Dani Moonstar's a survivor (ms_moonstar) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-08-31 10:04:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, dani moonstar (mirage), lara croft, renji abarai |
"What did it want?"
Who: Dani, Renji, and Lara
What: Roommate introductions and feasts. And hilarity.
When: Uh... sometime last week probably.
Where: Lara Croft's palaceawesome house.
Ratings/Warnings: PG-13 for Renji's mouth, man.
Status: Complete!
The kitchen really was gigantic, and - much to Dani's delighted surprise - had been equipped with all kinds of chef quality pots, pans, cutlery, and tools. It was a great start to her tenure here as a roommate, and so she was in the process of creating a feast.
She'd already toasted up some tortilla chips and made her own pico de gallo to go with it, and there were alcohol free raspberry-lime margaritas in a huge pitcher in the fridge. Now she was grilling up fajitas. The cats had gathered at her feet, hopeful as ever that she'd drop something. She looked down at them and snorted, "You guys are eternal optimists."
"Do they actually listen to you?" Lara said, walking into the kitchen, and tucking some hair behind her ear as she let herself be lured in by the smell of something delicious. She plucked some earbuds out of her ears and leaned against a counter. One of the cats came over to rub up against her foot.
"Oh, do you think by appealing to my charms you're going to get something?" She bent over to scritch his head, then rolled her eyes at herself. "Look what you've got me doing."
"When they want to. So like... 25% of the time, if that." Dani remarked, with a smirk. She thought it was probably a good sign that Lonestar was loving up to Lara instead of tripping her.
Someone caught the smell of food from outside of the house. In fact, he was all the way in the driveway, and could detect it past one neighbor spraying some eco-friendly pesticide on their plants and the other scooping up poodle doo. He ran like hell to drop a couple of boxes worth of training gear in his room and promptly bounded into the kitchen.
"Yo." He waved a hello to Lara and the cook. "That smells good. What the hell is it?"
A gigantic tabby cat bounded from around the counter and right into Renji's path, immediately taking up the figure-8-around-his-legs-of-doom. Dani arched a brow at the cat, then waved a hand at the guy, who she hadn't met yet, "Hey. You must be Roomie number two. This is Fajitas. They've been marinating all day so they should be really tasty."
She motioned towards the bowls of toasted chips and pico she'd set up, "Chips and pico for dipping, too, if you like. And there's raspberry lime fake-aritas in the fridge."
“Dani, Renji, Renji, Dani,” Lara said by way of introduction, stepping away from the counter to give more room for Dani to cook. “Dani will clearly make sure we don’t starve. Or at least not have to rely on take-out quite as much.”
"Hey, nice meeting you. And that's good because I like to eat." He was talking while staring down at the cat, like a man afraid to move because he was walking on egg shells. That cat was huge. "I don't know what the hell a fake-arita is but I'm game. Is this thing friendly or am I about to have my ankles grated off?"
"Renji, meet Proudstar. He's more or less friendly, unless you neglect to pet him when he wants your attention, or he decides he doesn't like you. In which case he'd have straight out tripped you and you'd be on the floor right now. So you're fine."
She tossed some onions onto the griddle she was using, and then answered his other question, "Fake-aritas are margaritas without the liquor, because I don't drink. You're welcome to add rum or tequila to yours if you want, though."
“I can show you the liquor cabinet,” Lara said. Because of course she had one. “If you want anything. I found this nice club the other day with a good lager, so I think I’ve had my alcohol for the week.”
Renji heaved a sigh of relief that the cat hadn't killed him or tripped him. At the mention of alcohol, he grabbed a handful of chips and just before shoving them all into his mouth, managed to say, "I'm ok with the fake drinks. I only drink on maybe...like...new years, or my birthday."
“Then I’ll show you it on whichever day comes first,” Lara corrected herself. She turned to Dani. “What’s in a fajita, anyway?”
"I took this flank steak and marinated it overnight in a mixture of special seasonings that I'm not going to tell you," Dani replied, with a bit of a wink.
"I used to include beer - it's great at breaking down the meat and making it tender, but now I use vinegar instead. I cut it up and grill it like this with cut up peppers and onions. Mostly bell peppers, since I wasn't sure how spicy you two liked your food. Then we roll the mixture up with the mexican rice in that rice cooker there, cheese, guac, fresh pico, sour cream... whatever you like. In a tortilla. It's kind of 'assemble your own'."
His birthday was actually on saturday. No way was he going to put out two new roommates he just moved in with, by blurting that out. He did look vaguely traumatized and eyedarty for a little bit, but that passed when he started listening to what he was about to scarf down on like a starving animal.
"That sounds damn good." Renji moved without tripping the cat (he shuffled his feet the whole way), until he could hover over Dani's shoulder and see what she was doing. "At least ya look like you know what you're doing. Are you latino or what? I mean, I'm not asking to be a total rude ass. It's just a friggin' fact that they're good cooks. That's all."
Lara nodded her head in agreement. It sounded really, really good and smelled even better. Her mouth watered just at that. She put a hand on her stomach and looked at it accusingly, then lifted her head and looked at Renji like he’d just grown a second head.
"My people were here way before the Spanish came to conquer the territory, but I guess I can see how this would be confusing for you," Dani replied, her tone jokingly sarcastic, "Brown skin, cooking tex-mex. Yup, I definitely could be mistaken for Latino."
She shook her head and gently nudged her elbow backwards against the guy, "I picked up a taste for fajitas during Ranger training. The camp was in houston, another of the recruits was a native, she'd invite us over for all kinds of food."
Since he was so tall, that elbow caught him right in the gut. Just where it should have for being such a generally insensitive ass.
"Oh. Well. Uhh. I didn't know and now I do. It's not like I have anything against 'em. I mean, I did compliment their cooking. And I can't tell if there's no feathers in your hair, just like it took me a little bit to figure out she's from fish and chips land. Or whatever they eat over there. I think it's mushy." He just jabbed a thumb back in Lara's direction and shrugged. "If we were to be all fair, I'm one of those slanty-eyed rice eaters, so everyone's got something. I don't even remember half the Japanese I should, since I was born here. So people who start yammering at me in it get told off. In English. To slow the hell down like they're talking to a fuggin' language retard. Because that's what I am."
Having realized he just blurted all that out, outloud, Renji pressed his lips into a thin line, furrowed his eyebrows, and sharply announced, "I talk less with my mouth full." A pause. "OF FOOD. Not anything else. OKAY?"
This was probably why he lived on his own for so long.
Way to go on day one with your new roommates, Renji.
Way. To. Go.
Lara lifted a hand to her mouth, both to close her jaw and to also cover it with her fingers. She'd never seen such a trainwreck of awkward in her life and she was usually a trainwreck of awkward when she was out of her comfort zone.
"That's...brilliant. But if you like men I don’t have a problem with that. Dani already told me she might bring home women.”
"Yes, for I like both the carpeting and the plumbing," Dani announced, with a chuckle. Renji's social awkwardness was really kind of refreshing. She was glad she'd moved in here, even if he was likely to start calling her 'squaw' or something. She pointed over at the tortilla chips, "Do all of us a favor and shove some of those in your mouth. I can't cook when you're hovering over my shoulder like that."
That was so going to happen at some point or other. Squaw. Oh yes, it would.
"I'm not into dudes," Renji grumbled, realizing his super massive faux pas. It only ever sets in after the fact. "But I don't have anything against people that are, or bisexuals. Because that's hot." He moved toward the chips and started dunking them into the salsa stuff, not realizing how much he was piling on there. He was also eyeing them both. "So you two an item or what? I mean, ok, cool if you are. Just don't have any screaming orgasms keeping me up at night, and we're all good. I don't fuggin' care if it involves hotties. I get cranky when I haven't slept."
In went the chips, and om nom nom went Renji, adding yet more blunt awkward from the get-go. Woo.
Lara looked a little like a deer in the headlights. That was precisely something that hadn't even occurred to her. She held out her hands. "Oh! No it's not like that at all!"
She pressed her face into her hand. "Not that she isn't attractive, or anything. You really are gorgeous, Dani. Shit. That's not how I wanted that to sound."
Dani laughed. She laughed so loud that it echoed around the kitchen, "Christ, Renji. You're like a wrecking ball or something, aren't you? Way to alienate our landlady."
She shook her head a bit, glad that she had to focus on cooking and couldn't give Lara's reaction as much attention as she might have, otherwise, "Lara and I are not a thing. Unless someday she switches teams and that's assuming that I'm available at that point. Since you know, gorgeous me is a hot item and we'll be clubbing people away from the door every time we step outside."
"...uhh...heheheh, I guess so." Insert eyedarting, here. "It's not like I'm trying to turn the landlady into an alien. Or...wait...so there's going to be lesbians on the doorstep? Are they the hot kind or the kind that have legs like shag carpeting?" Another pause, before he crushed a very salsa covered chip in the palm of a clenched fist. "DAMMIT. WHY DID I ASK THAT."
The world also wants to know.
Lara resumed gaping at him in abject horror, which saved her from saying something stupid. Finally, in order to save Renji, she turned to Dani and asked, "He has a point, we don't even know what your type is."
"Well, I don't really have a type. I tend to go for personalities, more than I go for body types or anything. There was this woman in the dream worlds that was like a soul mate to me, but she's a lot different than any of my recent conquests."
Dani shrugged a shoulder and scooped all the food she'd been grilling into a shallow-sided pan, then pulled the tortillas out of the oven. There were rolls of foil for all three of them, "There's three each, I figure that's enough."
The fixings to go with them were already laid out on the nearby counter. Dani motioned towards them and then pointed at Renji, "Leave enough food for the two of us, or I'll never feed you again."
Renji squinted at her just as he tried to lick the salsa and chip crumbles off his open hand, like that was a challenge almost accepted. But since it had to do with food, he wasn't going to mess with the cook and inhale it all. Because that would be damn stupid. He also neglected to say that he tried wasabi the grand total of ONE TIME and tried to run warm water up his nose holes, so even the tiniest hint of anything spicy made him decide washing his hand off was a much better choice.
"Deal. Not gonna piss off the cook. Even if she's one of those people who're having those dream everyone says they're having on that network thing."
“Dreams?” Lara asked, though it was more or less as though she was seeking clarification. “Everyone keeps talking about them and I still don’t entirely know what’s going on.” Something in the water maybe. There had to be a rational explanation.
Renji's entire expression went dark as he angrily grumbled under his breath, "...tattoo ninjas."
"I'm pretty sure it's not tattoo ninjas."
Dani shook her head at Renji, an amused expression on her face as she unrolled her own tortilla packet, "You're really something. How did I go this long without crossing paths with you?"
To Lara, she replied, "Dreams, yeah. Really, really lucid ones. You experience them like they're real, like it's another life. And then eventually parts of them come true."
“Bollocks!” Lara stared at her, incredulously. “That just sounds like the crap my father used to tell me.”
"I dunno about the not crossing paths before," Renji added, while nodding at Lara, "but I DO know that even if it seems real? No way would some talking monkey with a talking snake crawling out of it's ass be anything more than my brain having a massive skull-shattering fart."
“Talking... monkey.” Lara moved over to the dining room table and took a seat. “You have a very strange mind, Renji. My most exotic dreams usually involve me and Sam walking through ruins.”
"Talking monkey, with a talking snake on it's ass," Renji clarified, with a nod of his head in the affirmative. Then he was quiet. Because he realized what a weird ass he sounded like.
"I'm not even touching Renji's dreams," Dani decided, aloud. She assembled her dinner and grabbed the margarita pitcher out of the fridge, then brought everything over to the table, "Mine are pretty vividly terrible, with brief gaps of happy mixed in. Very brief ones."
"Well mine are perfectly normal for an aspiring archaeologist, thank you." She looked between them, trying to envision a monkey with a snake for a tail. She couldn't help it, she had to ask. "What did it want?" It spared Dani having to give some details.
"I dunno. I could only hear half of what it was saying because it sounded like monkey talk and hissing," he admitted, after having fetched his food and sat down. That was minus anything that even looked remotely spicy. No afterburn for him. "Basically what I did get was that they think I'm weak and there was a whole lot of name calling aimed at me. But, whatever. It's just a dream. Those things aren't supposed to make sense. At least it wasn't unhappy, like Dani's. Just weird. I wanna know what kinda vividly terrible stuff we're talking about. Dying or what?"
Dani poured herself a fake-arita, wishing not for the first time this week that it was a real one, "Well, there was the one dream where I faced a gigantic demonic bear, easily taller than four stories high. It tracked me from Colorado to New York. I faced it in solo combat and thought I'd killed it. Turned around to tell my friend the battle was over, and it mauled my back. I nearly died. I was paralyzed from the waist down."
Lara was glad she hadn’t been drinking or eating, because otherwise she’d have been choking on it. “You had a dream about that? But that’s just a dream, Dani. Dreams don’t affect your real life.”
"Yeah, what she said." Renji had to pause between mouthfuls of food to even talk, because mild fajitas seemed to be acceptable. No burn! "I agree. That dream sucks, but maybe it was about something like...uhh...those psychiatry people talk about? It's something that means something else but isn't what it actually is. And it's not like you're paralyzed now, anyway."
"I had it for a month straight and every time I woke up I was screaming in pain and couldn't move my legs. For longer and longer amounts of time I was stuck paralyzed until I dreamed about being healed after the attack," Dani replied, straight-faced. Like they were talking about the weather, and not one of the more traumatic things that had happened to her in her life.
Something cold shot down Lara's spine, and she felt like someone had stepped on her grave. And for all she knew, maybe someone was. She wasn't sure she wanted to sleep tonight.
"This food is really, really good," Lara said, changing the subject and taking a bite. "It's not too spicy, which is nice. I have a horror story about wasabi." She winced. "Sorry, bad choice of words there."
"Yeah but maybe it was that psycho...uhh...automatic thing that happens when your body gets all convinced that stuff's happened when it didn't and..." Renji had been grumble mumble talking at Dani when he shot a look over at Lara. He said a single word like it was his greatest foe and his arch nemesis, "...wasabi."
"It wasn't. I've got scars from injuries I've gotten in the dreams. They magically appeared. Friends of mine dreamt they were different colors - we have a teleporter who turned pink, another friend of mine got the markings she'd dreamt about. But you'll find out soon enough. And what's so wrong with Wasabi anyway?"
Dani looked between Lara and Renji, and decided she was glad she hadn't included jalepenos or chipotles this time.
“Wasabi is fine until someone sneaks a whole wad into your rice,” Lara replied, rubbing her arm as she tried to process people turning pink. “Is that where you got some of your tattoos?”
"It's like a nuke going off in your sinus'. It burns and there's snot flying," an indignant Renji explained. "That's fuggin' nasty. And NO. It was TATTOO NINJAS. ALL RIGHT?"
"Tattoo ninjas. Right. Like Car Key gnomes." Dani took a long sip off her drink, and laughed.
“Worse than a nuke,” Lara agreed.’ “Much better in smaller doses. And I’ll have you know car key gnomes are insidious.”
"Those car key gnomes are assholes," Renji said while pointing at Dani with a half-eaten fajita. "They're right up there with that black hole that socks fall into, that exists inside dryers. And wasabi. Wasabi can be avoided but you can't do jack when a car key gnome has run off with the car keys and you can't find 'em."
Dani snorted, "It's not a black hole. The Dryer claims its sock sacrifice every week, that's just how it goes. If you're lucky the dryer claims that extra sock you threw in there that you know has no match."
“Once, I got an extra sock from the dryer!” Lara smiled, glad for the subject. It was amusing. “I put six socks in, and found a seventh when I took them out!”
Renji's fist met the table like now he had figured out what had long since been an absolute mystery.
"So THAT'S how you get around that sock stealing sonuvabitch. It never gives my damn socks back. You." He pointed at Lara. "I want to see that seventh sock. If it fits my foot, then we'll know if this is true."
Yes. Because that's the total way to figure that out Renji. *slow.clapping.applause.*
"... Sock logic. That's great. You, Renji, are a font of wisdom. Tell me what other knowledge you've managed to collect over the years."
Dani sounded almost completely serious. She probably wasn't, but she sounded like it, at least. She even looked at Renji with a fajita in her hand, completely sincere expression of attentive listening on her face.
That did it. It was too much for Lara and she coughed on a piece of meat then laughed. She smacked her palm against her chest.
"Hey. HEY. It makes sense if ya think about it. THOSE SOCKS WENT SOMEWHERE. AND IT WASN'T ON MY FUGGIN' FOOT."
And he even leaned to one side, raised up one leg, and wagged a foot around like it was exhibit A in a criminal trial and DUH JURY, YOU SHOULD REALIZE HIS AWESOME LOGICS mmmkay?!
Also? Leaning helped so he could try to get a hand over there to pound on Lara’s back, so she didn’t choke. Because that’s what roomies do for each other.
"It's never going to be a dull moment living with you guys, I can already tell."
It wasn't ever a dull moment living with the Summers clan, either, but the exciting moments at that house were liable to give someone a migraine, or an ulcer, or ptsd. Or all three.
This kind of not-dull was a lot more welcome. She actually laughed.
“Thanks…” She gave Renji an awkward pat on the back, and then nodded her head. “I’m glad I met you two.”
"Yeah, me too. I was worried I'd have to put up with roomies who were on the rag all the damn time, and I'd have to go in through a window instead of the front door."
Yes, he said it. Followed by shoving half of a fajita into his mouth and staring straight ahead while chewing. Renji huuuuuungry. Food gooooooood.
Once again, Lara had a look of utter horror on her face, fingers to her mouth.
Dani rubbed at her face with her hands, "Well you might still have to deal with that, won't you? Two of us are female, after all."
And with that, she decided to just stuff her fajitas in her mouth and stop talking. That was just safest for everyone involved. The more she fueled Renji's need to speak, the more his mouth seemed to create trainwrecks of words. She didn't need to enable that.
Meanwhile, Renji was chewing very slowly and looking from Lara to Dani like he was stuck between a rock and a hard place...and if he so much as blinked the wrong way, he was going to be smushed.