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ax_main2018-02-14 01:38 pm
ax_diamondlil) wrote in ax_main2018-02-14 01:38 pm
Entry tags:
Nick and Lil
Nick visits Lil with flowers and chocolates on Valentine's to discuss a change in their relationship
This is the first step to getting your life back on track. That was what he was telling himself. Therapy had been helping so, so much, and whenever he slept when she was around, the nightmares didn't come. That had to mean something. And yeah, he couldn't go outside with her without an image inducer. And yeah, he had... a weird face, and fur all over his body, but Lil had never seemed to care. And he adored her for that.
All he had to do now was knock. The rest, he hoped, would follow more naturally. But he adjusted the box of chocolate covered strawberries in his arm so that he could knock without dropping it, and he did so, after his hand was hanging in the air for five seconds.
She's your friend. She's been your very best friend the entire time. Even if she says no, this can't possibly hurt to try... right?
He didn't realize that in his nerves he'd knocked like six times. He stopped himself, and tried to regain his composure.
Lil looked up from the laptop, a little ticked that her work was getting interrupted, but hey, whoever was on the other side of the door didn't know that, right? 'They can't read your mind, Lil,' the doc has said. Then he'd laughed when he realized his mistake. 'Okay, most of them can't read your mind. Maybe he hadn't been talking about this situation exactly, but the reminder helped tamp down any flickering annoyance and practice, even on the little things, made perfect.
"Just a minute!" She yelled out. She signed out of the computer, turned it off and closed the cover - Lil took the Shaw security instructions very seriously - before getting up to answer the door. Lil opened the door and there was Nick... with flowers and chocolates?
Well, okay, she didn't say anything when she saw him, and that maybe wasn't a great sign? He smiled meekly at her. "H-hey," he said, the words coming just a bit easier when he was dancing around the issue on his mind. "Happy Valentine's Day," he said, offering her the box and the flowers.
"Happy...?" Oh fuck, that's right. It was Valentine's Day. And Nick, sweet guy that he was must have decided to surprise her. Lil beamed and took the gifts. "Oh man, thank you! This is awesome." She stepped back so he could come in. "You know you're amazing, right?"
"I... I try," Nick said, smiling as he came in at her invitation. "I-I didn't know if you liked strawberries but I heard that chocolate covered strawberries were like, a really popular thing, and they're supposed to be, y'know, really good," he said. "How-how are you?" he asked, smiling a bit more strongly. Conversation. Conversation was good. "I-I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" Her room was so tidy, which was just like her. She was the reason his room was so clean half the time, after all.
Lil put the flowers and chocolates down on her bedside table. She'd have to run down to the kitchen later for water and a vase fro the roses, but damn, they were so pretty. "Nothing! I was doing a bit of work for Shinobi, but that can wait."
"Good, I'm glad I didn't, y'know, come at a bad time," he said. He took in a deep breath, and looked at her for a little bit of time. "So, uh, I kinda... wanted to talk, a bit," he said, figuring he should just get this out of the way.
This is the first step to getting your life back on track, he told himself again. "I-if you've got time. If you're not busy. It's... it's nothing bad. I don't think," he said.
"Nothing bad is always good!" Lil hooked her arm in Nick's and pulled him towards Dana's old bed, now bearing a bunch of cheap pillows she'd bought to make it function more like a sofa. She sat down and dragged him down beside her. "And I've always got time for you."
"Thanks," Nick said, settling down next to her, instinctively cuddling in close to her. "I, I want to say that, I... I really appreciate you as a friend. You're... so nice to me, and you've always been there for me," he said, taking a deep breath to get the rest out.
"I just, I want... I don't want anything to hurt our friendship, ever. That's why I want, if, y'know, I want you to know that, it's, it's okay, if you don't, y'know." Okay, yeah, this was hard. And he was rambling and stammering. "And I know things have been bad for me lately and I don't want you to feel pressured because of that or anything, but... it's, y'know, it's Valentine's Day, and like... I... I really, really like you," Nick said, earnestly. "And... I'd... I'd really, really be happy, if, y'know, you wanted me to... b-be your boyfriend."
Lil hadn't had a clue where Nick was going with his talk until he said the word 'boyfriend', and then there was a sudden and unexpected mix of feelings that made her grab at Nick's hand. God, it felt good, really good, to have him ask her that, and yes, she did care for him an awful lot, but boyfriend meant stuff beyond just cuddling and movies. She'd tried that with Nolan and whether it was her confession about what guys had tried in the past or her being a bully that had turned him against her, the intimacy they shared had a dark tinge now. Any thoughts of that sort of thing with a guy, even with Nick, was... difficult. Still, this was Nick, and that crush she'd had before Christmas hadn't completely disappeared.
Lil took a grounding breath and squeezed his hand. "I think... I'm not gonna say no, but I don't know about yes either, not yet. There's definitely stuff I got to tell you if we do that that... and you've been through the wringer so... I just want us to be careful 'cause you're way too important for me to screw stuff up."
He gave her hand a gentle squeeze, too. "Okay," he said, nodding. "I-I wanna be careful, too," he said, in case that wasn't clear. "Y-you're important to me, too."
"Okay, so far, so good." Lil smiled at him. "Maybe we do things slow then? Like, maybe a date or something?"
"O-okay," Nick said, though he wasn't sure what she meant by that. "I-I mean, I can't really go out or anything without an image inducer," he said, though it was obvious enough to him.
Lil made a face. "That would be weird, going out with you when you don't look like you, but we could try that if there's anything that you'd like to do. Maybe some stuff around here. I mean remember that first time we watched a movie? That was sort of a date, right?"
"Y-yeah," he said, smiling and remembering that fondly. "B-but I mean, that's... I mean, you're gonna wanna go out on the town and stuff when..." Okay, don't maybe act like it's a sure thing, he thought to himself. "If we... if we become a couple," he amended. "B-but if you'd rather just... do fun stuff around here, that's fine, too," he said.
"If we wanna go out, you've still got the image inducer. I mean, it sorta sucks, but it works. We can figure that stuff out." The Lil laughed because this all sounded like very reasonable and calm for a couple of kids deciding they might like each other. There were no butterflies making Lil nervous like there's been with Nolan, but then she and Nick had been friends for a good time now, and besides, look at how she and Nolan had ended things. It wasn't a good example of anything.
"Yeah. I just," he thought about it. "I... I wanna do what you wanna do. And... I mean, if it's all the same to you, I like... I like wearing my face," he said, putting it that way. "I don't like... I don't like hiding, even though I need to, when I'm out there. I just... I'd do it to make you happy. So, there's that."
That was a bit of a troubling statement to Lil. "No, don't do that. First thing, whatever we end up as, is that we don't do things to ourselves just to make the other person happy. Like, if we're a couple or best friends or whatever, we get to say 'no' to each other, right?" Lil put a hand on his cheek. "You have the best face, and the only time you should hide it is when you decide to for your own reasons."
"But compromise is a thing," Nick said, bashfully, tucking his chin down to his chest a bit. She'd never quite touched his face before, and it gave him butterflies. "And I'd compromise on it for you," he offered, again. "I would. Happily."
"I know, I just... I had a friend once, like, just the one." She laughed at the joke, but that wasn't too far from the truth. "This is gonna be a bit of a story, sorry, but kids didn't have much to do with me before her in junior high 'cause I learned that I didn't have to take their shit. A guy could cop a feel or something and bam! I could punch him and send him to the floor. I'm not super strong, but being invulnerable means my punches are sort of like hitting someone with a rock. Anyway, before I learned to punch I was the big girl they could get a rise out of. Afterwards, I was dangerous so they stayed away." That had been the start of her record at school that Nolan had found, and if school administrations had always been less then helpful to the loud girl who was always blowing up, never mind what other kids would do to prompt that, after that they were actively against her. She was officially a Troublemaker.
"One girl noticed and decided she was going to be my friend. Like, she'd take me out places, do stuff with me, pay for meals... just a lot of fun. And I'd start doing stuff for her - someone said something bad about her? I'd stare them down. A girl made eyes at a boy she liked? I'd push her against a wall and threaten her. She started trouble at a party? I'd finish it." Lil pushed herself back on the bed so she could sink into the pillows. There was honestly a lot she didn't remember from her time as Cherry's friend. She'd sort of sunk into a grey static during that time, understanding that she'd gotten herself into something horrible but with no idea how to claw her way out. No way did she want that for Nick.
"I just... I know I'm not her, and I can do compromise, but you think of yourself first. You figure out what you want and then tell me, right? That'll make me happy and help me do the same thing with you."
"But..." He sat there, looking at her, making a pensive face. "You're not that person, anymore. I mean, you don't have to be," he said, gently picking up her hand. "I'll tell you what I want. But I also want to listen to what you want. And then we can, y'know... if... if we're a couple, then we can decide what we want together."
Well, she was that person, at least in part, because it was stuff she'd learned then about how to deal with stuff that kept getting her into trouble, or at least that was what the doc had suggested the last time they talked. But Lil understood what Nick meant. "Then that sounds good to me."
"Good. So... what do you have in mind?" he asked. "Because... anything you want to do for a date... will be fine with me. Almost guaranteed," he said, just happy that this was where this conversation had gone.
"Something around here... " Except they were always around here, weren't they? It should be a little different from what they usually do, maybe something where they could talk more, like a walk around the grounds. Lil bit her lip, trying to think of what else they could do.
"There's... there's a party coming up. Probably something like a dance, but with costumes and stuff, too," Nick said, vaguely remembering something about it in his email, or maybe it was on a poster or something around the school. "We could go to that, if you think it'd be fun." He had to admit, he was interested, but not if she wasn't.
"Oh gosh, you sure? I mean if we go to something like that and we're sticking with each other all night, people are gonna catch on." She gave Nick an embarrassed smile. "They're gonna know you're on a date with the crazy amazon girl."
"And they'll think you're a sweetheart for going on a date with the wolf boy," Nick said back, giving her a sheepish lupine grin. He blinked a few times, and then looked away, scratching at his nose a bit, nervously. "Oh jeez," he said aloud, unable to really stop himself.
Lil watched him for a moment, then leaned over and gave the top of his nose a quick kiss. "Uh uh. You're Nick here, not the wolf boy. And everyone knows you're a great guy so the only thing they'll be thinking about me is that I'm lucky to have snagged you."
"I was just--I just," he stammered, a bit. "I had just, y'know, thought about like, a paired costume we could do, but like," he said, bashfully, unable to really complete the thought. "It's just kinda. It's kinda embarrassing."
"So I was way off there. Ah well, you got a kiss out of me I guess." Lil smiled. "Okay, but is it a costume party?"
"I-I don't remember," Nick admitted. "I only kinda glanced at the post." He scrunched into his shoulders a bit. "B-but the kiss was nice," he added, meekly.
Lil snorted then turned and started tossing pillows off the bed. Once it was clear she patted it. "Here, lie down. I want to know what your idea is but first, we snuggle."
"O-okay," he said, settling down next to her and snuggling against her. "I-it's not a great idea," he said, bashfully. "I-it's kind of embarrassing."
His arm was in the way just a bit, so Lil moved it and put her head on his shoulder and laid her own arm across his chest. She had to curl up into an almost uncomfortable pose to make the work for her on Dana's shorter bed, but it still felt very good. It was definitely a switch from their usual where she was the support by virtue of her size.
"Well, you tell me or you don't, but I'm gonna get up and start eating those strawberries if you don't spill it."
He couldn't help but smile when she put her head on his shoulder. This was... really nice. He could get used to it. "W-well," he said, sheepishly. "I-I'd read that the... Lupercalia thing... that's a part of the party, it-it's about wolves," he said. "A-and I-I thought, it-it'd be funny if I went as a big bad wolf," he said. "A-and y-you went as Red Riding Hood." Okay, yeah, that was super embarrassing to admit.
Lil burst out laughing. "Oh man, that's fucking awesome! Seriously, we should do that! Maybe not like, full-on costumes in case it's not a costume party, but I'll get a red dress and you get decked out in some killer suit and then if anybody asks, we tell 'em."
Okay, the laughing was a bit worrisome, but he was glad she thought it was awesome. "R-really, a suit?" he asked. He'd never worn anything like a suit before. "M-Makes it feel like it's... it's like prom or something," he murmured, happily.
"Oh, but you have to be bad so it's got to be a little more than an ordinary suit. Maybe a hat too. Ha! And I'm 'Little' Red Riding Hood. Your'e brilliant!"
"I do. Okay, first date is the party." Lil patted Nick's chest. "Any butterflies? I mean, it's a date, but we've been close for awhile, right?"
"Some," Nick admitted. "It's just, y'know. We've always been great friends. And I don't wanna ruin that," he said, putting his hand over hers.
That was a worry, but this was Nick, and Lil couldn't understand where things could go that wrong. "I think if we make sure the friend thing is most important, we'll be okay." She propped herself up on an elbow so she could look down at Nick. His face was so familiar that she couldn't look at it and and think 'wolf' or 'monster' or any of the other things he seemed to worry about. He was just Nick, best friend and one of her anchors almost since she'd arrived. There was no way she wanted to risk losing him. "We decide that whatever happens, we're friends. If we have this date and it doesn't work out, we're okay. If we decide to do the boyfriend/girlfriend thing and it's not what one or both us or both of us want, we switch gears and go back to being friends. Like, we're just trying a different path and if it goes wrong, we'll go back to the old one."
"Yeah," he said, sounding more sure. "That's... that's nice. I like being friends," he said, again. "And I like switching gears. It feels just a teeny bit different, now," he said, smiling. "Good different, though," he clarified.
"Definitely. One thing though, if we're gonna try the dating thing, no way am I cleaning up your room anymore. Mom would kick my ass from here to home if she found out I was doing that for a boyfriend." She grinned.
He grinned sheepishly. "I-I will, I promise. I've been better. You've been such a huge help and I'm so happy for it," he said. "A-and it in no way shape or form, like, m-made me want to ask you out more," he said. "Just-just so you know. I've-I've wanted to ever since, well, since... a long time."
"Yeah well, I bet I wanted to ask you out before you wanted to ask me out. Hell, I sorta did ask you out." Lil settled back down beside Nick with her head on his shoulder again. "Doesn't matter though, we got here one way or another."
"Yeah," Nick said, sheepishly. "And I'm glad we're here."
This is the first step to getting your life back on track. That was what he was telling himself. Therapy had been helping so, so much, and whenever he slept when she was around, the nightmares didn't come. That had to mean something. And yeah, he couldn't go outside with her without an image inducer. And yeah, he had... a weird face, and fur all over his body, but Lil had never seemed to care. And he adored her for that.
All he had to do now was knock. The rest, he hoped, would follow more naturally. But he adjusted the box of chocolate covered strawberries in his arm so that he could knock without dropping it, and he did so, after his hand was hanging in the air for five seconds.
She's your friend. She's been your very best friend the entire time. Even if she says no, this can't possibly hurt to try... right?
He didn't realize that in his nerves he'd knocked like six times. He stopped himself, and tried to regain his composure.
Lil looked up from the laptop, a little ticked that her work was getting interrupted, but hey, whoever was on the other side of the door didn't know that, right? 'They can't read your mind, Lil,' the doc has said. Then he'd laughed when he realized his mistake. 'Okay, most of them can't read your mind. Maybe he hadn't been talking about this situation exactly, but the reminder helped tamp down any flickering annoyance and practice, even on the little things, made perfect.
"Just a minute!" She yelled out. She signed out of the computer, turned it off and closed the cover - Lil took the Shaw security instructions very seriously - before getting up to answer the door. Lil opened the door and there was Nick... with flowers and chocolates?
Well, okay, she didn't say anything when she saw him, and that maybe wasn't a great sign? He smiled meekly at her. "H-hey," he said, the words coming just a bit easier when he was dancing around the issue on his mind. "Happy Valentine's Day," he said, offering her the box and the flowers.
"Happy...?" Oh fuck, that's right. It was Valentine's Day. And Nick, sweet guy that he was must have decided to surprise her. Lil beamed and took the gifts. "Oh man, thank you! This is awesome." She stepped back so he could come in. "You know you're amazing, right?"
"I... I try," Nick said, smiling as he came in at her invitation. "I-I didn't know if you liked strawberries but I heard that chocolate covered strawberries were like, a really popular thing, and they're supposed to be, y'know, really good," he said. "How-how are you?" he asked, smiling a bit more strongly. Conversation. Conversation was good. "I-I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" Her room was so tidy, which was just like her. She was the reason his room was so clean half the time, after all.
Lil put the flowers and chocolates down on her bedside table. She'd have to run down to the kitchen later for water and a vase fro the roses, but damn, they were so pretty. "Nothing! I was doing a bit of work for Shinobi, but that can wait."
"Good, I'm glad I didn't, y'know, come at a bad time," he said. He took in a deep breath, and looked at her for a little bit of time. "So, uh, I kinda... wanted to talk, a bit," he said, figuring he should just get this out of the way.
This is the first step to getting your life back on track, he told himself again. "I-if you've got time. If you're not busy. It's... it's nothing bad. I don't think," he said.
"Nothing bad is always good!" Lil hooked her arm in Nick's and pulled him towards Dana's old bed, now bearing a bunch of cheap pillows she'd bought to make it function more like a sofa. She sat down and dragged him down beside her. "And I've always got time for you."
"Thanks," Nick said, settling down next to her, instinctively cuddling in close to her. "I, I want to say that, I... I really appreciate you as a friend. You're... so nice to me, and you've always been there for me," he said, taking a deep breath to get the rest out.
"I just, I want... I don't want anything to hurt our friendship, ever. That's why I want, if, y'know, I want you to know that, it's, it's okay, if you don't, y'know." Okay, yeah, this was hard. And he was rambling and stammering. "And I know things have been bad for me lately and I don't want you to feel pressured because of that or anything, but... it's, y'know, it's Valentine's Day, and like... I... I really, really like you," Nick said, earnestly. "And... I'd... I'd really, really be happy, if, y'know, you wanted me to... b-be your boyfriend."
Lil hadn't had a clue where Nick was going with his talk until he said the word 'boyfriend', and then there was a sudden and unexpected mix of feelings that made her grab at Nick's hand. God, it felt good, really good, to have him ask her that, and yes, she did care for him an awful lot, but boyfriend meant stuff beyond just cuddling and movies. She'd tried that with Nolan and whether it was her confession about what guys had tried in the past or her being a bully that had turned him against her, the intimacy they shared had a dark tinge now. Any thoughts of that sort of thing with a guy, even with Nick, was... difficult. Still, this was Nick, and that crush she'd had before Christmas hadn't completely disappeared.
Lil took a grounding breath and squeezed his hand. "I think... I'm not gonna say no, but I don't know about yes either, not yet. There's definitely stuff I got to tell you if we do that that... and you've been through the wringer so... I just want us to be careful 'cause you're way too important for me to screw stuff up."
He gave her hand a gentle squeeze, too. "Okay," he said, nodding. "I-I wanna be careful, too," he said, in case that wasn't clear. "Y-you're important to me, too."
"Okay, so far, so good." Lil smiled at him. "Maybe we do things slow then? Like, maybe a date or something?"
"O-okay," Nick said, though he wasn't sure what she meant by that. "I-I mean, I can't really go out or anything without an image inducer," he said, though it was obvious enough to him.
Lil made a face. "That would be weird, going out with you when you don't look like you, but we could try that if there's anything that you'd like to do. Maybe some stuff around here. I mean remember that first time we watched a movie? That was sort of a date, right?"
"Y-yeah," he said, smiling and remembering that fondly. "B-but I mean, that's... I mean, you're gonna wanna go out on the town and stuff when..." Okay, don't maybe act like it's a sure thing, he thought to himself. "If we... if we become a couple," he amended. "B-but if you'd rather just... do fun stuff around here, that's fine, too," he said.
"If we wanna go out, you've still got the image inducer. I mean, it sorta sucks, but it works. We can figure that stuff out." The Lil laughed because this all sounded like very reasonable and calm for a couple of kids deciding they might like each other. There were no butterflies making Lil nervous like there's been with Nolan, but then she and Nick had been friends for a good time now, and besides, look at how she and Nolan had ended things. It wasn't a good example of anything.
"Yeah. I just," he thought about it. "I... I wanna do what you wanna do. And... I mean, if it's all the same to you, I like... I like wearing my face," he said, putting it that way. "I don't like... I don't like hiding, even though I need to, when I'm out there. I just... I'd do it to make you happy. So, there's that."
That was a bit of a troubling statement to Lil. "No, don't do that. First thing, whatever we end up as, is that we don't do things to ourselves just to make the other person happy. Like, if we're a couple or best friends or whatever, we get to say 'no' to each other, right?" Lil put a hand on his cheek. "You have the best face, and the only time you should hide it is when you decide to for your own reasons."
"But compromise is a thing," Nick said, bashfully, tucking his chin down to his chest a bit. She'd never quite touched his face before, and it gave him butterflies. "And I'd compromise on it for you," he offered, again. "I would. Happily."
"I know, I just... I had a friend once, like, just the one." She laughed at the joke, but that wasn't too far from the truth. "This is gonna be a bit of a story, sorry, but kids didn't have much to do with me before her in junior high 'cause I learned that I didn't have to take their shit. A guy could cop a feel or something and bam! I could punch him and send him to the floor. I'm not super strong, but being invulnerable means my punches are sort of like hitting someone with a rock. Anyway, before I learned to punch I was the big girl they could get a rise out of. Afterwards, I was dangerous so they stayed away." That had been the start of her record at school that Nolan had found, and if school administrations had always been less then helpful to the loud girl who was always blowing up, never mind what other kids would do to prompt that, after that they were actively against her. She was officially a Troublemaker.
"One girl noticed and decided she was going to be my friend. Like, she'd take me out places, do stuff with me, pay for meals... just a lot of fun. And I'd start doing stuff for her - someone said something bad about her? I'd stare them down. A girl made eyes at a boy she liked? I'd push her against a wall and threaten her. She started trouble at a party? I'd finish it." Lil pushed herself back on the bed so she could sink into the pillows. There was honestly a lot she didn't remember from her time as Cherry's friend. She'd sort of sunk into a grey static during that time, understanding that she'd gotten herself into something horrible but with no idea how to claw her way out. No way did she want that for Nick.
"I just... I know I'm not her, and I can do compromise, but you think of yourself first. You figure out what you want and then tell me, right? That'll make me happy and help me do the same thing with you."
"But..." He sat there, looking at her, making a pensive face. "You're not that person, anymore. I mean, you don't have to be," he said, gently picking up her hand. "I'll tell you what I want. But I also want to listen to what you want. And then we can, y'know... if... if we're a couple, then we can decide what we want together."
Well, she was that person, at least in part, because it was stuff she'd learned then about how to deal with stuff that kept getting her into trouble, or at least that was what the doc had suggested the last time they talked. But Lil understood what Nick meant. "Then that sounds good to me."
"Good. So... what do you have in mind?" he asked. "Because... anything you want to do for a date... will be fine with me. Almost guaranteed," he said, just happy that this was where this conversation had gone.
"Something around here... " Except they were always around here, weren't they? It should be a little different from what they usually do, maybe something where they could talk more, like a walk around the grounds. Lil bit her lip, trying to think of what else they could do.
"There's... there's a party coming up. Probably something like a dance, but with costumes and stuff, too," Nick said, vaguely remembering something about it in his email, or maybe it was on a poster or something around the school. "We could go to that, if you think it'd be fun." He had to admit, he was interested, but not if she wasn't.
"Oh gosh, you sure? I mean if we go to something like that and we're sticking with each other all night, people are gonna catch on." She gave Nick an embarrassed smile. "They're gonna know you're on a date with the crazy amazon girl."
"And they'll think you're a sweetheart for going on a date with the wolf boy," Nick said back, giving her a sheepish lupine grin. He blinked a few times, and then looked away, scratching at his nose a bit, nervously. "Oh jeez," he said aloud, unable to really stop himself.
Lil watched him for a moment, then leaned over and gave the top of his nose a quick kiss. "Uh uh. You're Nick here, not the wolf boy. And everyone knows you're a great guy so the only thing they'll be thinking about me is that I'm lucky to have snagged you."
"I was just--I just," he stammered, a bit. "I had just, y'know, thought about like, a paired costume we could do, but like," he said, bashfully, unable to really complete the thought. "It's just kinda. It's kinda embarrassing."
"So I was way off there. Ah well, you got a kiss out of me I guess." Lil smiled. "Okay, but is it a costume party?"
"I-I don't remember," Nick admitted. "I only kinda glanced at the post." He scrunched into his shoulders a bit. "B-but the kiss was nice," he added, meekly.
Lil snorted then turned and started tossing pillows off the bed. Once it was clear she patted it. "Here, lie down. I want to know what your idea is but first, we snuggle."
"O-okay," he said, settling down next to her and snuggling against her. "I-it's not a great idea," he said, bashfully. "I-it's kind of embarrassing."
His arm was in the way just a bit, so Lil moved it and put her head on his shoulder and laid her own arm across his chest. She had to curl up into an almost uncomfortable pose to make the work for her on Dana's shorter bed, but it still felt very good. It was definitely a switch from their usual where she was the support by virtue of her size.
"Well, you tell me or you don't, but I'm gonna get up and start eating those strawberries if you don't spill it."
He couldn't help but smile when she put her head on his shoulder. This was... really nice. He could get used to it. "W-well," he said, sheepishly. "I-I'd read that the... Lupercalia thing... that's a part of the party, it-it's about wolves," he said. "A-and I-I thought, it-it'd be funny if I went as a big bad wolf," he said. "A-and y-you went as Red Riding Hood." Okay, yeah, that was super embarrassing to admit.
Lil burst out laughing. "Oh man, that's fucking awesome! Seriously, we should do that! Maybe not like, full-on costumes in case it's not a costume party, but I'll get a red dress and you get decked out in some killer suit and then if anybody asks, we tell 'em."
Okay, the laughing was a bit worrisome, but he was glad she thought it was awesome. "R-really, a suit?" he asked. He'd never worn anything like a suit before. "M-Makes it feel like it's... it's like prom or something," he murmured, happily.
"Oh, but you have to be bad so it's got to be a little more than an ordinary suit. Maybe a hat too. Ha! And I'm 'Little' Red Riding Hood. Your'e brilliant!"
"I do. Okay, first date is the party." Lil patted Nick's chest. "Any butterflies? I mean, it's a date, but we've been close for awhile, right?"
"Some," Nick admitted. "It's just, y'know. We've always been great friends. And I don't wanna ruin that," he said, putting his hand over hers.
That was a worry, but this was Nick, and Lil couldn't understand where things could go that wrong. "I think if we make sure the friend thing is most important, we'll be okay." She propped herself up on an elbow so she could look down at Nick. His face was so familiar that she couldn't look at it and and think 'wolf' or 'monster' or any of the other things he seemed to worry about. He was just Nick, best friend and one of her anchors almost since she'd arrived. There was no way she wanted to risk losing him. "We decide that whatever happens, we're friends. If we have this date and it doesn't work out, we're okay. If we decide to do the boyfriend/girlfriend thing and it's not what one or both us or both of us want, we switch gears and go back to being friends. Like, we're just trying a different path and if it goes wrong, we'll go back to the old one."
"Yeah," he said, sounding more sure. "That's... that's nice. I like being friends," he said, again. "And I like switching gears. It feels just a teeny bit different, now," he said, smiling. "Good different, though," he clarified.
"Definitely. One thing though, if we're gonna try the dating thing, no way am I cleaning up your room anymore. Mom would kick my ass from here to home if she found out I was doing that for a boyfriend." She grinned.
He grinned sheepishly. "I-I will, I promise. I've been better. You've been such a huge help and I'm so happy for it," he said. "A-and it in no way shape or form, like, m-made me want to ask you out more," he said. "Just-just so you know. I've-I've wanted to ever since, well, since... a long time."
"Yeah well, I bet I wanted to ask you out before you wanted to ask me out. Hell, I sorta did ask you out." Lil settled back down beside Nick with her head on his shoulder again. "Doesn't matter though, we got here one way or another."
"Yeah," Nick said, sheepishly. "And I'm glad we're here."