WC: 2,445
Lani looks herself over in the mirror for a third time, fretting.
She’s wearing a short dark green skort, a pastel green shirt on top. She’s got her black leather jacket on top of that, as well as thick black stockings and boots.
But still, was it enough? Too much? Auugh!
Lani finds that waiting until a few minutes before you have to leave to go on a date to worry about your clothes is, as one may imagine, not the best play.
There’s a knock at the door. “You’re gonna be late for your date!” her mom shouts.
“Ma!” Lani shouts back, “Come in!”
She does, looking confused. “What?”
“Do I look okay?” Lani does a couple of poses to show off her outfit. “Like—like it isn’t like, too much or anything?”
“Sweets, you look great,” her mom laughs. “Go on, get. Sue’ll be happy to see you no matter what you look like, anyways. You know that.”
Lani melts a bit, face growing soft. “Yeah…” she sighs dreamily. “I love them…”
“Get!” her mom chuckles. “You can get googoo eyed later. Don’t leave ‘em waiting!”
“Okay, okay!” Lani laughs, scooping up her bag with everything she needed already in it. “I’ll be back later!”
“See you! Love you!”
“Love you too Ma!”
And with that, Lani is off to Sue’s house.
+++
In actuality, Sue lived further away from the museum than Lani. Sue had said it would be more efficient for them to come over instead of the other way around, but Lani insisted they keep it this way.
After all, like this, she would get even more time to spend with them!
Lani rings the bell at the Cruz’s front door, and then knocks in a peculiar pattern. It’s not long before the door opens, showing the form of none other than Sue themself.
“Good afternoon, Lani,” they greet with a smile. They’re wearing a cute brown long sleeved turtleneck and a long but simple darker brown skirt. They’ve got an over the shoulder bag on as well, Rabbertson no doubt laying inside. And lastly, on top of their head sits a bright yellow headband. Lani smiles wide.
“You’re wearing the band I gotcha!” she says happily, grabbing Sue’s hands and jumping a bit.
“Of course I am,” Sue smiles shyly. Their face looks a little red. They were sooo cute! “You bought it for me,” they continue. “I’d be remiss to leave it laying around.”
“Good old Sue!” Lani laughs. “Always thinking of others feelings, huh?”
Sue blinks and sputters a bit, seemingly caught off guard by the compliment. Lani fights back the want to laugh harder. It was always fun to mess with them!
“C’mon, Susie. Let’s get t’ steppin’!” Lani says once she calms down enough. She grabs the other’s hand, pulling them out a bit before replacing them in the doorway.
“Abuela!” she calls, “I’ll have them home by nightfall!”
“¡OK!” Sue’s abuela calls back, sat in front of the TV. “¡Ser buena!”
“We will!” Lani says before closing the door behind her. Sue locks it after she moves back to the house’s pathway.
“You’re early,” Sue comments absently as they move to be beside Lani who snaps their hand back up as soon as she can.
“You know me! Always Little Miss Early!” Lani laughs, starting to pull the two of them forward. “Besides, this way I get to spend extra time with my Susie!”
Sue stops in their tracks, causing Lani to accidentally be tugged at. She turns towards Sue. “Susie? You okay?”
Sue coughs. “Fine,” they say, starting to walk again.
“Oh, okay!” Lani smiles, moving again as well. “So, how did you plan out the day?”
The way Lani and Sue worked was like this: the two of them choose a place, Lani decides what they eat once there, and Sue handles everything else. Lani would do more, but Sue insists they do all the hard work. They’re just not as picky an eater as Lani can be, so they leave that to her.
“As you know, we’ll be going to the Hall of Saurischian Dinosaurs today. Once there it was suggested we spend about an hour or two there to get the most of the experience.”
“Aww,” Lani pouts. “Only 2 hours?”
Sue smiles a small smile. “If you find the exhibits interesting enough, we can stay however long you like, Lani.”
Lani smiles wide and does a fist pump in the air. “Yes! So excited!” Sue laughs quietly at her.
Lani watches as Sue laughs. They were so pretty, so specifically put together with every action they performed, so bright, so amazing…
Lani sighs happily. Truthfully? The real reason Lani would want to stay longer is to hear Sue ramble for as long as possible. They’re able to hang out a fair amount, but she always liked to squeeze out every last drop of each date they had.
“Then,” continues Sue, “Once we’re done with our paleontology romp, we can wander and pick somewhere to eat. Then we head home.”
“No specifics for what we do inside?” Lani questions as they begin to descend into the subway.
Sue shakes their head and chuckles a bit. “Where’s the fun in that?”
+++
The ride there is mostly quiet, both Lani and Sue having their music on. The noises of the train are too much for the both of them, so they both brought pairs of noise canceling headphones. But though they don’t talk to each other, they’re both listening to the same songs with the help of Spotify.
Soon they make it to their stop. The two climb off the train and up out of the subway together hand in hand.
“Alright,” Sue says, shielding their eyes and looking around. “If we’re here, the museum should be…”
Lani points off to opposite the direction Sue is looking. “Is that it?”
In front of them is an impressive looking building, proudly stating the fact that it is indeed the Hall of Saurischian Dinosaurs.
“Yes!” Sue smiles. “Good eye, Lani.”
Lani immediately blushes and giggles a bit. Honestly, she knew Sue had most likely seen it the moment they came up, but wanted to let her be the one to find it. They were sweet like that. And it was a move they’d do often. Whether they realized it or not was another question entirely.
“Well, what’re we waiting for?” Lani smiles wide, lifting their two hands that are still clasped together and shaking them in an encouraging manner. “Let’s go!”
+++
Entry into the museum is smooth, as there aren’t many patrons in today. That was actually a good thing for both Lani and Sue. It meant they wouldn’t get overwhelmed as easily as they would on a normal day.
Score for them! Some divine luck that they picked today to have their date, huh?
Sue and Lani move through the exhibits one at a time, Sue excitedly rambling off common and obscure knowledge of each set of bones they’d pass by.
Lani didn’t ever have much to add on, not being much of a dino kind of gal herself, but she ate up absolutely every word Sue had to say on the matter, and she could tell Sue was extremely happy to get to infodump for what must’ve been about an hour straight.
Soon they’re in wandering mode, just going where they please while Sue recovers from talking so much. This is the point where Lani gets to make nonsensical comments, because Sue doesn’t have it in them to do any long form rebuttals.
Was the tactic a little mean? Maybe. But it always got them so playfully exasperated with her. And it was always the cutest thing ever.
So, in for the starter.
“Y’know, dinos always remind me of that one song. You know, the one where they go rawr?”
“You mean Dinosaurs Go Rawr?” Sue chuckles. “Yes, I can see how they would.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Lani laughs.
“Oh, you know,” Sue replies with a cryptic smirk.
Time for sillier then.
“Actually, I heard a rumor once.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah!” Lani rushes ahead to the nearest tallest dinosaur and spreads out in front of it, standing on tiptoes. “They say AALLLLL of this… get this… used to eat only plants to survive!” she declares blindly, not caring if she was right or not. “Even though it’s huge, it’s jaws are made for biting and it’s claws look sharp enough to mark stone!”
“This is an omnivore, Lani,” Sue says with a sly smile.
Lani stares and blinks, pulling herself back in after a couple of seconds pass. “Yes! I-I knew that!”
Well, time to break out the biggest guns.
“Oh, that reminds me though!” She smiles wide as she moves beside Sue and takes their hand, leading them to where she vaguely remembers the entrance to be. “One of the dinos back there? They told me a secret.”
“O-oh?” Sue asks, clearing their throat. “I… didn’t know that. What did they say?”
Nice. Bait taken.
“Ohh, just that they have a secret language that they decided to teach me.” Lani boasts.
“Oh yeah?” Sue smiles. “Mind telling me something in dinosaur, then?”
Lani opens her mouth…
…And her stomach speaks for her.
Both teens laugh. “That was dino for ‘I’m so hungry! Let’s get food!!’”
As they walk towards the exit, Lani catches an eyeful of a gift shop.
By god, there was no way she was leaving this establishment without getting Sue a gift.
“So what is your favorite dinosaur?” Lani asks in a way she hopes is nonchalant.
“Maiasaura,” Sue answers without missing a beat. “They were known as the ‘good mother’ dinosaurs.” They smile to themself, but Lani sees it regardless. “It makes me happy to think even then creatures had parental instincts that they followed.”
Lani’s heart swells. Sue was just the best, sweetest person in the world, weren’t they?
“What did they look like?” Lani continues, slowing down a bit.
“Hmm…” Sue puts their finger to their chin. “Kind of scrunched up and duckbilled. They were believed to have greenish scales. Depictions of them fully drawn normally show them with a fin-ish back and are bottom slash back heavy.”
Lani nods, committing everything she can to memory. Hopefully that would be enough information to find something for them!
Lani stops suddenly only a bit away from the exit. “Hm?” Sue asks. “What’s the matter?”
“Oh um…” Think Lani… Oh! “I have to use the bathroom real quick, ‘kay?” She points to some seats to the side. “You can wait here for me, okay?”
“Ah, alright.” Sue holds their bag strap after letting go of Lani’s hand. “Don’t get lost,” they grin.
“No promises!” Lani calls back, already tearing off.
+++
Lani comes back to the entrance with a slightly heavier backpack. “Hey!” she calls once she sees Sue who’s sat on their phone. “Susie, we can go now!”
Sue glances over and pockets their phone, walking over to meet up in the middle with Lani. “Took you a minute.” They smirk. “You didn’t fall in, did you?”
“I did, actually,” Lani says sadly. “I fell in and died a tragic, tragic death.”
“So sad,” Sue frowns back playfully. “Such a shame. You had so much life left to live.”
“Truly,” Lani nods. “But it’s okay. I’m an exact clone of the Lani that died. So it’s like she never even died!”
“Ohh,” Sue smiles as the two of them make their way out of the building. “I see technology has advanced considerably in the past 10 minutes.”
“It sure has! Technology is amazing!”
Both teens take the time to laugh before Lani pulls Sue in a random direction.
“C’mon,” she smiles brightly. “Let’s get something to eat in us.”
+++
As it turns out, Manhattan is full of places to eat, but also full of places to window shop at. And, you see, Lani was absolutely awful when it came to window shopping.
It takes them a good 20 minutes to find an Applebees to eat at. There they both order one big platter to share between each other. Lani uses the time to try and feed Sue fries, but she fails mostly. Not of her own fault, though. Sue was too shy to accept them after the first couple of ones, flustered at further attempts.
Once they were done eating, the sun was starting to set. It was time to go home.
The two of them take the train home silently, both listening to the same music again. Once they get to their home borough, they start to talk amongst themselves. There was nothing especially important said between them, but the conversation was blissful anyways.
Lani could talk to Sue for hours and never get tired of hearing their voice say absolutely anything.
Once they finally make it to the front door of the Cruz household, Lani slings off her backpack. “Oh right,” she chuckles. “I never told you what those dinos taught me.”
Sue turns from having opened their door, looking down at Lani. “Yes?” they smile.
Lani takes a deep breath before pulling out the maiasaura dinosaur plush. “RAWR!” she shouts, pushing the thing into Sue’s arms.
Sue gasps a bit, taking the stuffed animal into their hands and turning it around. “...Oh my god,” they smile wide. “Lani, is this a maiasaura?”
Lani smiles brightly, slinging her backpack back on. “Yep! I’m so glad I got the right one. I was soooo worried it wasn’t what I was looking for!”
“It’s perfect,” Sue says graciously. “Thank you so much, Lani.”
“No problem!” She smirks with a huff. “Anything for my Susie!”
Sue gets flustered immediately, sputtering before hiding their face behind the plush. “I-I’m glad we got to have this hang out today, Lani!” they say quickly. “I always enjoy outings with you.”
“Ehe! I love going out with you too, Susie!” She reaches up and pulls the plush down, causing Sue to bend down with it. “There’s one thing I gotta tell you before you go though.”
“Oh?”
Lani’s eyes are bright but mischievous when she asks, “Do you know what rawr means in english?”
Sue’s face goes from bemused to suddenly extremely red. “Um,” they mumble. “Um, um, um.”
Lani giggles as they quickly close the gap between them, giving Sue the quickest peck on the cheek ever. “It means I love you!”
Sue’s so red. Lani laughs, butting her head against the other. “I’ll call you later, alright?”
Sue responds with a noise of affirmation, seemingly still stunned. Lani feels like melting.
“Bye, Sue!” she says, turning away. “Love you!”