Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Phasma was bored. She spun her now empty Monster energy can on the table next to the cash register and let out a breath of air. Ben had the duty of training the new girl for the next two weeks so Phasma was on her own. She had debated on playing something on her PSP, but decided not to, just in case a customer came in, but so far the store had been dead for the past few hours. She took out her phone.

-SOOOOOO BORED!11!! Y DO U HAVE TO TRAIN THE N00B!?-
-Gwen

A few seconds later Phasma heard her phone chirp and she opened the phone.

-Stay strong Gwen-
-Ben

Phasma shut her phone and leaned back in her chair. If it spun, she’d be spinning in it. She got up and decided to take inventory. She was that bored. After about an hour, she saw the new girl come in. Phasma checked her watch and noticed that she was about an hour early. Phasma waved her over.

“Yo, You’re the new girl right?”

“Uh, yeah. My name’s Talon.” She said, extending her hand

“Phasma.” She shook Talon’s hand.

Phasma looked her up and down, though Talon couldn’t tell behind Phasma’s sunglasses. She definitely was fit, which she showed off by wearing a tank top and short shorts. She also had tattoos on both arms and clearly dyed red hair put up in long pigtails. Phasma noticed she looked Asian; although which nationality she was, Phasma had no idea.

“You’re here pretty early, your shift isn’t for another hour.”

“I figured it would be better to be early on my first day, yeah?”

“That’s true.” Phasma let out a yawn. “Everything is pretty much done for the day, so unless you guys get a rush in the evening, you and Ben will have an easy shift.”

“Ben?”

“Yeah, He’s the assistant manager.”

Talon looked around the store, tilting her head at the different games. Phasma took out her PSP and played a little bit of Persona 3 Portable. She heard the door open and looked up to see Ben walk in. Ben looked at Talon, then Phasma and pointed, mouthing the words “New girl?” Phasma nodded and Ben sighed. He put his bag behind the counter and rubbed his chin, scratching the small beard he had growing. Talon looked at the counter, finally noticing Ben and came over to introduce herself.

“Hi, I’m Talon”

“Ben.” He said, giving a small wave of his hand.

“This place is cool! I can’t wait to see how to do things here.”

Ben gave a weak smile. “Trust me, it’s more boring than it looks.”

Talon looked shocked at him saying that and crossed her arms, puffing her cheeks out.

Phasma rolled her eyes from behind her sunglasses and slung her bag over her shoulder, patting Ben on the back

“Have fun, I’ll see you back at the apartment.”

Phasma left the store and unlocked her car. After throwing her bag into the passenger seat, she got in and started the car. She looked in the glove box for her CD collection and flipped through them before finding an Avril Lavigne album. She put it on and drove to her and Ben’s apartment. Driving to the apartment always reminded her of how Ben and Hux, their old room mate, got her away from her dad. Her dad who always called her useless. Her dad who barely fed her. She shook her head to get the thoughts out and found a parking spot. She turned the car off and got out, grabbing her bag on the way. Walking towards the apartment she forgot to ask Ben if Rey was home. Phasma hadn’t quite memorized Ben’s girlfriend’s work schedule and she didn’t want to barge in. She knocked on the door first and, when she didn’t get an answer, she took her keys out and unlocked the door. When she opened the door she saw it was completely dark, more evidence that Rey wasn’t home yet. She turned the lights on, grabbed one of her beers from the fridge, and turned on the PS3 in the living room. She signed into her profile and started Bioshock. As she started it, she heard her phone start ringing. She looked at her phone and saw her boyfriend was calling her.

“Yo, what’s up boyfriend?”

She could hear Finn laugh from the other side of the phone.

“Nothing much babe, just checking in on you.”

“How’s the comic book store going?”

“It’s really good! I’m glad they had an opening since this was on my list of jobs I wanted.”

“Sandwiched between McDonalds and Blockbuster I assume?”

“Hey, don’t knock the Blockbuster. I go there for inspiration.”

“For your comic?”

“Yeah! It’s gonna be amazing!”

“The pages you’ve shown me are already good.”

“Yeah? The finished work will knock your socks off then!”

The two talked for well over an hour before Phasma saw Rey walk through the door. She waved at Rey, who waved back.

“Alright Sweetie, I’ll let you go.”

“Alright, talk to you tomorrow, Gwen?”

“Of course.”

Phasma hung up and looked over at Rey, who was taking some food out of the fridge. Rey smiled at her.

“Did you want some?”

“Depends, what are you making?”

“Frog Soup!”

Phasma nearly choked on her beer.

“Oh! Sorry Gwennie! I forgot you don’t know about frog soup! It’s Broccoli and Cheddar soup!”

“Then why…”

“I just call it frog soup as a joke!”

“Oh, then yeah I’ll take some.”

Phasma moved over to the kitchen table. She took a copy of Berserk out of her bag and picked up reading it where she left off. She noticed Rey looking at it curiously and Phasma waved her arm in a “no, no, no” motion.

“You don’t wanna read this Rey it’s pretty fucked up.”

“Oh? It’s eff’ed up?”

“Yeah like, REALLY fucked up.”

Rey nodded and got a serious look on her face as she finished the soup. She put Phasma’s bowl in front of her and Phasma began eating it. It was shockingly good for something called frog soup. She gave Rey a thumbs up and Rey beamed happily. Phasma finished and washed her bowl in the sink. Her and Rey started discussing the new anime they both were watching and soon Ben came through the door, looking very exhausted.

“Are you ok Shadow?”

“Yeah, I’m ok Greeny.” He looked at Phasma. “That new girl is exhausting, It makes me miss training you.”

“New girl?” Rey said, tilting her head.

“Yeah, we got a new girl at work. Her name’s Talon and she’s… A lot.” Ben took his glasses off and squeezed his temple. “Whenever a dude would come in she would try to flirt with them. You KNOW our clientele Gwen.”

“Yeah, there’s absolutely no way that would work.”

“Skimpy asian chick with tattoos flirting with a nerd? How would that result in anything but awkward stuttering and dropped games?!”

“Skimpy?” Rey asked.

“Don’t worry Rey, she’s definitely not Ben’s type.” Phasma chimed in.

Ben sat down and Rey handed him a bowl of soup.

“Oh shit, frog soup night?”

Rey nodded and Ben started eating. Phasma took this opportunity to excuse herself to her room. She grabbed her bag off the couch and went into her room. She flipped her light switch which turned the backlight on her desk under her bunk bed on. She hung her bag on the stairs to her bed and sat in the chair in front of her desk. She turned on the T.V. next to her desk and tried flipping through the channels for something to watch. After about five minutes of searching she gave up and turned the T.V. off. She sat in her room alone, thinking. Ben had become assistant manager of Starkiller Base, soon to be the new owner. Rey was head of the aquarium department at the zoo, Hux had bought a house with Rose once he was made partner at his father’s law firm, and even Finn was working on his comic. True, she had the project she was working on but that was far from professional, far from good enough to publish. She opened her laptop and her mouse hovered over the First Order bookmark. The website was taken offline shortly after the incident with Poe. He was apparently on good terms with the hacker group “The Resistance'' and they took the site offline. The site owner, Snoke, didn’t care enough to bring it back up so it remained offline. Forever. She felt tears in her eyes as she wiped them away. She stared at her computer screen for a few minutes and opened up her game design program. Her project was a horror game, naturally. Finn worked on the sprites for her and she had begun to teach herself how to code, with the help of her friend Aphra of course.

Phasma met Aphra at Starkiller base a couple months back and the two became fast friends, bonding over their mutual love of Mega Man. Aphra sent Phasma some tutorials on game programming and even let her use her copy of the game design software, Project DS. Phasma worked late into the night. Once she realized she was still awake at 4:00 in the morning, she saved the project and shut her laptop off. Thankfully she had the morning off, but she still had to go in for the closing shift. She climbed the ladder to her bed and curled into her blankets, falling asleep almost immediately.

Chapter Text

It was 2:00 in the afternoon and Phasma was rushing to get ready. She woke up 30 minutes prior, and not by choice. She heard her phone ringing and when she picked it up, Ben was on the other line.

“Hey Gwen, the new girl is gonna be working with you tonight.”

“Guh?”

“Yeah, Just got a call from Ren. Also it’s like, 1:30 and you just woke up?”

“Guh.”

“Long night, I take it. Just make sure you’re here in an hour and a half. Rey made you a sandwich for lunch.”

He hung up after that and left Phasma to rush to get dressed. She grabbed her panties and bra and rushed to the bathroom, taking a very quick shower. As she brushed her teeth she noticed that her hair was now past her shoulders. She hadn’t had hair that long since she was a kid, but she liked it. After her bathroom routine she put on her work polo and pants, grabbing her silver jacket from her room as well. She looked in the fridge and scarfed down the sandwich Rey made for her. She put her jacket on and headed out the door, putting sunglasses on after locking the apartment door. She got in her car and when she turned it on she saw the dashboard clock say 2:45. She knew she could make it, but it would involve speeding. She rushed over to the store, luckily not encountering any cops on the way there and she almost drifted into a parking space. She slammed the car door and composed herself before going into Starkiller Base. Upon opening the door she was greeted by Ben waving, with Talon next to him.

“You cut it super close Gwen.”

Phasma shot Ben a look as her eyes went over to Talon. Ben, realizing he fucked up, put his hand in his palm. Thankfully Talon had on headphones and was listening to an Ipod so she didn’t hear Ben, let alone notice that Phasma had come in. When she noticed she took her headphones off and waved.

“Yo Phas!”

Phasma waved back, trying to keep that cool air about her as she walked to the counter.

“So, how was the morning?”

“Boring. I’m surprised Ren hired a new employee with how dead we’ve been lately, no offense Talon.”

Talon shrugged.

“Alright, you’re in charge Phasma, I’ll see you at home.”

“See ya.”

As soon as Ben left, Talon turned to Phasma.

“Wait, you and Ben live together?”

“Yeah, we share an apartment.”

“For real? Damn, I’d give ANYTHING to live with Ben.”

“He’s taken.”

“Ah, seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“What a bummer.” Talon flopped back into the chair she had pulled from the back and pulled out her PSP and started playing a game. Phasma looked over and saw she was playing Silent Hill. Her eyes sparkled under her sunglasses.

“So, you like horror games huh?”

“I like horror in general, I think the genre is a great way to tell gripping stories, and I just love gore.”

Phasma took her sunglasses off.

“I think we’ll get along just fine.”

Talon paused her game and put it on the counter space behind them.

“So, what’s your favorite horror game?”

“Oh man, that’s a really tough question for me. I adore Silent Hill 3 more than anything, but I have a real soft spot for Rule of Rose.”

“Shut the fuck up. you’ve actually played Rule of Rose?!”

“Yeah, I bought a copy on day one.”

“Ugh, I’m so jealous. I can never seem to find a copy and when I can it’s like, $100.”

“Yeah, horror games tend to get snatched up quickly.”

The two discussed horror games and films for a solid hour before a customer came through the door. He looked at the PS2 games for a bit before grabbing some and bringing them to the counter. As Phasma rang the games up, Talon was leaning over the counter, cleavage almost spilling out. She ran her finger across the game boxes and glanced down to see what games he got.

“Snake Eater huh? It’s funny, that’s my nickname you know.”

“O… Oh?”

“Yeah, It’s because I love eating men’s sna…”

Phasma elbowed Talon lightly to get her to stop as she handed the customer a receipt. Talon made the poor guy freeze up so Phasma cleared her throat. Once the sound hit the guy's ear he left, though not before bumping into the DS game shelf, much to Phasma’s annoyance as she swore under her breath. Talon let out a huge laugh and followed Phasma over to the games.

“Holy shit! I think that dude pitched a fuckin’ tent in his pants!”

As she was picking the games up Phasma let out a small chuckle, since it was kinda funny seeing just how stunned the guy got. After wiping away her tears from laughing so hard, Talon started helping Phasma pick up games and reorganizing them. By the time they were done it was closing time. Before leaving, Phasma and Talon exchanged Phone numbers. Phasma waved at Talon who, after getting in her car, waved back. Phasma got back to the apartment and, seeing light from under the door, knocked for Rey and Ben to answer. Rey answered the door and had her usual smile on her face. Phasma looked around and didn’t see any trace of Ben.

“Ben not home?”

“Oh, Him and Hux went out to go shopping!”

“For what?”

“I dunno, Ben just said it was for something important.”

Phasma just shrugged and took her jacket off. Rey tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to the table that had a plate with a burger on it.

“Oh thank you Rey, for me?”

“Well yeah silly, I wouldn’t point at a plate if it wasn’t”

“I guess that is true.”

Phasma sat down and started eating her burger, Rey sat next to her.

“So have you seen Sonic Generations? I know it comes out in two months but I'm super excited for it. You have classic Sonic from the Genesis games and he meets modern Sonic from the newer games! I think it would be cool if they did a sequel where the Dreamcast Sonic shows up but that’s probably just a pipe dream.”

Phasma nodded with her mouth full of food. Rey loved Sonic. Sonic and frogs. Every night she would have a whole conversation's worth of things to tell Phasma about either of the two or, if Phasma was lucky, sometimes Sailor Moon was thrown in to spice things up, but Phasma loved hearing Rey talk about something she was so passionate about. The two had a lively conversation about Sonic, well as lively as someone who knows the bare minimum about the series can make it. Phasma excused herself and went into her room. She sat in her computer chair and leaned back, taking her phone out to check her texts, somehow she missed one from Aphra.

-Yo, Tomorrow is your day off yeah?-
-Aph

-Yeah?-
-Phasma

-Bring your game by, I wanna see if it’s up to snuff-
-Aph

Phasma looked at the text and rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. Aphra wanted to look at HER game? She turned on her laptop and opened Project DS, going over her project to make sure it was working right. Thankfully Phasma’s game was working just fine, the first chunk of the game was done and she took a deep breath. She got the details from Aphra on where to meet up and spent the rest of the night talking to Finn.

Chapter Text

“... Oh with that I…”

Aphra put a finger up.

“Oh but…”

Aphra shot Phasma a glare and put a finger to her mouth. Phasma was tapping her foot on the ground, nervous to have her mentor looking at her game. She looked at the small pile of manga next to her and shifted through them a bit before standing up.

“Hey, I’m gonna grab a coffee, want anything?”

“Uhhh, maybe a water?”

Phasma gave her a thumbs up and went over to the cafe booth and ordered a coffee for herself and water for Aphra. While waiting, she looked around the comic store Aphra wanted to meet up in. It was definitely bigger than the one Finn showed her when she visited him, but not by a lot. The size was to accommodate the small cafe inside, making it a popular hang out among the nerdy crowd. The barista put her drinks on the counter and she grabbed them, gave a nod and she carried the drinks to Aphra, who was just closing the laptop. She turned to look at Phasma and held her hand out for her water cup. Phasma handed it to her and she took a sip before clearing her throat.

“It’s good Phasma, really good for a beginner. However...”

“However?”

“There are a few issues, nothing major but still issues.”

Aphra talked her through the few problems her game had and Phasma wrote the issues down in her notebook. The two then chatted about manga and anime while drinking their drinks.

“Wait, you’re telling me that you never read Dragon Ball until recently?”

“Yeah, I had watched a bit of Z growing up but I never got around to watching the original or reading the manga.”

“Oh, so what got you to start reading it?”

“My boyfriend. The dude adores Dragon Ball, he says it’s his favorite series of all time.”

“It does have its moments but all time?”

“Yeah, last year we even did a couple’s cosplay as Goku and Chi-Chi.”

“Ok that’s adorable.”

Aphra grabbed her bag and laptop.

“Alright, catch you later?”

“Of course.”

The two hugged and Aphra left while Phasma paid for her comics. As she was paying she saw Talon walk in, her hair was down and Phasma was actually amazed at how long her hair was when it wasn’t up in pigtails, she was also wearing a baggy hoodie, not like her usual skimpy attire. Phasma did a small wave and Talon looked, eyes growing wide. She took her headphones off.

“Holy Shit, Phasma! What are you doing here?”

“Oh y’know just buying some manga.”

“Hey, me too! Hold on, let me grab mine and we can totally hang out.”

Phasma waited for Talon to buy her manga and the two walked around the shopping center for a while afterwards, talking and, shockingly, Talon was getting Phasma to laugh. The two sat on a bench to rest a bit.

“I’ve gotta ask you something Talon, what’s with the outfit?”

“Hmm?”

“Well, usually you dress like a whore, no offense.”

“Oh! This is my “among the peasants” outfit. I mean, c’mon, not just ANYONE can look at this body.”

“That’s true.”

“So yeah, at work it’s so I can get more sales. You just watch, customers are gonna specifically ask for me.”

“They probably will.”

Talon grinned. She got up and waved bye to Phasma. Phasma watched her go into the distance as she relaxed on the bench. She waited a few minutes before heading to her car and starting it up. She heard her phone ding and when she looked it was a text from Talon. When she opened it she saw a selfie of her and Talon. Phasma smiled and headed home. Once she reached the apartment she knocked on the door, Ben answered.

“Oh, Hey Gwen, welcome home.”

“Yo.” She looked around and saw no sign of Rey. “Where’s the Rey of sunshine?”

“Oh, she went to visit her grandpa for a bit.”

Phasma nodded and plopped herself onto the couch. Ben handed her the second PS3 controller and booted up Marvel vs Capcom 2. They both chose their respective mains and began playing.

“So Ben, what do you think of Talon?”

“The new girl? She’s cool I guess. I mean she’s not my type by a long shot but she’s still cool.”

“Yeah, I actually ran into her at the comic store while I was showing Aph my game.”
“Yeah?”

“Yeah it’s weird she’s like a completely different person outside of work.”

“That’s… Nice? Anyways, how’s the game coming along?”

“It’s actually doing well. I think you should honestly try game programming, I feel like you would be really good at it Ben.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, after I beat you I’ll show you some basic stuff.”

“After you beat me?”

“Yup.”

Phasma lost, leading to her disappointment, but she gave the match to Ben as she opened her bag and pulled out her laptop. She opened it and started up Project DS to show Ben the code she had typed up. Ben had to blink a few times to try and decipher the long lines he was seeing, luckily Phasma had put notes above everything signaling what each line of code does. She pointed to one.

“See this line, this is the code for movement.”

“Uh huh.”

“And see, this is connected to the sprite which is here.”

She opened the documents tab on her computer and upon opening it she was greeted with the photos that were reserved exclusively for Finn. She turned beet red and moved to cover Ben’s eyes, which were already closed.

“AH, DON’T LOOK!”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Gwen.”

“God damnit I knew I should've set the stupid file explorer to open directly to the sprite folder.”

She scrambled to open the folder she kept her sprite images in and once she did she let out a sigh of relief.

“Ok so this is where the images are and, Ben you can open your eyes now, and the game reads them from this folder and puts them into the game.”

Ben nodded and cleared his throat. “So, uh, how are you and Finn doing?”

“Oh we’re good! He’s working on his comic right now but I’m hoping he can give me some story ideas for a game in the future.”

“That’s good, is he visiting anytime soon? I miss hanging out with the guy.”

“Yeah he should be here next month if everything goes well.”

“Sweet.”

Phasma closed her laptop and went to put her bag in her room. When Hux moved out of the apartment, Rey moved in and with her moving in Ben got to use Hux’s old room since it was the bigger of the two. Phasma got Ben’s old room but Rey gave Phasma her old bunk bed with the desk under it, which Phasma turned into her work station. She hung her bag on the back of the chair and put her laptop back on the desk. After chastising herself over the photos she made her way back into the living room and played a few more rounds of MvC2 with Ben before he yawned and excused himself to his room to sleep. Phasma was in the living room alone. She went over to the fridge and pulled out a beer. She took a sip and as she did the door opened, with Rey walking inside.

“Oh, hey Gwennie!”

Phasma raised a hand in greeting, still sipping on her drink.

“I found some Sailor Moon DVDs at the thrift store earlier today! Do you wanna watch them with me?”

“Yeah sure, I’m down for some Sailor Moon action.”

Phasma made some microwave popcorn and the two of them got comfortable on the couch to watch out of order Sailor Moon episodes. Phasma smiled as she leaned back on the corner half of the L shaped couch and at some point she must have fallen asleep because when she opened her eyes it was dark. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone, which was dead. Grumbling Phasma made her way back to her room and her LED clock said it was 4 in the morning. She plugged her phone into the charger and climbed into her bed, barely making it under the covers before she drifted off to sleep yet again.

Chapter Text

Phasma woke up to the sound of her phone turning on, a sign that it had fully charged. She wiped the drool from her mouth and groped around her bed for the phone, just to remember that it was plugged in at her desk. Still groggy, Phasma went down the ladder of the bunk bed to look at her phone, just to see if she missed any texts or calls, which she didn’t. Phasma breathed a sigh of relief as she stretched, a glance at the time told her it was 10am. Looking at the schedule pinned on the corkboard next to her laptop today was another day off for her. Walking out into the living room she saw Ben and Rey on the couch, Rey subjecting Ben to the Sailor Moon episodes from the previous night.

“Oi, Ben.”

“Hmm, Oh what’s up Gwen?”

“Is the new girl working today?”

“I wouldn’t think so, Ren has a meeting today to discuss the future of the store with some of the other managers.”

“And you aren’t there?”

“Nah, Ren already knows I want it to stay open, besides he can always call me if…”

“Shhhhhh!” Rey held a finger to her mouth. Phasma smiled and nodded, she got the answers she already needed anyways.

Phasma walked back to her room and grabbed an energy drink out of the small minifridge by her desk and opened it. After taking a sip she opened her phone and shot a quick text to Talon.

-Yo, you busy today?-
-Phasma

She set her phone on the desk and started working a bit more on her game. She was stuck trying to figure out why the game was breaking when she hit a certain tile. It drove her crazy until she clicked the area and saw it get highlighted. After unhiding the hidden layer she realized she had a block in the spot that, when the player walked into it, was supposed to be a level transport that she had accidentally placed. After removing said block the game was once again running fine. After leaning back in her chair and taking another sip of her drink she heard her phone buzz, upon looking at the phone she saw that Talon had replied to her text.

-Nah, Juz BoReD!! U up 4 hangin somewerez?-
-TAL

-Yeah, where did you wanna hang?-
-Phasma

-How Bout da mall?-
-TAL

-Mall sounds good, meet you there in 10?-
-Phasma

-HELLZ YA SISTA!-
-TAL

Phasma grabbed her clothes, today an Elfin Lied tee, black pants, and her silver hoodie. She also grabbed a change of underpants and went into the bathroom, getting cleaned up. The warm water felt great on Phasma’s body as she let all the stresses of her game wash away with the grime. After washing her hair she spent a little more time in the shower, thinking about life in general. Her thoughts started floating to Rey. Ben’s girlfriend was the sweetest person she had ever known, which was partly the reason she felt no remorse in laying out that asshole who abused her. Rey was a special person, someone who saw the good in everyone, if only the world could be more like Rey, Phasma thought as she turned the water off and dried herself off. After getting dressed and throwing her clothes in the hamper, Phasma grabbed her bag, making sure her mp3 player and phone were in it as she headed out.

“I’ll be back later guys, don’t have too much fun without me”

“Wouldn’t think about it, Gweenie!” Rey said, waving to her.

Phasma got in her car and threw her back in the passenger seat. She plugged her mp3 player into the aux cord connected to her radio and started driving to the mall. The ride there was uneventful, as drives typically are. Parking her car, Phasma made sure she had everything with her, unplugging the mp3 player and stuffing it into a pocket on her bag. After getting out of the car, and subsequently locking it, Phasma made her way to the entrance of the mall. She realized that she never asked Talon where they were gonna meet, but fortunately that didn’t matter as Phasma was soon hugged from behind.

“Gotcha!”

Phasma was stiff from the hug, but soon eased back into being comfortable as she realized who had hugged her.

“And where did you come from Talon?”

“Oh, well see, When a mommy and a daddy love each other…”

Phasma chuckled. Once again Talon had surprised her with her choice of clothing. Black jeans with long chains hanging off of them, a striped red and black hoodie with a neon green splash on it hanging off her shoulder with sleeves too long for the wearer, and a fishnet top underneath it, not to mention the GIR backpack. She was the quintessential Hot Topic girl.

“You’re looking very… scene today.”

“This is my mallrat outfit.”

“Oh, so we’re mallrats now?”

“Yup! Just hanging around, no plans for buying anything.”

Phasma rolled her eyes under her sunglasses, but smiled anyway. Even though Talon might not be planning on buying anything, that didn’t mean she had the same plan. She was actually planning on looking at the anime store in the mall for something to give to Finn, hoping that he wouldn’t already have it. The two walked into the mall, starting at the food court. Talon had wanted to grab lunch first so they stopped by the Burger King in the mall as Talon grabbed a meal, Phasma opting to wait until she got back to the apartment to eat. She opened her phone to check the time, and when she did Talon pointed to her lockscreen.

“Who’s THAT?!”

“That’s my boyfriend, Finn.”

Talon whistles

“Damn, alright Phasma. How’d you two meet?”

“Chatroom.”

“A CHATROOM?!”

“Anime and Gaming chatroom.”

Talon was now laughing hard.

“Shit I mean, if it works it works.”

Phasma nodded.

“I also met Ben from the same site.”

Talon nearly choked on her burger.

“Ass Manager Ben?”

Phasma had to stop herself from laughing at the nickname.

“Yes, that Ben.”

“Shit maybe I should've joined in…”

The two talked about different anime as Talon finished her burger. Once the trash was thrown away the two made their way to the anime store to knock Finn’s gift off Phasma’s list

===

Finn let out a quick yawn before the customer came to the counter. Finn skimmed the comics he brought up, ‘this dude’s a hipster, christ, not ONE big two book at all, Image must have this guy by the fucking balls.’

“Nice choices, personally I think the Miller comic is a little overhyped but still good. That’ll be 24.39”

The customer paid him and went on their way, Finn thanking his self control for not telling the customer off about their bad taste in comics. His co-worker smiling as she walked up to him.

“Wow Finn, I didn’t know you had that much self control, must have been tough telling the Indie customer not to go fuck himself.”

“Listen Mirta, if I had it my way we wouldn’t even carry indie books.”

Mirta Gev was Finn’s best friend, outside of Ben and Phasma. The two had known each other since middle school, her grandfather, Boba, owned the comic book store they both worked at. The two also shared an apartment, due to the cost of living being so high.

Mirta rolled her eyes at Finn’s comment.

“You do know indies are our best sellers right?”

“Elitist bastards, their precious indie labels wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for Marvel and DC.”

“Just say you’re mad that Scott Pilgrim is getting more hype than Iron Man 2.”

“IRON MAN TWO HAD WHIPLASH DAMNIT!”

Mirta stifled a laugh. “Anyway, It’s almost time to clock out, see you at the apartment?”

“Yeah, I’ll see you later. I gotta stop and get Phasma a present for when I go visit.”

“Tell her I said hi next time you talk, I miss having her around, even if it is for a week at a time.”

“I’ll tell her you said that.”

Once clocked out, Finn headed to his car. He opened a piece of paper that had the address he needed and drove around until he reached the store. It was a small anime store in the middle of a mostly deserted strip mall. Finn double checked to make sure the store was correct and once sure he got out of his car, locking it before heading into the store. Once inside a citrus smell hit his nose and he looked around at all the merch the store had to offer. Finn needed something specific, something he couldn’t even find online. Well, he could but it was expensive, like, 3 months worth of paychecks expensive. Hopefully the store would have it cheaper, although he didn’t hold his breath. He went over to the cashier and cleared his throat.

“Uh, Hi, Do you have the, umm, Kotobukiya Katsura statue. It’s from, uh, School Days.”

The cashier looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

“See it’s for my girlfriend because, uh, we watched it together and she found the ending hilarious and we make fun of it so often so I was hoping you’d have the statue.”

The cashier went to the back and Finn was anxious. He looked around the store and noticed just how nice it was, nicer than most anime stores he had been to anyways. When the man came back he was holding the statue, Finn braced himself for the price. $150. The sticker said $150. Finn couldn’t believe it. He checked out before his big mouth questioned the price and drove back to his apartment, extremely happy at his discovery.

===

“So wait, you’re telling me the bitch that you got the statue of gets killed and has her fucking STOMACH cut open?! Because the bitch who killed her thought she was pregnant?!”

“Yup”

“No offense but what kind of shit are you forcing your boyfriend to watch?!”

“It’s not… Ok it kinda is that bad but it’s just so edgy it’s funny.”

“Whatever you say sister, can’t believe you got him a statue though.”

“Oh he burst out laughing when she goes “oh, you aren’t pregnant” so I wanted something that reminded him of that.”

“You two are fucking weird, you know that?”

Plasma shrugged and gave Talon a hug goodbye. On the way home Phasma was thinking about how lucky she was to find the statue. She’d hide it from him until he got there but she could almost imagine the look on Finn’s face when he got it. She smiled to herself and continued on her way home.

Chapter Text

Finn had fallen asleep with Phasma over a skype call, his Broly poster illuminated by the laptop screen. Phasma hated it when he did that because it always ended up looking like she was video chatting the legendary Super Saiyan himself, which caused Finn to always angle the camera just right. He didn’t have the world's messiest room, but it could stand to have some light cleaning done. There were pages scattered around his work desk, not to mention the unwashed clothes in a pile in the corner of his room. Finn started to wake up, noticing the lack of sound from the laptop he guessed that the call ended already, which he was correct about. He closed the laptop and stumbled over to the work desk, clearing some papers so he could put the laptop back in its proper spot. After a yawn Finn took off his bed clothes and threw them into the pile. After applying deodorant He scooped up all the clothes and put them into a basket, heading to the laundromat to wash them, since it was his day off.

===

Phasma was still asleep when she heard the Skype “end call” noise. Checking her laptop time it was 7:00 in the morning, she knew that Finn would either still be asleep or starting his day at this time so she didn’t try calling back, instead using the extra time that morning to get ready for another day at work, although it wouldn’t be too bad since she was working with her new best friend Talon. It had been a couple weeks since she started and the two had been hanging out a lot after work and on their days off, with Phasma making the mental note to introduce her to Aph. Once she was about to head out to work she shot Finn a quick text to let him know she loved him and that she hoped he had a good day. Grabbing a water bottle out of the fridge, she headed out to her car and started the drive to Starkiller Base.

===

Finn had arrived at the laundromat run by an old asian lady named Maz. He’d been taking his clothes here ever since he moved into his apartment, and not just for the MvC2 cabinet she had. Okay so it was mostly for the cabinet but still, Maz had the best prices for washers and dryers in the area, a little Marvel vs Capcom was just the icing on the cake. After saying hi to Maz he threw his clothes into the washer, played a couple rounds of MvC2 before losing to the computer, heard his clothes get done, and threw his clothes into the dryer before sitting on the bench by the dryers and spent the rest of the time browsing Twitter.

===

Phasma opened the store and for the most part the day was borning. Talon wasn’t working with her so she had to do all the trades and stocking herself, which sucked since some jackass decided to bring in his entire PS2 collection, granted there was a prime copy of Rule of Rose in there that Phasma thought of putting to the side for Talon, as well as copies of Haunting Ground and Ku-On. Phasma used her employee hold to keep Rule of Rose to the side for Talon as she priced and put out the rest of the games. Unsurprisingly, Haunting Ground and Ku-On got snatched up right away, along with a few of the other more rare games the guy had. Other than that she spent the rest of the time playing Mega Man on her PSP, waiting for the day to end already.

===

After taking his laundry back home and putting it away, Finn went to the used bookstore he always visited to see what graphic novels they had. Aside from a handful of Marvel Essentials and DC Archive Collections they didn’t really have anything this week for him. He had hoped for months now that someone would trade in the TPBs of Frank Miller’s Daredevil run but alas, some dreams just don’t come true. Feeling defeated, he stopped by the grocery store to pick up something to eat for the night. After some careful consideration he decided on the pizza hot pockets for the night. After getting home he spent the rest of the day watching shitty youtube videos with Mirta, he heated up his hot pockets and went back to his room to video chat with Phasma until he fell asleep.

===

After Phasma’s shift ended she sent Aphra a text asking if she wanted to hang out, since it had been a while since the two saw each other. Aphra texted back “Absolutely!” and Phasma got the idea to invite Talon as well, with Aphra’s permission of course. After confirmation on both ends the three made plans to meet up at this small ramen shop that Aphra had discovered and, to Phasma’s relief, Talon and Aphra hit it off well. The night was spent eating ramen and sushi and watching Aphra get progressively more and more drunk, since she was the only one who didn’t drive. Eventually Aphra’s drunkenness led to her not-so-subtly flirting with Talon, who found it hilarious. After the bill was paid and Phasma drove Aphra home she went back to her apartment, giving a quick nod to Ben and Rey as she went to her room to Skype Finn until she passed out.