A/N: Well, I'm sick, so cranking this out in time for Valentine's Day nearly killed me(what else is new), but somehow I managed. Not sure how happy I am with it, since my head's congested and foggy, but hopefully it's okay. This one should be at least a few chapters, but I wanted the first up for the holiday, enjoy! ^-^
The raven-haired girl sat at her and her friends' lunch table in the cafeteria of Dimmsdale High School, her head propped up in her left hand, and gaze fixated on a certain brunet for whom she'd harbored feelings for the better part of the last seven years: Timmy Turner.
At the moment, he was not seated with Tootie and their other two friends, but was instead standing by the table frequented by the 'popular' clique, which was composed of Tad, Chad, Veronica, and of course, Trixie; the person Timmy was no doubt actually there to see. Considering her crush had spent the last better half of a decade trying to get the popular girl to go out with him, Tootie didn't even need to hear the conversation going on to know how things would play out, it had by now become quite routine: Tad and Chad would glare at him ineffectually, Veronica would blush and do her best to avoid making eye contact, and Trixie would smile, offer a friendly giggle; whether Timmy told a joke or not, and she'd chat with him for a bit before shooting him down or claiming she already had plans, all the while smiling at him in a way that made the bespectacled girl want to gag.
"Our boy's back at it again." Chester, the more laid back of her and Timmy's two mutual friends, snickered as he watched the buck-toothed teen flirt(he presumed) with Trixie, the two exchanging the occasional awkward smile as they spoke back and forth.
"Someone really ought to explain the definition of insanity to him, see if he gets it." AJ, the fourth member of their group, snickered right along with the blond, both finding Timmy's endless pursuit of Trixie to have become something of a running gag, at this point.
Tootie; however, was less amused by the scene, and simply watched it unfold with a seemingly neutral, indifferent expression, only perking up once she saw her crush wave 'bye' at Trixie and make his way back over to their table. "So how'd that go?" She asked, smirking a little as the brunet sat back down in the seat next to hers.
"She's ah… Busy, today." The fifteen year old admitted, taking a quick sip from his drink. "But hey, there's always tomorrow, right?"
"Exactly! Stay positive, dude!" Chester remarked encouragingly, figuring someone in their little group had to, considering AJ's feelings on the matter, and Tootie's vocal, less-than-flattering opinion of Trixie. "Just remember to get her something nice, girls love getting things when the romantic atmosphere is at its peak!"
"The… Atmosphere's gonna be particularly romantic, tomorrow? It's just Friday, isn't it?" Timmy quirked an eyebrow up at Chester and began to pull out his phone.
"Dude. Seriously? Are you dense or something? Today's the thirteenth!" The blond shot back, acting as though this fact was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Okay…?" The brunet responded with a bemused frown, tapping his phone's screen to access its calendar.
"Of February? As in tomorrow's 'February fourteenth'? The 'Day of Love'? Girl sitting next to you's last name ring a bell?" Chester nodded at Tootie, prompting Timmy to look at her as well.
"He means it's Valentine's Day." The girl whispered to her crush while hiding her mouth with her hand, pretending Chester was their teacher, and she was giving Timmy the answer to a question that would make or break his grade for the class.
Upon hearing this, the brunet glanced at the table's other two occupants, who were both now shooting him very expectant looks. "...I knew that." He insisted with a shrug before looking back down at his phone, the calendar indicating the fourteenth with a big, red heart. "Ahem..." The teen cleared his throat, turning his phone off before nonchalantly slipping it back into his pocket. "So yeah, I should, er… Probably get something for Trixie tomorrow, what with it being Valentine's Day and everything…" He trailed off, hoping a certain 'god of love' hadn't been paying attention for the last five minutes or so. "Speaking of, what are you guys up to tomorrow?"
"Homework." AJ spoke up first. "AP classes've got me swamped, so I'll probably be doing that after school, and likely Saturday and Sunday too."
"The rate you're going, you're gonna end up married to your hand, Brainiac." The blond fifteen year old joked, though his comment went largely ignored by his bald friend, who'd already begun to vigorously type away at his phone. "Well not me! I'm taking full advantage of all the love that'll be in the air tomorrow!"
"Meaning what, exactly?" Timmy enquired, his attention briefly drifting over to Tootie as she reached over and stole a tater tot off his lunch tray.
"Meaning some lucky girl might be gettin' a surprise bouquet and box of chocolates from yours truly!" The teen grinned confidently.
"How very cliché." The raven-haired girl intoned, reaching over to swipe another of her crush's tiny potato nuggets. "Have you actually picked this 'lucky girl' already, or are you just taking a shot in the dark and hoping whoever you hit reciprocates?"
"I've… Narrowed down the potential candidates." Chester replied in a hesitant manner, bringing his right hand up to cup his chin thoughtfully. "Definitely down to like, the top three, for sure..."
"Well, what's wrong with-" Timmy paused, glancing down and giving the bespectacled girl's hand a quick, light swat, prompting her to instantly jerk it away with a giggle. "What's wrong with cliché, Tootie? Would you turn down a guy who surprised you with flowers and chocolates on Valentine's Day?"
"Hm~..." The raven-haired girl hummed, her lips curling up into a thoughtful smile. "I guess it'd all depend on who it was from..." She leaned over, her shoulder pressing against Timmy's as her violet eyes stared up at him, just barely peeking over the edge of her purple, horn-rimmed glasses. "I mean, if Trixie's just 'too busy' to be your Valentine tomorrow, you could always send those flowers and chocolates my way…? We could share 'em?" "You could eat them off of me." Tootie thought to herself, subtly shivering at the idea.
"Ehehe… Ah… Th-That's an… Idea?" The brunet laughed nervously, his cheeks pinkening as his best friend leaned in close; almost uncomfortably so. It wasn't a secret to Timmy that the girl still harbored a very serious crush on him, and had for several years now. True, it had fluctuated in intensity over the years, with some of Tootie's more affectionate mannerisms being downright suffocating one year, only for the girl to greatly dial herself back the next, even to the point of practically ignoring him on occasion, but never did she quite give up on him completely... Though it was also fair to say she showed much more restraint now than she had when they were ten.
Regarding that, this year had so far shown itself to be a mixed bag. Tootie hadn't gone as far as trying to kidnap him and tie him to her bed, but as their current proximity showed, she was more than willing to get cuddly with him in front of Chester and AJ, and obviously in the middle of school, if the idea happened to strike her fancy.
To Timmy's credit, he neither completely returned her feelings, nor did he outright rebuff them; always doing his best to keep a 'middle of the road' type of mindset, though he'd caught himself on more than one occasion flirting with his admittedly adorable bespectacled friend(something he'd always reason to himself later as being completely unintentional).
"Jeez, you two. Just find a room and get it over with already…" Chester rolled his eyes at his two fellow teens. "Could cut the sexual tension in here with a spoon..."
"Y-You're crazy." The brunet stuttered, making his attempted rebuttal sound less than convincing as he threw his left arm around Tootie's shoulders in a friendly manner. "Tootie's my best friend; she's practically like a sister to me. I don't think of her… Like that." He pulled the girl close into an affectionate side-hug, ignoring the tiny squeak she let out in appreciation. "S-See?"
"Mm~! Never let me go, Onii-Chan!" Tootie moaned playfully, before dropping her voice to a lower, somewhat huskier tone, causing her crush's cheeks to turn a much brighter shade of pink. "Ah-Heehee!" She cried out and soon fell into a fit of giggles as Timmy unwound his arm from her shoulders and lightly pushed her away.
"No more hugs for you. I'm cutting you off." The fifteen year old remarked sternly, eliciting a look of horror from the bubbly girl.
"Wha-! I…! You can't do this to me!" Tootie began to desperately plead with the brunet, her lower lip quivering as he turned away from her and crossed his arms. "If… If you do, I'll… Oh!" She smiled, leaning back over to wrap both of her arms around Timmy's waist instead.
"Agh! H-Hey! Cut it out! Tootie, you're not helping!" The blue-eyed boy squirmed about in his seat, grabbing his friend by her shoulders and trying in vain to extricate himself from her vice-like grip.
"Could you two keep it down? You're making a scene… Again." AJ spoke up, his attention still glued to the schedule he was creating for himself on his phone.
"Right, I'm the crazy one here..." Chester deadpanned, shaking his head at the 'not-couple'.
Later that day…
With the school day having drawn to a close, the foursome now rode the bus home, along with a good thirty or so of their fellow classmates. Chester and AJ shared one seat, while Timmy and Tootie sat together in the one behind them; Tootie opting to take the spot by the window. "Still mad at me for the 'Onii-Chan' thing?" She turned away from the window to look at Timmy, who was currently browsing the internet with his phone, from what she could tell.
"Tootie, if that was all it took for me to get mad at you, I don't think we'd be best friends, do you?" He looked up from his phone at her, shooting his friend a wry smile.
"Well I dunno, you've been giving me the silent treatment since lunch! I figured I might've gone too far with the incest subtext." Her lips curled up into a wide, innocent smile as she finished and cutely blinked her eyes closed.
This caused the teen to subtly jump in his seat, his phone nearly popping free from his hand. "T-Tootie! Can you not?!" Timmy whispered out harshly, sidling up a bit closer to the girl so their conversation could remain private. "Saying weird stuff like that is exactly how rumors get started!"
"Heehee! Would you relax? Nobody's actually gonna think we're related because of a dumb joke!" The raven-haired girl couldn't help but giggle at her crush's desperate, almost paranoid tone.
"Considering we are in high school, I wouldn't be so sure about that, Tootie." AJ interjected from the seat ahead of them, prompting Tootie to hop up into a kneeling position on her and Timmy's bus seat and peek over the back of the one he and Chester occupied.
"If I wanted comments from the peanut gallery, I'd ask for them, AJ!" The girl exclaimed playfully, nearly hanging the entire upper half of her body over the back of the bus seat.
This gave Timmy a momentary reprieve from his babysitter's younger sister, but also left him with quite the view, namely because her rear-end was now almost level with his face.
"Mngh..." The brunet growled quietly and crossed his arms, forcing himself to stare straight ahead… At first. Before long, he found his gaze slowly drifting to his left, where it first settled on her legs, then steadily trailed up them, until falling squarely on her butt, the rounded curves of which were gently outlined by the skirt Tootie wore.
Out of Timmy and his three friends, Tootie was the one who'd seemed to have changed the most over the past five years. Chester had gotten his braces removed, but kept mostly the same hairstyle, and still wore a greenish blazer over black or dark-colored t-shirts with jeans; AJ was, of course, still bald, and still insisted that sweater-vests were the best thing since sliced bread; and even Timmy himself hadn't changed overmuch. He still wore the same pink hat and jeans in various shades of blue, though he'd occasionally wear t-shirts of colors other than pink. He still retained his somewhat pronounced buck-teeth, and he, much like Chester, still sported a similar hairstyle to when he was ten, though it was now just a bit longer. Of course the three boys in the group were also somewhat taller, and perhaps a bit more muscular, but essentially, they looked like older versions of their ten year old selves.
Tootie; on the other hand, had matured much more obviously, and not just in the sense that she was developing the curves of a female young adult. Her purple, horn-rimmed glasses remained the same, but gone were her braces, and the awkward, sometimes neurotic way she once carried herself. She still wore a short-sleeve, white button-up shirt, but the black vest she used to wear over it was gone, and the gray, plaid skirt she wore when she was younger was swapped out for one bearing greens, blues, and purples, while still retaining the plaid pattern like her old one. Her black knee-high socks were now thigh-high socks that reached up past the hem of her skirt, and she most often sported a pair of black sneakers, much like her older sister. Finally, she no longer wore her hair up in a pair of girlish pigtails, and instead had it in a sort of bob-style that framed her face, with her bangs partially swept across her forehead. Timmy thought it made her look a bit like Nicki, Tootie and Vicki's mother, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
"I'm just saying: you should watch what you say. The four of us are still seen as prime targets by the likes of Francis and a lot of people who are more popular than us." AJ chastised his bespectacled friend in a firm tone. "It only takes one misheard joke to create a rumor that balloons out of control."
"Oh please, if that were the case, there'd be way more rumors floating around about Trixie and Veronica being an item! So far, the only one talking about that one is me!" Tootie shot back with a self-satisfied smirk, her arms resting atop the back of Chester and AJ's bus seat, with her chest settled on top of them.
"Hey, you're gonna regret sitting like that when the bus driver hits the brakes, Tootie." Timmy attempted to insert himself into the argument, but his voice was drowned out by the myriad conversations of his fellow classmates, Tootie and AJ's included. "Tootie." He raised his voice, speaking in a more forceful tone as he stared at his friend more intensely, his gaze slowly trailing down her back and again settling on her rear-end as his warning continued to go unnoticed. "I know one way to get her attention..." Knowing he'd soon come to regret his next action, but deciding he'd go through with it anyway; if only to see how the girl would react, Timmy sat forward a little and brought his left hand back, then threw it forward, delivering a quick, open-palmed slap to Tootie's right buttock.
"Eep!" She jumped at the swift smack to her rear-end, the contact making her tense up for just a moment before she instantly dropped back down into her seat next to her crush, at least two of the girl's cheeks now stained a pretty shade of pink. "Nnh~..." The violet-eyed girl let out a quiet moan as she turned to look at the brunet with a sultry grin. "You're sending me a lot of mixed signals today, Timmy..." She leaned closer to him, her right hand gently settling on the one that slapped her. "But anyway, you have my attention…?"
"Hah… I was trying to get you to sit down; you're gonna get hurt one day, hanging over the seats like that." The teen sighed out, ignoring the distinct shuddering quality to his friend's voice.
"There are easier ways to get my attention, y'know..." Tootie continued to grin at him, lightly drumming her fingers atop the back of Timmy's hand.
"Well that worked, didn't it?" He reasoned with a quick shrug of his shoulders, hoping Tootie would at least 'behave' herself with all their fellow schoolmates on the bus, though he knew he'd be at her mercy once they reached their stop. "Why did that seem like such a good idea five seconds ago…?"
"Fuck yeah it did..." Tootie muttered low enough so only Timmy could hear her as she subtly rubbed her thighs against each other, a weighty heat making itself known between her legs.
"Hehehe… Alright, dial it back a little..." The brunet chuckled, playing off the girl's statement as a joke, despite finding himself a little caught off-guard by her... Choice of words. "I'm just looking out for you; we both know Vicki'd never let me hear the end of it if you got hurt on my watch."
"Teehee! You're always using that excuse!" Tootie giggled, peering over the edge of her glasses at her crush.
"What excuse?"
"That Vicki expects you to keep me out of harm's way under pain of death or bodily harm." The bespectacled girl explained, her lips curling up into a knowing grin. "You can say it's because of my big sis all you want, we both know the real worrier, is you!" She gave him a quick, emphasizing little poke as she finished. "Not that I don't appreciate you being the 'knight' to my 'lady'…!"
"Tch." Timmy jerked his hand out from under Tootie's and crossed his arms petulantly, doing his best to avoid meeting her gaze. "I only 'worry' because you're so good at finding trouble..." He lied, knowing that if he did admit to being overprotective of the girl, she'd only become even more affectionate and clingy… Assuming that was even possible.
"Hey, it isn't always me! I'm perfectly innocent!" The girl exclaimed in playful defense, fluttering her eyelashes at the brunet. "...Most of the time." She admitted, still smiling cutely at Timmy as he rolled his eyes, while Chester snickered to himself in the seat ahead of theirs.
Before long, the school bus was passing through the familiar streets of the neighborhood the four called home, and was fast approaching the stop Timmy and Tootie shared; their houses being roughly the same distance(though in opposite directions) from said stop.
"Hey!" The raven-haired girl perked up, an idea coming to mind as the bus began to slow. "Why don't you… Come over for a bit?"
"...For what?" The teen questioned warily, shooting his friend a skeptical look.
"Just to hang out." Tootie replied, her tone largely indifferent. "You're already walking me home, aren't you?"
"Well… Yeah, I guess..." Timmy absently scratched at his nose with his index finger, the action of walking the girl home having long since become just another part of his daily routine once he and Tootie became friends. He never really thought about or questioned it, it was just a habit he'd fallen into after she'd asked him to do it a few times.
"And I assume you don't have any big plans today, right? I mean, the flower shops are probably all closed, and Vicki's not babysitting you today, so…?" The bespectacled girl reasoned, smiling as she watched her crush begin to consider her offer.
"Could always just have Cosmo and Wanda poof me up something for Trixie tomorrow..." The fifteen year old thought to himself, holding his chin contemplatively. "I… Suppose I can hang out for a little while..."
"Heehee! Now I've got you…!" Tootie mused to herself deviously as she held back the urge to tackle her crush into a hug. "Yes! Alone at last!" She fist-pumped, in turn causing Timmy to sigh and pinch the bridge of his nose.
"Tootie..." He groaned, immediately having second thoughts about what he might have just unknowingly agreed to.
"Oh calm down!" The girl chuckled, giving her crush's shoulder a light shove. "I'll be on my best behavior, scout's honor!" She mimicked the well-known, oath-swearing pose, barely containing the excited shiver that ran through her body.