#he eats green tomatoes like apples . he's just a silly little guy

[july-19th-club]

overall i really like that space sweepers has next-to-no romance in it; like, even the grieving father never had a partner, he was a single dad. bubs isn't boy-crazy, just super girly, and we know nothing whatsoever about tiger's romantic history (i think he's gay, specifically in a belligerent 'whaddaya got, a problem? a brutally violent cartel hitter can't be gay? get off my ass' way). and i think this opens a lot of room up for other interesting kinds of relationships. but i also love that the only person with what MIGHT be a sexual history is captain jang, with a stereotype of a Lovelorn French Man who she POSSIBLY had a one-night stand with and he's still thinking about it years later while she behaves as if she's never even heard of him to such a doth-protest-too-much degree she is almost certainly also, sometimes, thinking about it. it's a very minor subplot but at the same time i got the distinct impression that jang doesn't really hate him per se, he's just, like, her embarrassing ex-friends-with-benefits who she wishes wasn't actually a pretty nice guy

[rosefinnigen]

Feedist Kinktober day 1!

Prompts:

Story:

“Isn’t it kind of late to plant pumpkins?”

She shakes her head, pulling the homemade apple sucker she bought at the last booth out of her mouth with a pop. “Mm, I thought that too, but the guy said these are a fast-growing varietal or something,” she says. “Look, here’s one he planted in August.” She shows me a picture on her phone.

“Wow. That’s impressive,” I say, but I’m not buying it. There’s no way a pumpkin that big was only planted two months ago. But I’m not about to ruin her fun. I mean, the worst that happens is she plants the seeds and they don’t grow, right?

Honestly, I’m surprised —not that she got the seeds, mind you; she’s always getting into little projects like that — but that unlike her other pet projects, she actually stays pretty dedicated to this one. I mean, she did leave the kitchen a mess with all the potting soil, but other than that, this is the most attentive I’ve ever seen her to something that requires this much patience.

I’m also surprised because it does actually seem to be growing pretty fast. The day after she plants it, she pulls me over from my desk and shows me excitedly the tiny, curling green sprout poking up out of the dirt. “It’s our baby!” she exclaims, which our cat seems to take personal offense to.

She’s taken to reading it stories. She’s also taken to eating all the cherry tomatoes I got for my salads, but I can’t be that mad at her — she’s so cute about it, popping six or seven in her mouth at a time so her cheeks bulge out like a little hamster. She’ll sit there on the kitchen floor next to the pot, a snack in one hand and a book in the other, like it’s her favorite spot in the world.

“Talking to plants is good for them! We want our baby to grow up big and strong, don’t we?” she says.

By day five, it’s starting to grow its first leaf, and she makes up this little song about it — “oh, pumpkin baby, pretty green girl~ Prettiest pumpkin in the whole wide world~!” I actually think she’s the prettiest pumpkin out there, but I don’t say it.

“Man, there is not enough room in this kitchen,” she says day nine. Half of that is probably just because she’s covered every available surface with cookie sheets, but the other half is definitely the vines that have started sprawling over the tile and climbing up the cupboards.

Well, and we have to consider that her ass brushes the opposite counter when she bends to take things out of the oven. Did it always do that? I honestly don’t remember. The cookies are great though, especially smothered in homemade apple butter.

“Come look, babe! It flowered!” She calls on day sixteen as I’m bringing in the groceries. She’s sitting on the floor next to the pot, holding up a bright yellow flower for me to see. She’s also not wearing any pants.

“What, were you so excited about the plant you forgot to get dressed?” I laugh.

“N-no!” She says, flushing bright red. “I just… I couldn’t find any pants that fit me.”

Well, not like it matters when it’s just the two of us here. I bend down and kiss her forehead, then give her belly a little poke. “You’re going to blend right in at the pumpkin patch,” I tease, which makes her blush harder.

“Don’t be silly. Anyway, is that food? What did you get?”

The flower only blooms for a day. The next day it’s closed and wrinkled, and she pouts, poking it worriedly. She perks up alright when the oven dings to let her know her cornbread is done, though. (Between you and me, the cornbread is also gone within the day.)

Mind you, I was just joking around when I said she’d blend in at the pumpkin patch. But when the actual gourd starts growing, if I didn’t know better I’d honestly think she was trying to prove me right. Although mostly I’m just worried that between her and the rapidly widening orange abomination she dotes on we won’t have a kitchen at all by the end of October.

“Look how big our baby is getting!” she coos on day twenty-four. Her belly squishes over the top of her new sweatpants — in her favorite sunset orange, of course. The pumpkin looks almost pale in comparison, and she’s definitely got it beat on roundness.

“What are you going to do with it?” I ask.

“Pie, of course,” she says.

It takes our neighbors coming to help just for us to get the pumpkin off the floor and onto the table so we can cut it up, once Halloween comes around and it’s finally fully ripe. Of course, we thank them for their help by sending them home with two of the pies we make from the thing.

I was worried at first that it would have been too big to be flavorful, but she proves me wrong pretty quickly, eating so fast she gets whipped cream all over her chubby cheeks. (I did have some pie myself, mind you, but it’s hard to focus on flavors when someone’s being that cute right in front of you.)

“You gotta stop letting me eat so much,” she groans the morning after.

“Mm-m, no way,” I mumble into her neck, still half asleep but squeezing her a little tighter.

“I’m serious,” she laughs, kissing my nose. “Like it’s not even funny, do you feel how round I am?”

“Mhm,” I nod. “Prettiest pumpkin in the whole wide world~” I sing sleepily.

I hope we grow an even bigger one next year.

[xxlovendreamsxx]

halfway across the world. rated k.

A/N: I was going through my WIPs and this was one I had been doing for a zine that I dropped out of. It was almost finished so I thought why not finish it. It fits the prompt for day 1 of our beloved otp month. Also there was supposed to be more but this is just wholesome in its mood and idk what followed would have been way too dramatic so I just put that plot bunny in the garbage. Who knows, I may revisit in another prompt. But for now, here, have this soldier!au drabble. It’s kinda meh but w/e. I just wanted to get the WIP out lol. 

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It had been five hours since a messenger soldier had arrived at their location to report the sight of Akatsuki heading towards the village they were stationed at, and Sakura was beginning to doubt the validity of the information. She and Sasuke had been immediately sent on lookout duty at the borders of the town, the latter carrying a sniper in case of trouble, while she settled for bringing two handguns and a radio.

To Shikamaru’s calculations, the Akatsuki troop should have been there three hours ago. Sakura wished she had thought of bringing provisions; her mouth had long grown dry by now, and her stomach had hollowed out as well, gurgling with painful growls and beseeching for any type of sustenance.

Running the back over her hand over her sweat-slicked forehead, Sakura exhaled a heavy sigh and tipped her head back against the much cooler wall, tired gaze set on the build of her dark haired teammate. Occupied with the meticulous cleaning of his gun, Sasuke took a few moments to notice her staring, black eyes sliding to her in question. A lopsided smile tugged at her mouth just for that.

“I’m hungry, Sasuke-kun,” she said simply, the slightest hint of complaint in her tone. “Do you have anything edible by any chance? Like an apple? Some salted peanuts? I’d take anything at this point, seriously. My stomach feels like it’s eating itself.”

Sasuke cocked his head a little, eyes full of mirth as he watched her for a moment. But then he nodded, reaching for a pouch inside his military vest. Sakura practically jumped forward in excitement.

“It’s probably not in good shape,” he said, as he pulled out a protein bar and bent towards her to hand her the snack. Too eager, Sakura snatched it out of his grasp, eyes so wild with hunger that she just barely missed the way his lips twitched in return. “…But then again, it looks like you don’t care about that.”

Fiddling with the wrapping with so-hungry-she-was-clumsy fingers, Sakura giggled and stuck her tongue out at him, giddy from his light teasing.

“Honestly, it could be ten years old right now and I still wouldn’t care,” she said, taking a ravenous bite from the nut-filled bar and finding herself utterly unable to hold back her satisfied moan.

Quickly, she devoured the rest, paying no mind to how Sasuke cleared his throat, focused solely instead on relishing every little bite she could get. She turned to look at him with the most brilliant smile when she was done, eyes gleaming even brighter when she found him there, still cleaning his gun with one hand while the other was outstretched towards her with a half-filled bottle of water.

“You’re my absolute favorite person in the world, did you know that?” Sakura said, grinning as she took the offered drink, taking a few deep swigs. She wasn’t sated in the least, but at least both her hunger and thirst had been quenched a bit now, and that was all she could ask for.

Sasuke’s lips twitched again. He merely nodded in return. “Don’t mention it.”

Letting her head fall back against the wall once more, Sakura let out a long, deep sigh, content. She closed her eyes.

“…I can’t wait to go back home,” she murmured after a moment, grin fading into a small, pleased smile. From the way she was sitting, she could feel some of the sun’s almost-too-hot beams blaring on her skin from one of the two windows in the room. For a moment, she imagined she was back home, and not in a poor village of a mindlessly hot desert halfway across the world, hanging out on her parent’s back porch on a hot summer day. 

Mm, what she wouldn’t do to get a taste of her father’s divine watermelon lemonade right now.

Sasuke would probably like it too since it wasn’t too sweet, she mused, smiling wider as she cracked one eye open to glimpse at him. She sighed contently again and slipped it back shut.

“I haven’t seen mom and dad in so long,” she went on. “It’s been two years—can you believe that? Mom even says she’s got all my presents stacked in the closet so that I can open them when I get home.”

“You still get presents?” Sasuke asked, sounding completely astonished. Or well, as much as Sasuke could sound astonished, anyway.

Blinking her eyes open once more, Sakura met his gaze, straightened up and grinned. “Yup. Probably always will for as long as I live,” she said, brushing away a sweaty lock of her unbelievably bright hair.

Sasuke’s eyes softened, so much it warmed her heart and left it feeling like goo. She felt her stomach flutter as the look he gave her, so full of awe and pride… and dare she say, even a little envy.

She understood exactly why that was when he murmured, “You have good parents.”

Her smile lessened, giving way to something sadder, more bittersweet. It always hurt to think about how Sasuke no longer had an immediate family; when he was only eight, both his parents died in a car crash, and just a few years ago, his brother had gone MIA in the war. The latter is what had made him decide to enlist, full of hopes that he might one day find his brother.

But every year, those hopes were steadily declining, from what Sakura could sadly discern.

Swallowing the tightness in her throat, she flashed him a sweet smile. “Yeah, they are, aren’t they?” she said. “I’m so glad they decided to support me in the end when I wanted to enlist with you and Naruto. I know it’s hard on them, especially in times like these—and dad wanted so much for me to get a medical degree and work in a hospital, so I know it was especially hard on him. It would have been nice, but I don’t know… my place is with you guys. And I’m glad they came to understand that.” She paused, for a beat. A grin split her lips. “But they are counting on you two to look out for me. Because if anything happens to me, mom says she’ll do you two twice as bad.”

A faint smile pulled at Sasuke’s lips, finally, and he shook his head, undeniably amused. Sakura giggled, heart flipping and pounding away, all too delighted with herself. Making Sasuke smile was always an achievement in her book, especially since his smiles were so far and few these days.

She tucked her hair back again, clasping her hands in her lap a little shyly as they stared at each other. Sakura cleared her throat subtly, but still kept smiling. “They asked about you, you know?” she said.

Brows rising slightly, Sasuke blinked once, twice. “…Really,” he replied, sounding a little dubious.

But that didn’t surprise her; in all these years they’d known each other, Sasuke’s interactions with her parents had always been quite limited—especially since none of their hangouts had ever taken place at Sakura’s home. The most her parents had seen of Sasuke had been when he would pick her up beforehand or drop her home afterwards. The last time they had seen each other was two years ago at the airport, right before they were going back to the military base to be deployed, and they had hardly exchanged words.

It was only natural that Sasuke would assume they simply didn’t know each other enough for them to genuinely care about him.

Her smile shifted to something gentler. Silly man.

“Yeah. They did,” she said. “They said they worry about you, sometimes. Said you looked… lonely.”

(“he’s got practically no meat on his bones since he left—honestly, sakura, are you sure he’s even eating? poor boy looks like a lost, famished puppy. do i need to send him one of my care packages?”)

Lip curling at the corner at the memory, she set her attention on Sasuke again, heart buzzing with warmth at the sight of him, jaw slackened and eyes just barely widened. He was clearly stunned.

Eyes crinkling too happily, Sakura grinned at him and shifted to firmly nudge his thigh with her boot. “I told them you’re not, obviously,” she declared, winking teasingly. “Not with us around.”

Sasuke’s lips quirked, gaze melting again; looking so fond, so tender—so impossibly at peace. Gods, how she loved him so.

“Hm. How could I be?” he replied, eyes gleaming, teasing. “Naruto’s a loud idiot, Kakashi won’t stop lecturing me about the road of life, and you never leave my side.”

Her green eyes widened. That little—

Bursting into laughter, Sakura shook her head, throwing the not quite finished water bottle at his head. Sasuke caught it, but she kept laughing, wrapping her arms around herself as she shook and grinned and giggled.

Sasuke was smiling again when she stopped a short minute later, and Sakura heart flopped for the umpteenth time that day. She smiled back, feeling so full. Complete.

She made a silly face. “Oh, you’d be dead without me and you know it, Sasuke-kun,” she teased. And that was true.

Gaze flashing with some playfulness, Sasuke huffed, “So would you.” That was true, too.

Maybe when they would both go back home, she could finally tell him how she felt.

.

.

.

“Hey, Sasuke-kun?”

“What would you do if we were back home right now?”

“….Tomatoes.”

Laugh. “What, really? You’re so weird!”

“Tch. Yeah, whatever.”