snowballs
It was mid-January in Sinnoh, and Veilstone City, like the rest of the region, was subjected to wet, white blankets of snow. To keep up with its other orderly routines, Team Galactic made a schedule that on every day that required the paths to be shoveled, there would be two or three designated snow shovelers. And no one was exempted from this unless they had a legitimate medical excuse – not the higher grunts, not the admins, not even Cyrus himself.
And today's snow day was given to the three admins.
Mars hated shoveling. She'd been living in Sinnoh for three years now, and she still wasn't used to how much snow fell in the region every year. Back when she lived on the farm in Goldenrod City in Johto, they never experienced nearly as much snow. Whatever flakes there were usually disappeared by morning; when there was that much snow, Whitney or Uncle Milton usually dealt with it, and she got to weasel out of the chore. But Team Galactic wasn't made up of kindly country bumpkins, and so she had no choice but to do her responsibility. To keep up her image and so Cyrus wouldn't be pissed at her.
Her lips were chapped. Her face felt frozen. And though she wore gloves, she could still feel the cold nip at her fingertips. This sucked. On the other side of the pathway, Jupiter looked so smug and cozy in her long, leather coat and warm scarf, shoveling away like the snow was Miltank manure or something. She probably liked pretending she was shoveling away manure or something, that filthy swamp woman….her filthy swamp woman. It wasn't Jupiter's fault that the snow sucked, but at least she could look a little more pained. Sometimes following Cyrus's idealistic path to stoicism was too much.
She shoveled another clump of snow and stopped. Hmmm, maybe that would help lighten the mood.
Stooping down to the ground, she picked up the clump and formed a snowball in her hands, smirking. Yes, this would make this boring chore a lot easier. Looking back and forth to see if Saturn was still in the back so he wouldn't witness her mischief – he was, and not that he was a narc or anything in the first place – she waved and hid the snowball behind her back, calling out, "Hey, Jupiter! Got a present for you!"
Jupiter turned and blinked at her, blank-faced. "Present? In this weath-oof!"
The snow exploded into tiny particles across her face. Mars hunched over her stomach, laughing. "Gay snowball for your thoughts~"
"F-D-We're supposed to be making an example for the grunts! What if someone saw you do that?!" Jupiter snapped, quickly flushing. Darting her eyes back and forth, though, she stooped over her own side and began forming snowballs of her own. "I'm gonna return that snowball, though. Gayer and better. Make you work better!"
"I'm not gonna work harder until you bow down at my knees, swamp hag!"
"Farm harpy!"
"Purple!"
"Red!"
The two women were ready for war, snowballs at their disposal. Mars was grinning ear to ear now. Jupiter liked to pretend that she was this cool, collected individual that closely followed Cyrus's doctrine, but Mars could see past her bullshit. She got under her skin so fucking fast and made her itch for mere seconds before she defused everywhere. And competition was one of those fuses. She would not be beat…but Mars wouldn't be beaten, either. Holding up her second snowball, she now felt like the smug one. "Let's do this."
Snowballs began flying everywhere, hitting and missing and sometimes landing on the newly-shoveled parts of the pavement. Mars hit and dodged and kept laughing as snow flew past and into her hair and onto her coat. A few times while they were throwing and ducking, she noticed Saturn peeking at the action, but during none of those times did he made no motion to stop them. It was a wise decision, for if he would've opened his mouth, he would've been their new target, and he was never good at keeping up with snowball fights. He knew it, too.
Soon they were both almost out of ammo, though, and Mars lurched onto Jupiter's side, wrapping her arms around her with one snowball still in her hand. The other woman had no time to make any more, and she accepted the embrace with a soft chuckle. "Fine, fine, I surrender. Don't use it on me."
Mars cocked her head. "What if I wanted you to use it on me?"
"I would say then that it's pointless for me to surrender."
"Ha! Wait, wait, I see a target!" Pointing to a purplish-pink top, she gasped. "Let's use our gay snowball powers and attack Charon!"
Jupiter grinned. Charon was always an exception for them breaking rules to cause mischief. Always. "Let's. Do the honor, Commander."
"'Kaaaaay~"
WHOMP! and the snowball zoomed and zoomed and hit the back of Charon's weird old head…
….except it wasn't Charon.
"….?"
There was a long pause, followed by the purplish-pink hat falling to the ground, followed by its dazed owner. Cyrus. Mars and Jupiter looked at each other in horror, their thoughts similar in debating whether they should help their boss or run as fast as they could and then blame Charon. He was always their fall guy, anyway.
It wasn't much of a tough decision, though…as long as Cyrus wasn't dead, even though he looked like it by the way he stood plastered to the ground. Yanking Jupiter by the coat, Mars ran to the back of the building and pushed them both towards the back entrance. She wasn't about to let her and her greatest rival and girlfriend get in trouble again. Jupiter headed in first, and before Mars followed Saturn gave her a look with his thin eyebrow raised so high towards his forehead. "We playing the Alibi Game again?" he asked.
"Yep. I'll pay you later this week."
"Will do."
And Mars shut the door behind her, panting but grinning. Snowball fights were the greatest when they also got to play the Alibi Game. It was a good day when the admins blamed Charon for the misdeeds.
(Original notes: nothing relevant)
Originally written February 10th, 2016 on tumblr for femslash february. This was nice. Makes me cold thinking about it, though. There wasn't snow today but cold rain. rip. x: