valentines

Shelly sucked on her finger, nursing yet another paper cut. Valentine's Day was coming up in a couple of days, and Matt had taught the Team Aqua gang how to make origami hearts. While he wasn't in a relationship with anybody, he loved his friends and made sure to make enough valentines for everybody, complete with pieces of candy, a lot of glitter and anchor stickers. He was always the crafty one out of the bunch.

However, Shelly could not call herself crafty or anywhere close to it. She remembered there was this specific point where she was in grade school and they all had to cut out Magikarp for a festival, and somehow she ended up making that Magikarp looking like a decapitated sailboat. Her teacher praised her for her creativity, but she felt like shit, then and now. That's why she liked working in Team Aqua – she could work with her hands without having to be too precise.

But she had to make one. Make one for her babe.

It was hard thinking up things Courtney liked just because Courtney wasn't very materialistic and was satisfied with the favorite possessions she already owned – her Zune, her oversized red sweaters, her scarlet yarn balls, and a keychain that made a lot of jingling noise when one shook it. She liked candy, though, and while she was also aromantic, she probably wouldn't be bothered if that candy was stuck to a handcrafted origami heart…probably…

She'd feel really bad if Courtney was bothered by Valentine's Day.

Grabbing another piece of construction paper, she decided to try again. Matt had offered to help her a couple of times, but she had to do this herself or else it wouldn't be real love in the handcrafted valentine. And she began failing again. The folds were mismatched, and the corners were becoming crumpled again. She couldn't help but wrinkle her nose at this tragedy. Maybe Matt was considered cheating, but if Tabitha helped it would be more like a collaboration between the two of them.

Yet again, if Tabitha helped, the valentine would almost certainly be seen as merely platonic, and Shelly's relationship with Courtney went beyond platonic at this point.

She groaned. This was about her sixth or seventh try now, and she was running out of construction paper. No, that was a mistake. This was her last piece of construction paper, bright red and crumpled with creases everywhere. At least she ended with Courtney's favorite color, and it was pentagon-shaped but it looked kind of like a heart if you really squinted hard enough? Nah, it was a fucking pentagon, and Courtney would see right through it, but it was the thought that counted…she guessed. Deciding to add the final touches, she used crayon instead of glitter glue like the rest of her shitty valentines – since Courtney hated even the thought of touching glitter and similar textures – and wrote a message across the surface.

A dirty message, of course. It had to have her touch, after all.

They wouldn't see each other for the actual holiday because Archie wanted everyone in Team Aqua to have a giant-ass drinking party at a club, so later that evening she swung over to Team Magma's Headquarters. As usual, Courtney was on front-desk duty, doodling some schematics while she had some symphony music blaring from her earphones. She looked so cute. Shelly grinned and hovered by her desk, waiting for her girlfriend to stop before offering her heart. It was a few minutes, but finally Courtney put down her pencil, and Shelly waved with her free hand. "Hey, girl~"

"…hi."

"Valentine's Day's tomorrow, but I can't see you probably 'cause the Boss is making us all get platonically trashed."

"Hm~ I'm not bothered by it. Drink responsibly. Safe driving~"

"Yeah, I'll make sure one of us isn't completely trashed. Anyway, I know you're kinda freaked out by romance, but I made you a valentine. A not-romantic one. I made sure to tape a cherry Jolly Rancher in the middle."

"'Courtney, did you go over the speed limit? Because you drove my pants on fire. ….ha." Then, furrowing her eyebrows, Courtney lightly rubbed a finger against the edges and shook her head. "This isn't…a heart. This is pentagon-shaped, which has five sides and has one side less…than the hexagon."

"Yeah, I'm sorry. I tried, hon."

"You tried…you tried."

"I did try."

Shelly began feeling embarrassed for a few seconds, but then Courtney hopped from her desk chair and walked over to her, standing on her tippy-toes to kiss her on the forehead. There was a brief silence, but then Courtney just laid a hand on her shoulder and turned away, blushing but flashing a small smile. "…you tried. Thank you…Shelly."

"Love you, babe. Happy early Valentine's Day."

Courtney nodded and walked back to her desk, picking back up her pencil to do more work. Usually when she did work, she did not like being disturbed unless explicitly said otherwise, so Shelly ran out of the room, silently screaming to herself with fists raised in the air, grinning ear to ear. Along the way she bumped into Tabitha, who was working patrol, and they gave each other a high-five. She really couldn't ask for a better girlfriend; Courtney was the best.

But…maybe by next year she could make her hearts a little less pentagon-shaped.

(Original notes: nothing relevant)

Originally written February 13th, 2016 for femslash february. I'm pretty sure I was inspired of this last year from this club activity I was doing, and we were making platonic hearts. (I'm not a hands-on person much, either, though.;;) I...still don't know why I don't write more on this pairing, nor why I don't see enough of this anywhere, rip. one day.