maybe the emptiness is just a lesson in canvases.

He made sure to listen to her even as he followed the movement of the puck, watching as it missed both of their slots time and time again, almost bouncing off the table until her last shot landed right where it was supposed to. “Are you talking to me so you can distract me?” He was clearly teasing and sent the puck right back to her with a strong push, his smile widening at her question. “I would feel great, hell yeah, count me in. You know I love any reason to show off these chest and shoulders, I worked hard on them,” he joked and did a little pose. “As long as you have my size, though, I look pretty damn sexy in a crop top so if that’s an option too count me in. You? A black heart?” He rolled his eyes playfully, “I don’t know about that, must be because you’re such a sweetheart to me,” he added with a wink, groaning as she made it in again. “Fuck, I’m losing my mojo. How excited are you about the launch though? Friday’s gonna be a big fucking day.”

“Your gods have forsaken you!” she screeched as she celebrated with a happy dance on her end of the table. When he accused her of exactly what she was guilty of, she guffawed and pressed a hand to her chest, offended. “Are you questioning my integrity as an air hockey player?” She held the look of offense for another beat before her face cracked open in a wide grin. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. We get it. You’re beautiful.” As the final goal was made, the hum of the table died. They were officially tied two to two. “It’s my master plan. Lull you into a false sense of security and that’s when I strike. Evil black-hearted monster, I say!” She tapped her fingernails against the lip of the table, her energy growing more subdued. “It’s... honestly, I can’t believe it. I know it’s not, like, a huge deal or anything, but I never expected the stream to blow up like it did. Still kind of crazy to me that it has.” She was almost embarrassed now, talking about herself, so she redirected. “You wanna call it a draw and grab that pizza now? You know, save you the embarrassment of getting your ass kicked and everything.”

There was never a time that Brady wouldn’t immediately drop anything she was doing and drive over to Natural Twenty if Emily asked her to. She’d been at her office when Emily had texted her and was out the door a few minutes later with an excited bounce to her step. Whatever it was Emily was excited about, she wanted to be a part of it. Sitting in her favorite chair in the building, Brady was buzzing excitedly, her eyes immediately closed when Emily asked her to. The urge to peek was overwhelming, but she managed to keep them closed until Emily said otherwise. Her grin was just as wide as Emily’s when she saw the shirt, a stunned look in her eyes as she processed it all. “Holy shit, dude,” she laughed out, bouncing forward to pull Emily and the shirt into a tight hug. “That looks amazing, people are going to absolutely go nuts. I’m going absolutely nuts. Have I told you lately what a genius you are? Because you are. Seriously. The most amazing person of all time.” Brady was absolutely gushing, pulling away from the hug only so she could put her hands on the shirt, a gleam in her eyes about it. “When can I buy one? Because I’m ready to wear this everywhere all the time and give the people the Bex and Mystyk energy that they all deserve.”

Brady’s reaction was worth all of the work that had gone into the project and then some. Pride for the show and the journeys all of them had taken since becoming apart of it showed through in her smile. She accepted the hug with a loud laugh, squeezing back as the excitement and nerves coursed through her as if seeing it for the first time all over again. “It honestly came out even better than I hoped it would. I’m just trying to imagine a world where I spot one of these bad boys out in the wild and I can’t. Like... we’re really doing things and it’s so surreal.” At Brady’s question, she flung the rest of the shirt she was wearing at the brunette. “It’s yours. Perks of being a cast member, dumb-dumb,” she teased lightheartedly. “I was thinking that if these do well, we could have, like, a fan art contest or something. Winner gets their art made into a shirt.” She chewed on her lip a little. “I don’t know, I’m getting way ahead of myself. But we’re gonna have a booth at Rose City Comic Con and now we’ve got legit shit to sell. Slap me so I know it’s real.”

“Well it’s an amazing business tactic,” Allison said with a smile, “Is this how you usually recruit? Does it kind of die down when you mention math is involved” Allison tried her best to keep up, enthused by how animated Emily was when it came to speaking about the game. At the festival, she remembered talking to both Emily and Brady at length about D&D but between the characters, the different sheets, the oddly colored dice, she didn’t know if this might have been one of the things she couldn’t excel at. “The only board game I really remember playing as a kid was Sorry? And my brother was kind of a dick about it cause when he knew he wasn’t going to win he’d flip the board over and yell sorry.” Alli recalled, until a brief memory ruptured through and she did remember a lot of clapping and glee whenever the board was flipped. “Oh god, I think he might have thought that was the objective of the game.” 

Emily’s head tilted back in laughter, full-bellied and unbridled. “You know, I think you might be onto something. My branding is all wrong.” She could sense the out-of-depth feeling emanating from the other side of the table as Emily prattled on, so she reeled herself back in a little. The game wasn’t for everyone, and she absolutely respected that. But she always had to try at least once. It was a personality trait that had proven time and again to be both a fatal flaw and a saving grace. The snort that left her at Alli’s recollection of childhood boardgames was surely graceless, and she covered her mouth with her hand until the laughter subsided. “That’s... the kind of ingenuity I can get behind. And, to be fair, that’s a much more exciting objective.” She smiled, pausing to take another bite of her ice cream, and sat back a little. “So, what do you do? We’ve shared ice cream together twice now-- arguably one of the most intimate things you could possibly do with a person-- but I’m pretty sure the only thing I really know about you is your name. And you have great taste in desserts.”

“I did yeah, that’s why I am the way I am, cause the air hockey gods own me. It’s their fault I”m just so fucking pretty.” He laughed as he watched the puck move back and forth, giving it a hard hit only for it to bounce back and score on his goal. “Ah see! They’re on your side now, do you? I’m a fan of propositions but only if they’re nice,” he added and set the puck back on the table, taking a deep before giving it another hit. “I’m all ears.”

“And all you had to do was sacrifice your soul.” Emily’s victory dance as she sunk the puck was cut short as it came speeding back down to her side of the table, her paddle missing it completely as it bounced off the edge and made its way careening back towards Angel. “It’s nice,” she promised, smacking the puck again in his direction before watching it slip right past her defenses, the clattering sound as the puck made its way down into the return slot mocking her. She reached down for the puck and set it down, faking him out with whack that went just to the side of the puck before following it up with a proper wallop. As it bounced off the side of the table and proceeded to do that annoying zig-zag all the way back down to her side, she continued, “So the website for the stream goes live on Friday. And I’ve been working with a few different artists for some t-shirt designs. I’ve got some standard, like, stock-photo quality pictures for the store, but I was wondering--” she smacked the puck back in his direction, “--how would you feel about being a model? I’ll pay you in any shirt you want. And all the love in my tiny, black heart.”

“Best out of five? Alright, you’re on E-Money, I admire the determination. Even if you’re still going down,” he added with a wink, happy to play another game, happy whenever he got to spend a few hours in the arcade. “After this I need to stuff my face with pizza though, all of this kicking your ass really works up my appetite, you know?” He winked and pushed his sleeve back up before resting his puck on the table. “You ready?”

Emily glared at him from across the table, a playfully competitive fire lighting her up from the inside out. “Keep trash talking, Angel. It gives me power.” She set the puck down and eyed the goal on the other end, flashing him a cocky smile before whacking it as hard as she could. But it bounced just off the side and she gasped dramatically, appalled. “Did you sell your soul to the air hockey gods? Jesus.” She smacked the puck back as it came flying at her from his side and decided now was as good a time as any to pose a question as a distraction she’d been planning on bringing up anyway. “So. I’ve got a proposition for you.”

After pestering Gulliver once again to change up the seasonal flavors to a flavor she’d practically been begging for for weeks, Allison sat dejected at one of the tables in the shop. Her intention for grabbing the sweet treat was to decide what to bring back to the manor to snack on for a late-night craving, but instead she found herself going through the messages on her phone, some work-related and others anxiety-inducing. She only snapped back to reality, spoon still in her mouth when she saw a familiar face, a saint who had saved her during the festival from a stranger who couldn’t catch a hint. “Listen, we can exchange numbers and I’ll get you ice cream no questions asked,” Allison said with a laugh. At her question, she shrugged and looked at her calendar, “I mean I’m basically free whenever you’re open. You didn’t happen to carry it with you today did you?” 

“Keep talking, Alli, and I’m gonna fall in love.” Emily grinned and took another bite of her ice cream. With her mouth still full, Alli’s question processed half a second later and she laughed, shaking her head. She held up a finger as she swallowed-- because she was not above talking with a mouthful but she was trying to make a good impression-- and said, “Well, I’ve always got a set of dice on me because I’m a crazy person, but I don’t have character sheets or anything. There’s not really a game board-- at least, not one like Monopoly. It’s mostly a game of dice rolls, math, and make-believe. We run games for all experience levels at Natural Twenty on Wednesdays, so if it’s really something you want to check out, you should. It’s just, like, standard fair for me to push it onto everyone I talk to ever.” She tapped her temple and shot Alli a knowing smile. “It’s just smart business.”

While she still hadn’t settled on what exactly she was planning on getting, Emily found herself pulling open the door to the tattoo shop, anyway. She hadn’t stopped thinking about it since she’d brought it up to Mateo in the first place and weeks of inaction had gotten her through the door with a determination that faltered and evaporated as the door closed behind her. Thankfully, as her eyes scanned the room, they settled on Mateo. She smile, relieved, and mad her way over. “Hey!” As she reached the counter, she rested her elbows against it, leaning in conspiratorially. “Do you get a break any time soon? Wanna go try to find that grumpy old man and beat him up?”

“Okay, first, close your eyes.” Emily had been hard at work on the business behind the stream for weeks. What with the viewer count continuing to grow as it was, offers for sponsorships were beginning to come in daily now and the show was making enough to hire more crew. Which meant better equipment and better quality and Emily was buzzing with excitement. Honestly, the next step was moving to a studio-- though that was still months off-- and most of the time, it all felt too surreal. But that wasn’t the reason she’d called Brady. No, this was god tier excitement and Brady was the first one she was showing. She reached into her bag and pulled out the folded up material, keeping her eyes firmly on Brady’s to make sure hers stayed closed. “Our website goes live tomorrow with a store. We’ve only got shirts for now, just to gauge interest, but...” She unfolded the shirt, a grin stretched wide across her face. “Okay, open them.” Printed on the front of the plum-colored shirt was a picture from a scene a few episodes ago where Bex and Mystyk used Bex’s staff to pole vault over a stream of lava-- arguably the scene that had received the most fan art to date. She gave Brady only a moment to take in what she was seeing before she pressed on. “There are a few different designs, but I had to show you this one. I’ve been working with the designer for a few weeks and it has been so hard not to tell you. What do you think?”

“Aw, shit!” Emily cried as Angel’s last puck slid right past her handle and into the goal, the machine beeping his victory for a long, braggartly moment before the table went silent and the final score flashed above them. “No, come on. Best three out of five.” she asked, already fishing in her pockets for another dollar. “I will not go down without a fight, Emmerson.”

She’d come with the intention to bother Gully, a mindless way to burn off some nervous energy, but she’d been met with a treat even more delicious than the ice cream currently dripping down the side of her hand. She licked off the excess as she grabbed a few more napkins and slid into the seat opposite Alli with a wide grin. “I love that every time I run into you, it involves ice cream. This is the kind of content I’m here for.” She took a small bite of her ice cream-- something with pistachio, she’d already forgotten the name-- and tilted her head at the blonde. “So, when are you gonna let me teach you how to play D&D?”

In the wake of being announced finally as the winner of the most recent season of Survivor and coming back from her own trip to LA for the finale, Riley had more or less been in a constant drunken stupor. It was rare to see her on a bender, but winning two million dollars and getting crowned the winner among winners had her on a whole different level. Her eyes were already slightly glazed over from the drinks she’d had to that point in the evening, but there was still a sparkle of excitement in them nevertheless. Leaning over into Emily a bit, Riley’s face curled to a grin. “Oh, god, I don’t even know where to start. I just got back myself, I was out for a few days in LA, but it’s been wild. I think there’s a chance that my blood is now made entirely of liquor.” Riley had pretty much been buying rounds for any bar she stepped foot in since the night she won, overwhelmed enough by the entire experience that it was her easiest way to not sit down and really think about the fact that her second and possibly last season was now over.

Emily had a fair bit of catching up to do if she wanted to be on Riley’s level, but she was doing pretty well for herself. With a nice buzz going, she was sitting back in her chair, eyes intent on Riley and foot tapping to the beat of the music playing softly in the background. Emily knew what Survivor was, of course, and always made it a point remind herself to watch Riley’s season at least, but she was bad about keeping herself in line. So she made another mental note to check it out and filed it away under ‘good intentions, but bad outcomes’. Most things wound up there, it seemed. “Oh, yeah? I just came back from LA, too. Survivor, right? I’m assuming your liquor-to-blood level means it either went really  well, or really, really bad.”

Head twisting back towards the car with a lopsided grin, Brady allowed a resigned nod. “Alright, alright, I’ll take it slow. One at a time, two tops if they’re unbearably adorable,” she promised, pressing a hand to her heart for a beat before linking arms with Emily to walk inside. Even without seeing the dogs yet Brady knew that she would find each and every one unbearably adorable. It was only a matter of time before she went ahead with it and adopted one, the pull to do so growing each and every time she interacted with one. 

Hearing Emily’s question, Brady had to bite back a laugh, nestling her head in Emily’s shoulder to muffle the sound until she could gather herself. Following suit with Emily, Brady let her shoulders sag with a faux disappointment as the man reiterated that there were no hamsters available at the moment, shuffling off dejectedly towards the puppies with Emily. She only let the laughter break once they were out of earshot of the very baffled man they were leaving behind. “He’s going to be wondering what the hell is wrong with us for the rest of his day and I love that,” Brady grinned, slyly looking back over her shoulder once more to see the man shaking his head as he walked back away to do his job.

Stepping into the area with all the puppies in their kennels had Brady’s heart immediately melting. Her head was twisting side to side, neck craning as she tried to check out each of them. A heartfelt sigh escaped her lips, looking back towards Emily as her eyes filled with absolute adoration for the animals surrounding them. “I fully support that, okay. I’ll fund your entire venture, as long as I get to come visit the animals you hoard,” Brady offered, not sure if she was actually kidding or not. “I don’t know how we walk out of here without a dog, I’ll be honest.”

Emily matched Brady’s grin with one of her own, tossing her own look back at the man before leaning back into Brady. “His eyebrows are still doing that scrunchy thing.” She pulled back and mimicked it with a wildly overdramatized version of her own, hand resting on her stomach as she let out a full belly laugh. God, she’d needed this. A little harmless chaos with her favorite person plus puppies? What more could a girl want?

A second dog, apparently, was the answer to that question. The little scruffy tap dancer staking her claim on Emily’s heart. She stuck her fingers through the links in the cage, sticking out her bottom lip as the dog eagerly licked her fingers and she jutted out her bottom lip as she blinked up to Brady. “I’m already a goner and she’s the first one I said hi to. I need you to be the strong one here, you enabler.” With a long-suffering sigh, Emily pulled her hand free and pushed herself up again, brushing off the backs of her shorts as her eyes scanned the rows of dogs. Brady was right. She didn’t see how it was possible to not fall in love, to not give in when there was nothing but an I probably shouldn’t holding her back. “I think it’s adorable that you think you’d have enough willpower to only visit. We’ll just pull our resources, buy one of those castles in Ireland or whatever-- I’ll have the east wing, you can take the west. And we can just fill the rest with dogs.” She pulled a face at Brady. “And a hamster.”

She laughed, moving onto the next cage. A chubby little black and white pit mix was laying on his back, tail thumping against the wall, as she approached. “Hi, buddy,” she cooed, squatting down to pet him. She looked back over at Brady with a disbelieving shake of her head. “I genuinely don’t know how you haven’t caved yet.”

“Girl, there is no need to have FOMO over my life right now,” he replied with a laugh as he sat across from her at the table. His house was basically a sober zone now and for the most part he was staying sober completely but a nice catch up drink and lunch with Emily felt like exactly what his soul needed. “Luckily I didn’t get beat up again while you were gone, I mean someone tried but,” he shrugged and laughed softly as he thought about Quinn tackling him. He reached for his beer and took a hefty sip before sighing. “Shit’s been alright but hey, most exciting thing? You’re back in time for my birthday. May 30th, baby, mark it on your calendar. I’m gonna have it at my house and I think I may have convinced myself into getting a bouncy castle but you gotta show up to find out. I’m cooking too so you know, it’s a real win.”

Emily’s eyes narrowed at him, pointing her wine glass at him in a playfully accusatory manner. “It’s the face, I’m telling you. It’s 2020, no one likes happy people.” She grinned over the lip of her glass before taking another sip and folding her legs underneath herself. “Your birthday!” she exclaimed, eyes widening. “Jesus, how is this year already almost half over?” She untucked her legs and extended a single foot to gently kick him with. “Like I’d miss it! Especially if there’s a bouncy castle involved? If I’m going out, I want it to be by way of a bounce house. Whatcha cooking? Want me to bring anything? I can make...” She twisted her lips to the side in thought, a sly grin tugging at the corners. “Ramen. And, like, anything already pre-made.”