(no subject)

[every_blossom_blooming]

Nina stood outside the apartment door for far too long, staring at it. She was being a coward and she didn't know why. Maybe because some part of her was afraid that Inej would disapprove, or judge her, or--

She didn't know. But Inej was her best friend, and somehow she was the hardest person to tell. Her opinion would mean the most.

Finally she made herself knock and put on a smile. No need to be grim when Inej answered the door. At least she was certain that Kaz wasn't home. She didn't need him hearing this before she told Geralt.

Comments

[every_blossom_blooming]

Nina shrugged. Inej made a good point, but she'd still been hard on herself at first. She sighed and looked over at her friend, trying to make sure that she wasn't harboring anything. But Inej wouldn't lie to her: she was upset, but not at Nina.

"I suppose all that's left is to tell him and go from there. And hope that you'll, eventually, want to help me nest a little."

[tricktofalling]

Inej comes over to Nina and hugs her around the shoulders, squeezing her as tight as she can. She kisses her cheek, a loud smack of a gesture, and then several smaller ones, up to Nina's hairline, hoping to get her to laugh.

"Of course I will," Inej says. "Anyway you'd like help nesting, of course."

[every_blossom_blooming]

"I'll think about that more when the time is closer. Or when the hormones take over and I become a monster." She smiled at Inej and set he tea on the little kitchen table.

"I suppose you can tell Kaz, though it'd be more fun if no one told him at all. Just to see his face as he tries to figure out how to ask if I'm pregnant when I actually start showing."

[tricktofalling]

"Hopefully, I will have started all the nesting in motion before you become a hormone monster," Inej says tenderly. And she appreciates the permission, though she thinks she would have told Kaz even without it, and seen how things might have gone from there.

She's sad that their relationship is contentious in Darrow, but she understands why. Their friendship, such as it was, leaned toward business. Inej desperately wants Nina to see the man that she has, in fits and starts in Ketterdam and now, more and more in Darrow, but she knows the history of their arrangement makes it hard.

So she smiles a little and teases. "You know he wouldn't ask. He'd just let it happen and awkwardly hover on the edges of things. I have to tell him or he'll just be strange about it."