Decided it was high time to gather all my Rosawatts ficbits and headcanons from Tumblr in one place. Redundancy? I don't know her.
Fics aren't connected unless I mention it. There will be plenty more to come! Title from a piece on Finding Paradise's OST. but fun fact everything else here will have awful titles bc I (almost) never title anything on Tumblr whoops

This first one is something I started to write pretty much instantly after That Scene in Finding Paradise. Took longer than expected, for good reason I suppose; its power nearly exploded my tumblr lmao. proper title of this is "the adventures of sharkboy and princess jellyfish" which apparently is too long. how boring

"Okay, we're all set," Neil calls over his shoulder, dusting his hands of memento energy. He can barely hear her reply.

"Go ahead. I'll catch up."

Oh, come on. "The hell I'm not," he mutters. With a huff, he spins around and marches down the steps.

The snark he'd loaded up fades away as he moves closer. She really is mesmerized, almost pressing her face to the glass as a jellyfish floats right past. Like a little kid. Something warm fizzles in his chest, but he shoves it away.

He stops next to her, jamming his hands into his pockets, and watches the jellies too. I bet she knows all their names. Wonder if she has a favorite. Oh, that's one's kind of cool…

But there's only so much time those blobs can hold his interest when he's right next to her, and she has stars in her eyes. Right now she wouldn't react to a herd of elephants trundling by behind her, so he feels safe enough to let his gaze linger. He remembers the flush in her cheeks when she first entered and saw the jellies; that's faded by now. Her gaze is somehow rapt and far away at the same time, and he can guess how she feels from how he felt, whenever he stared up at the night sky brimming with stars. Nothing else matters but looking, breathing, sinking into your own mind and into the world at the same time.

Speaking of time… They're running out of it with Colin. They have to move on.

"I said I'd catch up."

He very valiantly does not startle. She's looking at him, how long has she been doing that, hell–

"We could probably come back here in… real life," he says in reply, and as the words come to him it's an awful idea but he can't stop talking– "If you want. Y'know, to see the real jellyfish."

"Are– are you serious?!" She doesn't quite avoid shouting as she faces him fully, a soft fire in her eyes and hands clenched at her sides. "I swear, Neil, if you're messing with me–"

"'Course not. I value my life too much." oh god she's cute says a traitorous voice in his head, derailing his train of thought. oh god she's really cute– He pushes his glasses back up his nose. His neck itches; he ignores it. "Why not. I'd like to look at sharks that aren't all fuzzy."

Her face goes flat in a practiced (and familiar) way. "You missed a possibly important conversation. Because of fuzzy sharks."

"My mind wandered," he said with a shrug. A lie, partly. He'd missed some of the exchange, but what he had heard struck a chord more deeply than he cared to admit. There's only so little time in this life. Nothing he hasn't heard before in a thousand different ways, so why now…? "You weren't there to make me pay attention, Princess Jellyfish."

And there's the smirk. "Excuse me for forgetting you need adult supervision."

He raises one eyebrow and spreads his arms, one hand indicating her, the other the jellies. "Pot? Kettle?"

"Completely different situation," she says, and tromps past him with a head toss that flicks her hair into his face. "Let's get going."

It takes him a moment (Eva used Hair Flip! It's super-effective!), but the nervous energy from what he's just pulled off pushes him to move eventually.

By the time he reaches the memento, he's back in mission mode.

~meanwhile~

Now that Eva's yanked herself away from the jellies, she's clear-eyed, energized, and– Wait. Did he just…? She frowns, chewing her lip. …Nah.

Even so, something small and fizzy settles in her ribs. It is nice that he seems to be taking her obsession interest seriously.

Besides: plausible deniability. She'll take it.

"Ready, your highness?"

She doesn't jump. Maybe twitches. "Knock it off, shark boy."

In her peripheral vision, as she reaches for the memento, she sees him grin.