#Rex adopted the worst dog ever to convince his man to move in with him. master strategist back at it again playing the long game

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Adorable and tactical. Go Rex!

Firewoodwander Revival Era is GO!!! 🎉🎉🎉💖💖💖

🦌+ Codex ft. Sweet Thing please!!

Wintertime prompts

Cody is minding his own business, nominally. Here he sits, on his usual bench, admiring the way the wind whirls and whips crunchy golden leaves that scatter about the path in miniature hurricanes. Next thing he knows there’s a tiny little nose snuffling cold and wet at his fingers, accompanied by rapid puffs of warm breath tickling the hairs on the back of his hand.

“Hello, Sweet Thing,” he murmurs, and turns his hand to scratch behind tiny ears.

About as long as one of Cody’s forearms—and just about as broad—Sweet Thing is a little scrap of a hound with almost no hair and adorably drooly jowls. She snorts with excitement at the attention and wags her tail so violently her whole body wiggles with it.

“Hiya,” Cody tells her, catching her front paws when she jumps up at his knee, “hi.”

She looks him right in the eye as he leans in to let her lick his nose, then sneezes directly in his face.

Cody barely pays any mind to wiping dog snot off his chin. “Where’s your dad, hey?”

“I’m going to start calling you her dad, seeing as you’re the only one she will ever listen to.”

Scooping up Sweet Thing like a precious, delicate porcelain baby, Cody stands and turns to grin at Rex, who’s strolling casually along the path. Rex smiles right back, somehow still so bright under the heavily overcast sky; they fall into step together to continue around the park.

“She would never leave you for me, old boy,” Cody reminds him. “Surely you know that.”

“She would betray me in a heartbeat for a scrap of bread,” Rex scoffs. “She already has.”

Their elbows knock and their arms brush as they walk, Sweet Thing’s lead swinging lazily from its loop around the back of Rex’s neck and Cody’s hands busy with bestowing tummy scratches on his apparent god dog-ter. She grumbles and yowls with pleasure, and Rex sends an undisguised look of contempt her way.

“I can’t believe you convinced me to take that thing home,” he says.

“You know exactly what was going to have happened if you hadn’t,” Cody (rightfully) complains. They’ve had this argument so many times it’s not even an argument.

“You would have taken her, and all would be well in the world.”

“I couldn’t, Rex. You know I couldn’t.”

Rex sighs and mumbles something that is almost certainly “more fool you for choosing to work at that shelter,” but Cody decides generously not to hear it.

Instead he stoops to let the furball scramble back onto solid earth and scamper away, tail up and nose down following the scent of local pigeons.

“You know,” Rex begins. He has that tone about him that means he thinks he knows what he’s about to say is going to get him in trouble, but he’s going to say it anyway, mostly because he’s a bastard. Cody turns to him, brow raised and amusement at the ready.

“You could just move out of that apartment. I know a place.”

Well. Not what he expected.

“You know a place,” Cody echoes. “That allows pets?”

“And is on the first floor, has parking, a lift, access, is close to the shops and the station.”

“That does sound like a good place. What’s the—”

“Long lease, affordable rent, moderate service charge. Area is okay. Good holonet speeds. Walls aren’t too thin.”

“But?”

Rex scuffs his boot on the concrete as he walks and doesn’t look at him.

“But it does come with a roommate.”

Cody hums. He stays quiet for a while. A long while. Long enough to have walked around half of the pond already, for Sweet Thing to have attacked at least three interloping leaves and come back to check Cody’s still alive each time, and for the trees to set up the perfect ambient rustle. But Rex, steadfast and certain, doesn’t fold even a little. Cody shoves his hands in his pockets and watches his breath spiral into the sky.

“A roommate.”

“A roommate.”

“Anything notable about this roommate?”

“Not much,” Rex admits. “But they come with a Sweet Thing attached.”

Dried out by the cold, Cody’s lips crack and ache when he smiles. His elbow knocks Rex’s again and this time he leaves it there, warm and solid and close.

“Well,” he decides. “That doesn’t sound too bad at all.”