#eventually hanami catches estinien breaking in to hide money in the clean laundry basket and puts her foot down

[blackestnight]

our revels now are ended

continuing the just-barely-outside ffxivwrite tradition of @nuclearanomaly writing a tooth-rotting double date fic and me immediately being possessed by a demon and writing a follow-up to bully estinien. at least this year the only thing injured is estinien’s pride?

Fair food was expensive enough without paying out the nose for parking, which was why they’d decided to split the cost of one pass and cram into Aymeric’s Audi. (Hanami had grumbled but since her truck didn’t have a backseat it couldn’t fit all four of them, and anyway Estinien didn’t much enjoy the thought of leaving his motorcycle out in the open parking field for a full day, begging to be scratched or stolen by some snot-nosed teenagers.) Hours past sundown, the leather seats had cooled even after being left in the sun, and rather than let the air conditioning run Hanami had reached over to shut it off and lowered the front windows instead. The pleasantly chill rush of late-night, late summer air carried the scent of grass and dew into the cabin, with the added bonus of almost drowning out the crooning jazz that Aymeric always pumped through the stereo.

The car was silent apart from the wind and the faint traces of piano. Estinien was slumped behind the passenger seat—Hanami was short, so it left him more legroom, except for the times when she left the seat all the way back just to be a dick—and Ninira was in the middle seat, maybe out of habit. She’d propped her absurd stuffed pudding in the seat on her other side. The pale blue lights from the dashboard display caught the shadows under her eyes, and in Aymeric’s, from what Estinien could see of him; they both looked about as tired as he felt.

He tried not to look toward the front seats too much. Aymeric had his eyes trained on the road now, and Estinien couldn’t see anything of Hanami except glimpses of her horns and the glow of her phone screen where she was tapping away at it one-handed—one-handed, because her other hand was resting over Aymeric’s on the gearshift, which was completely ridiculous because Estinien knew for a fact this car had an automatic transmission. Ridiculous, and obnoxious, which was absolutely why the sight made something in Estinien’s gut twist. Not looking at the front also meant Aymeric couldn’t meet his eyes under the pretense of checking his blind spot and give a knowing smirk.

Ninira sighed, and yawned, and leaned against his arm, and Estinien’s stomach twisted just a little tighter.

“Tired?” he asked her, quiet as he could manage out of respect for the silence of the road.

“Mm-hmm.” Ninira squirmed enough to loop her arm through one of his. “I had fun. Today was just...a lot.”

Yeah, he thought, faintly. No shit. Between the crowd and the noise and the adrenaline of the rides, today would have been a lot on its own, and that wasn’t counting the Ferris wheel. Not particularly exhilarating on its own, but. Well.

The kiss, and all.

There went his gut again. Ridiculous. He was a grown man, not a schoolboy, and Ninira was his girlfriend. No reason to tie himself in knots over a kiss, or Nini dozing off on his arm, or the thought that soon enough he would have to dislodge her and leave her while he trudged up the stairs of his building alone.

He watched the reflected glow of Hanami’s phone, a little cartoon owl waving in the window, rather than looking at the driver’s side of the car, but he swore he could feel Aymeric’s eyes on him again.

Dammit. He at least wasn’t going to have this conversation out loud. He fished his own phone from his pocket and tapped out a message, backspacing and re-writing three times before he grew disgusted with himself and hit the little arrow to send it.

>Stay at mine tonight if you want. Your place is like 45 mins further across town. Only if you want to tho

He felt Ninira stiffen at the gentle chime of her phone. She had to withdraw her arm to dig it from her purse—her hands were too small for her thumb to span the screen—but she still leaned against him while he heard the tapping noise of her keying in her passcode, and then her quiet gasp. When he glanced down at her, her eyes were wide and bright with shock in the flickering streetlights.

“Re—” she started to whisper, and then seemed to remember the peanut gallery up front and turned to type feverishly. His phone buzzed in his hand with her response.

>Really? I don’t want to put you out LOL. Not that I don’t want to spend more time with you!!!

Normally he found it irritating when people used pointless filler in texts, especially when they were clearly not ‘laughing out loud.’ He had a sinking feeling that finding it cute from Ninira was indicative of a trend.

>You’re not putting me out, I’ve slept on my couch before if it comes to that. Just thought you could use the extra sleep. >Plus the old man up front looks like it’s past his bedtime

There. Solid excuse, not even a lie, and plausible deniability if Ninira didn’t want to sleep next to him, without cutting off the possibility entirely.

He still found himself counting the seconds in quiet agony while she typed for a long time.

>Don’t be rude! 😣 You’re the same age… >I’d like to stay. Thank you

And then, while he was still recovering:

>💖

Gods be good.

Ninira slipped her hand under his. It took some doing to lace her fingers between his own, especially as he was somewhat occupied with staring at the stupid little heart emoji like an idiot, but when he remembered himself enough to actually look at her he could see the flush high on her cheeks, even in the dim lights, and her tiny, eager smile. She gave a trembling little squeeze to his hand, and he held her fingers tighter in return.

He was so distracted by Ninira, and by the twist in his stomach turning to a stupid little fluttering sensation, that it actually startled him when the car slowed to a stop. The lights outside his building seemed momentarily alien. “Your chariot, Ser Estinien,” Aymeric said, interrupting the sleepy rapture of the cabin with a symphony of the door locks unlatching as the car settled into park.

Estinien looked back down at Ninira, who swallowed visibly.

“I’m getting out here too, actually,” she said, only slightly strained while she fumbled with her seatbelt and dragged the plush pudding over. “Thank you for the ride, Aymeric.”

Aymeric’s smile was only half-visible but definitely shit-eating. “Of course,” he said, raising his voice slightly to be heard over the clunk of the door opening while Estinien stepped out. “Have a good night, both of you.”

Estinien braced himself on the car’s hood and held his other hand out to steady Ninira as she slid down to the curb, wobbling slightly with her stuffed burden, which was the only reason he didn’t extend a middle finger when he heard Hanami mutter, “Fucking finally.”

“Piss off,” he advised her.

“Choke on a wespe,” she said. “Good night, Ninira.”

“Night!” Nini squeaked, while Estinien cut off any further insults by slamming the door shut, though not before he caught the beginnings of Aymeric’s laugh. After a moment and a ghostly flash of a wave through the tinted windows, the car peeled back into the street, leaving Estinien and Ninira alone in a pool of lamplight with their fingers intertwined. Aside from the occasional car rumbling past, the night was quiet, but Estinien’s pulse seemed loud in his ears.

“Um,” Nini finally said. Her blush was back in full force, even more obvious under the warm glow of the streetlight.

Right.

“Shall we?” he said, and jerked his free hand over his shoulder to point at the door to the lobby. Ninira nodded.

The pudding toy was still stupid, but he carried it for her on the stairs, rather than risk having to let go of her hand.