A/N: Based off the cute date ideas from tumblr. Fanworks of any kind are always welcome. Homestuck belongs to Hussie.
First Date
Her arm was still in a sling when he took her to the park close to Vriska's house. The neighborhood was a lot prettier than her own and the metro park had the best trees. Thick trunked and long branches that sloped and swooped down toward the earth in a jagged but elegant grace that only nature could pull off properly. Equius had packed away a cramped tackle box and cradled a set of dusty old fishing rods on his shoulder, the lunchbox and camera was placed in Nepeta's charge.
Today was supposed to be a calming and therapeutic trip to the river, something to ease the man's nerves while still being in the presence of his best friend. Nepeta had been restless since being released from the hospital, being locked within the house in the overwhelming presence of her mother and sister. Her leg was taken out of a bright blue cast a little less than a week ago and this was the first day she was out of the house for her own leisure and not a trip to the doctor or school. Her cheeks puffed a little upon glancing at the filthy boxes containing the fishing rods; she promised that she would sit quietly and fish with Equius in order not to strain herself out in some outlandish adventure.
Equius noticed her pout, returning it with a subtle twitch in his lips. "Do not give me that look. You promised to do this."
"I know! I thought I could, but it is just so boring!" she sighed out loudly.
"Nepeta, we have not even started yet. How do you know it will be boring if you do not even try it?" he countered with a shrug in his shoulder.
The smaller girl gave out a strangled whine. "Do we have to do this the entire time?"
Equius paused in his gait for a moment, furrowed brows and a truant frown. Nepeta couldn't help but gulp a little audibly at the thought that she had upset him into a lecturing tangent. She readied herself for the longwinded babbling about social standards and proper lady like behavior but was almost disappointed when he took a cautious step away from her and let out a rather relaxed sigh. "I suppose we could manage to fit another activity into the schedule. As long as it is not a barbaric hunting reenactment or something as equally ludicrous."
What was this? No argument, no back and forth yes and no? No being called a sillyface or calling him a stick in the mud? Just an ok? The younger Leijon almost did a back take to release a stumped "huh?" but withheld herself in order not to issue any of the before mentioned reactions. He glanced behind his shoulder at her in an acute attentiveness that made her blush a little. "Is there something wrong?"
Nepeta shook her head in response and tried to bound over to him with the utmost enthusiasm, slinging herself onto his shoulders for only a moment with a bubbly laugh. The walk seemed a lot shorter after she was granted her permission to do something other than fishing, but she still looked to him with concern. The faint traces of scars over his neck were barely noticeable against his bronzed tone, but she would always have the image of the boy they once called a friend looming over him. "I'm fine," he broke her line of thought with a hushed whisper and a rather rough muss with her hat and hair.
Nepeta pushed his paw like hand off of her with a snort, a cheeky smile stretching along her face. "I'll race you to a good spot," she dared.
Before he voiced his objections on the matter, the girl dashed off toward the river bank. Her sling bouncing uncomfortably against her thin chest, the cast encasing her arm beating against her despite holding it down as much as possible. She gracelessly slipped on the sludge nearing the water line, scraping her leg and staining her new shorts. The lunch box she had been toting clobbered uselessly over into the dry grass, barely escaping her muddy demise. The rustle of fabric against fabric alerted her to her companion's speedy arrival and in no time he was kneeling besides her, fussing over her injuries like a worried hen.
"I'm fine, stop that," she swatted at him. "You act as if I nefur fell befur."
It wasn't until the words left her tongue did she release the injury had occurred on the leg which she had just had the casting removed from. The dark splotches of mud shadowed into the memory of swollen black and purple bruises and seeping red blood creeping into her vision from everywhere she glances. "Nepeta?"
She glanced up at her name, the sunny mid spring day blossoming back into focus and the crystal clear expression of guilt and worry on her companion's face made her smile a little. "Is this a good spot?"
He scoffed a little, his shoulders falling but the tense coil of his muscles could be seen all over his posture. "You are in the mud. This is a completely awful spot," he lifted her by her under arms, placing her feet on the ground slowly.
Her entire body shook a little from the unpleasant reminder, but she managed to coordinate her sneakers properly into the sludge beneath her, but letting go of the muscular biceps of her dear friend came as a bit of a challenge for some unforeseen reason. Nepeta couldn't help but grip tighter to him, making him pause in his movement to pull away. Her olive toned eyes gazed onto his gloved hand and traveled cautiously up his arm, stopping briefly over the impression on his skin under her fingers before continuing up to visually trace his jawline and the high rise of his cheek bones.
Finally, she let him go; the movement forced and choppy with her free hand slamming back toward her side. He regarded her for only a few more seconds, her face turned toward the dirt that speckled the camera hanging from her neck, before moving toward the drier patches of dew kissed grass and sitting down next to his discarded tackle box and fishing rods. Nepeta rubbed the skin above her cast a little as she watched him work his aged rods from the boxes they had been sealed in, the ripple of his tendons through skin as they lifted, unwound the wire and tied on hooks. This was a bit of appreciation in his strength, she noted to herself. Like how he had always looked out for her in elementary school and even now despite she could take care of herself on most occasions.
In fact, Nepeta never really thought of how he was always around and she couldn't even place when they had become friends. He was in her memories as far as they go, and even in some odd dreams filled with royal blues and forests of the most vibrant of greens splashed haphazardly over endless grey. It really was an odd thing to her, since she could pinpoint the exact memories of meeting Karkat and Tavros, along with all of her other close friends. "Nepeta, if you are going to lollygag all morning then I will escort you back to your residence."
She laughed weakly at his interruptions to her thoughts before lazily scooping the lunch box into her grip and padding softly to his side and lowering herself into the damp grass. The girl was soon handed a rod with a funny looking purple plastic squid attached to it, which she promptly poked at to make it swing back and forth in front of her like a bored pendulum. The rod was cradled against her broken arm carefully after the line was casted, the pluck of the lore hitting the murky water defended by the wind. No sooner did Equius swing his arm to cast his own lore, the distance of the traveling pink squid put Nepeta's to shame.
The girl sat still for a total of four minutes before she began to become restless. "Equius, aren't these hooks going to hurt the fish?" she asked innocently.
He pondered the question for a moment, titling his head toward her a little. "Perhaps. I would say it is a possibility."
She frowned deeply and looked up at him, "I thought you were against hurting the wildlife of the world."
"I am against killing them," he correctly automatically. "Once I let the fish go, if it died or not, is completely out of my control. If I contributed to its death with my careless behavior then the only thing I would be able to do is apologize. Where in life would you be if you continuously dwelled on mere possibilities? It is not as if I am taking away from the ecosystem by the chance of a few fish dying over a slit lip when their deaths could help feed predators or the algae that flourishes here."
After he was finished, he focused back toward the water, reeling the line a fraction of an inch. Nepeta thought for a moment, when did he look toward her? She shrugged the feeling away and shifted to lean casually against him while observing her own strung line. The useless waves of the water rippling up and around her lore made the girl a little tired, but she forced herself to stay awake with the hope that she could actually catch something with the gross plastic toy. She mimicked Equius' previous motion and reeled the line in slightly before letting it settle again, peacefully drifting through discarded moss and leaves.
This awfully quiet environment reminded Nepeta of the hospital, the pseudo gaseous green of the extended housing section and the repetitive noises driving her insane. Even the warm and welcome presence of her companion added to the disgusting feel of nostalgia that trampled its way into her mind. Equius was released an entire month before she was, the trauma done to her riddled form caused her recovery to be slow and dreadful, but he remained as faithful as ever. Visitations were long and constant, not a day passed where she felt alone, but that didn't chase the feeling of sorrow from her thoughts.
It wasn't like Equius was her only visitor while she was being treated, in fact she had a lot by her standards. First was Terezi, she visited for a few days, always with the same apologies and miserable sniffles before she fell into some bully fueled depression and stopped visiting. Karkat had come once with a small vase and a couple flowers, always curt and sharp with his words. He never apologized for the actions of his friend but rather spread a message of regret from Gamzee. Nepeta felt the message was horribly scripted, she almost scoffed on how badly he was trying to act as if the psychopathic clown actually said to give her or Equius this message. The girl was actually fairly surprised that Vriska and Tavros put in the effort of visiting her for an entire week, though Vriska had admitted it was a part of some self-righteous plan to create an image of a better person within herself.
Her imprisonment seemed to strike an awful cord of déjà vu, as if there was a similar time where she was horrendously beaten to near death and separated from her darling friend for a long time. Seemed rather unlikely in the context of her life now but she still regarded the thought as a bad omen. How would her life even be without Equius around? The thought made her eyes prickle a bit and the girl wondered why he would ever leave her to begin with, but then she remembered Aradia. He was always so fascinated with the odd girl and after his establishment on the peculiar relationship with her, he seemed to be around less and less until she had left him for the companion of Sollux.
The realization felt like a pit had opened beneath her, like she was in constant freefall while still being pulled under by pools of poisonous ink. He was going to fall in love, truly and without limitation unlike his fraternization with Aradia, and he was going to live his life with the marvelous girl of his dreams and then Nepeta would be left in the shadows, the background of his life, as the friend he had a long time ago. A character in stories to his new family and nothing more. The forceful yank of the rod from her grip topples the pyramid of despair from her mind as it was fling away from her and was dragged toward the water before Equius dove after it. "Gosh darn it Nepeta! You have to be more careful, my father will have my hea-"
He held the rod uselessly in the dirt, the line long having snapped free and drug into the water with the escaping fish. The air passed between them, stale and hollow in the space that warped the area, Nepeta's stifled hiccups barely audible with the crackling of leaves in the wind. She watched his expression through wet and wide eyes, his frown drawing taunt for a moment for dissipating and his entire form relaxing on the bank of the clouded river. Equius didn't press for a reason behind her tears, nor did he move to comfort her. He just sat and waited patiently for damp cheeks to dry and in a way, she supposes it was more comforting without the anxious touches.
Nepeta stood up slowly with a lazy stretch, her congested noises of damp nostrils broke the stillness that she felt. "Do you ever think…" she began but bit her tongue a little, conflicted how to properly word her inquiry. "What if you were alone?"
Equius looked up to her and regarded the question in the thoughtful and well planned way he did with every issue that would arise to him. "That is completely preposterous," he chimed as he rose to a stand as well, bringing the rod up with him. "I have you, so the notion is invalid."
The girl held back a feminine squeak of surprise, voting in favor to rebut his statement. "But what if you meet some nice girl? What if I meet a guy?"
He shrugged and smiled crooked and swept a lock of hair off his shoulders. "Don't be silly. Even in the standing that we gain romantic partners, we will still always be friends. Best friends if you don't mind me saying."
Nepeta grinned at the thought of them always being friends, honestly it was a notion she carried at all times regardless but it was always reassuring to have him state it for her. She coughed out a small giggle and began to feverishly whip the salty tear stains from her cheeks, not noticing the approaching man until his shadow loomed over her. "I believe it is now time for your segment of this day, what is it you had planned?"
She frowned cutely, holding her one hand in front of her face in thought. A few left over sniffling shook her mildly, drawing her eyes toward the majestic shrubs and thick trunked trees. "I think…" she started quietly. "I would like to climb some trees."
The girl rubbed the edge of the camera lens, dried bits of mud chipping off. "We could take some pictures, you know, since we didn't get any of the fish."
Equius stayed silent for a while before letting out a defeated sigh. "I suppose that isn't too dangerous of an activity…"
Nepeta made her way over toward the tree line slowly to give her companion time to work his aged rods back within their wooden boxes. She stopped to gave up one of the thick trunked trees with cascading branches swooping low toward the earth. The girl looked back for a moment before taking a couple quick steps and leaping up to grab the lowest hanging branch. She only struggled a moment before finally managing to hoist herself up. Nepeta sat for a moment, just peacefully watching as Equius rose from the ground and turned toward her with a smile.
She smiled weakly in return before raising herself and hopping up to latch onto a taller branch, repeating the previous struggle before resting upon the bark. Equius had made his way to the tree she was perched in and was just looking up at her. "What are you waiting fur?"
The girl received no answer before her companion took a similar leap as she did to the first branch. She clicked the camera on at that moment to snap a picture of his approaching form. It was only two more shutter clicks of the camera before Equius had seated himself beside her. She smiled at him softly only for him to return a soft smile of his own, "Are you feeling better?"
Nepeta's smile faltered a moment as her gaze drifted toward the camera. "I suppose a little," she responded softly.
"Do you want to talk about it?" His voice was almost a whisper.
Finally her smile fell as she took in a shaky breath. "When I think about us always being friends.. It kind of hurts now?"
Equius leaned in closer to the girl. :Because I know someday, somehow, you will find someone better then me I guess." She whispered to him. "I mean, I will always be your friend but... I can't really stand the thought of being on the back burner if you met another girl."
A slow and shaking muscular arm found it's way around the smaller girl. They were both silent for a moment, neither sure where to continue from until finally Equius muttered, "I know I cannot promise anything not within my control but... maybe you could find some solace if we uh..."
Nepeta leaned away from the boy a bit, he had started to sweat out of a nervous panic. "Equius...?" She scrunched up her face tightly as he breathed heavily in an attempt to calm himself. "What are you..?"
"M-Maybe we could... d-d-da.." he stuttered, taking his arm away from his companion.
"Date?" Nepeta reeled back in shock.
Equius pressed his hands to his face and groaned out a weak apology, "That idea is dumb, completely uncalled for, I am so sor-"
The girl cut in, "Do you even like me like that? Or are you just messing with me?"
The boy looked over sharply. "No, no! I mean, I don't know if I do but I.." He gasped deeply, "I do not like when you are so upset about trivial things like me.."
Nepeta scoffed, "You are anything but trivial you sillyface."
Finally a smile broke out on Equius' face, "I think you are mistaken, you are clearly the sillyface here."
They both erupted in a quiet giggle fit, the tension breaking from the situation. Eventually the silent laughter died down and left them both just peacefully watching the water of the river below them ripple and flow with the wind. They continued to just sit and watch the park from the comfort of their tree and soon the duo found themselves being casted in a giant glow from the slowly setting sun.
"Equius?" Nepeta's voice broke over the fuzzy atmosphere.
He glanced up at her, giving a slight noise for her to continue. "I think.. I think I'm ok with the idea from earlier." Her fingertips danced lightly over the bark of the tree toward her companion's resting hand.
She only had to nudge gently at Equius' hand before he interlaced his embarrassingly sweaty fingers with hers. They sat together for a few more minutes, basking in the relieved state of acceptance that radiated from each other. "I guess, today was kind of like a first date right?" Nepeta chuckled.
"The first of many, I hope."