Work Text:
“cmon slow poke! you gotta keep up if ya’ wanna roll with the big boys…” illinois said, swaggering ahead in front of you. you couldn’t tell if he was being serious at this point, but caught up to him anyway.
”so… where’d you say we were going again?” you asked, looking around at the cave’s ceiling, noticing the abundance of cracks in it.
”i didn’t.” he said, stopping to turn and wink at you. “that’s the point, it’s an adventure silly.”
you rolled your eyes and overtook him, looking around for anything, anything somewhat interesting. you and illinois had been walking for about an hour now, and considering illinois’ not much of a talker, it’s been incredibly unrewarding.
”someone’s eager.” he said, laughing at you inspecting the walls.
”yeah, eager to find something actually entertaining because if i’m honest, the sound of you sighing every 30 seconds hasn’t been applause worthy.”
”hey hey hey…” illinois walked up to you, putting a hand on your shoulder, spinning you around to face away from him. “hush with your whining and look over there.”
you didn’t notice anything at first. just more of the dusty tunnels that have plagued your mind since you’d begun speaking to illinois. but then, you saw something. something shining, far down the tunnel of the cave. seeing as you’d said you would “quit” a life of crime to stay with illinois, you would think seeing something of value would frustrate you, knowing you aren’t allowed to take it, but since you and illinois were the only ones to enter this cave, the jewel was all yours, making you grin with desire. you gasped at the sight of it, grabbed illinois’ hand and bolted down the long tunnel, dragging illinois behind you.
”hey!” illinois laughed, his breath hitching as he ran, “how come ya’ didn’t run this fast when we were getting chased by that boulder last week?”
”priorities illy! priorities!” you replied as you reached the end of the tunnel. you stopped, in awe of what you could see. a large blue crystal rested on a stand in a big clearance in the rock. it was glistening, leaving reflections of blue light on the walls. it was beautiful. and had to be worth thousands, although you weren’t sure whether you’d even want to pawn it.
“well, after you.” illinois said, smiling at the look on your face. you walked towards the glowing object and stopped once you were directly infront of it. your hands reached up to touch it, it was warm, strangely, and rough. your hands wrapped around the gem and lifted it. it was heavy too. you were expecting it to be a trap, that when you picked it up the light from it would drain and fire would fly out from all directions and knives would zoom out of the floor and-
oh crap you were right.
the light from the jewel died and you spun around to illinois.
”can you catch?” you asked.
”what?” illinois answered. good enough. you hurled the crystal at him, he caught it surprisingly, and spun to the side as fire sprayed at the place you were once standing.
“holy- y/n!” illinois exclaimed. you replied with a simple “one second” hand gesture as you lept over cracks in the floor, knives barely skimmed the back of your feet as they sprung out of the ground, getting stuck in the ceiling. you cartwheeled, backflipped, jumped, hopped, aerial-ed, all of the above around the room, dodging every danger it threw at you, literally and figuratively. once you’d circled all of the opening you lept into a forward roll out through the arch back to illinois. you brushed yourself off, got up and looked at him, smiling.
”well, i think i earned this.” you said, taking the crystal out of illinois’ hands. the look on his face was priceless. a mix of shock and pride matched his expression.
“…alright then. but i get something for that catch i mean come on.” illinois boasted, holding his arms up to the side.
”i prompted you and there was a significant distance between me and you when i threw it, giving you about 4 1/2 seconds to prepare for it so yeah maybe it wasn’t that impressive, not in love you just yet my good sir.” you smiled, nudging his arm playfully.
”we’ll see.” illinois smirked, linking arms with you as you made your journey back home.