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Shay wasn’t here yet. Katy checked her phone again, looking maybe for a text saying sorry, have been caught in a car accident and am dying, if you don’t make it to the hospital in time… I love you or actually I’ve changed my mind, we make better friends because really you’re not the sort of person I could ever date or my old boss is being a big floppy stinky dick with extra diseases and I can’t do this after all or even sorry, bumped into my soulmate on the way and we’ve run off to punch each other and have really hot athletic sex on top of a boxing bag, have a nice life Cathy. There were no texts, just the time on the top of the screen telling her it was 9:48, which was only two minutes after she’d last checked and twelve minutes before she was supposed to meet Shay for their date… but wouldn’t Shay be earlier, if she was, like, really into her? Like Katy had been? Surely it stood to reason that if you were really excited about dating someone you got up early, ate a small breakfast of foods that wouldn’t make your breath smell, brushed your teeth until Harper told you your gums would start bleeding if you didn't stop, then put together the perfect outfit and makeup, changed your mind about both, redid them, paced around talking to Harper until he told you not to stress, gave you a hug and rumpled your clothes, then fixed your outfit again before going to the Botanical Gardens and waiting for them to open so you could roam around the paths and wait for your date to show up?
Wasn’t that the bare minimum? Didn’t that mean Shay wasn’t that interested in her and was only coming on this date to be polite? Maybe Katy should do another loop of the cactus area, in case Shay had gotten confused about where they were supposed to meet… but that was uphill from here and she was wearing stilettos she really liked. She didn’t want to risk them on the gravel any more than she had to, and what if she started to sweat? Oh no, what if she already was? What if her deodorant wasn’t holding up, and Shay turned up after all and then was completely repulsed by Katy smelling like a homeless garbage can? Katy lifted her arm and sniffed under it. It smelt okay to her, she guessed, but Shay must have such a sensitive nose, she was such a good cook and so great with plants, and –
“Uh, Katy?”
Katy squeaked and straightened herself up, trying to look as though she hadn’t just been smelling her armpit in public like a complete weirdo loser and she wasn’t blushing now at all, never, not because she was embarrassed and not because Shay had arrived at such a terrible time and not at all because Shay was wearing a tight sleeveless top that totally showed off her lean, muscular arms and skinny jeans that hugged her legs really well and had tied a cute flannelette shirt around her waist in case she got cold.
Nope, not at all.
Okay, maybe a little, but only because of the last one. She could admit to that one under extreme duress.
“Shay! I’m so glad you came! You look so good!” Shay was wearing lipstick, which meant that her lips were not only right there but highlighted against her skin, which meant Katy was having a lot of difficulty thinking about anything except kissing her, which was the very definition of extreme duress and probably outlawed by the Waterdeep Convention.
“Aw, thanks, Katy,” Shay said, and that might’ve been the slightest hint of blushing on Shay’s face, which was great, because it meant that Katy wasn’t the only one, and also because it was adorable. “You too. I mean, you always do.”
“Oh!” and usually Katy didn’t have any difficulties accepting compliments, but she really couldn’t think of anything to say in response to that. I could give you styling tips usually worked but maybe not just after telling someone they looked good and also she didn’t really want to change how Shay dressed (much), while now that’s settled can we make out? seemed to be rushing things just a little. This wasn’t a problem that the heroes in her romance books ever had. They were never stumped for clever, flirty dialogue, not even when they were rendered speechless by the fair countenance of their beloved.
Which was probably because they had never been standing in the Botanical Gardens with Shay, and also they were fictional.
“So, you’ve never been here before, right?” and that was dumb, Katy knew she hadn’t, Harper had suggested that Katy suggest it for a date because Shay loved plants and she’d never seen the gardens here. “What do you want to see first? I think I saw a Thayan collection on a map or signpost or something?” Choose the Pleasaunce, Katy thought at her very hard. It was supposed to be the most romantic spot in the city, people came from around the country to be married there in the spring, with the roses and honeysuckle and heliotrope and pears and lavender in blossom, and the willows trailing their long graceful withes in the water, and there were rowboats… She’d imagined Shay rowing while Katy sat in the boat until they drifted into a private spot where the willows hung down and screened them from prying eyes.
“I’d rather see something new,” Shay said. “I know Thayan plants. I thought… I thought maybe the Underdark fungus display?”
“The fungus,” Katy repeated dully.
“Yeah,” Shay said, with every sign of disconcerting enthusiasm at the prospect of looking at a bunch of mushrooms that weren’t even technically plants. “I looked them up. There’s a bunch of the bioluminescent species, and I heard they even have some shriekers.”
“Shriekers.”
“Yeah, they’re mostly used as an alarm system. They scream if they’re approached by strangers.”
“That… they sound really interesting, Shay,” Katy said in a small voice, her pretty romantic dreams of rosebushes and rowboats crumbling under the weight of yelling fungi. “Won’t they scream at everyone, then?”
“There’s supposed to be a special display case – you know, with soundproofing.” Shay hesitated, looking at her with an expression that made her think she could learn to like mushrooms, just as long as she was with Shay. “Do you want to, maybe… hold hands?”
“Yes!” Katy said quickly. Probably too quickly, really, but that was okay, Shay didn’t seem to notice her being uncool. She just wrapped her strong fingers around Katy’s. Her palm was all warm and calloused, squeezing carefully like she thought Katy was fragile. Katy shivered, then hoped her hand hadn’t got all sweaty while she’d been waiting for Shay and totally not freaking out.
“This is… nice,” Katy ventured, as they started to walk, their joined hands swinging gently between them. There weren’t too many other people here yet, and if they were ignoring the path to the Pleasaunce, at least for now, she could smell it – or some other fragrant plants, anyway. Shay would know what they were.
“It is,” Shay said. “Thank you, Katy.” Her hand squeezed tighter for a moment then dropped away as she opened the door to the Underdark display for Katy.
It was dark inside. Really dark. She-had-no-idea-where-Shay-was-as-soon-as-the-door-closed kind of dark, and she wasn’t scared of the dark, but it did bring a few memories she didn’t want to think about lurking around the outside of her mind. “Shay?” There was movement in the darkness, like a very soft sound and a faint stirring of the air, and then the mushrooms started to glow, or maybe her eyes adjusted, and in the hazy blue light, she could see Shay standing very close and looking very tentative but also really beautiful.
“I do actually want to look at the mushrooms,” Shay said, and Katy could swear she felt Shay’s breath wreathe warmly over her lips, “but I also wanted – if it’s okay -?”
If Shay meant anything like what Katy thought she meant, it was very okay. “Yes,” she said, and then Shay moved in, her mouth finding Katy’s and her hands so warm as they slid up her back and to the nape of her neck, and Katy lost herself in all the sensations she’d daydreamed about, but this was all so much better because it was real and it was Shay. Like, she knew what biceps felt like, or a really nice body pressed against hers in the dark (although mushroomy mood lighting was new) but there was still so much to discover, like what sound Shay would make if she did that or what her throat tasted like and whether she could really –
Even through the soundproofing, Katy heard the shrieker scream, and, suddenly embarrassed to be caught making out in the mushroom cave, disentangled herself (mostly) from Shay before the gardener or visitor or whoever could walk in on them properly. She was probably a mess – as it turned out Shay didn’t have her expert knowledge of cosmetics and hadn’t gone for a smudge-proof lipstick – but probably the fungus-light wasn’t bright enough for anybody to get a good look, and Katy wasn’t entirely sure she cared anyway.
“Uh,” Shay muttered, as the other person – definitely a tourist – walked past. “I could use a drink. How about you?”
“I’m okay!” Katy said, which was far too mild a term, because she felt like she might float off if she wasn’t careful enough about how she stepped, or else just explode into a cloud of purple and black glitter.
“I’ll… I’ll just be a moment, okay?” Shay said, and gave her hand a squeeze before she walked off into the darkness.
Katy watched until she was pretty sure that Shay was out of sight, because she wouldn’t want to stuff this up by doing anything so monumentally uncool as jumping up and down and quietly shrieking in front of Shay, and she definitely needed to flail a bit right now.
“We’re on a date!” she told a violet mushroom that was catching prey with its tentacles.
“We were making out!” she announced to a mushroom that was wreathed in purple mist.
“We’re girlfriends!” she told something that had to be a mushroom even if it was shaped like a glowing blue brain.
“And it’s better than the stories!” she said, in ecstatic incredulity to a mushroom that looked a bit like a person. It waved at her, and her mouth dropped open. It couldn’t compare to everything she was living through right now, but… “Did you just understand me?”
The mushroom nodded its cap at her.
Katy searched for a plaque that might explain why a mushroom person was stuck in the exhibit, but couldn’t find anything. “Were you… watching?”
It nodded again.
“Oh.” Well, that was weird. “Do you… like it in there? I mean, are you stuck? Trapped? Are you okay?”
“It’s a myconid,” said Shay, appearing out of the darkness and sliding an arm around Katy’s waist. “They work here, looking after the mushroom exhibits. Apparently they like company.”
“Oh. Oh, wait, so you brought me in here to kiss me in front of them?” Katy wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
“No, I only just found out… I’m sorry if it bothered you.”
Well. Katy thought about it for a moment, then decided to hell with it.
After a while, the myconid shuffled away.