i need 'stoner ben solo owns a dispensary in competition with weed lovin' rey's organic marijuana farm' prompt thing...
@luminous-stardusts
Legalization’s the goal, Ben reminds himself through grit teeth.
That sort of pseudo-nu-age-optimism makes his stomach hurt, but it’s also the only thing keeping him from molotov-ing the new dispensary across the street. Ben’s has been a tried and true staple of the medical community for three fucking years and this hot-shot recreation shop just rolls on in and swipes up a good forty percent of his clientele.
Yeah, Ben Solo’s an advocate for ‘smoke and be merry’, but he also really likes being able to pay his bills.
Kushkiller base’s neon sign hums to life, the distant, and stale scent of the front foyer greets him as he turns the card in the window from closed to open.
He knows he’s got a good half hour before any of his regulars stroll in, so he takes the time to roll himself a slender joint. His daily dose, high CBD indica’s, the strain today a personal favorite he’d had a hand in growing himself. Vader OG.
His lungs are steel by now, an effortless roll turned to ash within five minutes; the back office filled with smoke and he reaches blindly for his Visine, knowing that red eyes made him look even less approachable than usual.
And in competing with this new upstart, he can’t afford to be his usual brooding, offputting, asshole extraordinaire, self.
Its really gonna put a damper on his whole ‘nihilism-chic’ but he figures having enough money to buy oreo’s is as good a motivator as any.
He walks out front to puff on a menthol, preferring to not smell like cigarettes in an herbal establishment. Of course, this means he has to acknowledge the purple elephant in the room ( street ? block ? ), that is the glaringly gaudy ‘Resistance Recreational Dispensary’.
All done up in soft pastels, it looked like Willy Wonka collaborated on some pop-punk bullshit and just glaring at it makes his teeth hurt.
There’s someone opening their front door- a girl, he thinks, short, in an all-black Adidas hoodie ( he’s like seventy-five percent sure he has the same one ), and her hair hanging in three, loose buns.
A female entrepreneur in the weed industry is a rarity, but Ben’s all about shattering the glass ceiling or whatever, Leia Organa’s legislation had been crucial in the fight for medical usage and now, recreational. Its imbued him with respect, and recognition of a lot of shitty male stoner stereotypes he sees in a solid half of his customers.
It’s disheartening, but she seems to be doing okay.
The new shop sits between a fucking Taco Bell and frozen yogurt place, whereas Ben’s by a dog-washer, and a real flower florist – its sort of funny how many people went into the wrong place, the mix-ups providing him with at least one giggle-fit a day.
Weird-hair girl catches sight of him glowering, and waves. Ben waves back because his mother didn’t raise the asshole he’s currently impersonating, and he remembers the scared kid he’d been when foraying into the business world for the first time.
He’s not gonna be the reason she fails, but she might be the reason he does.
Irony is an ugly mother fucker today.
Turns out, the weird-hair girl’s heartbreakingly beautiful.
Ben learns this because an across-the-street wave doesn’t meet her sunshine quota or whatever powers her megawatt smile. She bounds over to him, all freckles and sunkissed skin and hazel eyes that make him feel like he’s back in high school with weak knees and a penchant for saying the weirdest shit to any girl who looked his way.
“Oh, hey.” Ben croaks, coughs, and tries again. “Nice shop.” He doesn’t manage to sound welcoming, but at least it’s without the venom he’d felt in the week leading up to now, where he’s watched them set up and advertise and wanted nothing more than to burn it to the ground.
She continues to smile, and he notices it makes her nose wrinkle around it and his stomach has decided it vacate the premises when it lodges itself in his throat and he’s grateful that she takes it as her turn to speak.
Or, he’s damned by it, the jury’s still out.
“I’m Rey.”
Her accent is smooth, and of course, her name’s some sunbeam shit like Rey.
“Ben.” Offering his name by way of reply, gruffly.
Rey just giggles at that and claps a hand over her mouth, “ I’m sorry. they say it’s a bad practice to get high on your own supply but you’d find it much easier to alphabetize if you’re not miserably sober while you do it. makes me all bubbly though – didn’t mean to laugh. I swear it.” Rey gives him a two fingered salute and he’s smiling.
She organizes her strains by name?
Ben would mock that shit in an instant if it were anyone else, but all he wants to do is congratulate her on being the single greatest human being between the two of them. And also — he’s smiling?
???
Either the flower he’d smoked earlier had opened up a parallel universe where he had a personality that wasn’t comparable to sand-paper, or Rey, in like, three whole minutes of existing near him, has made him overcome his decade-long aversion to smiling.
Ben’s so completely fucked.
He’s also just been staring at her in shellshocked silence since she’d finished talking and he realizes how big of an idiot he must look to her right now.
“Oh yeah, you’re good. I smoke my own bud. I mean, it’d be sorta weird to buy someone else’s?” He shrugs noncommittally, attempting to come off as blase but really, Ben just sounds like a dick.
Rey laughs, and Ben smiles for the second god damned time.
Is she a witch?
More importantly —
—is she single?
“I’d buy from you but I can’t get a medical card, hence the recreation assimilation.” Rey waggles her fingers in a mock, spooky gesture, and now its Ben’s turn to laugh, but it sounds more like a bark because the neighborhood humbug is out of practice.
Ben toes the sidewalk, and ashes his cigarette against the stucco wall behind him, watching as Rey tracks the smoke with her heavily lined eyes, and when she bites on her lower lip thoughtfully, Ben thinks his traitor dick has acquired self-sentience and was one bad-line away from leaving him behind.
“You can come into the shop. If you’ve got a seller’s license it isn’t an issue.” Not true, but he kinda hopes she won’t call his bluff.
Rey doesn’t.
She does pull out her phone and offer it to him, “Well, red-eyes white dragon. Its bad form to smoke alone. Shoot me a text next time, maybe we can have a little friendly competition.”
Ben keys in his number with embarrassing quickness, and Rey messages him with a little sunshine emoji, and Ben catches himself before he smiles a third time – that’s just excessive.
He’s about to say something, but Rey’s already crossing back over her side of the street, but she calls over her shoulder.
“Show me yours and I’ll show you mine.” Gesturing to the window, and clearly in reference to her stock.
Ben’s dick isn’t smart enough to know the difference and he almost blacks out in front of his store.
