Work Text:
Ava had a pretty set routine. She woke up, heated up coffee from the night before, mixed it with a bit of Monster and let it settle as she got ready for work, headed to work, ate from the roach coach for lunch, finished up work, headed home, got her coffee ready for the next day, and then tinkered around with something until she headed to bed at 9 pm sharp. Some nights she went out with coworkers, some nights she played games with friends, but that was about it. She was settled, she was content, and she had no immediate plans on changing that.
Unfortunately for Ava, the world apparently did not get that memo.
After work on a particularly unparticular day, she pulled up to her first floor apartment to see a… frog? Looking thing sat down outside her door. It was quite yellow, had a smushed face, and was sat there, panting, as if it owned the joint. As she got closer she could recognize it as a dog, not a frog, but with the way its little limbs splayed out she forgave herself for thinking that some giant bullfrog had invaded her welcome mat. Growing up Ava had had plenty of family but no pets. Her parents had always joked (and complained) that her younger siblings could be a dog if she wanted one so badly. They said that but didn't appreciate her actually trying to treat-train her younger siblings nor did they appreciate the rope she put around their necks, calling it a ‘leash’.
In her defense, she had been eight years old. They should've known better.
In any case, there was now a dog that looked an awful lot like a squat gremlin making itself comfortable outside her front door and Ava had extremely limited experience with… this. As a whole. She kind of scooted by it, unsure if it was going to be aggressive or not, and then quickly unlocked her door and stepped in. She didn't close the door quick enough because the frog-legged dog was quicker than she thought and in a flash had welcomed itself into her apartment. Ava stood with the door open, staring dumbly as the dog crawled up onto her couch with all the grace of a fish climbing a tree before setting its head on the arm of the chair with a sigh, as if it was saying it's about damn time.
“You don't live here.” Ava said out loud, as if that would help. The dog only peered at her before huffing again. It didn't seem to be inclined to listen.
.
“Are you missing a dog?” Ava asked her neighbor. Khan, an absolute mammoth of a man in almost all aspects of the word, raised his eyebrows at her.
“Y'ever seen me with a dog?” He asked. The thing was.
The thing was.
He had a dog. Connected to him at that very moment. A giant red thing that Ava would swear up and down was a wolf was actually his seeing eye dog.
“Okay. Yes. Not what I mean. Do you have another dog besides Clifford that is missing?” Clifford raised her head with interest at her name being said. Khan rubbed between her ears as he shook his head.
“Nope. Only got Clifford, and that's only ‘cause she's my service dog. She's way above their weight requirements.”
Ava frowned in disappointment; she was hoping it would've been that easy. She didn't know if Khan had his contacts in or not, but he could tell something was off because he turned fully towards her.
“What's wrong?” He asked. Ava hesitated; she wasn't even sure he could help, but he was asking, so…
“There was this dog on my porch when I got home today. Just. Sitting on my welcome mat. I tried to get around it but when I opened my door it walked in and helped herself to my couch.”
Khan grunted, though Ava couldn't tell if it was in surprise or amusement.
“Aight. Give me a minute. What's it doing now?”
“Still sleeping on my couch.”
“Good. Let me get Cliff's uniform off and I'll come over.”
.
As promised, less than fifteen minutes after parting Khan knocked on her door. Ava opened it up cautiously to find him waiting outside with a pair of thick glasses seated on his crooked nose.
“Huh.” She said. She'd never seen him in glasses before. Khan glared at her and she shrugged before letting him inside. They'd gotten into yelling arguments before, but he had also been the one to knock an ex boyfriend out cold when the bastard thought standing outside her door yelling and threatening her was a good idea. If Khan had done a little more to him after that, Ava maintained she'd kept her door shut like she'd been told and hadn't participated at all. Suffice to say, they got along.
Khan had to duck to get through the door and immediately locked eyes on the dog. His presence must've done something to the air in the room because the dog immediately sat up from where it had been snoring on her couch and locked its eyes onto him. Khan walked over to it and the pair stared at each other for a moment. Some truce must have been agreed upon because Khan reached out and ran his hand over the dog's neck, frowning.
“No collar,” he said, “but…” he peeked between the dog's stubby legs, “...she's well groomed, so not a stray.” He gently prodded at her squashed face and ears, lifting and examining things that Ava half wondered he was making up. “Teeth are in good condition for a frenchie. Wrinkles are clean. Ears are clean. I'd wager she's someone's pet that got out. How long's she been here?”
“About an hour?” Ava offered; she wasn't entirely sure but that sounded right.
“Sun's still out… I'll lend you a slip leash. Take her out, knock on doors, see if someone recognizes her.” Khan suggested. Ava stared as the dog began to gnaw on one of his giant, gnarled fingers.
“Is she biting you? Is she aggressive?” She asked, mildly concerned.
“Nah. Just mouthy.” Khan ruffled the dog's head, removed his fingers, and stood up. He wiped the slobbered-on fingers on his pants as he headed for the door. “Be right back.”
.
Ava had been out for another hour now, walking and stopping and talking to anyone and everyone about the dog. She had knocked on doors, she had stopped walkers, she had even made a post on Facebook about it. Someone had told her to just keep it, someone else had said take it to the shelter, and someone else had said take it to the vet and have them scan it for a chip. All decent advice, but Ava kind of wanted to ask around before she did… any of that. The dog had decided she was done walking about ten minutes ago, and now the pair of them were seated- the dog only a patch of grass by her feet, and Ava on a bench. The dog was panting once again and had decided gnawing on Ava's shoe was a great idea. Her jaw didn't open that much but she was slowly chewing on it and Ava didn't have the heart to stop her. What weighed on her mind more was not finding the dog's owner.
What if she had to feed it? What if she did take it to the pound? What if they put her down? What if she did something and the dog got sick? Should she make her stop chewing on her shoe? Oh god what if she gnawed off her shoelace and swallowed it and it got tangled in her stomach and-
“Elli?!” A man's voice startled her out of her spiral. The dog looked up towards the sound of the voice. A moment later a car screeched to a stop in front of Ava and a man jumped out. She blinked a couple times in surprise.
Hello.
Tall, dark hair that seemed to have been ruffled through (a perfect length to grab with fingers, wasn't it?), broad shouldered…
Stop ogling the stranger, Ava!
“Elli, you oversized nutsack, how the fuck did you get out?!” Despite the somewhat harsh words, the man's voice was gentle. Relieved. And deep. Ava mentally slapped herself again.
“Is this your dog?” She asked. By the way the dog had jumped up, drool trailing from Ava's poor shoe to the pant leg of the man approaching, he must have been. Apparently just now realizing that the dog was not on her own, the man froze. His tanned face turned a bright red.
“I… oh, fuck, you heard that…” He rubbed his face with his hand in embarrassment, ‘Elli’ straining at the end of the slip leash. “Yes, she's mine. I don't know how she got out of the house, she's normally a huge homebody. I'm so sorry, she didn't cause trouble for you, did she?”
Ava knew she shouldn't but something about how he hunched over on himself now made her want to tease him a bit more.
“Not too much… she just dug up my yard, chewed on my welcome mat, and pooped in my house. On carpet.” She replied. The man looked absolutely aghast and stared at his dog in horror.
“Elli…!” He said; the little toad-like dog wiggled with fullbody happiness and no clue about the slander that had just been spread. “I'm so sorry, I'll fill the holes, I'll get you a new mat, I'll pay for cleaning, she doesn't normally behave like that-”
Ava shook her head as she stood up, getting closer to the stranger. Elli met him first, jumping on his leg and barking in happiness.
“I'm just fucking with you, I'm sorry. I was just trying to joke. She was fine. She slept on my couch for an hour until my neighbor got home to help me with her. Um,” Khan had warned her not to just hand the dog over to anyone… “Sorry, but can you prove she's your dog? Just in case, you know.”
The man's face cleared up at the admission of her teasing, relief blatant across every inch of it. He pulled out his phone, nodding quickly. Ava let out a quiet sigh of relief; thank god he hadn't taken offense to that. She had a habit of sticking her foot in her mouth when it came to attractive people.
“Yeah, yeah, I do, one second!” He flipped through things on his phone and when he turned it she realized it was his photo collection. “Here, if you want to-” He handed it over and Ava thought he was taking a pretty good risk handing over his phone to a complete stranger. She took it anyway, flipping through the pictures and noting the singular furry, floppy ear, the matching scrunched face, and the extra wrinkles on the left side of the face. Yep, this was the same-
“Oh.” Ava blinked, blushed, and handed the phone back quickly. She'd flipped too far or something because the last photo she'd seen had been the man before her, shirtless, raising the dog with one hand as if she was a weight. He flushed as well and turned the phone off before slipping it into his pocket. “Sorry about that. I can see she's yours though. Do you have her-”
“Collar! Yes! I don't know how she got it off.” He jogged over to his car and reached in, pulling out a thick, pink, sparkly collar with the name Elli bedazzled onto it. Ava bit her lip because that was way too adorable. He returned and put the collar on, attaching it to a leash and removing the slip leash.
“Thank you! Is there anything I can do to pay you back? I know you said she didn't make a mess at all but-”
“No, not! It's fine. I'm just happy she's home. I've never had a dog before and I was starting to pani- worry about what might happen if I didn't get her back to her owner. Feeding her and all that.” Ava shook her head and smiled. The man seemed a bit disappointed but nodded.
“Alright. Thank you again! I'll get her home, it's past her dinner time and I don't need her chewing off my remaining arm.” He joked. Ava laughed along before waving as he walked away, the pair of them wishing the other a good bye, have a good night, bye Elli!
It was after she dropped the slip leash off with Khan, telling him about the interaction, that she realized she could've gotten his number. She should have. Dammit Ava.
She kicked herself and shut the door a little harder than necessary behind her. What were the odds of them meeting again?
.
A little over a week later, Ava pulled up to her apartment after a thoroughly uninteresting day to see a familiar toad-shaped dog sitting on her welcome mat. The pink princess collar was firmly upon her neck this time, and as she crouched down to greet the dog Ava smiled widely. The collar had a tag with a name, number, and address. She carefully hoisted Elli up in her arm, ignoring the gentle gnawing on her shoulder, as she pulled out her phone and dialed the number.
“Hey, is this Simon? Yeah. Great. This is Ava, we met last week when Elli…? Yeah, she's on my porch again. No, it's fine. Don't worry. I'll bring her to you this time.”