Work Text:
“And don't forget, she needs to go out at least three times a day, okay?” Poe says anxiously. Kylo, with difficulty, resists the urge to roll his eyes.
“Yeah, Poe, I’ve got it, you told me that twice already. Take her out three times a day, feed her twice a day, walk her once a day. I promise I can remember that. Write it down if it makes you feel better.”
“Maybe I should,” Poe mutters under his breath, and this time Kylo really, really can’t stop himself from rolling his eyes. “Oh, and always make sure she has fresh water. I said that, right?”
“Yes,” Kylo groans out. “I swear I’m not completely incompetent, I can keep your dog alive for a few days. We’re gonna be fine. Plus, she loves me. Right, honey?” He coos at the chubby bobble of Corgi currently waddling around his legs.
BeeBee looks up at him adoringly, her pink tongue lolling out of her mouth, and sits down on his feet. She’s heavy (probably heavier than she should be, but you won’t catch Kylo saying that to Poe), and his toes start to hurt mere seconds after she sits down, but it’s not like he’s going to move her. How could you stand to disappoint something with a face that cute?
Poe sighs. “Alright, alright. I’ve gotta go or the taxi is gonna leave without me.” He adjusts the strap of his duffle bag and kneels down. “Bye, BeeBee! Come say bye to daddy!” BeeBee leaps off of Kylo’s feet - thank God - and launches her stocky little body at Poe, covering his face and neck with slobbery tongue kisses. “Awh, daddy’s gonna miss you, baby. So, so much.” Poe sounds like he might legitimately cry.
“Do you two need a moment alone?” Kylo asks dryly.
Poe stands up, sniffling, swipes at his eyes. “No, nope, I’m going. I’m going. Be good, honey.” He then fixes Kylo with what is clearly supposed to be a threatening look. “Don’t fuck this up.”
What Kylo wants to do is make a scathing retort, but due to the sudden dryness of his mouth, all he can manage is a slow swallow. It isn’t Poe he’s afraid of (Poe is capable of very little true meanness, and even less violence, even where his beloved dog is concerned), but if something happens to BeeBee while she’s with Kylo, Rey will, without a doubt, exact revenge on Poe’s behalf, possibly by cutting off all of Kylo’s hair while he’s asleep, as she’s threatened to do multiple times in the past.
So, yeah. He’s not gonna fuck this up.
Poe finally heads out the door with a few more farewells and air-kisses to BeeBee, and then Kylo and BeeBee are alone in his apartment. BeeBee stares at the closed door for a few seconds, then looks expectantly up at Kylo, tilting her head, one of her triangular ears flopping over.
Kylo turns to walk into the kitchen and BeeBee rushes to follow him, banging her head into the backs of his ankles as he walks. He fills a bowl with tap water and sets it on the ground, leans back on the counter to watch her drink it. She’s as enthusiastic about drinking as she seems to be about everything else in her life, and flecks of water and dog spit fly everywhere as she slurps up the water. Oh well. It’s not like his kitchen floor was all that clean to begin with.
Kylo vastly prefers dogs to cats, but he has to admit that dog-sitting is shaping up to be far more work than cat-sitting. He’s watched his uncle’s cat before, and that mostly consisted of putting out food and changing the litter box once every few days while wondering where the hell the cat itself was hiding. Kylo doesn't really mind the extra work that comes with watching Poe’s dog, though. He’s got embarrassingly little going on in his life at the moment, unlike Rey and Finn, who are both swamped with work, which is why he’s the one watching BeeBee for the next few days while Poe goes out of town to visit family rather than one or both of them.
He’s making eighty bucks for his troubles, but if he’s being honest with himself, he would have agreed to watch BeeBee even without the cash incentive. Kylo can count the total number of friends he has on one hand (doesn’t even need the whole hand, frankly), and he’s actually looking forward to having another living, breathing creature in his apartment for the next three days, rather than spending the entire weekend shut up in here alone, listening to music and trying to pretend that he really and truly likes being alone all the time.
And yeah, it’s a bit pathetic that he’s so excited to spend time with a dog, but even though BeeBee can’t hold a conversation, she’s not stingy with her affection. Poe is, obviously, her favorite person, but Kylo can say happily that she's as excited to see him as she is to see Finn or Rey. That’s far more than he can say for Uncle Luke’s cat, who absolutely adores Rey, and hisses like a demon whenever Kylo gets anywhere near her.
BeeBee has finished her drink and is staring up at him once again, panting like she’s been running. Kylo guesses that anything is a tremendous effort when you're that round and low to the ground.
“What do you wanna do tonight, BeeBee?” Her ears perk up, and her stubby tail starts to wag furiously. “I’m thinking sushi and then I introduce you to the musical genius of The Smiths. Do dogs listen to music? Fuck, I don't know.”
Great. He’s already talking to her like she can understand him. By the end of this weekend, he’s going to be crazier about this dog than Poe.
For a dog of her size, BeeBee is impressively strong; Kylo has to work a lot harder than he’d anticipated to prevent her from dragging him down the sidewalk as she strains against her harness, her short legs moving frantically. When she stops to sniff at a bit of trash on the sidewalk, Kylo adjusts his grip on her leash, shifts the plastic bag of sushi to his other arm. He’d gotten some dirty looks when he’d hefted BeeBee up into his arms to go into the restaurant and pick up his food, but fuck if he was going to leave her outside, even for the maybe forty seconds it had taken to get the sushi and get out. His shirt and face were the only surfaces she’d gotten hair and slobber on in the entire restaurant, so the bored-looking teenage girl behind the counter had handed him the plastic sack of sushi with nothing more than a disgruntled glance - and for all Kylo knew, that could just have been her default expression.
BeeBee loses interest in the piece of trash and continues toddling along the sidewalk. Thankfully, she seems more content to meander now, rather than trying to rip the air out of her own lungs pulling against the leash. Kylo relaxes a little and loosens his vice grip on the leash, sure that now they’ll be able to get back to his apartment without incident.
He is absolutely wrong.
Up ahead, a man turns the corner, walking swiftly up the sidewalk towards them. He’s dressed primly in a dress shirt and slacks, and clutched in his arms is a ginger tabby cat nearly the same shade as his shock of bright red, neatly combed hair.
BeeBee sees the cat. The cat sees BeeBee.
Before Kylo can even register what’s happening, BeeBee lunges towards the cat, ripping the end of her leash out of Kylo’s hand. She tears off down the street as fast as her little legs can carry her, hurtling at full speed towards the man and his cat. The cat scrambles up the man’s shoulder and leaps - Kylo hears him yell something that sounds like, “Millie, no.” Then the cat is landing on the sidewalk and sprinting down the street with BeeBee in pursuit.
For a moment, Kylo and the red-head are both frozen to the spot. “Holy shit,” Kylo chokes out, and then he starts to run. “Holy shit, fuck, fuck! Fuck, no! BeeBee! Come back!”
It takes him a few seconds to realize that the red-head is running next to him, the two of them almost in step as they bob and weave through people on the street, narrowly dodging cafe tables and mailboxes. He feels a sudden hot spike of anger, fueled by fear that BeeBee is gonna get hit by a fucking car and die and it’s gonna be all his fault, and even though the man doesn't really deserve it, Kylo decides starting a verbal altercation is probably the best course of action to take.
“Why the fuck,” Kylo snarls out, and Ginger’s head snaps around to face him, “-does someone just carry a loose cat down the fucking street? What the hell are you thinking?”
"She’s on a leash,” Ginger bites back at him. Even over the harsh sound of their breathing Kylo can hear that the other man has an accent, something stiff and pretentious-sounding that he can’t quite place. “If anything you should have been keeping a better hold on your dog.”
“If anything, your cat should be in a fucking carrier,” Kylo retorts, even though the other man is right, he never should have loosened his hold on BeeBee’s leash for a second. He can’t even see the cat or BeeBee up ahead anymore, just the faces of surprised-looking people that let him know they're still headed in the right direction. He imagines the squealing of tires, BeeBee’s tiny body lying still in the road, and he swallows the lump of guilt that rises in his throat.
“Well, when we pick what’s left of her out of your horrible mutt’s teeth, I’ll be sure to put the pieces in a carrier,” Ginger huffs out. A lock of his once perfectly-groomed hair has come free and is bouncing against his forehead, slicked with sweat.
“Are you fucking kidding me, she's a Corgi, she’s not fast enough to catch your stupid cat. She’s gonna chase her across a street and she’s gonna get run over and die.”
The sidewalk ends abruptly and Kylo and Ginger are left blinking, a little stupefied, in the crosswalk, where a green car honks and swerves around them, the driver giving them a dirty look through the window. Miraculously, there is no small orange and white body lying dead in the middle of the road, and across the street from where they're standing is a stretch of grass and trees - a park.
Kylo’s scanning the edges of the park, looking for any sign of BeeBee, when Ginger grabs his arm. “There, look,” he says, pointing, and then he’s unceremoniously dragging Kylo across the street and into the park. He’s right, though; BeeBee is underneath a tree several yards away, her front paws propped on the trunk, barking sharply. The cat, presumably, is somewhere among the branches of the tree.
Kylo pulls his arm out of Ginger’s grasp and runs towards BeeBee, snatching up the end of her leash and wrapping it twice around his hand for good measure. Upon seeing him, BeeBee sits down with a soft plop and gazes up at him, tongue dangling, looking obscenely proud of herself. ‘Look what I did!’ her face seems to say.
Kylo peers up into the tree, and sure enough, about halfway up, sitting in the crook of two branches, is Ginger’s cat. He puts his arms under BeeBee’s torso and drags her a little bit away from the tree.
“Will she come down if you call her?” Kylo asks the other man, who is looking anxiously up at his cat. He already feels bad about losing his temper; Ginger must have felt just as distressed at the thought of something happening to his cat as Kylo felt about something happening to BeeBee. And while BeeBee is now panting safely in Kylo’s arms, Ginger’s cat is still about twenty feet up in a tree, where she could jump out at any second and break every bone in her body.
The man shakes his head. “No, I-I don't think so. Not with your dog down here,” he says, eyeing BeeBee.
Kylo looks back up at the cat. Her black leash is dangling down between the branches, and he wonders briefly if he should try to grab it, but he’s afraid to pull on it, worried she’ll get hurt if he does. Kylo sighs, standing up.
“I need you to hold BeeBee,” he says, passing her leash over to Ginger and dropping his bag of sushi. Ginger immediately wraps the leash around his hand the way Kylo had before.
“What are you going to do?”
Kylo doesn't answer. He unzips his hoodie and drops it on the ground next to his sushi, then approaches the trunk of the tree, cracks his knuckles, and starts climbing. He hasn’t climbed a tree in years, can’t quite remember exactly how it’s supposed to be done, but luckily his height makes up for his lapse in tree-climbing knowledge. He hefts himself up about halfway to Ginger’s cat and pauses. The branches only get thinner the further up they go and he’s not entirely sure he’s going be able to get any higher than this; he’ll have to get the cat to come to him.
“What’s her name?” He calls down to Ginger.
“Millicent,” the man says slowly, almost reluctantly, like he doesn't quite want to own up to it. “Millie, for short.”
“Hello, Millie,” Kylo croons, turning his face up towards the cat. Millicent stares back at him with large, lamp-like green eyes, but she doesn't move. “Come on, Millicent, you sweet thing, come here.” He extends a hand to her, trying in vain to reach her, but he’s still several feet short. He lets out a frustrated groan, letting his hand fall. He can’t get any closer to her without risking breaking his own neck, or possibly scaring her and making her jump out of the tree, and she seems unlikely to come to him, unless -
Kylo quickly clambers down a few feet, kneeling in the crook of the tree, and reaches out towards Ginger. “Hey, hand me that bag,” he says, pointing at the grocery sack, and Ginger does so, kneeling to grab it and then handing it up to Kylo. Kylo reaches in and pops the plastic top off of the sushi container, pulling out a piece of salmon nigiri. Ginger makes a sound of disapproval.
“Are you really going to give her that?” He asks, sounding exasperated. “She’s meant to be on a diet.”
Kylo barely, barely resists the urge to flick the piece of raw salmon at Ginger’s face. “Do you want me to get her down or not?” After a split second of hesitation, the man nods tersely, and Kylo climbs back up the tree.
“Millie, look what I have,” he practically sings at her, holding out the piece of nigiri as close to her as he can manage. “Come on, sweetheart, do you want a treat?” Millicent’s ears swivel towards him. She is definitely looking at the sushi. He waves it even more vigorously in her direction. “Come on, Millie, I know you want it.”
Millicent shifts on the branch, sticks her neck out. Then, with only the tensing of her legs as warning, she pounces on his arm. Kylo’s entire life flashes before his eyes and he is sure that he is about to fall out of the tree and drop Millicent and kill them both, but he’s underestimated the strength of Millicent’s claws, which catch on his shirt sleeve, giving him time to quickly bring her into his chest and regain his footing. He’s quick to offer her the piece of sushi before she can make another wild jump out of his arms trying to get to it, and she eats it in a few quick bites, which miraculously do not sever Kylo’s fingertips from his hands. She shifts after she’s finished eating and he squeezes her a little, but she only adjusts slightly before settling back down in his arms, seemingly content.
Kylo creeps back down the tree as quickly as he can without the use of his arms. He reaches the main crook of the tree and is about to jump down when he sees BeeBee eyeing Millicent, her stubby tail working furiously.
“I’m gonna need you to pick her up,” Kylo says to Ginger. “Unless you want to deal with another chase.”
Ginger looks at BeeBee and then at Kylo, the look on his face slightly incredulous. “I don't think that I can pick her up,” he says.
“She’s not that heavy,” Kylo says irritably, a bit offended on BeeBee’s behalf. She might be overweight for her height but she’s no Great Dane.
Ginger hikes up one eyebrow, but bends dutifully to scoop BeeBee into his arms. He hefts her up, and then staggers backwards a little, his knees shaking, but he doesn't drop her and that’s good enough for Kylo. BeeBee is extremely pleased with her change of locale and sets about thanking Ginger with several long kisses to the face.
Kylo jumps down from the tree. The impact of the landing stings his ankles a little. But he’s down, and Millicent is purring contentedly in his arms, completely unharmed, so he thinks that a little ankle pain isn't much to complain about, in the grand scheme of things.
“She’s alright, isn’t she?” Ginger asks with a note of worry in his voice, trying to lean away from BeeBee’s kisses long enough to see if his cat is hurt.
“She’s fine,” Kylo says. “Purring and everything. You’re lucky,” he adds. “Cats usually hate me.”
Ginger’s eyebrow goes up again. Kylo finds himself wondering if that’s something he does a lot. His eyes are green, like his cat’s. “Well, Millicent usually hates everyone who isn’t me, so I’d say you got lucky. But you did give her sushi.”
Kylo’s eyes wander to the spilled bag of sushi on the ground and he tries not to feel too beaten-down at the fact that he’s going to have to find himself another dinner. He becomes aware that he is still holding Ginger’s cat, and Ginger is holding BeeBee, and they're just sort of staring at each other in a generally awkward kind of way.
“We should. Um.” Kylo clears his throat, gestures a little with Millicent. “How are we gonna exchange?”
Ginger looks down at BeeBee like he’s forgotten he was holding her - which makes no sense considering his reaction to picking her up - and then looks at Millicent. “I guess I should….here, I’ll put BeeBee down, and I’ll take Millicent, and then you can take the leash out of my hand, okay?”
Kylo nods, and the man kneels down to rest BeeBee’s paws back on the ground. Before BeeBee can build up the momentum to make another leap for Millicent, Kylo hands the cat over to Ginger and takes hold of BeeBee’s leash, tugging her a safe distance away. Luckily, she doesn't seem interested in trying to reach the cat anymore; evidently, her little escapade has tired her out, and she’s content to sit down, panting heavily, at Kylo’s feet. Fuck. He’s going to have to carry her all the way home.
Ginger gives his cat a scratch behind the ears, says something scoldingly to her that Kylo can’t quite make out. It’s reminiscent of the way Poe talks to BeeBee all the time, of the way Kylo’s been talking to her in the short time he’s had her in his care, and he feels a pang of a guilt run through him.
“Listen, I’m really, really sorry about this,” he starts. The man glances at him, his pale lips parting a little in apparent surprise. “You were right, I should have been holding on to her leash better. And I’m sorry for sort of freaking out on you, I was just really, really worried something was going to happen to her.” He’s over-explaining, talking too much, but he can’t seem to stop himself. “She’s-she’s not really my dog, she belongs to my cousin’s friend, and I don’t know how I would have told them I’d let something happen to her while I was taking care of her.”
Ginger runs a hand through his hair, apparently trying to straighten it out but only succeeding in rumpling it even more. “It’s alright, it really isn't your fault, I shouldn't have had Millicent loose like I did. I’ve been trying to leash-train her, for exercise, but it really hasn't been going all that well, and today it put her and your dog - sorry, BeeBee - in danger, so I suppose it might be time to give up on that.” He sighs, then looks back up at Kylo. “And thank you, by the way, for going up there and getting her down safely.”
It’s a little warmer out than Kylo remembers it being - didn't he have a jacket on? - and there’s a tickle of something in his throat that he desperately needs to clear. “N-no problem,” he says in what he hopes is a perfectly normal and casual voice. “I’m just glad that nobody got hurt.” BeeBee looks at him and barks, almost petulantly, as if she feels like she is being ignored and wants to let him know that she isn't at all pleased about it. “Hey, shut up, you, you're in trouble right now.”
Ginger actually cracks a smile at that, and it changes something in his face, makes him look younger, green eyes lighting and the harsh planes of his face smoothing out. Kylo makes an extremely valiant effort not to stare - or, at least, he makes it look like he isn't staring.
“Well, Millie and I won’t take up any more of your time,” Ginger says, shifting the cat around and nodding towards Kylo’s deserted bag of sushi. “I’m assuming you’re going to need to replace your dinner.”
Kylo groans a little at the reminder. “Yeah, I - yeah.” He picks up his hoodie, scrapes the spilled pieces of sushi back into the bag. When he straightens back up Ginger is looking at him.
“I don’t suppose you’d let me pay for that?” He asks, and Kylo blinks a little in surprise. “Since it’s technically my and Millicent’s fault that it’s ruined.”
“It’s okay, really,” he says quickly. He feels like it would be rude to accept, and then he wonders if it’s ruder to refuse, and then he thinks that he has to get out of here before he completely embarrasses himself in front of this man whose day he’s sort of absolutely ruined.
“It was, um. Nice. Meeting you?” Kylo says. He kind of wants to fucking kick himself in the head.
“Yes, nice meeting you,” Ginger says, sounding slightly uncertain.
Kylo turns away, letting out a breath of relief he didn't know he’d been holding, and starts to walk away, BeeBee trotting along at his heels. He doesn't make it very far.
“Wait!” He hears behind him, and he, of course, stops in place, turns back. Ginger closes the bit of distance between them.
“If you won’t let me pay for your dinner, then let me get you coffee sometime,” he says decisively. “As a thank you.”
Kylo’s heart does something absolutely fucking stupid inside his chest that he furiously ignores.
“I, um. Okay.” He bites his bottom lip, a bit too hard, a nervous habit he promised himself he would stop doing but hasn't quite yet, and sticks his hand out. “Give me your phone,” he says, with a lot more confidence than he actually feels.
Ginger shifts Millicent to one arm and pulls his phone out of his back pocket, punching in the passcode and dutifully handing it over to Kylo. Kylo puts his number into Ginger’s contacts, adds the name Kylo Ren - then puts an emoji of a dog next to his name, the closest he can find to a Corgi, so Ginger doesn't forget who he is.
He hands the phone back, catching Ginger staring at his hands when he does so. Kylo remembers, a bit too late, the chipped black nail polish decorating his fingernails and pulls his hand back self-consciously, stuffing it underneath the hoodie hanging from his other arm.
Ginger glances at his phone and then back at Kylo, offering him a shy sort of smile. “I’ll see you soon, I guess.”
“Yeah, see you soon,” he echoes back. “Bye, Millicent.”
Ginger gently lifts one of Millie’s paws to wave goodbye to him. It’s ridiculously silly and ridiculously endearing. Kylo immediately goes to his knees so that he can return the gesture with BeeBee’s stubby front paws.
Ginger actually snorts, and Kylo desperately tries to keep the grin off of his face as stands back up, hefting BeeBee with him. “Okay, really, goodbye for real this time,” Kylo says firmly.
“Yes, yes, goodbye,” Ginger says, amusement tinging his voice, and then he is turning away, and Kylo is turning the other way, grinning so hard that his cheeks hurt. He can’t resist sneaking one more glance behind him, and he’s rewarded with the sight of Ginger’s retreating back, Millicent peering over his shoulder, both of them lit by the setting sun, red hair glowing faintly.
He’s halfway home when he feels his phone vibrate in his pocket. He plops BeeBee back down on the sidewalk; surely she’s recovered enough to walk the rest of the way back to his apartment. He pulls out his phone. One text from an unknown number.
‘Kylo Ren? Surely that can’t be your given name.’
Kylo snorts out loud, typing out a reply.
‘I guess youll find out when u have coffee with me’
He’s unlocking the door to his apartment when the next message comes.
‘I guess that I will.’
Kylo kicks the door shut with his heel, letting BeeBee off her leash. She darts around excitedly, reacquainting herself with Kylo’s apartment. He shoves a pile of laundry to the side with his foot on the way to the kitchen, and BeeBee stops to thoroughly investigate a few socks and pairs of jeans.
Kylo sets BeeBee’s water bowl in the sink to refill, flicks on the tap.
He types out, ‘see, now we have a problem…u kno my name and i don't know urs’.
The water is spilling over the edge of the bowl and he quickly turns it off, taking it out and setting it on the ground. He sits cross-legged on the kitchen counter as BeeBee tears around the corner and starts lapping it up. His phone buzzes in his hand.
‘Oh, yes, I suppose that is a problem.’
Before he can figure out how to respond to that, another message comes in.
‘I’m still not sure I believe ‘Kylo’ is your real name but….mine’s Hux. Brendan Hux.’
Kylo looks down at BeeBee. “Don’t think you’re not in trouble anymore just because you might have gotten me a date,” he says, trying to sound cross. BeeBee shakes out her fur, looks up at him expectantly.
He still needs to feed her, and then feed himself, and then expose Poe’s dog to the greatness that is The Smiths and possibly several other bands, but first, he saves the unknown number in his phone as ‘Hux.’ Then he adds a cat next to Hux’s name, so that he doesn't forget.