bossed too close to the sun#I emailed my diss supervisor on Friday asking when my deadline was#apparently it was a week ago 💀#she's giving me until this Friday bc she's an angel (and the date on some of her material was wrong)#but this is the busiest week of the year for me at work#I have a couple of 4am starts and a few really late nights#and it's period week#so if you happen to see me crying in the university library this week just let me get on with it#but I WILL churn out 12000 words#but truly this post is one of my biggest weaknesses ^^#men who know you're capable of doing more and try to encourage you rather than convince you that you could get away with doing less 🤤
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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.”
#team rancher#long post#decided i didn't want to figure out a read-more it's too late at night lol#anyway I might continue working on this i have a whole plot#but i'm just so pleased with the start i couldn't resist posting#ranchers western au#mmmm gonna need a better name than that#headin' west au#maybe#redwinterwrites
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