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[dog_eat_dog]

canon, AU, cross-canon, assumed CR, etc etc etc, all welcome




victoryfanfare 

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[dog_eat_dog]

Tess bets goading —— not that he’s immune to that ol’ Texas brand of paternalism, but this many years in, it slides off her like nothing. She’s the one pretending at being a homemaker, anyway, they each have their parts.

If it left this shitty little apartment, she’d have words, but here she laughs dismissively, leaning a hip against the counter.

“A masterpiece of what, over-acting?” she drawls, picking up her glass and raising it to his in a silent cheers. “Isn’t it just Die Hard on a plane? Come on, Tex.”

She knocks back half of her drink.

She will fight with him over movies any day, without hesitation, but it is more fun drunk.

[shittybirthday]

"Die Hard on a plane? Seriously?" Joel challenges, likewise leaning a hip against the counter and fixing Tess with an oppugning look as she tosses her drink back. The smell of their dinner wafts to him, igniting hunger that's been knotted up like gritty tiredness in his gut most of the afternoon. The smell awakens a slight further shift in his mood, from grim surliness towards relief that he's home. Home with Tess.

He, too, takes a swig of his drink. This would be, what — his third finger of whiskey now? Fourth? He wasn't keeping count when he was slugging them back. Whatever. The booze's warming, dulling effects is beginning to soften the jagged, brittle edges of his shit-kicking day.

"Now you've crossed a line," Joel declares, glass lowered with a (playfully) threatening finger outstretched and pointed at Tess. "You asked me what show I'm takin' you to, and this is how you respond: With blasphemy."

[dog_eat_dog]

She has to stir the food before it burns, and she does that, barely taking her eyes off him for more than a glance.

"But you are taking me to a show?" she asks, with a little quirk of her eyebrows and a broad grin.

He's going to be plastered before long, and Tess will take her time catching up, at least until dinner's done. When the stove is off, so are the last vestiges of responsibility before caving into pure hedonism. She imagines them drinking everything they could sell, stumbling into bed too drunk to fuck, and spending all that time grinding on each other anyway. Whatever. They've earned it. They can always make more deals. Let this day die.

She dumps the turkey onto the plates.