Chapter Text
Once again, Amber had been making their rounds around Pelican Town- stopping at Pierre’s to grab some more seeds to grow in the upcoming spring season with the end of winter around the corner. The little bell of the door rang as they pushed the door open, the turn of Pierre’s gaze to them while also catching the eye of someone else.
“Amber! Nice to see you today.” He smiled, as chipper as always. His brooding daughter, however, seemed to burst through the door that connected to the store and their house, not acknowledging their presence just yet.
“Dad, the wifi’s acting up again and now my homework isn’t fuckin’ loading! Why can’t you at least- Oh, hey Amber.” She went from yelling at her dad to being slightly embarrassed at the sight of her farmer partner.
“Abigail, you know I can’t reset the router while I’m tending the store. Can’t you do it?”
“I have to do it every time, man! You don’t ever reset it yourself!” Abigail grumbled, glaring at him.
Farmer Amber, of course, completely oblivious, merely asked, “What homework?”
“...what? Oh, hon, don’t worry about it. It’s just for college. I’ll go reset the router and then die as I look at math.” Her tone softened when speaking to her partner, seemingly less agitated, though more so sarcastic.
“Abby, you’re doing math? I could help you if you’re having trouble with it.” Her partner seemed hesitant to budge on their offer.
“Babe, you really don’t need to.”
“Come on, I’m the best at math!”
“Right. Like when you miscounted the amount of seeds you bought the other day.”
“ Hey !” They frowned, while Abigail smiled at them being annoyed by her teasing.
“Sure though, you’re always welcome to hang out with me, your wonderful girlfriend .” She seemed to put emphasis on the last bit of that sentence, with her father giving her a questionable glance as well as Amber, though merely keeping to himself at the cashier.
Taking her partner’s hand, she led them to her room, a strange anger in her gait at her father being uncomfortable with the relationship she had put herself in. Willingly, of course- Amber had been the nicest soul in town to her, and it’s not her fault that she thought the farmer was cute. She did wish her dad had been less annoying about his discomfort with it and had been more accepting- but that was what you got with a small town, she supposed.
Bringing her into her small room and closing the door behind her, the walls decorated with uniquely drawn fish and mammals, clearly painted by her a long time ago though still seemed recognizable and vibrant in nature. Letting go of her significant other’s hand, she strode over to her computer desktop, sitting down with a huff on the blue stool that stood next to it.
“I appreciate the excuse to hang out with me. I didn’t get to see you a lot this week.” She smiled at them, while they followed suit to stand near the desktop, staring at the windows computer that seemed more ancient than their grandpa.
“I missed you! I’m sorry, I’ve been busy with tending to the animals. Winter sucks, but I’m glad we can just relax together for once.” They returned the smirk, placing their hands on her shoulders before leaning forward and giving her a quick peck on the cheek. Letting go, they moved to her right side before sitting down on the carpet.
“Oh- shit, do you want a chair? I can go grab one from the dining room-”
“No, you’re fine. I’m in my element.”
Abigail raised a quizzical eyebrow. “One with the dirt?”
“The dirt. I’m just one big worm.”
“A worm who’s good at math, apparently. So, uh, are you sure you’re actually good with this?”
“Well, what math are we doing?”
“It’s uhm, algebra two-”
“Oh shit, really?!” The expression on their face was surprising to Abigail- she had never seen them so surprised and clearly thrilled...by math?
“Yeah, uh, why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because I miss that shit! Do you know how passionately I hate calculus? Stuff like algebra makes me remember when school was actually fun.”
“Ew, nerd. Then give me all the answers or I’ll take your lunch money.” Abigail laughed, glaring at them.
“Uh huh. I get it, you hate learning. Bet I can teach you something though.” They smiled, waiting as she clicked the refresh button the computer again, hoping the browser would go through this time.
“Alright, I’ve got one unit so far of homework and it’s on limits. Do you uh, know anything about those?”
“I have no limits on my knowledge of limits.”
“You know what? I need to go find that bouquet you bought me and give it back, I can’t date a nerd .”
In a mock whine voice, Amber pouted, “You are so mean to me, you don’t laugh at my jokes, and-”
“I love you. But I’m going to die if I keep hearing your stupid jokes.”
“No you won’t!”
“I just might.”
“I guess… these jokes have really hit your limit?”
“Oh, you’ve done it. I’m breaking up with you right now.”
“Noo!”
A third party interrupted the question, though from a distance. “Is everything alright in there?”
“We’re fine, mom. Don’t worry.” Abigail raised her voice to respond to Caroline’s worried question.
“If you say so. Keep it down though.” Her mother seemed to shrug it off enough, the sound of creaking wood appeasing their nerves.
“I’ll call her back if you keep being mean to me like this.” Amber challenged, though only received a scoff in return from their girlfriend.
“OK, without making jokes, how do I solve to get the limit of this function?” Abigail pointed at the screen, of which Amber scooted on the ground a bit closer to the desk before sitting upright on their knees to see the problem in mind.
“Alright, do you know how to factor?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Great place to start! So, what we want to do is simplify this equation into two parts that when multiplied can become the equation we have. We use foil technique-”
“ I don’t think we own tinfoil.”
This response absolutely startled Amber. “I-IT DOESN’T NEED REAL TINFOIL THOUGH?”
The dawning realization in Abigail’s response said it all. “Oh.”
“Abigail. Please.”
“I’m doing my best, fuck you.” She laughed it off, while Amber held their face in their hands for a brief moment. This was going to be a long night.
After figuring out that foil stood for first inner outer last and not aluminum foil, the duo had managed to get further through the set of online homework problems, with Abigail reading them outloud and Amber grabbing paper to write down and explain everything. The first few problems were a breeze- the simple explanations combined with lax attitude Amber had made for a quite comfortable method through the math madness- mathness- as Amber had called it before Abigail chased them around the room with scissors as a genuine threat.
Then they started carving into the meat of the homework assignment. Finding the limits of piecewise functions cosecants was not fun.
“Okay, it’s kind of a lot, but we can do it! Come on, you got through all those other questions. You’re at 65% for the total assignment!” Amber cheered, while Abigail groaned, leaning back and staring at the ceiling of her room.
“I have two brain cells, and they can’t do math anymore.”
“Come on! You can do it! We’ve only got 7 problems left.”
“Nothing could make me want to even look at the computer anymore. I’m tired.”
“Not even me, your partner?”
“Hm...no.”
A bit surprised by her hesitance, they thought before they finally realized what to say. “I’ll give you a smooch if you get through the next seven questions and get them all right!”
“You can’t establish a barter system like this- it’s not even fair trade.”
“A smooch per question?”
“That sounds better. More doable.” She turned her gaze back to the computer, gazing at it ever so tired nonetheless.
“Alright, so, what do you do to find the secant of this?”
“I use… sine?”
Once again taking on a mock whiney voice, They spoke, “Nooo! What’s secant?”
Realization stepped in for a bit, but not completely as Abigail spoke. “Shit. Shit it’s one over sine-”
Gasping once again in mock dramatica, They cried out, “No!! When will you learn!!”
“Oh fuck, it’s one over cosine! Oh shit! Oh fuck! I know things!” She held a hand over her chest as to point at herself before grabbing her calculator and punching in numbers, calculating the value she needed before typing it in.
Clicking the small annoying “check answer” button, she awaited the slowly loading results of the page- for it to finally show up as “Excellent,” earning her a quick kiss on the cheek.
“Ugh, I forgot how much I actually missed being with you all the time. We should go to the mines more often.” Refusing to let them go, she grabbed her sleeve before being the kiss perpetrator herself, earning the surprise of them.
“We can- soon! I still need my wonderful girlfriend to finish her homework first.” They laughed, pressing their forehead against hers briefly before pulling away.
“Six more! Let’s go!”
It took another half hour to burn through the other six questions, though thankfully none of them were any worse than the previous ones. At best, they were worded awkwardly, but that’s just how math questions were sometimes. Throughout the process, one question earned her another kiss- though if she had gone through a question without asking them for assistance she would occasionally get more than one.
Abigail glanced at the submission box before checking it off, seeing that her first homework assignment for the week had a 100% for it. That was a first.
“Here we go- we’re done. Oh shit, wait, I’m done. Huh. This normally takes me like, days to do on my own. We did that in what- 2 hours?”
“You did that! I told you you could.”
“All thanks to my looser partner who thinks math is cool!” Abigail snorted, receiving a soft elbow against her shoulder.
“More like thanks to your partner you now have, get this, three functioning brain cells! Not two anymore!”
She closed the window, before turning on the stool to face Amber better.
“Wow, you did that.”
“I sure did. You should invite me over for homework more often- I get to feel smart and you get to finish your work early for once, and best of all I get to be with you for a bit!”
Ever in her consistent sneering tone, she murmured, “But procrastinating is fun .”
“And so is making out with my girlfriend except for when she pushes off her homework assignments.”
“Man, you’re only doing this for math- you willing to write an essay for me too?”
They laughed. “Absolutely not .”
Her mocking persisted nevertheless, “I can offer one kiss for every word you write for me.”
“What’s your word count need to reach?”
“Two thousand per essay.”
“Oh, absolutely not.”
“Coward.” Abigail snickered.
“You know what? I sure am! A coward in love with an idiot.”
“I didn’t understand pi once and you won’t let me live.”
“Well, if I can’t have you, then no one can!” They laughed, grabbing her hands and hoisting her up from the chair. Abigail took control of the jive, taking one of their hands and spinning them around, before pulling them in against her.
The duo laughed for a moment, before she found her arms wrapped around their back, her head against theirs, and the soft silence interrupted only by their breathing. She wanted so badly to lean in, attempting to reach their lips with hers-
“Abigail! Lights out!”
“UGH, I know already, Dad!” Groaning, Abigail begrudgingly pulled herself away from them as they giggled, yelling once she opened the door to speak through.
Taking this as a sign to leave, they grabbed their small bag of seeds they had bought earlier, walking over to Abigail at the door before speaking.
“I can’t stay overnight- but I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? Promise! Text me, alright?”
“I wish I had more problems you could solve with that dumb brain of yours.” Abigail murmured, grabbing hold of their hand briefly and entwining her fingers between theirs.
“I’ve got a problem at hand. How do I stop my girlfriend from being so darned cute!” They smiled, lifting her hand to their mouth and kissing it before pulling away.
“Text me when you get home!” Abigail shouted as her partner made their way through the hall and out the main entrance of the store, the soft jingle of the doorbell echoing through the now dark halls. She returned to her own room, only to wait a few minutes for a cat meow on her phone to alert her of a text she received. By then, she could only check it, sending a cat with heart eyes emoji before getting too comfortable in her bed, falling asleep with the hopes of not being alone in that same bed the next time she slept.