The Tomb Raider (lara) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-10-02 12:51:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, dani moonstar (mirage), lara croft, sam nishimura |
Sam food is a bit like bird food, except it’s greasy and full of protein
Who: Dani, Lara and Sam
What: Picking Sam up at the airport
When: Last week
Where: Airport, in n out
Status: complete
Rating: PG for girl cuddles
Lara was sitting in the front seat of Dani’s truck. It was more beat up than her Land Rover (which wasn’t exactly new either). Mostly she wanted the room to fit all of Sam’s luggage and figured the smaller woman could sit in her lap on the ride back.
“Really. Seven suitcases.”
"Christ, seriously?" Dani was mystified. She glanced over at Lara and arched a brow, "You're not even exaggerating, are you?"
Well, it was a good thing that all of that luggage was going to fit into the bed of her truck anyway.
"Not even a little," she said cheerfully. Giving into taking a pill had been a good idea. She'd probably be doubled over right now, instead there wa a dull ache and little buzz in her head. She scanned her eyes, looking for an asian girl with a million suitcases. And a camera. "There'll probably be a camera."
"Oh great. Cameras." Dani drove down the length of the passenger pickup area, also trying to keep her eye out for someone with lots of luggage and a camera.
She got nearly to the end of the area and thought they'd have to park or make another loop when she spotted Sam. The woman was no longer stretched across her luggage, which was stacked neatly next to her. She actually didn't have a camera out anywhere that was obvious, but her phone was in her hand. The woman lifted it up and there was a flash of light in Dani's eye as she pulled over to the curb.
After Dani parked, Sam jumped over to the window near Lara's seat and patted her hands on it, "Lara Lara!"
"Sam!" Lara laughed, the grin on her face not at all forced. She popped the lock and pushed open the door. She moved to hug Sam with all her might, biting back a slight hiss at stretching her wound. "How was your flight? Get any good pictures? Screaming children?" She couldn’t stop grinning. It made her face hurt. Sam was here!
Sam was grinning, too. She bounced in place a few times, the force of it nearly bouncing Lara in place, too. Tears were even stinging at her eyes. Just like she'd told Faiza, it felt like coming home again just hugging her friend. It was the only place she ever felt like she belonged.
She squeezed Lara a bit, "I'm so happy to be here! The flight was great! I had a really fun time during the layover and then slept all the way across the country!"
Dani couldn't help but grin at the two of them. Their happiness was infectious. She got out of the truck and started loading Sam's luggage while she waited for them to hug it out. Thankfully, none of the pieces were too heavy.
Lara kissed Sam on the cheek and squeezed her. She wanted to help with the luggage, but that meant letting go, and she shot Dani an apologetic look. She glanced back at Sam and said dryly. "I'm sure you slept our way across the country, Sam."
She pressed her forehead against Sam's and winked at her. "It's so good to see you...This is going to be great. I found all these trails for backpacking, and I'm pretty sure some of Dani's friends know all the clubs." She knew what Sam liked, and also knew how to compromise - she was so glad to see her she'd put up with clubbing.
Okay. Dancing could be fun once she had a few.
Dani waved the apology off. She understood how Lara felt. What was most surprising to her, though, is that when she thought of who she'd greet in an airport like this, the first person that came to mind was, for once, the actual person she was with - Shepard.
There was a time when that would have been Rahne.
Meanwhile, Sam was giving Lara a very unreserved two kisses - one on either cheek, "I'm so glad I'm here! I can't wait to do everything with you and all of the new friends I made, too, and take you out shopping and dancing and..."
She trailed off and laughed, "Just everything. I really missed you, sweetie."
Lara's lips were tingling a little bit, and her eyes were glimmering. "You can do everything with me later, Sam. Lets get you home. It's probably too late to introduce you to Dani's fajitas, so if you're hungry we'll do some takeout."
She touched Sam's cheek, then pulled out of her grasp to sit in the car. "There's room, I think." If two people were friendly, anyway. She was just really happy.
"Definitely too late for fajitas," Dani agreed. She got back into the driver's seat and started the truck up, "Get in, Sam."
Sam looked around, then shrugged a shoulder and got into the cab of the truck. On Lara's lap, nearly, because that's all the space there was. She grinned sheepishly at Dani, who didn't seem to mind.
"Can we get a cheeseburger? I'm sorry but they just don't know how to make those right in London."
Arms circling around Sam, Lara sighed. Her hand found the other woman's and threaded their fingers together like it was the most natural thing in the world. "There's a place on the way back I think you'll like."
Lara shifted Sam a bit, moving her away from her left side before she jarred the wound there. How the hell Sam managed to smell good after twenty hours of traveling she didn't know.
Sensing impending teasing, she said. "You wouldn't guess who I caught sneaking out this morning. Oh wait, Shepard."
"Oh sure, make this suddenly about ME," Dani replied with a snerk. She had a very amused look on her face as she drove away from the airport. Moments like this were some of the more perfect ones that she wanted to file away for later when life got harder.
"You two are so cute together I bet! Are you actually girlfriends yet?" Sam didn't need an invitation to butt her nose into Dani's business.
Thank you, Lara mouthed against Sam's neck. She'd been afraid that Dani would start on that and she wasn't remotely ready for that discussion. Especially not when she was on painkillers. It would just have to wait.
"They're adorable, I promise."
"Maybe Shepard should just move in with us. It would save her some time, I bet, and I don't think Dani'd complain that much about it." Sam was great at little suggestions like this. She grinned at Dani, then glanced at Lara and winked at her.
Dani just rolled her eyes, "Shepard has her own house entirely, she doesn't need to move in."
Lara laughed. She doubted Shepard wanted to part with her own house, but she also knew that Sam's family probably had five houses. Or was it six? The fingers of her hand that weren't twined with Sam's were playing with the hem of her shirt. She decided to play along.
"Still think you wouldn't mind it."
"I wouldn't mind it. But we're trying to prevent the lesbian couple stereotypes from coming true, and I already have the cats," Dani remarked, grinning widely. She pulled into an In-n-out and turned to Sam and Lara, "Doe this qualify as good american cheeseburgers? Because I don't think there's too many better ones."
Sam rubbed her hands together and grinned, "I want a double double with a chocolate milkshake and grilled onions."
Dani laughed, "Well, that answers that question. Lara?"
Lara wondered if a milkshake would go badly with her painkillers, and decided she could be a little brave. It wasn’t like she was fighting an infection. “Same, but I like my milkshakes vanilla.” She pulled her fingers away from Sam’s hem and peered at the menu. “...Onion rings.”
There was probably some pun there to be had, but Dani didn't have the heart for it. She placed their order, instead, and added her own items to it - a strawberry milkshake to round the set out, and her own double double - then pulled around.
"Onion rings sound good. I'm glad you mentioned them." She was going to pig out on all of her favorite foods for the next week or so.
"Now I wish I'd ordered a few! That's okay, Lara will share hers! Won't you sweetie?" Sam looked back at Lara and made the puppy eyes at her.
“Excuse me,” Lara replied, thwapping Sam on the hip. “Who said either of you are getting my onion rings? Stop looking at me in that tone of voice…” The Sam puppy eyes were nigh impossible to resist, and she felt her cheeks grow flush.
The puppy eyes got even wider and more puppy-like, and then Sam added the finishing touch: a pouty lip. Dani laughed a bit, and shook her head, "Good luck ever resisting that. I'm glad I ordered my own, now."
Sam didn't think that Dani was immune either, so she turned her gaze on Dani, "We could all three of us share the two orders together!"
The native woman glanced over at Lara, then back at Sam, then back at Lara, "Seriously. That look is a weapon. We should unleash her on Afghanistan, she'd end the hostilities there in three seconds."
They really were a weapon, and Lara spent a few precious moments fantasizing about pulling that pout into her mouth and sucking on it. “Okay… okay… you can have some onion rings. Some. Just some.” She jabbed Sam in the spine. “One.”
"That's not fair, 'some' is way more than one." Sam's lower lip was still all stuck out pout style, though it was mostly a show at that point. She'd won, and victorious glee was written all over her face.
Dani chuckled, "You can have 'some' of mine, too. Here, take the food for now."
She paid and handed the bags of food over to Sam, taking only a quick second to steal her own milkshake before hitting the road again, "There should be some extra food in there for Renji, too. So don't mistake that third order of onion rings as Sam Food."
Sam laughed.
“Sam food is a bit like bird food, except it’s greasy and full of protein,” Lara explained. “She’s a mysterious creature with an abnormal metabolism and the ability to suck down far more food than a normal human being.”
"Thus says award winning archaeologist and expert anthropologist Lara Croft, who is, of course an expert on all things related to the species known as Sam," Sam said, taking on a tone of voice someone might adopt when shooting a documentary.
The way the two of them interacted just made Dani smile. She drove in silence, letting them have their fun. It was so obvious to her that the two of them belonged together.
Kind of like how her and Shepard had been obvious to everyone else.
Sam was actually pretty good at that tone of voice. Lara hoped she’d be on board with her youtube documentary idea. She nuzzled her friend’s neck and yawned. “Lara Croft is probably going to stuff her craw and then crawl into bed. I say that now, of course, knowing that Sams are very good at keeping Laras awake.”
"You can't go straight to bed after you eat something like that anyway!" Sam declared. She pulled one of the onion rings from the bag, and popped it into her mouth without any shame at all. It was so unbelievably good.
Dani turned off the freeway, and onto their street. Sam took a look out the window but it was impossible at that hour of night to really see much outside of the edges of street lights.
She was way too excited to sleep, though. She bounced in Lara's lap a bit, "This is great. I'm so glad I came here!"
“Me too, Sam,” Lara said, hugging her friend tight enough but not too tight to mess up her side. “Thanks for helping out, Dani. I really appreciate it.”