Work Text:
Tick
Tick
Tick
Tick
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Bzz bzz
Leafy looked down at her phone to see an inbox message from Tumblr. Her old friend Coiny had sent her an ask.
‘This is the Beautiful People Award! Post it in the inboxes of someone you think is beautiful, anonymously or not! Nothing will happen if you break the chain, but you can go about your day knowing someone thinks you're beautiful!’
Aww, Coiny was so nice. Leafy grinned and glanced behind her. She’d send it back to Coiny and knew exactly who to send it to next.
The past few weeks had been dull for Pencil, and it was only made worse yesterday when Leafy showed up in the exit. She almost thought it was better being alone. She wished Match had gotten eliminated, not because she wanted Match out, but because she would much rather have her best friend over Leafy. Maybe it was petty to have a grudge over her for this long, but if everyone else did, why not? Plus, her evil counterpart had EATEN Freesmart! (Sure, Evil Leafy probably wasn’t Leafy, but they were the same object, and they had the same name and seemingly the same grudges, so it was close enough.) (And, sure, even Evil Leafy wasn't that bad, but eating Freesmart was bad enough, right? Sure, they didn't get hurt, but still! Evil Leafy!) (The more Pencil thought about it, the less it made sense, so she decided to stop thinking.)
At least it was less boring having someone to bully.
Since Leafy showed up, Pencil had spent almost all day cursing her mentally and tossing paper airplanes. The problem was that Leafy never seemed to care. It was like she didn’t even feel the airplanes — if she did flinch, she never reacted. Pencil was starting to get irritated. How could someone go an entire day completely ignoring the only person she shared a space with? Sure, there was the small off-room where they were supposed to sleep, but Leafy couldn’t get there because the door was next to Pencil’s desk, and even if she did approach the area, she pretended Pencil wasn’t even there. It was creepy. She had no reason to be ignoring Pencil. She had no work to do, she wasn’t on her phone, she wasn’t doodling, she was just. Ignoring. Pencil tossed a balled-up paper covered in doodles at Leafy, but she just smiled and kicked it back.
Pencil groaned. No matter what she did, Leafy never seemed to notice her. She was considering doing something more extreme. Maybe if she stopped her on the way to the –
Bzz bzz
Pencil looked down. She was also on Tumblr and had gotten an ask from - LEAFY!?
‘This is the Beautiful People Award! Post it in the inboxes of someone you think is beautiful, anonymously or not! Nothing will happen if you break the chain, but you can go about your day knowing someone thinks you're beautiful!’
From… Leafy? Pencil was startled. She glanced up to see Leafy smiling at her. Such a stupid smile. Pencil frowned. stupid, beautiful smile. Leafy giggled silently and turned back around, carefully adjusting her bright blue tie as she returned to daydreaming.
Pencil couldn’t believe this. Leafy must have done that to bother her. Why wouldn’t she? She had every reason. And Pencil had every reason to be mad about this. She must have done that on purpose, waiting for her to get upset. Well, it worked. Pencil immediately began to devise a plan to get back at her.
She felt like she’d just started thinking when Leafy approached the desk counter behind Pencil. She walked past her like always, but now, she smiled and waved at the writing utensil. Pencil immediately started to fume. She could just smile at her?? Of all the things Leafy could have done, she fucking SMILED!? The sheer disrespect on display was enough to stun her — she was the leader of an entire, massive alliance, and Leafy had the nerve to SMILE at Pencil!?
Pencil stood up and grabbed Leafy’s tie as she walked past, effectively stopping movement and forcing her to meet Pencil’s face. Leafy grinned.
“Hi, Pencil!” She choked out, looking at her tie instead. Pencil glared.
“I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, but it needs to stop, alright?” She scowled. Leafy tilted her head.
“What do you mean?” She asked. “I’m not playing any game. We’re eliminated, remember?” She giggled softly, and Pencil groaned.
“You know EXACTLY what I mean, Leaf.” She stood so Leafy had to look up to meet her eyes. “You’ve been… well, you’ve been messing with me. And it’s over.” Leafy sighed.
“You’re being crazy, Pence-Pence,” she said. The nickname alone was enough to infuriate Pencil. “I’m just trying to appreciate you. That’s it :)”
“‘Appreciate’ or not, you’re irritating.”
“I think you’re just too flustered to admit I’m teasing!”
Pencil stopped. “What?” She asked after a beat.
“Well, I’m just saying you’re taking it all a bit too seriously!” She tilted her head the other way and grinned. Pencil frowned but let go of Leafy's tie.
“Whatever,” she resolved. “Just go.” She crossed her arms and sat back down as Leafy finished whatever she needed — (apparently, she was grabbing a paper for doodles?) — and sat back down in front of Pencil.
The rest of the week went the same as the first day. Pencil tossed stuff at Leafy, who promptly ignored it unless Pencil was bothered, in which case Leafy would giggle. It was getting routine, and Pencil was growing bored. Maybe it was time to give up trying to bug the leaf.
Saturday was their first off day. Pencil spent the entire time on her phone, and Leafy kept flitting between like ten different activities – doodling, playing sudoku on her phone, staring out the window, scrolling Tumblr, talking to herself, and back to doodling, then back to sudoku, all while humming some song Pencil had never heard before. Pencil didn't know how she kept up with her thoughts because she couldn't even keep up with her from outside. It must be different in there, She resolved. Leafy was now walking around, examining the things on the wall. Then, as soon as she'd gotten up, she sat back down and leaned back as if she'd just done a bunch of work. Pencil was baffled.
That's when she noticed that Leafy hadn't yet watered her plant. It was sitting on the windowsill to the left of the desks; Pencil checked the clock and realized Leafy was supposed to water it an hour ago. Leafy seemed to care more about that plant than she did herself – she’d never forgive herself if she let it wilt even a bit.
Should she have done it? Probably not, but Pencil leaned forward and tapped on Leafy's shoulder anyway.
“What's up?” Leafy asked as she whipped around. Pencil jumped; Jeez, she's hyper. Not like that was news to her, but she couldn't help being surprised with everything the leaf brought.
“Your, uh, plant.” She said, pointing to the potted plant on the windowsill. Pencil never bothered to ask what kind of plant it was, but she thought the leaves looked like citrus. Or, at least, the cartoon versions of them. Leafy grinned.
“Oh my tree, thank you!” She said, getting up and reaching for the watering can. “I completely forgot! I'm supposed to water you every day, I can't believe I…” Pencil zoned her out as she talked to the plant. It was like her train of thought never stopped or even slowed down.
Leafy was a weirdo.
A cute weirdo, but a weirdo nonetheless.
“Pencil!” Leafy suddenly cried. Pencil jumped in her seat and looked up to see Leafy standing right in front of her desk, leaning over so she was eye-level with her.
“Jesus Christ, Leafs, why are you so…” She trailed off before saying what she meant. Leafy didn’t seem to notice.
“Do you wanna learn about plants?” She asked eagerly, grinning widely. Pencil took a deep breath.
“Leafy, frankly, no, I don’t.” She was tired and annoyed and didn’t want to hear Leafy’s voice anymore; she would never say that, but she would think it all day. She couldn’t say it to Leafy. She wished Match had been eliminated instead. Match’s rambling would at least be more tolerable. Unfortunately, Leafy didn’t seem to take no for an answer.
“So there are these things called stomata, they’re at the bottom of the leaf, and their job is to breathe for the plant, so they take in carbon dioxide and they let excess water out, and the carbon dioxide goes into the plant and it helps make sugar, which is made by photosynthesis, which is how plants turn sunlight into food, and along with the carbon dioxide — which, by the way, is the opposite of how animals and other objects breathe, which is oxygen to carbon dioxide, plants go carbon dioxide -- co2 – to obj- oxygen — and then-”
It was like she never ran out of breath!! Pencil was overwhelmed already. How could she remember all this off the top of her head? And HOW did she have SO MUCH ENERGY!? Leafy continued to yap for what felt like hours – something about ‘zai-lum’?? At some point, she began to walk around while still talking about plants, and Pencil covered her ears in agony. At times like these, she wished most she’d brought her MePod.
Suddenly, Leafy stopped talking and sat on the window beside her potted plant. She (finally) looked tired. She grabbed the plant and held it near her chest, adjusting the leaves to expose them to the sun.
Fuck, she was pretty. Pencil never thought she’d say it, but something about the way the sun made her seem to glow even brighter than usual made Leafy look like an absolute angel to her. Despite scolding herself mentally, she couldn’t look away from the leaf. She took a small breath, taking in all of what she could see of Leafy.
This was the one thing so far that Leafy did notice. She smiled such a beautiful smile and approached Pencil, who promptly snapped out of it when she realized.
“Hi, Pencil!” Leafy said. She said that a lot. “You were staring at me.” She grinned and sat on the floor next to Pencil, staring up at her as she groaned.
“Hello, Leafy,” she said back. “What do you want.”
Leafy smiled silently, thinking of what to say. After a moment, she looked back up.
“You hate me,” she said. “Everyone does. But everyone hates you, too.” She pointed out. Pencil was taken aback.
“What? No, everyone loves me. I’m the leader of an alliance – the alliance. Why would everyone hate me?”
“You got out first.”
“So did you. I don’t see what you’re getting at.”
Leafy sighed. “Listen, Pencil, I’m saying I get you.” She put her hand on Pencil’s leg. “I get you more than you realize.”
Pencil rolled her eyes. “So? Even if I cared, I still can’t talk to you. You’ve done too many bad things and everyone in my alliance hates you for it.”
“But you don’t.” Pointing out Pencil’s slip seemed to catch her attention. “Everyone in your alliances hates me, but not you.”
Pencil looked away. “Well, I do. You’re annoying and weird.” Leafy shook her head.
“You don’t hate me,” she corrected. Pencil didn’t argue. “Everyone else hates me, though. And everyone hates you; except for me. I like you, and you like me, and we have no one else.”
“What are you saying?”
Leafy stood up and looked straight into Pencil’s eyes for the first time since meeting her.
“Do you believe in second chances?”