[hr][center][img]https://txt.1001fonts.net/img/txt/b3RmLjEwNi4wMGZhOWEuVUdGc2IyMWhJRWRwYkcxdmRYSS4w/perfect-smile.regular.webp[/img] [img]https://i.imgur.com/fQJYC7v.png[/img][/center]
[right] [code]Some Night, An Ungodly Hour[/code][/right][hr]

Red emergency lights illuminated the dark corridor. The faint squeaking of cart wheels interrupted the steady chirp of a heart monitor. The air smelled strongly of chemicals covering up something sweet. Paloma paused outside of a room door, hesitant to knock as her hand hovered just beneath the numbers of 513. She cast a glance towards the nurse’s station, steeled herself, and opened the door with a click. A small figure sat up in the bed, backlit by a cascade of golden light that blossomed like a supernova, swept over the frail shadow, and threatened to swallow up Paloma as she shielded her eyes.

As her vision returned the white, sterile walls of the hospital had been swapped with the polished stainless steel of a professional kitchen. Paloma adjusted her frilly apron as she analyzed herself in the reflective glass of an industrial oven. An all too familiar beep drew her attention as she turned and found herself staring at a heart monitor hooked up to an occupied hospital bed tucked between the stand mixers. Its sudden appearance wasn’t as startling as it should have been, nor was Paloma shocked when she looked down in the bed and saw the battered figure of Freya Collins. 

Golden light began to creep at Paloma’s peripherals as she began to hear voices bounce off of the bakery’s walls. Hushed whispers saying that Freya deserved worse with defeated responses saying how they were sure nothing would come of it. Other voices were adamant she’d never recover from this. Angry shouting about how they should bulldoze her bakery or her home cut through the murmur. Paloma swore she could even  hear somebody in the chaotic mix of voices start to throw out comparisons to Hitler. The voices were getting painfully loud as Paloma felt a sudden weight in her hand. She looked down to see that she was now holding a rolling pin, and the mob had finally harmonized into a chorus chanting do it, do it, do it. 

She raised the rolling pin but froze when Freya wordlessly opened her eyes. Paloma tried to offer up some kind of explanation but found that her tongue refused to cooperate. She began moving to set down the improvised weapon when something fuzzy with orange and black stripes grabbed her wrist. The voices blared in shrill support. Paloma wriggled as the creature jerked her hand up, screaming out for it to stop as it brought the rolling pin down with a sickening–

–[i]thud![/i] 

Paloma’s hand hit her alarm clock so hard that it drew out a soft whimper. She shifted in her bed and groaned, her brain full of fog and throbbing with a dull pain, as she tried to untangle herself from the web of blankets. The bottle of melatonin responsible for the weird dream stared at her from the nightstand like the killer returning to the scene of the crime. Paloma hated taking the stuff, but having spent the past day and a half that had felt more like a trimester in a sleep deprived fugue state there really had been no other option. 

With her hand finally free from her blankets, Paloma was able to push herself into a sitting position. She immediately grabbed her phone, the lock screen painfully showing through its lack of missed messages that she was actually awake. She opened the phone and refreshed the comment page on the story Paloma had been reading before the melatonin had fully kicked in. A whole new wall of hate dedicated to Freya Collins glowed on the screen before her. It woke her up better than any cup of coffee ever could. It even made that dull little headache fade into the background and drowned out that annoying, nagging little voice that had been pestering her to maybe call her therapist ever since she’d helped out Vin . 

It even made her forget, briefly, that she had more important shit to do before her second alarm rudely went off and informed her that she was going to run late. 

[hr][right] [b]Interactions:[/b] Elena [@Qia] Gideon [@NoriWasHere] Vin [@Fernstone]
[code]Thursday November 24th, the Hollow[/code][/right] [hr]

Paloma had considered it a bit odd that Vin, Marco, or any of the others had not invited her to the Hollow Tap’s Thanksgiving dinner, but they had also not [i]not[/i] invited her. Did it look a bit sad and desperate that she had nowhere else to be on Thanksgiving Day? Sure, but it was late enough in the afternoon to pretend that she had actually attended her family dinner. Had she put in extra effort on her hair and makeup because Marco might be attending? Perhaps, she figured she had better chances if he could see her actually looking cute. Did she have an ulterior motive? Why, her? Never!

Okay, perhaps she was cooking up a bit of a scheme. 

Nothing devious, really. She just didn’t want to put all her eggs in the “having Vin go around and beating up dudes named David Smith” basket. It wasn’t that she didn’t like carrying that basket, it was more like she didn’t like how she kinda sorta liked carrying that basket. 

Speaking of baskets, she was growing sick of carrying the actual one she had with her now. It was loaded down with half-used icing jars, glitter that she was pretty sure was edible or at the very least non-toxic, and a jumbo size bag of candy corn that was well past its expiration date and yet somehow didn’t taste any worse than it did when she’d gotten it. Stacked on top of the basket, tied down with some fall-colored scarves, were two tupperwares full of pumpkin cookies cut in the shape of hand turkeys. 

All of this shit was essential to the plan. Originally, Paloma’s plan had been to just show up to Thanksgiving with beautifully decorated cookies for the children to show how sweet and thoughtful she was, but the plan had changed. Now the plan was to show how spontaneous and creative she was by showing up and outsourcing all the work involved in decorating a turkey cookie on those stupid little bastards because she had run out of time to do it herself. It would be fun, surely the Hollow wouldn’t have icing smeared beneath tables or be finding bits of edible(?) glitter scattered around for weeks to come. Either way, once the children were occupied, Paloma would strike.

There was just one problem with the plan. Or rather there were many problems, it seemed, as Paloma turned the corner to the Hollow Tap and was bombarded by bursting threads of the Samaritan’s golden light dancing around the crowd that’d just gotten off of one of the shuttle buses. She made a face and turned her head, acting as if the light had blinded her.

[color=springgreen]“Stop it, Sam. It’s a holiday. Everybody here is getting helped anyway,”[/color] said Paloma. 

The last part was a bit of a lie. These people wouldn’t go to bed hungry tonight, but they’d still be struggling tomorrow. The light faded, but she didn’t move closer to the bar. Paloma was starting to get cold feet. Things typically got weird with the Samaritan when she was around a large group of people. But, as long as she didn’t put herself out there too much and nobody caused a scene everything would probably just be okay. Besides, she had to get inside. There was no fucking way she was going to track down Marco at one of his lame LARP things, and Children’s Hospitals were just such a major bummer. 

Paloma settled in the back of the line, content to wait her turn and almost immediately feeling the weight of her cookie basket. She craned her neck to see what the hold up was, getting hit pretty quickly once again by the feeling of apprehension when she saw that Gideon was working the door. Why’d he have to stop and chat up everyone? It was cold outside. A little, tiny, almost imperceptible groan squeaked out of her as she adjusted the basket, immediately prompting the person in front of her to turn his head. He gave her a little smile and asked, “Want a hand with that?”

[color=springgreen]“Oh, no, I got it,”[/color] said Paloma, instinctually believing that he’d immediately cut and run with her basket like a cartoon bear the moment she handed it over. 

“Well, you wanna jump in front of us so you can set it all down sooner?” he asked, indicating to the cold, hungry looking family in front of him. 

Paloma hummed briefly, thinking about it. Her shoulder was starting to hurt.

[color=springgreen]“Sure. Thanks for that,”[/color] she said chipperly, cutting in front of the family without giving it another thought. She cocked an annoyed eyebrow as the father spoke up behind her, seemingly invested in carrying on a conversation now. He said something about it being so cold he’d just keep his leftovers outside. Paloma realized it had been an attempt at a joke. She gave a polite exhale of air that could maybe be interpreted as a laugh. [color=springgreen]“Right!”[/color]

“Oh, are you cold? You can go ahead of us, sweetie,” said an old lady in front of her. 

And so it went until Paloma was slingshotted to the front of the line through a bizarre barrage of pleasantries, with everyone in the line seemingly thankful that they would have to wait just a teensy bit longer to get inside. Paloma, perhaps emboldened by the mob’s initiative to get her inside ASAP (although more likely concerned that Gideon would take notice if the young woman delivering herbal blends that cut through grease just happened to turn and tell Paloma that she could go ahead and just cut on past her), seized the moment and brazenly blew right by Gideon. She held up her basket as she dipped by the delivery girl.

[color=springgreen]“Oh nice to see you again, Mr. Cross. Incredibly important cookie delivery, life or death, no time to chat, you know how it is. You look great by the way. Very debonair,”[/color] said Paloma, her rapidfire words doing jackshit when it came to making her seem less anxious by him as she buzzed on by like an uncatchable gnat. She even hit him with a little spin maneuver to avoid any grabs to halt her entry. Of course, even if he wanted to stop her he really couldn’t. Then again, why would he want to? 

However, as soon as she was gone she had circled back again, swooping in on a conversation that wasn’t meant for her. Paloma gave Elena a soft, sympathetic smile, knowing full well she was about to entirely blow up her entire spot. She didn’t blame the girl for trying to shill her products to win some of Gideon Cross’s money, but she couldn’t possibly allow someone to commit a cleaning crime in her vicinity. It was a matter of public safety.

[color=springgreen]“Y’know, most grease can just be cleaned up with either some baking soda and water or spraying a little white vinegar on it and letting it sit before scrubbing it if you wanna go the natural route. Y’know, just saying. But frankly, your best bet is just to stick with a simple chemical cleaner like dish soap. It’s better at killing germs.”[/color] 

Paloma chuckled to herself, the ribbon in her hair bouncy to and fro as her whole head got involved in an eye roll, [color=springgreen]“I mean obviously you’d be stupid if you didn’t also use a disinfectant anyway, hah, could you imagine? But still it’s better to be over cautious, I mean you wouldn’t want to kill someone–oh, there’s Vin.”[/color]

Again, Paloma suddenly abandoned the two in a hurry, leaving them to figure out the mystery of why this fucking person thought they could just butt in, and moved towards Vin with a bounce in her step. Her pace slowed down glacially as she saw the group of kids surrounding Vin to get coached by them. Paloma’s face brightened as the little stupid dorks rang out in a chorus of acknowledgment at something Vin had said, certain she had witnessed something she was not meant to have seen.

[color=springgreen]“[i]Oooooo[/i], tiger. I knew you were a softi[i]eeeeee[/i],”[/color] cooed Paloma in a singsong voice as she moved to pester Vin, shifting the basket to her other hand. How soon was too soon to mention that she had a dream about them? [color=springgreen]“Teach me next, coach, teach me next. I want a private less–”[/color] A look of confusion crossed her face. [color=springgreen]“–on.”[/color]

The confusion became a look of sudden alarm as she snatched at Vin’s wrist and attempted to drag them away from their rapt, juvenile audience, concerned about introducing the youths to what Paloma would consider to be “salty language”. 

[color=springgreen]”Ohmigosh, dude, what the heck. This is so awful,”[/color] hissed Paloma, sharply turning her back away from what had caught her attention. She shot Vin an annoyed look. [color=springgreen]“Why didn’t you tell me that Freya [i]Frickin’[/i] Collins was gonna be here?”[/color]