Work Text:
Arabella leaned against the back of the Scoops Ahoy counter, tilting her head up so she could look at Robin standing beside her. Robin’s hat sat at a dangerous angle on her head, but it hadn’t tried to jump into anyone’s ice-cream yet, so Arabella didn’t leap up to fix it. That and, if she leaped up to fix it, Robin probably would have gotten in trouble, because the only people that were supposed to be behind this counter were employees, and Arabella certainly was not an employee. Well, technically she was an employee at the mall, but she didn’t think that would get her very far here, at a shop that she most definitely was not employed at.
Robin put the money in the till and handed the customer their change. She stayed standing for a few moments but, as soon as the customer had left, she dropped down to the ground beside Arabella again, as she had been before the steps of a customer approaching the counter had forced her to get up. Giving Arabella a smile, Robin stuck her hand into the paper bag and pulled out a sour cherry, placing the candy she had acquired on her tongue.
“I thought you said the shop was normally empty at this time of the morning.” Arabella repeated what Robin had told her that morning, when she had showed up at Arabella’s door in her work uniform, before taking her own candy from the bag and popping it in her mouth.
“Maybe I lied so you’d come and hang out with me,” Robin replied. She pressed her back against the counter beside Arabella, and Arabella turned her head so she was still looking at Robin. “And it’s not that busy. If you weren’t here, I’d be bored out of my mind right now.”
“Hey, at least you have a co-worker who’s almost the same age as you,’ Arabella shot back, before covering her mouth with her hand as she yawned. Robin’s arrival at her house had resulted in Arabella being rather unceremoniously woken from not quite enough hours of sleep.
“Bella, you stock the shelves every night before the store closes. I don’t think you can really say you work with anyone.” Dropping her hand, Arabella opened her mouth in faux shock but, when Robin winked at her, it turned into a laugh. She threw a hand over her mouth again, this time to muffle her laughter, just in case someone was on the other side of the counter.
As Arabella’s laughter died down and she looked across at Robin again, she noticed that Robin’s own muffled laughter had knocked her hat off her head and sent it tumbling to the ground. Arabella reached over to pick it up, leaning close to Robin as she placed it gently back on top of her head, using both hands to make sure it wasn’t on an angle this time.
“Oh, thanks.” Arms still raised and holding the sides of the hat, Arabella’s gaze drifted down from the hat and onto Robin’s face. Arabella found her eyes stuck on Robin’s for a moment. Arabella had always known that Robin’s eyes were blue, but she had never properly looked at them. As she did now, she found that they were made up of two different shades of blue rather than just one, like clumsily mixed together paint left behind after an art class. Or perhaps they were more like the ocean; a mix of the deep blue water and the lighter blue foam that rose from the waves.
Arabella blinked, dragging her eyes away from Robin’s eyes. They landed on Robin’s cheeks and, noticing that they had gone red (and feeling her own beginning to do the same), Arabella let go of the hat, shuffling away from Robin a little, putting a bit of distance between them. Feeling her cheeks burning even brighter (and hoping to avoid Robin seeing it - even though it was probably far too late for that now), Arabella’s eyes scanned the floor, moving until they landed on the paper bag. Arabella picked it up and looked inside to find a single piece of candy still sitting inside.
Arabella held the paper back out towards Robin. “The last sour cherry, my lady?”
Robin opened her mouth to respond, but the bell on the top of the counter sounded before she could. Robin’s eyes shot up above them, before lowering themselves to Arabella again. Robin smiled and mouthed all yours before springing up to her feet, a wide smile on her face as she addressed the customer at the counter.
Arabella took the last sour cherry out of the bag, tilted her head back, and dropped it into her mouth.