"C'mon! What happened to my cow-tipping buddy?" Serra shouted down to her, rolling her eyes in annoyance at Penny's pathetic lack of strength. "The big city's turned your muscles to mush!" Setting all six bags down and twirling her honey blonde hair, she leaned against the elevator that hadn't worked for years, at least that was what her new roommate had told her. As she stood there impatiently, a tall man came out. Noticing his blue tshirt, plain except for the golden Star Fleet symbol upon it, she smiled warmly at him.
He spotted her and stopped dead in his tracks, scanning everything about her appearance. His eyes started at the top, furrowing his eyebrows at the fuzzy cat ears that seemed to blend in with her hair almost perfectly. Next, his eyes caught the tank top with the words Anime Detour across her chest, down to the ear's matching tail hooked to the back of her black miniskirt and all the way down to her black platform boots. After what seemed like forever, he softly called over his shoulder. "Um... all of you need to see this."
A few seconds later, three men came out and stood behind him. Upon noticing Serra's presence, they all did the same cat ears to toe scan. While they did their assessment, she did her own. The first one she saw was tall and his expression was slightly shocked and surprised. Well, she was walking around in her anime gear... The next one down the line wore glasses, had a dorky but knowing smile and height-wise was a sharp contrast to the first man, being shorter than she was even without the three inches added by her boots. The third looked a bit like a weasel with his strange grin and hungry eyes. Feeling the sudden urge to cover her breasts, she crossed her arms over her chest. The fourth and last of the group of men was an Indian who seemed almost afraid of her.
All of them having finished their scans of each other, Serra finally spoke. "So, you like Star Trek? I've seen almost every episode of each series. The Next Generation is my favorite, but that's probably because Picard is the best captain. How about you?" Out of complete and utter shock, the Indian man fainted and fell to the floor hard. "Um... is he alright?"
Penny grunted as she lifted the suitcase up onto the landing. "Ugh! I need to work out more..." she muttered as she finally got to the top floor. Pulling the strand of hair out of her eyes, she beamed a friendly smile at the group. "Oh, hey guys! Wait, where's Raj? I thought he was going with you."
The short man with the glasses spoke up. "Oh, he's on the ground." he said, nonchalantly.
"Uh... ok then?" she raised her eyebrows in confusion, then shrugged it off as normal for them. "Anyway, this is my cousin Serra. Her name is spelled kinda weird though. It's S-e-r-r-a instead of S-a-r-a-h." she shrugged. "Something about being named after a card or something. Anyway, I figured that'd be right up your alley."
Serra chuckled nervously. "Yeah, I was named after Serra Angel from Magic the Gathering." At that, the weasel-like man fell on top of the first.
"And that's Howard down. I'm Leonard, by the way." the short guy said. "This is Sheldon," he said, referring to the giant. "And the two down there are Raj and Howard. I'm Penny's boyfriend, it's nice to meet you."
Serra takes his offered hand and gently shakes it. "So you're the one I keep hearing about?"
"You talk about me?" he asks Penny, who shakes her head no quite energetically.
"Nope, that would be her daddy. Uncle Wyatt never shuts up about you two, so much that I think you're his real life OTP." Serra giggles.
"I know I'm probably going to regret asking this, but we're his what?" Penny asks while Leonard just stands there with an amused expression on his face.
"OTP, it stands for One True Pairing. It's a fandom term. It's a couple that you like the idea of them being in a relationship and you never usually pair them with anyone else. Normally, it's applied to characters but some people do it with real life people without even realizing it, like Uncle Wyatt." Serra finished her explanation with a grin. Sheldon turned around with his mouth open and ran back into his apartment, causing Leonard to chuckle.
"Anyway," Penny sighed, "let's get your stuff into my apartment." she said, grabbing the handle of the rolling suitcase and leading her over to her door, Leonard following behind with three of the bags Serra had been carrying earlier. Setting all of the luggage next to the couch, Penny collapsed on it.
"So, what do you do around here for fun?" Serra asked.
"Well, I usually go shopping, but sweetie, I'm kinda tired right now. How about we do that tomorrow ok?" Penny smiled weakly.
"Fair enough. I'll even cook dinner tonight!"
Penny's smile fell. "I don't really have much to cook with..."
"Don't worry about it! I'll go shopping and get what I need ok?"
"Honey, I couldn't let you do that! You just got here."
"And you agreed to take me at such a short notice, the least I could do is cook for you."
After a minute, Penny smiled again and sat up to give her a hug. "Has anyone ever told you how incredibly sweet you are?"
Serra giggled and hugged her back. "Thanks Penny."
Penny finally let go and laid back again, looking towards the door. "Oh, there you two are!" she said, talking to the still dazed Raj and Howard who were standing there, staring at Serra. "Hey Leonard, weren't you guys all about to go to the comic book store? I bet Serra would love to go with you."
Serra's attention had been grabbed. "There's a comic book store here?"
"Yeah, you can come with if you want." Leonard said, grinning mischievously.
"Thank you! I promise I won't be a bother! Bye Penny!" she waved, following him out with the other two behind her, muttering to themselves.
Leonard knocked on the door of the apartment the one named Sheldon had disappeared into. "Sheldon, we're going to the shop now, are you coming?"
He immediately answered the door and, with a short nod, came out of his apartment. "This ought to be an interesting experiment of human behavior." And with that, they all left the building and walked down the block to their favorite shop.