Thank you for almost 4K reads!!!
Animal Crossing is one of my three favorite comfort video games, aside BOTW/TOTK and Minecraft :> I think these two are super silly and need to kiss already
Content warning: angst and Tom Nook that bastard
Yelena looks like she's aged twenty years by the time they get back to the apartment, so Kate carefully leads her up the stairs to her loft bedroom and asks her if she wants to lay down, to which the blonde doesn't respond, but does sit on the mattress, still holding the figurine box. Kate will take what she can get. Yelena is still trembling, albeit less than she was half an hour ago, but the archer still frowns and dares to press Yelena down onto her back.
"Rest, Yelena," she mutters, not entirely sure what she's doing. How do you comfort someone in this situation? She pulls her thickest quilt over her friend's shoulders, and, after a moment of her hand hovering, dares to brush the hair out of the assassin's face and press a featherlight kiss to her forehead.
"Rest."
Kate gets started on a pot of fresh macaroni as soon as she's back in the kitchen, and the dogs wind around her legs for a moment before both trotting upstairs to bug Yelena. She dishes the noodles up into bowls before dumping a generous amount of hot sauce into her friend's macaroni and grabbing two forks from her suspicious silverware.
Yelena is in the same position as when Kate left her, but the box is now clutched tightly to her chest and her eyes are closed. Kate sits carefully on the edge of the bed and puts the bowls on her nightstand, hesitantly resting a hand on the assassin's shoulder. Something she has noticed in the past few days is that Yelena runs warm, and the heat coming off of her now is like a cozy furnace.
God, I want to cuddle her so bad.
She pushes that thought away and gets back up to her feet when Yelena doesn't stir, but before she can pick her own bowl of macaroni up, a calloused hand wraps around hers.
"Stay, Kate Bishop."
Kate jolts and flushes warm at Yelena's quiet voice, turning to look over her shoulder. The blonde's gaze is burning into her, eyes hooded and brows furrowed as she pouts. Kate can't get her brain to compute her words, so she just nods softly and picks up the bowls and forks and goes around to the other side of her bed.
Yelena sits up and scoots to rest her back against the wall and Kate settles in next to her, handing her bowl of spicy mac-n-cheese over. Her friend takes it with a small, appreciative smile.
They eat together in silence, thighs pressed together, and Yelena says a silent thank you to Kate Bishop for being such an angel.
————
"I think I would like to try this Animal Crossing now, Kate Bishop," Yelena says once her bowl is empty. Kate looks up from her own food, mouth still full. She swallows quickly and almost chokes, but nods excitedly and takes both bowls and forks.
"I'll put these in the sink and grab the Switches." Kate is quick to rinse the dishes and grab the bag from the Nintendo store, and when she gets back up to her room, Yelena is sprawled out on her back to stare at the ceiling.
"I don't know if you're gonna wanna take a nap, Yelena. Animal Crossing awaits," she jokes, digging through the bag to pull out the OLED's and Animal Crossing chips. Yelena only hums in response, but props herself up on her elbows.
"I always wanted a game console of some sort when I was little," Yelena mutters, accepting the Switch that Kate hands to her. "My mama and papa would say they might get me one when I turned eight, but I bugged them about it every other week. I didn't make it to eight with them." The assassin pulls the device out of the box and admires it for a moment before looking up at Kate. "Thank you, Kate Bishop. It is nice to feel like small girl again."
She continues on to mess with the buttons and toggles, but Kate just looks at her, drinks in her adorable side profile and the gleam of youth in her eyes.
"You're welcome," Kate whispers. Yelena does not hear.
The archer guides Yelena through setting up her account on the Switch itself while she does the same on her own before they both open the new Animal Crossing together on their separate devices. Yelena 'oohs' and 'ahhs' at the brightly colored graphics, and as soon as Timmy and Tommy start talking, she chuckles.
"I see what you mean, Kate Bishop. The Animalese."
Kate grins and bumps her shoulder. "Told you."
The blonde hums. "Have you played this before?"
"Here and there, but usually on older consoles with my dad when he was still alive, so it's been a while. We'll have to figure out how this version works together, I guess."
"Awesome," Yelena mutters, expression pleasant and she builds her avatar and enters her information.
Kate glances over at her screen and does a double take. "Is that your last name?"
The assassin nods, pronouncing it out for her. "Belova."
"Huh. I didn't know that." Kate tilts her head, running the words over. Yelena Belova. Yelena Belova. Yelena Belova. "It's pretty."
Yelena's smile is so wide that it makes her eyes squint up, and Kate's face burns hot. "So are you, Kate Bishop."
"My- my name?" the archer sputters out weakly, eyes wide and tongue feeling too thick.
The blonde's lips dissolve into a goddamn smirk, and she rolls her eyes. Why was that hot? "Sure. Yes, Kate Bishop. Your name."
"Ok. Ok, cool. Yup. Cool." Kate shut the fuck up right fucking now oh my GOD.
She quickly turns back to her device and works on her own avatar, and when it asks for her name, instead of just putting 'Kate', she types in 'Kate Bishop'. Next to her, Yelena sees this, and grins.
————
"Этот вор пытается украсть мои чертовы деньги, Kate Bishop!" Yelena howls for the third time in as many minutes, her eyes so furious as she rants about Tom Nook that Kate can only double over herself in laughter. "He walks in here like he owns whole place and tells me to live in tent on island. In Russia he would be dead by now. Я убью его во сне, когда он меньше всего этого ожидает, и заставлю смотреть его глупых племянников!"
Kate doesn't understand a single word she's saying but it's beyond hilarious either way. Whenever she's not watching Yelena play (the lucky mf got Stitches and Raymond), she's exploring her new island (which she named Bishop Base) and very purposefully avoiding Tom Nook and his nephews.
They stay like that together for a while, maybe an hour or so, Yelena cursing the game out and Kate quietly enjoying the whole situation. It's not until Fanny and Lucky start scratching at the door that they realize all four of them need to piss, and quickly scramble over each other to get to the bathroom first.
Yelena continues to talk about what she thinks of the game when they clip leashes onto the dogs and take them for an around-the-block walk, and she gasps and grabs Kate's hand when she remembers something particularly infuriating a villager said. The archer's grin is so wide that it makes her cheeks ache, but it's worth it.
Yelena is worth all of it.
"Is it called Animal Crossing because the animals make me want to cross them?" Yelena asks, squinting up at the sun with a pout. "Is that an American term? To cross someone? Like, piss them off?" Her cheeks are flushed from when she jogged for a moment with the dogs, and a light sweat has blonde curls sticking to her forehead. The cold and crisp air makes her breath fog in front of her face, and bright, hazel eyes pin Kate down.
Kate is normal about it.
"I actually have no idea," the archer hums. She kicks at a rock for a few seconds before skipping back to her friend. "And is it, yeah. That's a word. I don't know if it's just an American thing, though. And Nintendo is a Japanese company, anyway, so most likely not."
Her friend's shoulders curl in at this. "I want to boil this Tom Nook alive, Kate Bishop."
Kate barks a laugh. "You and everyone else playing the game, Yelena."
"He is going to financially ruin me!"
"Welcome to Animal Crossing."
"Сука."
"I have a feeling you just called me something not very nice."
Yelena's expression is hysterical. "It means bitch, Kate Bishop."
"Ah." Kate nods solemnly before grinning. "Well, in that case- сука." She mimics Yelena's accent perfectly and winks before continuing to walk, and she doesn't even notice when the blonde stops.
Yelena stares at Kate Bishop's back as she gets further away, the Russian that came from her mouth running through her head, and she can feel her cheeks burning.
She was clearly going to need to teach Kate more Russian.
CLEARLY Yelena 🙄
Writing them genuinely makes my days better lol how is everyone???
Translations:
-Этот вор пытается украсть мои чертовы деньги (Etot vor pytayetsya ukrasit' moi chertovy den'gi): This thief is trying to steal my fucking money
-Я убью его во сне, когда он меньше всего этого ожидает, и заставлю смотреть его глупых племянников (YA ub'yu yego vo sne, kogda on men'she vsego etogo ozhidayet, i zastavlyu smotret' yego glupykh plemyannikov): I'll kill him in his sleep when he least expects it and make his stupid nephews watch
Kate Bishop counter: 12
QOTD: How many languages do you speak? Which ones?
This chapter's meme(s):
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