Dear all, happy 1000 stories!
This is a piece EspoirDio and I co-authored. If you can figure out who wrote what let us know in the reviews.
Disclaimer: The characters in the story aren't ours, except for the two minor characters.
The street was almost empty as two figures stumbled out of a building, clinging around each others waist, their erupting laughter sending little clouds out into the otherwise crystal clear night. Their movements were in many ways still mimicking their motions from minutes ago when they had danced inside that very building. A faint noise of Streisand ebbed out of the two-doored portal behind them. For quite some time they were giggling and snickering, seemingly unaware of their surroundings and unaware of the limousine that, as if on cue, had pulled up in front of the entrance, just a few feet away from them. The doorman held the door to the limousine open with an expectant look on his face which went entirely unnoticed by the blonde socialite and her sandy-haired companion because they were so immersed with each other, laughing about something they had long forgotten already.
If anyone had questioned them right there and then what they found so funny they would have had difficulties pinpointing where this frenzy had originated. Or maybe they would have found that the liquor they had consumed en masse had somewhat blurred the memory. And then, they probably would have broken out into laughter because of the sheer hilarity of the situation.
Yet, there was nobody there to ask them, only the doorman, who was still patiently (and silently) waiting for them to enter the car. Finally, breathlessly, they stopped and for the first time since they had left the building they took in their surroundings. Naturally, as the evening had come to a close and silently shifted into night, the sky had been tinted black with only a milky moon contrasting against it. Yet, as they had spent all evening and the wee hours of the morning enjoying each other's company, dancing, bickering, they had not taken notice of the passing time or the changing colours of the night sky. CC remembered in perfect clarity how they had swayed to the music, their bodies close to each other, their minds caught up in the moment, hands and arms interlocked. Niles's hand was now casually resting on CC's hipbone, while her hands clung around his neck, locked in an almost intimate embrace.
"Who knew that spending an evening with an old, fat man could be so much fun, huh?", CC said finally and a whimsical smile played on her lips as she waited for the habitual zinger she knew was about to come her way.
"Oh please, don't talk about yourself like that!", Niles retorted. And there it was!
CC grimaced. "Whatever, Butler Boy. At the end of the day we both know you enjoyed it, too."
Niles merely nodded in silent agreement to what she had just said. There was no denying that he had enjoyed himself. Even that was an understatement. His lips curved into a smirk – something she had grown to adore over the last couple of years. (Scratch that, decades!)
CC pressed her lips together in an effort not to burst into laughter again, but she failed. Instead, she raised her hands to cover her mouth and snorted with laughter to which Niles raised his eyebrows questioningly. She was just about to open her mouth when the doorman made himself noticeable with a nervous clearing of his throat, and the moment was lost. Niles glanced over to the man clad in a formal black uniform with silver buttons and his face turned to look at CC again, a slight note of annoyance in his eyes to have their moment interrupted in that seemingly insignificant way. Still, neither of them only did so much as move an inch to follow the doorman (more or less) silent urge to get into the car.
"Well, I shall be off, Miss Babcock," Niles addressed finally CC.
"Oh yes, absolutely! We should go home."
Niles smiled at her and let go of her hip, taking two slow steps backwards.
"Hey!," CC called out after him. "Wanna share a ride?" CC grinned and gestured towards the open door of the car.
"I, um, -" Niles mumbled.
"Oh, come on!" she exclaimed, grabbed his hand and yanked him towards the car. He almost tripped over his own feet thanks to the gusto of her pull, but recovered quickly as she squeezed into the car, their entwined hands forcing Niles to do the same, and the momentum of her pull still so ardent that Niles's body crashed into the right side of hers as he sat down beside her. And so they were sitting in the backseat of the limousine, squished into one corner, yet unadmittedly not one bit uncomfortable.
The person in the driver's seat rolled down the blackened window to find two individuals in the backseat. He had meant to ask them where he was supposed to take them but hesitated when he saw who was sitting in the car. He recognized the butler and the blue-eyed blonde immediately and there were three things about them that caught his eye: First, the way they had squeezed together in one place in the otherwise fairly spacious car; second, their hands that were (still) linked, resting between them; and third, the emotion that was written all over their faces: deep affection. A silent smile passed his lips as he rolled up the window again and slid the car out of the parking spot onto the street.
Niles and CC barely noticed the car moving. Instead, their heads were filled with a lighthearted, insouciant giddiness. CC felt the corners of her mouth twitch upwards again, and she stared at their linked hands. Oddly enough, this didn't strike her as anything peculiar. It seemed fitting.
CC stole a glance at him. Then the twitching corners of her mouth broke into a smile and she giggled.
"What?" Niles asked, perplexed.
He, too, had concerned himself with his left hand which seemed to fit so well with CC's right. There had been a slight tug in his stomach when she had reached for his hand and had fiercely pulled him towards the waiting limousine, and that tugging had dissolved into warmth spreading through his whole body when their hands had remained together and CC hadn't moved away from him inside the car. And ever so slightly a feeling of happiness had mixed into that of liquor-induced giddiness – a feeling that made his heart pound.
"Nothing," CC responded and buried her face in his shoulder. Feeling the muffled sounds of her giggle against his body, Niles could not help but grin a goofy grin.
CC shifted her head, resting her chin on top of his shoulder, glancing up at him. A glint in her eyes and a happiness written all over her face. He realized that he had seldom seen her this content and relaxed… and whether he liked to admit it or not, it made him happy just the same.
With a little effort he snuck his left arm around her and once again she stirred and nestled her head against his shoulder, her forehead touching his cheek.
"You know what?" Niles asked and felt her move, but evidently the effort it would take for her to make eye contact was too great.
"Mmh?" she only hummed in return.
"I'm beginning to understand why you value your relationship with alcohol so much."
There was a part of her that was feebly beginning to protest at this assessment, but her mind felt so deliciously hazy that none of the words ever made it past her tongue.
"And why is that?" she asked instead, readying herself for another zinger, something along the lines of being used to paying for things, perhaps. But he surprised her.
"It makes everything so…" he thought momentarily, the quick-witted part of him working only sluggishly to supply him with the right word, "easy."
She scrunched her forehead, trying to follow him.
"Speak English, goddamnit," she finally demanded, another involuntary giggle spilling from her mouth.
"Well, you know…all the things that we did tonight. The laughing, the dancing, the…" he paused once more and only waggled his eyebrows to fill in the missing activity – causing her to laugh harder, "we wouldn't have done any of it if it wasn't for the liquor."
C.C. hummed and pursed her lips as if carefully assessing his statement.
"Not true," she finally concluded.
"So true," he argued childishly, "two years ago when we -"
"Yeah, yeah," she interrupted him, seeing no need to revisit that particular memory when they hadn't even spoken of it since, "but what about that banquet… event… thing…" she feebly gestured around "we ended up dancing back at the mansion."
"As far as I remember we did have something to drink then," Niles pointed out with a grin.
"Yes, but there's a difference between having a drink and being drunk." She rolled her eyes dramatically and he snorted.
"Of course, my mistake, who am I to lecture you in your area of expertise?"
This time she did find the energy to look up at him and after she'd shot a glare as well, she jabbed him in the side.
"Oomph," he chuckled but brought her closer nonetheless.
It was then that the limousine came to a halt in front of the mansion. Noticing the absence of motion, Niles glanced out of the window only to realize that he had arrived at his destination. He looked back at CC and hesitated for a moment, squeezing her hand, before he opened the door and climbed out of the car, a bit unsteady as his feet hit the sidewalk.
CC skidded closer to the door in an effort to follow Niles out of the car. However, at that moment the window was rolled down another time, and the driver once again looked into the passenger cabin of the car.
"Miss Babcock?" he asked, "Am I to take you to your apartment now?"
"Um… no," CC answered, "not now," and hurried out of the car.
"Niles!" CC said louder than she had intended to and Niles instantly turned around to face her. As his eyes looked at her, CC struggled with her words.
"I, um… I just wanted to… um…" Her voice trailed off. His name had just escaped her mouth as a sort of protest to their sudden separation, a request to spend just a little more time with him - if only mere moments - and because this had been her only agenda, in calling out his name, every other thought, every other word had faded away.
They stood in front of the mansion for a while, unsure of what to say. A few moments passed in silence while their driver was still waiting for CC to get back into the car and take her to her penthouse.
"Good night, Butler Boy," CC finally said, lacing her hands with his. Neither of them was ready to admit it, but this had been more than just an evening full of pleasantries, and they were not ready to let go just yet, somehow both aware that the feeling was mutual.
Smiling, Niles echoed her words. He held on to her hands for just a little longer before he let go of them slowly, letting them slip out of his own, and turned towards the townhouse.
CC stood at the bottom of the stairs as she watched Niles climb the three steps to the door. A few moments later Niles turned to her and his gaze caught hers, an unuttered invitation in his expression. She glanced over her shoulder towards the limousine that was waiting at the curb for her and then back at Niles.
Confronted with the decision to either return to the car and drive home or to spend the night at the mansion (and with Niles), CC remained at the bottom of the stairs, almost exactly halfway between the front door and the limousine, when, really, the rational solution was fairly simple. She should go home, to sleep off the alcohol that circulated in her body.
And yet she didn't move.