[Fic] "To the Lees" -- Homestuck
Jul. 2nd, 2014 01:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfallingSummary: The way to a man's heart is through his stomach. Jade English/Dave Strider. Alpha timeline fluff. (625 words)
[ETA: The AO3 crosspost is now up!]
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To the Lees
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"You look hideously overworked, which I believe may be the third sign of the apocalypse," a familiar voice pronounced, cutting through Dave's snarled thoughts. "Want a drink?"
Dave set his pencil down on his sketchpad with one last glare at the recalcitrant storyboard. This wasn't defeat; it was just a truce. He'd annihilate the little fucker later, if he had stay pull an all-nighter to do it.
He spun his chair and grinned across his new office at Jade English. "A drink, you say. That's cold, offering me alcohol from my own swanky minibar, as if you think I won't notice it's my own money you're spending. But what the hell. I could be persuaded."
Jade waggled her snow-white eyebrows at him. "Oh really. And what form would that persuasion take, Mister Strider? Tell me the way to your stomach."
"Ain't that usually meant to be the way to my heart?"
"I'm reliably informed you don't have one," Jade said with mock solemnity. "Truly, a tragic fate. Kept alive with nothing but clockwork and irony. But on the off chance I'm mistaken, my mother always told me the way to a man's heart was through his stomach, so think of this as the first step in a lengthy campaign." She snagged three bottles out of the liquor cabinet, pulled two tumblers from the shelf, and busied herself with the mysterious metal and glass cocktail equipment Dave still hadn't bothered to figure out. He'd wanted the setup for the look of the thing, not because he actually ever planned to serve drinks.
(He wondered if Rose knew how to make cocktails. He wondered if he'd had ulterior motives he hadn't let himself think about.)
Dave leaned back in his chair and crossed his feet at the ankles, showing off his new Sweet Bro socks. He'd tried making them out of jpeg artifacts, but those ended up impossible to pull on, so he'd gone with licensing and cheap foreign labor instead. Still a pretty sweet deal.
"Win a man with food, eh?" he said. "That sounds a little too on the nose for an alien fishqueen who made her fortune off of cake mixes, if you ask me."
Jade shook her head as she poured something virulent green and syrupy over a jumble of ice. "Oh no. That's a common misunderstanding, but no, that's not what she meant at all. What she meant is that it's awkward to stab straight through the ribcage, particularly with a multi-pronged weapon. So you aim up from underneath."
Dave blinked. His shades hid the reflex, but he suspected Jade caught it anyway.
"The misunderstanding has been very good for her marketing division, of course," Jade added. "But I have to say, I found her original meaning more useful in everyday life. I've survived a lot of would-be assassins, but I never found anyone whose heart I wanted to keep -- except my brother, of course, but that's not the same."
It made no sense to be hurt. They'd barely known each other six months, reincarnation and alternate universes aside. And some random fuckup of fate had separated them by over sixty years. And Dave didn't do the kept man thing.
Still.
Jade's face softened as she finished her mixing. "Oh, Dave. Never found until very recently, I should say. But it would be a shame to reach for hearts too early and get burned. Whatever happened in other lives, in this world we're only at the start of our adventure. So for now, here's to stomachs." She handed a glass to Dave, and if her fingers lingered, gun calluses rubbing against his ironically moisturized and manicured skin, neither of them mentioned the slip.
"To stomachs," Dave repeated, and touched his glass to hers.
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Inspired by the 5/4/14![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
15_minute_ficlets word #188: thirsty
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So yeah, my Alpha Timeline Fluff series has officially turned into a Dave/Jade/Rose threesome of some sort. I actually did always mean to do that, but since thus far the only incontrovertible on-page romance was the Jade/Rose in Mad Science Family Reunion, I can see this development coming as a surprise. (Rose does refer to Dave as Jade's "boytoy" in "Mad Science," but that probably comes across more as a joke than as a serious statement that Jade and Dave also have something non-platonic going on. In retrospect, that was maybe not the smoothest move on my part. Whoops.)
[ETA: The AO3 crosspost is now up!]
---------------------------------------------
To the Lees
---------------------------------------------
"You look hideously overworked, which I believe may be the third sign of the apocalypse," a familiar voice pronounced, cutting through Dave's snarled thoughts. "Want a drink?"
Dave set his pencil down on his sketchpad with one last glare at the recalcitrant storyboard. This wasn't defeat; it was just a truce. He'd annihilate the little fucker later, if he had stay pull an all-nighter to do it.
He spun his chair and grinned across his new office at Jade English. "A drink, you say. That's cold, offering me alcohol from my own swanky minibar, as if you think I won't notice it's my own money you're spending. But what the hell. I could be persuaded."
Jade waggled her snow-white eyebrows at him. "Oh really. And what form would that persuasion take, Mister Strider? Tell me the way to your stomach."
"Ain't that usually meant to be the way to my heart?"
"I'm reliably informed you don't have one," Jade said with mock solemnity. "Truly, a tragic fate. Kept alive with nothing but clockwork and irony. But on the off chance I'm mistaken, my mother always told me the way to a man's heart was through his stomach, so think of this as the first step in a lengthy campaign." She snagged three bottles out of the liquor cabinet, pulled two tumblers from the shelf, and busied herself with the mysterious metal and glass cocktail equipment Dave still hadn't bothered to figure out. He'd wanted the setup for the look of the thing, not because he actually ever planned to serve drinks.
(He wondered if Rose knew how to make cocktails. He wondered if he'd had ulterior motives he hadn't let himself think about.)
Dave leaned back in his chair and crossed his feet at the ankles, showing off his new Sweet Bro socks. He'd tried making them out of jpeg artifacts, but those ended up impossible to pull on, so he'd gone with licensing and cheap foreign labor instead. Still a pretty sweet deal.
"Win a man with food, eh?" he said. "That sounds a little too on the nose for an alien fishqueen who made her fortune off of cake mixes, if you ask me."
Jade shook her head as she poured something virulent green and syrupy over a jumble of ice. "Oh no. That's a common misunderstanding, but no, that's not what she meant at all. What she meant is that it's awkward to stab straight through the ribcage, particularly with a multi-pronged weapon. So you aim up from underneath."
Dave blinked. His shades hid the reflex, but he suspected Jade caught it anyway.
"The misunderstanding has been very good for her marketing division, of course," Jade added. "But I have to say, I found her original meaning more useful in everyday life. I've survived a lot of would-be assassins, but I never found anyone whose heart I wanted to keep -- except my brother, of course, but that's not the same."
It made no sense to be hurt. They'd barely known each other six months, reincarnation and alternate universes aside. And some random fuckup of fate had separated them by over sixty years. And Dave didn't do the kept man thing.
Still.
Jade's face softened as she finished her mixing. "Oh, Dave. Never found until very recently, I should say. But it would be a shame to reach for hearts too early and get burned. Whatever happened in other lives, in this world we're only at the start of our adventure. So for now, here's to stomachs." She handed a glass to Dave, and if her fingers lingered, gun calluses rubbing against his ironically moisturized and manicured skin, neither of them mentioned the slip.
"To stomachs," Dave repeated, and touched his glass to hers.
---------------------------------------------
Inspired by the 5/4/14
15_minute_ficlets word #188: thirsty---------------------------------------------
So yeah, my Alpha Timeline Fluff series has officially turned into a Dave/Jade/Rose threesome of some sort. I actually did always mean to do that, but since thus far the only incontrovertible on-page romance was the Jade/Rose in Mad Science Family Reunion, I can see this development coming as a surprise. (Rose does refer to Dave as Jade's "boytoy" in "Mad Science," but that probably comes across more as a joke than as a serious statement that Jade and Dave also have something non-platonic going on. In retrospect, that was maybe not the smoothest move on my part. Whoops.)
