Work Text:
"Hey, OG."
Octoglasses looked up from her phone to see Straw. Unlike usual, her teammate had a nervous look on her face.
"What's up?"
"Um..." Straw mumbled, fiddling with her shorts' belt hoops as she looked down. Her cheeks darkened with a flush, as she stared at the ground. "I...uh..."
Octoglasses lifted a brow as she put her phone case up on the couch, sitting up. The silence was weird, although Straw didn't seem upset from the best Octoglasses could make out.
Straw noogied her slippers on the rug for a few seconds before taking a breath and looking at her teammate.
"So I...got a date–"
The next second was the fastest Octoglasses stood up from her comfortable seat and just gripped onto Straw's shoulder like her life depended on it.
"YOU GOT A DATE?!"
Straw's already bug-like eyes widened even more as Octoglasses ended up yelling one millimeter away from her nose. She let out a squeak as she continued.
"Y-yeah. And I want to make an outfit but my stuff is a bit outdated so I wanna get some new clothes–"
"Say no more, babe!" Octoglasses ran to her room to put something on.
Straw then came over at her door, already wearing a white shirt with a red tennis skirt. While the octoling pulled out some light blue flared jeans with a hot pink crop top (with little hibiscuses bedazzled on, of course), the inkling looked around the house.
“So…who is it?”
“Who is who?”
Octo sighed. “The date, babe. Who’s the lucky girl?”
“Uh, it’s…It’s Jersey.”
“The– the one at the party last month? The cyan one?”
Straw nodded with a small smile and a huge blush on her face. Octo blinked, couldn’t find it in herself to say anything to her. Sure, Jersey lowkey looked like a serial killer like her old captain Mask but…Designer was nice. And he was her twin. So surely she’s nice too?
“Sure…” she said as the two girls came out of the door, with Straw waiting for Octo to lock the house.
“I can drop you off Wahoo if you wanna,” the pink octoling said as she took her motorbike out of the garage. She grabbed two helmets from a cabinet in the corner, her hot pink one and one that has a cute strawberry design printed on it.
Straw nodded as she let her namesake fall on her neck to hang on to put on the helmet.
“Alright…” Octo mumbled as she felt hands slinging around her waist under her leather bomber jacket.
"By the way, have you seen Diver? I haven’t seen him since yesterday morning.”
“Dunno. He’s probably mingling with those three, y’know who.”
“Bummer…I wanna get his opinion too…”
“Babe, are you serious? His wardrobe is full of plain shirts and swimming shorts, please be for real.”
“Yeah he wears the same combo every day for sure but he has very good taste actually, trust me.”
"Ay. Earth to Moon."
The cyan inkling snapped her eyes open at the sound and let out a screech at the sight of her former teammate as she fell down from her bed with the sheets, waking up the purple inkling laying next to her.
A loud THUD could be heard as Moon groaned from the ground.
“You good?!” Aviators shot up from his spot, startling the other inkling laying on the far side of the bed and causing him to almost fall. Diver tried to hold onto a random thing he could find to not fall, and that thing happened to be Aviators’ bare side.
“YOW–” The purple inkling clutched his sides and whipped around to face his boyfriend, who was barely awake and sitting up as well as possible while swaying.
“Sorry Avi…I can kiss it– do you want…” Diver slurred his words as Moon stood up from the ground to growl at Jersey.
“The hell?! I told you to stop picking my locks!”
“I didn’t pick the lock this time, Desi gave me the spare key he had!” Jersey rolled her eyes as Moon continued growling, but stopped when her eyes moved past the octoling’s shoulder. Her expression softened instantly.
“Forgie, you can put that down.”
Jersey turned around to find the orange inkling hiding a pan behind her back with a sheepish giggle.
“Anyway, why are you here? We were sleeping, you could’ve given me a call y’know.”
“It’s–” Jersey’s whole face was covered with a blush as soon as she began her words. “Uhm…”
“It’s…what?” Aviators piped up from his spot, looking at the octoling with a confused gaze.
Jersey felt all four pairs of eyes at her, and the blush on her face got even hotter and she let out a squeak.
(Shit, she lost her aura. Thankfully it was in front of Moon…and her partners…they wouldn’t tell anyone though. Right?)
(...the pink one, maybe. But he was nice. Nicer than Aloha, at least. Tolerable too. Oh how much she still wanted to punch that guy…)
“Earth to Jersey?” The octoling snapped out of her daze when Moon mocked her words earlier.
Jersey looked around again. Forge was leaning on the doorframe with messy tentacles, looking like she just woke up. Moon was looking at her with crossed arms, squinting slightly due to her lack of glasses. Aviators was on the bed without his shades and also squinting a bit, and Diver was clinging to him, on the verge of falling asleep again.
Damn. She really did wake them up, huh.
“It’s…oh, it’s still 10,” Jersey mumbled with a glance at the clock. Now she wasn’t sure why she was blushing, whether it was embarrassment, shame, or…
Right! The date!
“Yeah, and seems like–”
“I got a date!”
Moon stopped talking and let out a huh? at the sight of Jersey’s sudden blurt.
“Y-yeah…I got a date…w-with…uh…” Jersey stammered as she took off her visor and started fiddling with it, her eyes trailing towards the pink inkling in the room.
“...Straw.”
“Who is–”
“STRAW?!” Before he could finish, Aviators yelped when Diver next to him woke up like a damn sleeper agent and ended up beside Moon as fast as the fucking light.
“Uh– yes! Her!”
Diver blinked and looked at her up and down. “How the hell– whatever, when?”
“Tonight?..”
Jersey almost let out another squeak when Diver stepped closer to her with a suspicious stare.
“Where?”
“At Wahoo World.”
“Huh. Alright,” his expression softened instantly, “and let me guess, you have nothing to wear.”
“H-how did you…”
“I just know.”
“Right…”
“Why didn’t you go to Desi?” Moon said while sitting down at the bed with Diver again. “Styling is his interest, y’know.”
“W-well…” Jersey said while scratching the back of her head. “Desi’s busy with a…certain sailor…Also you have a nice style. And Straw said that Diver had a good sense of it too…So I figured both of you can help me out a bit. I don’t have much stuff too so–”
“Then we can go shopping!” Moon beamed. “Right, Dive?”
“Hell yeah, why not? I can get to know your friend, Moon,” Jersey felt her tentacles rising in defense at the sight of Diver throwing a comically evil ass smirk at her.
Moon looked at Aviators and Forge. “You guys wanna come too?”
“Eh…”
“C’moon!”
“O-okay. I wanna look at some stationery for my manuals anyway.”
“Yay!” Moon clapped her hands, then immediately started pushing Jersey out of the room. “Wait for us at the door, gotta change!”
“I feel like I’m being judged,” Jersey mumbled while being squished between Moon and Diver, with Aviators driving while Forge was in the front seat. They all had their own outfits on, probably had them at Moon’s.
“It’s a teammate thing,” Moon said while scrolling on her phone. “You did the same thing to Desi’s date, y’know. The sailor guy. Hell, I think me and Mask helped you too. Even after new teams we all have that teammate thing.” She finished with a grin as she pinched Jersey’s cheek who grumbled in return.
“Yo, what’s your style?” Diver said next to her, his phone on his hand. “Straw likes to wear cute stuff. OG’s with her, they’re at the mall.”
“Wait, so where are we gonna go? I don’t want her to see–”
“The pier, there are a bunch of stores there,” Aviators piped up. “Forge, can you put the marina on the GPS?”
“The pier? You mean the pier that has too much unnecessarily overpriced stuff to feed off of tourists? That pier?”
Moon rolled her eyes at Jersey’s rambling with a chuckle. “Yeah. They’re having a sale today. Alsooo…”
She dug around her purse to pull out a card and winked. “I swiped you-know-who’s credit card! They already earn a fuckton from Grizzco and ranked matches and all the sponsors and stuff. It would be a shame to let this anime figure money go unused.”
“Where’s Mask?”
“They’re outside throwing a tantrum. Luckily we got Ami’s card~”
“Bloody hell– Aloha, you can’t just take that!”
“Aw, c’mon…”
“How about something like this?” Straw held up a white sundress with a pastel pink gradient on the hem of the skirt.
“Plain. Pick up something flashy!” Octoglasses said while handing the pink inkling a hot pink, tight mini dress.
“Nooo…” Straw whined as she pushed the dress away. “I wanna wear cute stuff!”
“I think this is really cute, babe. You could pair this with a mini faux fur jacket and some cowboy boots maybe–”
“Girl, it’s fifty degrees outside. I’m not wearing any fur.”
“That fur doesn’t even cover anything.”
“Whatever,” Straw waved her hand as she spotted a white mini frilly dress with little strawberries embroidered on the skirt. “I wanna wear stuff like this!”
Octoglasses reluctantly slung the dress over her arm. “Alright…I’ll get ya’ myself.”
While Straw continued piling dresses on her arm, Octoglasses whispered.
“Why do you even bother…”
“She’s nice.”
“I’m just saying,” the octoling said. “We’re just worried that this might end up like your previous dates.”
“The hell you mean ‘we’?” Straw whipped her head towards Octoglasses who let out a small shriek.
“Uh– Me ‘n Diver,” she said. “Y-your previous dates hurt you so much and we’re worried.”
Straw turned her head from Octoglasses to the pile of dresses on her arms. “I’m over them already. I wanna look past them and see someone new– someone who made the effort to get to know me and let me know her.”
Octoglasses stared at her friend as she continued while sitting down on a stool and rummaging through dresses.
“Those people didn’t see me but she did.”
“And how do you know that?”
“By actually talking and letting me talk too.”
“Yeah, still…”
“OG, I know you guys are worried. But we’re all in different teams now,” the pink inkling looked at her again with a smile. “I don’t wanna let a few people ruin my experience forever, and I know you and Dive don’t want it too. Besides you guys also changed too, like I did.”
“That’s…true, I suppose.”
Straw stood up and held out a hand. “So let’s stop mallowing and get to shopping, hm?”
Octoglasses smirked. “Right.”
“And…how is this?” Diver held Jersey’s shoulders and turned her to Moon who did an inspection. She had a washed-style outfit on, a light blue shirt and baggy dark jorts with star patches on. On her arms there were some bracelets, along with a matching pink one she made with Straw. Moon also made her ditch her visor and instead gave her star sunglasses and a higher ponytail.
“Gonna look for some stuff,” Diver said while Moon came over and clipped a star-moon charm on the octoling’s belt hoop.
“You were wearing it when she first kissed you, right?” The cyan inkling said with a grin. “Let this be your lucky charm again.”
“Oh– uh, thanks.” Jersey couldn’t help the flush on her cheeks while Diver came over with some accessories.
“Hey, uh…sorry for freaking ya’ out earlier.”
“It’s fine, man.”
“No, really,” the pink inkling said while carefully attaching a pair of small silver piercings on Jersey’s ears. “Straw’s just…had some pretty bad dates in the past, if you can even call them dates at that. So I couldn’t really help it. Pretty sure OG also feels the same too.”
“Oh.”
“But I can see why she likes ya,” Diver gave a lopsided grin.
Moon embraced her from behind. “Like I said, it’s a teammate thing. For Desi. For Straw.”
Suddenly, Forge came into the store with some bags in her hand. “Hey, me and Avi are finished with our thing and gonna re-park the car somewhere or else we’re gonna burn our wallets from the parking fees. Are you guys coming or not?”
“Coming!” Moon said while giving her a last embrace and handing Diver Mask’s card. “Good luck~”
The cyan octoling fidgeted nervously with her hands while the pink inkling paid for the stuff.
“Yo, relax.”
“I– dunno.”
“If you’re still unsure,” he said while walking to the car. “You even thinking this much about the date shows your love for her in the first place.”
Jersey didn’t say anything and looked ahead instead.
“I’m serious, dude,” the pink inkling said while they all went in the car. It was already evening (holy hell they spent the whole day at the pier) so Aviators just started speeding to Wahoo World.
“I’ve talked with OG, she said she was gonna bring Straw there in ten minutes.”
Jersey’s whole face turned deep blue at the thought of Straw arriving.
“Aw…Dive look you got her all flushed again!” Moon pinched her cheek with a giggle.
“Alright,” Aviators piped up from the driver’s seat. “We’re at Wahoo.”
Moon got out of the car with Jersey.
“Got your bag and gift, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Alrighty…” Moon winked at her former teammate as she went in the car again. “Go get her, tigerfish!”
Jersey waved after them as the four sped away.
“Aw, I wanted to go on some rides…” Moon whined while laying on Diver.
“Babe you look really tired, c’mon.”
“Also won’t they be there?”
“I heard Brinewater is open right now so…” Forge piped up while slowly looking at everyone. “We can take a little splash, how does that sound?~”
Jersey sat on one of the tables near the dock at the amusement park, waiting. It was already dark, and she still couldn’t manage her hearts’ insane beating even after sitting around. Matter of fact, it got worse.
Did something happen?
Is– is she okay?
She didn’t text me for hours, I didn’t really call her because I thought she was shopping with Octoglasses and I didn’t want to bother her, wait fuck why didn’t I–
“Jersey?”
She snapped out from her internal frenzy at a familiar voice that she adored, and looked towards the direction–
And her eyes found Straw, with that they immediately got stuck on her.
The pink inkling had a frilly white mini dress with a baggy red cardigan on, with red strawberry-patterned leg warmers and white mary jane shoes. With her namesake on her head with several little accessories, not to mention the small blue bracelet she matched with Jersey, she looked so, so pretty.
“Sorry,” Straw said while the flush on her cheeks were visible as she put her purse on the table to sit opposite to her girlfriend. “There was a little crowd on the way here.”
Jersey couldn’t say anything, too bamboozled.
“It’s a nice night,” Straw said while looking out to the sea, distant city lights visible. “You look very nice too.”
Straw looked at her with a head tilt as Jersey snapped out of her daze and started stuttering.
“Y-yeah, very nice night and y-you look so cute too–”
The pink inkling giggled. “You wanna order anything? Heard they have very nice parfaits.”
“Let’s get that one, then.”