Ready, Set, Go! : an anthology of Tomb Raider Prompts Given to Me By the Tumblr Community

By Asynca

I take prompts. A lot of them are too short or not 'story' enough to upload by themselves, so I've bundled them all together and dumped them here.

None of them are connected to each other, but some of them are loosely based on The Camera Loves You-verse.

"Prompt: That one time at film camp."

Good one!

That One Time at Film Camp - Sam/OC, Lara - (a tiny little bit) NSFW

Pre-slash, bby.

—-

Yeah, well. You know what they say, right? What happens at film camp stays at film camp.

Actually film camp is kind of a misnomer because it's not actually a camp per se. It's a convention thing that happens in West London once a year and all the media and film tech students go to it. There's heaps of industry there and you're supposed to network and make connections. Well, that's the plan, anyway. What actually happens is that we all sit and look very serious in lecture theaters all day and then get totally wasted and 'make connections' at the bar afterwards.

I tried to get Lara to come a couple of times but she was too busy with research and always gave me some lame excuse. It drove me nuts. As if she couldn't find one night in the week to come out, right? Whatever, it was her loss. Media students are crazy after the cameras are off.

It was the second to last night and I was having a personal crisis because all the cute guys at convention were ones I'd hooked up with last year. Not that I have a problem with recycling, exactly, but when there's six hundred students you only see once a year you want to choose wisely.

Also, and probably most importantly, I was wearing the cutest top. It would be some sort of crime against fashion if it didn't get me laid at least once.

I was leaning against the bar, putting back my fourth or fifth splice when I realized that most of the cute boys had already picked up and the next tier down was all that was left at hotel bar. I put my glass on the table and made a face. Not an ideal situation, but not a total write-off, either. My family was well-known for our commitment to charity. I would just have to tap into that Nishimura generosity and gift one of these poor guys with a night he'd never forget.

…if I could walk over to one of them without falling over, that was. I put a hand out to the bar to steady myself and nearly grabbed some girl's jeans.

"Whoa, whoa…" she said, and grabbed my arms to stop me from falling over.

I straightened, fixing my super cute top. "Thanks," I said. "On second thoughts, maybe I should have stopped at my last splice."

She was pretty hot herself, actually. She had a legit 'fro which was hedge-cut to a perfect sphere and was wearing a gold jeans that might as well have been sprayed on. Okay, I'll be honest, I did notice she was carrying a bit of extra weight, but it totally suited her. She was also wearing this really bold zebra-stripe top that I could never pull off. For like three seconds I wished I was a really hot black girl.

She noticed me looking. "Hey, you like it?" She smoothed it down her front. She had huge boobs. "I wasn't too sure if I could get away with it but YOLO, right?"

"Right," I repeated. "And it totally suits you."

She grinned, and then turned to look out at the slim selection of tail still drinking around us. "Pity it's all for nothing."

I laughed. The room was spinning a little. "I know! I was just thinking that. I dressed up for this? Maybe I should just go home."

"I think I'm going to have to adjust my expectations of how this evening is going to go," she said, and held out her hand to me. She had this huge white statement ring on and after admiring it, I shook her hand. "Emily," she said. "Wardrobe design." All the great clothes suddenly made perfect sense. She looked me up and down. "You're Samantha Nishimura, right?"

I pretended to curtsy and nearly fell over again. "That's me."

"I thought so. I loved that documentary you did." She tapped her chin. "What was it called? Something about Blue Skies."

"—Blue Skies over London," I said. The irony was that in every shot it was pouring with rain. "Thanks. Wish my tutor had liked it as much."

She rolled her eyes. "Tell me about it. Some of them are so old school. I got some comment on my portfolio that I needed to pay more attention to matching fabrics. It was ridiculous, don't they know that hipster fashion is all about specifically choosing items that don't match?" She laughed, and then finished her laugh, smiling at me. "Well, your tutor is an idiot. Your work is brilliant. You're pretty cute, too."

I squinted at her. That smile was a little too attentive. "Are you hitting on me?" I giggled. I hadn't expected that at first because she didn't seem nearly as drunk as I was.

She leaned casually on the bar. "Well, you're a step up from these guys." She nodded out at the men circulating. "I'm guessing you're not gay?"

"Ten points," I said, grinning at her. "Although maybe I shouldn't give them to you because you probably saw me up on some guy on Wednesday night."

"And Thursday," she agreed. "Should I buy you a drink? Isn't that usually how guys do it?"

I held my hand up. "No more drinks," I said. "Unless you really enjoy making out with people who are comatose. I'm good to go now."

She laughed. "Well, then," she said, and took a step in towards me. "Shit. What am I doing?"

"I hear you," I said, looking down the neckline of her top into extremely intimidating cleavage. That was certainly something I'd never expected to see when I was about to get it on with someone.

When she kissed me I totally had a Katy Perry moment, because I could taste her lip gloss. She had it all over these big pillowy lips which I wasn't sure if I should be jealous of or pleased about. Her body was also really soft, and the graduation of that little waist into her big hips was kind of an interesting feeling under my hands. I wasn't really turned or anything to start with. I mean, it wasn't gross or anything, but it was a girl.

That all changed when her nails brushed over the fabric of my cute top where one of my nipples was. It was hard for some reason – reflex, probably – and when she touched it, it felt good. Okay, I thought, I could totally go for this. I put my hand under her top to explore her supersized boobs.

"Hey, ladies," the bartender was saying near us. "You'll need to take that somewhere else."

She stopped kissing me for a minute, her face still really close to mine. I could smell a combination of strawberry lip gloss and perfume. "You staying here?" she murmured. There was a smile in her voice.

I wasn't, and back at my apartment Lara would definitely still be awake. I didn't want to have to explain to her why I was taking a random girl into my bedroom. I wasn't sure she'd understand; she always got really weird whenever the topic of girl-on-girl came up.

"Not unless you count my car," I said. "It is a Lexus, though, so it has leather seats."

She laughed. "How High School," she said. "Okay, let's go."

Despite being catastrophically above the blood alcohol limit, I managed to find my car in the parking lot. We piled onto the back seat of it and I lay on top of her. She pulled me down and we got stuck into kissing again. My phone was vibrating in my back pocket, but I ignored it.

Her top was pretty loose and came over her head nice and easy. I sat back. "Wow," I said, admiring what it revealed. "That's a really nice bra."

She looked down at it. "Yeah, it's Ann Summers," she said. "I think it's the only style that comes in my size."

"That doesn't surprise me," I said. Her size was colossal. Literally, they were as big as my head. To test this theory, I put my face between them. It made her laugh. "Mine are kind of disappointing in comparison," I mumbled into her skin.

She pushed me up and pulled my cute top off. I took my bra off and let her fill her hands with my boobs. She looked thoughtful. "All of you is so tiny," she said. "You're like a fairy or something."

"A fairy?" I asked her, bursting into giggles. "Are you serious?"

She was giggling with me. "I'm really drunk, okay? I don't know what I'm saying. Or what I'm doing, apparently." She was messing with my belt. "Have you been with a girl before?"

"Nope," I said. "Well, I kissed a few girls on dance floors, but that was mainly to tease guys."

"Yeah, me neither," she said. "You think that makes us bi?"

I shrugged. "I am way too drunk to be making life decisions right now. Let's just fuck and worry about the details later."

We messed around for a bit, and at some point her bra came off and my hand ended up down her pants. I was just trying to decide if I was brave enough to go down on her when she yelled and made a grab for her top, looking out the window behind me.

"What?" I asked her, automatically reaching for my top. Someone had probably walked past. "The windows are way too fogged, no one can see in."

"Someone put their face against the car," she said. "Scared the hell out of me."

"Let's give them a thrill," I said. "Come on."

She was trying to stop me as I rolled down the window and leaned out of it, only holding a t-shirt in front of my chest. "Hey!" I called at the figure who was hurriedly walking away. "Did you get the show you were—" The figure turned around when I called out to them. I immediately recognized her and my heart practically stopped. "—Lara?!"

She had a really strange, hurt expression on her face. Her eyes flickered between me and the other side of the car. Emily had gotten out, somehow managing to get dressed in record time. It took her the space of a second to go from hurt to shocked. "Is that a…?" she began and then stopped, her mouth open. Emily couldn't have been any more female.

"Yeah, I think this is where I make a timely exit," Emily said to me when she saw Lara's expression, and then jogged off through the parking lot. I watched her go, kind of annoyed with everything. I'd been really gearing up for some good head.

Lara was just staring at me. She came to some internal conclusion, and then spun on her heels, crossed her arms across her chest and marched away. I quickly pulled my cute top over my head and staggered uncomfortably after her; my bra was still somewhere in the car. "Lara! Come back!"

She didn't stop until I circled her upper arm and made her. God, this was going to be awkward. Lara was so uptight. "Can you not be weird about this? I was just messing around."

She looked sharply at me. I noticed she was all dressed up. "'Weird about this'? Really, Sam?"

I shrugged. "Like I said, it doesn't have to mean anything, I was just—"

"Sam, I don't care what it means." And yet, she looked like she seriously cared about something. "I just…" She sighed. "I just thought I'd surprise you by coming out to have some fun with you, after all. But I suppose you're ready to leave."

I glanced in the direction Emily had fled. "Well, in case you didn't notice, my ride has kind of left without me." That made her smile a little. "We could go back inside the hotel and chill a bit, I guess."

She looked a little coy. "If you're hoping I'll pick up where she left off, I'm not sure there's enough alcohol in the world for that."

I loved hearing her being cheeky. Maybe I was wrong about the whole weird thing with her. "I don't know," I said. "There's a lot of alcohol in that place. Wait a second, let me just get my bra."

The bartender looked kind of confused when I came back in with a different girl than I'd left with, but he played it cool. "No more drinks for you," he told me, though, and then looked pointedly at Lara.

"I have to drive," she told him apologetically. "But I'll have a diet coke."

While he was pouring it for her, she sat against the bar with me. After a few seconds, a lightbulb practically sprung to life over her head. "Huh," she said, surveying all the patrons. "I suddenly understand why you made the choices you just did." She accepted her diet coke and took a sip. "If this is the selection of men film camp has, no wonder you keep nagging me to come along and keep you company."

I had this, like, fraction of a second where I very nearly leaned over and kissed her. I mean, it's not that confusing why; she was way hotter than all the guys there and since I'd just had my hands in some other girl's pants it wasn't a giant leap to be looking at this girl like that.

Luckily, despite being wasted, I managed to not. She was my best friend. …and she was looking pretty good, and I never did get that head I was after.

I looked forward, taking a deep breath. Lara was just being all quiet and sweet next to me and had no idea what I'd just nearly done.

Okay, Sam, I thought. That's enough alcohol for tonight. Dangerous ground, here.

"Just let me know if you're going to come next time so I can drink a whole lot less," I told her, but didn't say why.

That is the one thing that could happen that would not end up staying just at film camp.

When Your Heroes Aren't Heroes - Drabble - Lara

I've spent so long looking up to him.

I've seen all his episode so many times that I can ever pause the video and recite all the dialogue afterward. I know all the locations, all the artefacts, all the theories, everything he was searching for. I would often say to Roth, "One day it's going to be 'Lara's World' and you'll be watching me on that telly!"

Whitman was everything I wanted to be, everything. Until I met him.

I didn't really expect him to recognise my name or care about whose daughter I was. He didn't, anyway. I told myself that was fine, because I didn't want to always be Richard's daughter. If he didn't know my father, good! I could prove myself to him just by showing him what I knew.

He didn't care about what I knew, though. He wouldn't listen. Why should he? I asked myself. I'm just a fresh graduate from a normal Bachaelor's, of course he doesn't want to listen to me. I probably don't even know enough to realise what I don't know.

It took Sam all evening to convince me to confront him again, and I did, in front of everyone. It turned into so much of a fight that Roth had to step in.

After that he didn't say a word to me for days. Still I forgave him in my head. Would I believe me if I'd just met me? I caught sight of myself in the mirror while I was getting ready for bed all those nights. I'm so young, I always thought. I'm so young, of course he can't see the years of research and study I've put into this. He's just being cautious with his savings and Sam's Family's money. He's been doing this for decades, told myself. I should be the one learning from him.

It wasn't until he was pointing a gun at the Russians that I finally accepted he wasn't the idol I needed him to be. He was pointing, not firing, and then surrendering.

"Just go along with them Lara," he was saying while a man was kneeling on my back and binding my hands. He didn't know what they wanted or what they planned to do to me. "Just go along with them and do whatever they say!"

It was when I stopped trusting my old hero that I became one myself.

Revenge (Drabble) - Lara & Sam (POV)

So, I can't actually see Lara as much as I can feel her hovering behind me. She does this thing where she gets up to get a drink from the kitchen and on the way back just happens to catch sight of whatever I'm doing on the computer. It drives me nuts.

Inevitably I hear a disapproving noise and a hand extends over my shoulder. "You have a typo," she says helpfully, pointing at my screen. "Just there, and also you've missed a comma–"

I push her hand away. "They're notes, Lara." I twist in my chair so she can see me roll my eyes. "I'm not writing a dissertation."

She pretends to shrug casually as she takes a sip from her glass of water. "Okay," she says, in a tone of voice which suggests that it's not okay. That, in fact, leaving like one single typo in my own personal notes is the beginning of the end. From here it's just a short slide into oblivion and the point where I hand in all my essays in txt spk.

Later, when I'm coming back out of the kitchen with a cold slice of pizza, I pull Lara's trick. She's leaning towards the computer screen, chewing on her lip. Over her shoulder I can see she's elbow-deep in some totally dry translation. Gleefully I notice she's made a mistake.

"Wrong 'shou," I inform her. "That's the heart radical, not the hand one. It means 'threaten'."

Lara looks slowly back toward me, very successfully interpreting the character through narrowed eyes. She corrects her error, though.

I smirk and strut off to finish my pizza. I think I even have another episode of Nothing to Declare downloaded and ready to watch, too.

–

When I finish the episode and go to drop my plate off back in the kitchen, there is this incredibly epic pile of dishes in the sink. I swear to God every dish we own is in there, and there's some thick film of grease over every single one of them. A quick glance at the fridge and Lara's perfectly drawn roster indicates that tonight the dishes are my problem.

I lean out of the kitchen. "What the fuck, Lara? Are you moonlighting as a wedding caterer or something?"

She doesn't even look up from the screen. "Oh, I accidentally spilled a whole bottle of olive oil into the cupboard," she says very neutrally, totally aware of the fact we both know she has ninja-like reflexes. "I'm so sorry."

–

Lara usually has a shower at nine or ten at night, when she's trying to convince herself to go to bed. It never works, though, because she's always up until at least midnight. I wait until she's shut in the bathroom and then creep over to her computer. She's done with the translation and is in the middle of proof-reading her final essay. I read a few paragraphs; it's about the role of women in feudal Japan. Like, I don't want to be a total traitor to my ancestors or anything but this stuff is so boring. I groan, and then insert a few errors into it. I stop when I get to five, though. I'm not a sadist.

When Lara emerges from the bathroom I'm sitting on her desk, drinking a coffee and smiling darkly at her.

She stares at me, a towel around her middle. "Why do I have a bad feeling about that smile?"

I push myself slowly off the table. "Since your idea of entertainment is correct typos," I say, "I hid six of them in your essay. Enjoy!"

Lara does the best evil glares. She directs one of her finest and then stomps over to her computer as I vacate it, not even bothering to get dressed. "You didn't…" she says, tabbing through it as if I'd be dumb enough to put in errors that spellcheck would pick up. She looks up at me, just to double-check I'm not messing with her. I pretend to toast her with my coffee, and then take a mouthful.

"I'm going to bed," I tell her, leaving her gaping at me. "Washing all those dishes was totally exhausting."

–

At some point during the night I wake up from a really weird dream about France and realize that Lara's isn't in the bed across from me. I sit up just to double-check; the blankets are still tucked neatly under the pillow. I glance at the clock: the red text reads 02:17.

Wandering out into the living room, I see Lara's face in the glow of her computer screen. She has stopped glaring and now just looks tired and distressed. There are deep frown lines in her forehead. She glances at me as I stand in the doorway. "I hate you," she says.

"Payback for the dishes," I tell her. "Don't tell me you can't find them all."

She makes a face. "I found five," she says. "I've been looking for the sixth for the last two hours." She leans back from the computer screen, stretching. "I give up," she says. "You win. Where's the sixth?"

I wince. I had totally forgotten I told her there were six. "Uh, you promise you won't kill me?" She looks at me. I close me eyes for a moment, bracing myself. "There were only five mistakes."

When I open my eyes again, her jaw is open. Then, her face crumples and she glares at me again. "I hate you," she repeats. "I've been doing this for hours, Sam!"

I squint at her. "I'm sorry?"

For a moment I'm totally sure she's going to reem me. Then, after a few moments, she just exhales. "I deserve that for the dishes," she says eventually, the anger fading. "God, I'm so tired. At least now I know I can sleep."

When we both go to bed, she falls asleep in this strange position with her arms tangled over her head. I roll onto my back and smile at the ceiling.

Living with Lara is just so much fun.

Anonymous asked: Could you write a drabble where Sam and Lara have a cute conversation about what their lives would be like in a parallel universe where they're a domestic couple? Pretty please? D: - Sam (POV)/Lara - SFW

Okay, so it's not really so much the mud that bothers me. I mean, I voluntarily slather myself in that stuff at dayspas – it's supposed to be really good for your skin, right? I've narrowed it down to a combination of running everywhere, crouching in God knows what bushes that are probably full of all sorts of bugs and carrying all Lara's extra ammo. I feel like a girl-sized backpack sometimes.

So this time, we're in Somalia and there are all these rebels everywhere and I have seriously no idea who're the good guys and who're the bad guys. There's sand in everything, no matter how much I drink I'm still hot and thirsty. To make everything just a million times worst, I'm sunburnt.

"Can you pass me the binoculars?" Lara says, crouching around a corner and waving her hand at me like I'm her butler.

I sigh, and then look around in my pack for them. "You know, I have this fantasy where you're not some super human weapon, but you're just a normal archaeologist who spends all their time bitching about other academics and stressing about finding funding."

Lara glances back at me. "I have a fantasy where you hand me the binoculars before we're spotted and shot to death," she says glibly. When I give them to her, she spends a good five minutes looking through them at whatever and I wonder what all the rush was for.

"What would you do, do you think?" I ask her, thinking about it. "Like, if we found Yamatai and it was just this boring island with some old relics on it. What do you think life would be like now?"

"I think I'd have given up turning Alex down and just married him to shut him up." She glances back at me. Whatever I'd been thinking must have shown on my face, because she smiles at me. "Kidding," she says, and goes back to looking through the binoculars.

"Do you think we would have gotten together?" It's actually kind of an interesting question. "If that whole Sun Queen thing didn't happen?"

She takes her bow off her back, threads an arrow through it and takes her sweet time with it stretched before finally releasing it. I hear the unmistakable thud of it hitting human flesh, and wince. She doesn't even flinch and already has another one strung. "I thought you said you were after me for ages before Yamatai?" she says with the feather of the arrow next to her lips, and then releases it again. Someone else drops.

I shrug. "I think we would have. At some point I would have gotten sick of waiting, gotten really drunk and just gone, 'To hell with it!'."

She has the binoculars up again. "There's your answer, then," she says, but she doesn't sound very engaged in the conversation. I take her arm, and she bends back around the corner and looks at me.

"This is important," I say. "Like, I think we need to talk about this."

Her eyebrows are up. "Right now?" she says, glancing towards the corner again. "There are at least two still left, and they all have assault rifles." When she sees my expression, she chuckles and sits back against the wall. "Okay. You want to know if I'd have gotten involved with you if Yamatai hadn't happened?" I nod. She gives the question good consideration. "I don't know," she says honestly. "I don't know if I'd have been as open to it."

I shift from kneeling to sitting back against the rough sandstone wall beside her. "It's so strange to think about it," I decide. "I mean, on one hand it would be so awesome to not have sand in my underwear and for my nose to not be peeling. Also, that shrapnel in my arm that keeps setting off the scanning things at airports. On the other hand, I get to hit that." I give her a cheeky grin. "Tough decision."

"Well, I'll probably retire one day," Lara says. "Then you can 'hit that' and be clean and comfortable."

I snort. "Yeah, I can totally imagine it. You won't quit until you're, like, a hundred and then we'll be too old to enjoy it."

She's smiling at the thought. "I bet when we're a hundred you'll still look like you're fifteen. And I'll been all old and wrinkly and I'll have so many holes in me I'll look like an old withered slice of swiss cheese."

"I'd still eat you."

That makes her cringe. "Oh, God, Sam!" she says, smacking my arm. "Too far!"

I'm laughing. "Sorry," I say, but it's not true at all.

"What about you?" she says, looking sideways at me. "I bet you'll still be sexting me when your thumbs are so full of arthritis you can hardly bend them."

Just as she says that, two guys in combat gear come barreling around the corner and look just as surprised to see us as we are them. Fortunately, surprise does really great things to Lara, and before I can even figure out what's going on they're both lying dead at our feet, bleeding into the sand. Lara is still crouching there with a magnum in her hand.

One of the bodies is twitching. It's gross. We both stare at it. When it's clear there aren't more of them coming, Lara finally relaxes and I try and wipe some of the bad guy blood off my bare legs. That's gross, too. Who knows what bad guy germs they have.

Lara has the binoculars up again, so I guess our conversation is over. Not that having it while staring at two freshly dead guys is that appealing, anyway.

I take out my phone and tap away at it while she's busy. She doesn't notice, so when hers buzzes she looks surprised and checks it immediately, reading the message aloud. "'Hey sexy, what are you wearing right now…?'." She gives me a look. "I hope 'the blood of my enemies' is enough of a turn on for you," she says, and then gestures to me. "Come on, the coast is clear, we can probably make it back to the Jeep."

I follow her, like always.

Anonymous asked: I didn't expect you to actually write that prompt about Lara doing errands XD I was trying to make the most boring prompt possible. I was even thinking about adding Lara doing her taxes or something like that.

I can do that, too. I'm also overdue for writing some crackfic, aren't I?

TAX TIME – Sam, Lara - SFW

Lara had been staring at the same paragraph on her screen for a good twenty minutes. She'd known it was going to be a difficult feat to try and fit three references into the same sentence, but it just had to be done. She was already over the word limit.

At the entrance to the flat the main door opened and closed, and someone was humming Ke$ha and then quietly yelling at themselves for it. "Do not let me sing that," Sam told Lara as she wandered into the living room. "Not ever." She dropped a foolscap-sized envelope onto the table beside Lara. "Oh, hey, this came for you."

Lara frowned at it. She hadn't been expecting anything, had she? She turned it over to read the return address. Maybe one of the universities in London had— "—OH MY GOD," she shrieked, and then flung it across the room.

Sam looked alarmed. "What is it?" she asked, backing away from where Lara had thrown it, just in case.

"You don't want to know." Lara slowly edged into the doorway. "Don't go near it without me," she told Sam sternly, and then disappeared into her bedroom. She spent a good several minutes turning her room upside down before ducking her head back into the room Sam was in. "Have you seen my Magnums?"

Sam stared at her. "I'm guessing you don't mean the condoms, right?" Lara looked at her, and she shook her head. "I don't touch your stuff," she said, and Lara gave her another look. "Okay, I totally do, but I haven't touched your guns."

Lara made a frustrated noise and then marched into the kitchen and came back with an enormous steak knife. She held it in a Psycho grip as she carefully approached the envelope.

"What's inside?" Sam asked, her back flat against the wall. "Is it magic?"

"Worse," Lara said, very gingerly taking the corner of and holding it at arms' length, escorting it across the room and depositing it beside her laptop. Then, she carefully slipped the tip of the knife under the lip of the envelope and roughly hacked it open.

Sam screamed. Lara turned around to blink at her. "I'm sorry," Sam said. "It just seemed like screaming would be appropriate there."

"You will be actually screaming in a minute," Lara said, tipping the contents of the envelope out all over the surface of the table. "You don't know what it is, do you?" Sam swallowed and shook her head. "Don't you know what time of year it is? And what happens at that time of year…?"

Recognition dawned on Sam's face. It couldn't be. "No," she breathed. "No— it feels like just yesterday that we just finished last years'…"

Lara had a dark expression on her face. "Well, believe it." She picked up one of the thick wads of paper. "Here," she said. "Do something with this…"

Sam inched over and accepted the paper from Lara, flipping over a single sheet reading a single word before clamping her eyes shut. She held it back at Lara. "I can't do it," she said, shaking her head stiffly. "I just can't. You do it!"

Lara pushed it back towards her. "We're in this together!" she said. "Help me!"

Sam just looked at the wad of paper in her shaking hands for a few seconds, and then made an attempt to read it again. On every page there were so many lines and numbers and empty fields and it all swum around together like alphabet soup. "I… I don't understand any of this," Sam said, flipping page after page of incoherent numerobabble. "I don't understand any of it, Lara! What's a…" she leaned closer to the page, "'capital gain'?" she asked, and then kept reading that paragraph for it to only keep descending further into language that just couldn't be English. "Lara! Please, what's does this even mean? What's a negative gear and why would anyone use it? Why can't we use a positive one?"

Just when Sam thought it couldn't get any worse, Lara handed her a pen. Sam looked at it, her stomach dropping. Oh, God.

Lara was wearing a determined expression, but Sam could see there was genuine fear on her face. "We'll get through it," Lara said, and then put a steadying hand on Sam's shoulder. "We'll get through this together."

"Can you do a story where Lara goes to the store to buy stuff, then goes home and pays some bills, then watches tv for a while and then goes to sleep. Then the next day she goes to the DMV to get her drivers license renewed, followed by going to the post office to get some stamps"

Yes. Yes, I can.

A Day in the Life - Lara, Sam, SFW

Pre-slash. Again.

I put my camera on the bookshelf in hallway of our apartment, checked the frame and then stepped into it. My hair probably looked crap, but whatever, right? Part of reality TV is that not everyone looks great all the time. It makes it way more accessible and real if people look like they just woke up. And since it was like six-twenty-five in the morning on a Saturday, I was feeling pretty accessible and real at that moment.

"Hey, guys," I said, smiling at the lens. "Wow, I sound like a smoker. This what I get for waking up at the crack of dawn, I guess. Anyway, I got a stack of emails and messages asking what Lara's really like." I had a couple of them open and ready on my iPad, so I unlocked it and read off the screen. "'Dear Sam', says one, 'We all know Lara Croft is this totally badass chick who can wreck whole entire armies of men. How does she even do that? What's her secret? Does she have some serious training regime? What does she eat for breakfast? It would be cool to see what a day in her life is like'." I put the iPad down. "Well, folks," I grinned at the lens, "you demand and I deliver. Presenting a Day in the Life of Lara Croft."

I'd probably put a title on the screen right then, I thought.

I'd chosen six twenty-five for a reason, because on Saturdays Lara always gets up at six thirty to run on the treadmill. Just as I lifted the camera off the shelf, the door to Lara's room opened and she emerged in her gym gear. I pointed the camera at her. "Good morning, Tomb Raider."

She rolled her eyes over the camera at me and continued down the corridor. "Sam," she said neutrally. "What are you doing awake before midday?"

"Just ignore me like usual, okay?" I told her as I followed her. "Just act totally normal."

She glanced up at me as she plugged in the treadmill. "Okay…" she said suspiciously, and then she stepped up onto it and put her headphones in her ears.

"Lara used to run in the park," I narrated. "But after the whole Tomb Raider thing, way too many people stop her for autographs and she can't get a proper run in. So she bought a treadmill and now she runs up here."

Being used to having cameras pointed at her, Lara just pressed a few buttons on the treadmill and then took off. While she was busy jogging away, I put the camera on the TV unit and went and got myself some cereal.

Then, I stood and ate it while I watched her. She looked pretty hot, I thought, examining her. Male viewers would totally want to see way better shots of her in skin-tight lycra. I abandoned my cereal and went to pick up the camera, walking over to her with it. I had her in a mid-shot when a bead of sweat ran down right in between her boobs. "Oh, wow," I said. "That's like porn, right there." I zoomed in on it.

Lara must have had the volume way down on her iPod, because she gave me a really strange look. "Why do I feel like you're ogling me?" she asked.

"You should have worn that crop-top thing," I said absently, checking out the hypnotic bounce of her cleavage in slow-motion. "For viewers, I mean."

"Right," she said slowly, and then upped the speed of the belt.

When she was done she wouldn't actually let me into the bathroom with her, even though I promised her I wouldn't put any shots in final cut that showed anything. "Out!" she told me, and closed the door in my face. Fortunately, she'd forgotten to take clothes with her into the bathroom, so I just camped by the door until she came out in a towel. It was worth it, because I got a great close-up of her giving me a look through the lens, and then filmed her bare legs as they walked down the corridor and into her bedroom.

I turned the camera on myself. "Did you see those muscles?" I asked the camera. "I know, right? But she always wears long pants so that's probably the most you'll ever see of them."

While she was getting dressed, I rushed into my room to quickly throw some clothes on, as well. When I was done, I caught her trying to furtively do up her boots and disappear out the door without me.

I pointed the camera at myself. "Lara thinks she's really good at sneaking around," I said. "Hint: she's not. I always catch her."

Lara was in the middle of zipping up a boot. "It's completely not my fault," she said, trying to defend herself. "You always know exactly when I would rather not be seen and then you pop up out of nowhere. I'm sure there's some ninja in your bloodline."

"Nope!" I said cheerfully, still filming her. "Just pure freelance journalist. So," I said, changing the subject. "Where are we going now?"

"We are going on a perilous and terribly exciting journey to Sainbury's." She stood up, grinning. "I need tomatoes."

I laughed at what she'd said as she put on her coat. "Oh, come on!" I told her. "Put some drama into it!" I pointed the lens at myself. "She's on an epic quest for some organic tomatoes. They're the final ingredient she needs, and when she has them in her possession the cooking can begin!" She was chuckling with me as I went back to filming her. "So, are you making pasta napoletana? Wait, let me rephrase: oh, my God, can you please make us pasta napoletana for lunch."

"Just 'Lara' is fine," she said with a smirk. "And I might. Are you going to put on your coat?"

I looked down at my t-shirt, and then outside at the rain. "Oh, right," I said, and hurriedly pulled it on so I could follow her.

Not that this'll come as a giant surprise given that we lived in England, but it was overcast and raining. Lara normally uses this really tame black umbrella. Fortunately, it was hidden in my room that week because there was far too much entertainment value in watching her carry around my old Sanrio one with Kero Kero Keroppi print all over it.

I weathered being rained on for the sole purpose of getting a good shot of the Tomb Raider holding it. She glanced over her shoulder at me. "This is not my umbrella," she told the camera.

"Yeah," I said. "Lara's umbrella is blood red and shoots out of the barrel of a shotgun."

Sainsbury's did in fact have the epic organic tomatoes. "Hold them up… yeah, like that," I told Lara, who looked shyly around us at all the people who were trying to pretend they weren't watching. "Behold!" I said, although it barely came out because I was giggling too much. "The tomatoes we have been searching for!" I looked over the LCD. "Say something like that."

She crossed her arms nervously. "Don't you think it would be more in character for me to dig through the whole pile there and take some out from the bottom? I'm an archaeologist."

"But you're not that kind of archaeologist," I pointed out. "At least, not anymore. Hey, I know, we should have brought your guns in here. You could have just laid into all the fruit that was blocking the tomato stand and then heroically rescued them from the carnage." I thought about it as we went to go pay. "Actually, you know, that would be totally hilarious. Especially if you could do it with a straight face."

She'd already put her tomatoes on the counter and was trying to not look sideways at a picture of her on a gossip rag next to the checkout. I filmed the cover and then picked it up. "'Lonely Lara Croft'," I read aloud in faux-serious voice. "'"how do I get a man when they're all scared of me?': her tragic secret'."

Lara scoffed. "I never said that," she told me, as if there was some off-chance I'd believe it.

I rolled my eyes at her. "Sweetie, I work in media," I reminded her. "I live this crap." I flipped to the story and had a brief glance through it. There was some complete fiction about her being desperate for love and turned down by every man she approached. "Please, as if any of these guys wouldn't give it to you in a heartbeat," I said, looking at the grainy pictures of the men Lara had supposedly been turned down by. "Someone should tell The Sun you're completely frigid and don't want a boyfriend anyway."

She smacked me with her purse and the frame shook. "'Busy' is not the same as 'frigid'."

"Uh, hi," the checkout guy said to us. I panned over to him; he was probably about eighteen and his face was as red as the tomatoes he was weighing. "H-How are you today?"

I waved the paper at him. "You'd better watch out," I told him. "According to this Lara is desperate and horny. No man is safe."

I hadn't thought it was possible for him to get any redder, but I was wrong. The color came out just great on the screen.

Lara gave him a fiver and took the tomatoes, glaring at me. "Oh, my God, Sam!" she said, blushing a little herself, "that's enough! Leave the poor man alone." She accepted the change from him. "Sorry," she said.

"I love your movies," he blurted out instead of saying 'thank you'.

"Thanks," Lara said, and then turned to glare at me again because I was giggling again.

Back at home, Lara cornered me in the kitchen. "I'm not making that pasta unless you promise not to go around talking about my love life," she said. "As if the papers don't speculate enough already on it."

I put my hands up. "Okay, I get it," I said, because I did. I couldn't leave it alone, though, because it was too funny. "You're right. The truth would probably be pretty boring. I mean, who wants to read a story about the great Lara Croft's actual love life?" I tried to keep a straight face. "Probably no one cares that you're left-handed."

She accidentally smacked the back of her head on the cupboard she'd been reaching into. "Sam!" she yelled at me as she stood up, rubbing the back of her head. "I told you that in confidence! It had better not end up on telly or on YouTube somewhere!"

I hopped up onto the kitchen bench, swinging my heels against one of the cupboards. "Yeah, yeah," I said, taking a cookie out of the jar and holding it between my lips while I fiddled with the settings on my camera. "Don't worry. I'll just laugh over that privately to myself sometimes." I took a bite and put the rest of the cookie on the counter, swallowing quickly and going back to my project. "Here's a little known fact about Lara Croft: she can actually cook."

Lara snorted, but she still didn't look that pleased with me. "I can cook pasta," she said. "That's hardly gourmet."

"And that udon thing," I reminded her, forgetting the name of it. "That's awesome, too."

Lara rolled up her sleeves and set to work on the tomatoes while the water was boiling. "It only seems like I can cook because you can't make toast," she said. "Or even a hard-boiled egg."

It wasn't my fault Dad had a housekeeper and Mom didn't really eat. "All lies," I declared. "You're just trying to hide what a great housewife you'd make." I took another bite of my cookie and held the camera away so people wouldn't hear me chewing. "Besides, who needs cooking skills when you have a microwave?"

She walked over to the fridge, probably to get onions or something out, and stood there for a moment. "Shit," she said, removing a heart-shaped magnet and taking a bill off the front of it. "The electricity was due yesterday. Can you pay it? We'll forget if we just leave it here."

"What, like now?"

She looked pretty serious, so I hopped down off the bench and took it from her, sitting down at the table. Well, people did want to know about Lara's ordinary life, and there wasn't anything much more domestic than paying household expenses. I panned the camera over it. "This is our electric bill," I said. "Pretty riveting stuff, huh? The only exciting thing is this," I zoomed in and focused on my name, which was apparently 'Samantha Nahsimura', "Someone spelt my name wrong again. Now that's news. Only the hard stories here, people." I paid the bill using my cell.

We ate our lunch in front of the TV, despite the fact there was basically nothing on. In the end, we ended up watching reruns of Oprah from that narrow window of time when she was really thin. Apparently back then it was revolutionary and not hopelessly mainstream to be 'in touch with your spiritual self'.

I filmed Lara's reaction to that stuff. It wasn't that Lara didn't believe in magic or anything – I mean, how could she not, right? – but all this soul-searching spirituality-religion stuff was so not her thing. It showed on her face.

"So, tell me, Lara," I said in my Serious Oprah Voice. "Tell me when you first discovered your inner self. I myself was fourteen. I didn't even know what it meant to ask myself that question."

Her expression made me laugh. "Why does everything you say sound dirty?"

"Probably because you haven't gotten any in a million years," I shot back at her. "I actually wasn't being dirty. I was asking the deep questions."

Even on the tiny LCD I could see she didn't look like she believed me. "The deep questions," she repeated. "Yes, I'm sure your viewers are just so interested in hearing about what God means to me and whether or not I believe in the afterlife, or reincarnation, or whatever it is she's on about on telly."

She had a point. "Hah," I said. "You're right. The viewers are probably way more interested in what you're looking for in a man, so they can turn themselves into that."

She was still squinting at the TV. "Better break it to them that I'm not looking for a man," she said, and then panicked and added, "right now, that is." She turned a similar shade of red to the guy at Sainsbury's.

I laughed. "Whoa, you do hate talking about your love life on camera," I said, getting a close up of those flushed cheeks. "That is one hardcore blush."

"Shut up," she said, and then stood up and took our plates into the kitchen. While she put them in the dishwasher, I lay down across the whole length of the couch and reviewed some of the footage. This stuff was gold, seriously. People were just going to think she was the cutest thing ever. And those shots of her in a towel? If anyone wasn't totally crushing on her before they watched the video I was about to make, they would be at the end of it.

When Lara came back into the living room, there was no space for her on the couch. "Right," she said. "I suppose it's the floor for me, then?" She came and stood at the edge of the couch. "Come on, shove over."

"There's totally room," I told her, thinking she could probably sit at the other end under my legs. I lifted them.

"There's no table down there and I haven't finished my juice," she said. "And I won't fit up this end unless you particularly fancy me sitting on your f—" she inhaled sharply and didn't finish that sentence.

That made me laugh. "On my face, you mean?" I waggled my eyebrows at her, enjoying her discomfort. "I'm not sure I'm the one who's supposed to 'fancy' that." Just to completely unsettle her, I hooked a hand around her thigh and pretended to try and pull her down on top of me. Her expression was priceless and, literally, my sides hurt from laughing at it. "You are such a prude," I told her, sitting up and scooting over so she could sit down next to the table.

She didn't say anything, she just picked up the remote and channel surfed for what felt like forever. I had been giggling to myself and filming her when I realized there was absolutely no trace of humor on her face. She also was deliberately not looking at me. That was not a good sign.

I switched the camera off. "Hey," I said gently. "Look, I'm sorry if I go too hard on you about the whole no boyfriend thing. If it really bothers you, I can—"

"No…" she said, interrupting me. "It's not that."

"It's not?"

She looked at the remote control in her lap. For like a second or two I thought maybe she was going to say something really serious, but she just smiled. "I guess I'm still just getting used to this whole fame thing," she said, smiling wryly at me.

It didn't seem like something she'd be all weird about, but I guessed I probably didn't get what it was like for her. My family had been in the spotlight basically since I was born. "So you're not angry with me?"

She shook her head and patted her lap. "You want a head massage to prove it?"

What a question; I couldn't get on the floor fast enough. I sat with my back to the couch between her knees and then looked over my head at her, upside down. "I can film this, right?"

She shrugged, and then starting working on my scalp. This was so awesome. I turned the LCD around so that I could get both my face and Lara's far above mine in the shot. "It is, like, the coolest thing ever to have a white friend who has Asian Hair Envy," I said. She yanked a lock of said hair.

While I had my eyes closed and was enjoying it, it occurred to me Lara had been pretty weird since that whole store thing and I second-guessed her being angry at me about teasing her. I had to stop messing with her, I decided, even though it was completely hilarious. Lara probably let me do it because we were best friends, but maybe it actually wasn't okay. I made a face. I hated the thought that I might actually be hurting her.

"Lara," I began, looking over my head again.

"You need to pluck your eyebrows," she told me cryptically.

I made a face. "I know," I said. "I have an appointment tomorrow afternoon. Anyway, I'm sorry I lay into you about the love life stuff. I am. I know you're not interested in dating now. The whole media being obsessed with your love life just makes you an easy target."

She watched the TV for a while before she swallowed and looked down at me. "Some things are just really hard for me to talk about," she said eventually. "But, yes, I'm not interested in anything to do with men at the moment."

I realized a little too late that the camera was still on, so I looked down at it again. "Did you hear that, boys?" I asked it. "You're out of luck. Lara's a career woman."

She sighed heavily. "I have that lecture to plan for Cambridge," she said, changing the subject. "I should probably think about actually doing it instead of spending all day procrastinating with you."

When she stood up, I wrapped my arms around her calves. "Hey, who said I was done with you?" I asked her, but she just smiled faintly at me and wandered off into her bedroom. I heard the door shut.

I stared at the doorway for a moment, and then picked up the camera. "Guess that's it for today," I told the lens. "When she shuts the door, it's, like, hours before she comes out again."

She actually didn't come out for the rest of the day. Not for anything. Usually at like six or seven she got hungry and would wander into the kitchen and maybe cook us something, but not today. That only confirmed what I'd suspected about her being kind of upset with me.

I knocked on her door at about eight, but there was no answer. I had this split second where I imagined something awful like that she'd hung herself from the ceiling fan or been shot to death in her office chair, but I still managed to not burst through her door. I just opened it gently and peeked inside. It was dark and it took a couple of seconds for my eyes to adjust. When they did, I saw her curled up asleep on top of her blankets, nestled among a broad spread of paper, books and her laptop which had already died. I couldn't help it, I had to get that scene on film. It was the most adorable thing on the planet.

Afterwards, I sat down on the edge of her bed and put a hand on her side. She stirred, and then opened her eyes, blinking tiredly at me. "I must have fallen asleep…" she said. "Wow, what time is it? I'll never get this thing finished."

I patted her hip. "Lara, your lecture isn't for like two weeks. Take the evening off for once. Just relax." She rolled onto her back and in the process knocked some of the books onto the floor. "See? It's a sign not to do any more writing tonight."

She laughed. "Okay, okay," she said eventually, and then something occurred to her. "You just filmed all of that, didn't you?"

I winced. "Would you totally kill me if I said yes?"

She laughed once. "I think I'd wonder who was on the edge of my bed if you hadn't."

I watched her rub her eyes. "C'mon. I'll tuck you in."

"What am I, five years old?" She laughed, but put her laptop on her desk and then crawled under the covers and let me do it, anyway. "I still have my bra on," she said after I'd carefully arranged the blankets around her. "I should probably take it off, but I'm just so comfortable." She paused. "Shit. You're filming."

I smirked. "Yup." I lay down on top of the covers next to her. "So what's on the cards for you tomorrow, Miss Croft?" I asked, turning the camera to face us both. "Isn't tomorrow night garbage night? I bet everyone's looking forward to seeing your big strong muscles flex as you take our heavy garbage bag down the stairs."

"There's that, and I need to get my driver's license renewed," she said. "I'm sure that will be an exciting episode. Also I'm out of stamps."

I snorted. "Stamps. Who even sends post anymore."

I felt a poke through the blankets. "It's Christmas soon. I just really like the whole idea of sending real cards to people." She snuggled deeper into the mattress. "Since you're here," she joked, "do you want to read me a story? I'm halfway through 'Sing Me Home'."

I looked from her to the lens. "And there you have it, folks," I told the camera. "The terrifying Lara Croft: asking me to read her a bedtime story. Next week: I sing her a lullaby and make her a glass of warm milk."

"You'd burn the milk. I can see it now."

I switched off the camera. "I'm cutting that last part," I told her. "I would totally not burn the milk. Do you need anything else, or should I just leave you alone now?"

She looked for a second like she was going to ask for something, but she changed her mind and shook her head. "No. I'm really comfy. Thanks."

I tried to figure out what she'd been about to ask for. I had been about to guess it was her Teddy Bear, but I caught sight of his little ears poking up above the blankets. If it wasn't that, maybe she was hungry but afraid of the atrocities I might commit against any food I tried to make for her? "Are you hungry?" I asked, anyway.

She shook her head. "It's fine," she said. "Go edit your video."

Wow, she knew me really well. "Okay," I said. "I promise I won't put that stuff in you didn't want me to."

"Thanks," she said, "it means a lot to me to know I can trust you."

She touched my hand, and it gave me butterflies. I looked down at our hands for a moment, confused about it. I supposed it was just really nice to have Lara opening up to me, because she didn't do that often. I felt kind of special being the one she told things to, because she was the only person in the whole world who really knew the first thing about me.

I stood up. "Sleep well," I said, and then went to go turn on my Macbook Pro. I was going to make the most awesome video ever, seriously. I had this idea about cutting some footage of Lara shooting and jump and blowing things up with that sweet image of her asleep on her bed.

Seriously, if anyone wasn't in love with Lara, I was totally going to fix that up right now.

"Can you like make a thing Where Lara walks in on Sam duct-taping the ends of her clothes to her body to make herself more aerodynamic for their next expedition like a hunter from left 4 dead" – Sam, Lara (POV) - SFW

Yes.

The hotel room actually turned out to be a large art-deco-style apartment. It was a little stuffy inside, so I opened the big bay windows and settled down in an armchair next to them with the iPad. Sam had disappeared into the bathroom to sample the complementary toiletries and enjoy the enormous shower. It meant the telly was off for once and that was a relief.

The article was actually pretty interesting; it was written by a young student of archaeology who was studying at Cambridge but specializing in Australian mythology. It lacked the long, drawn-out sentences I normally had to struggle through and read very easily from beginning to end. Despite that, the content wasn't that interesting to me. I did note some similarities between Aboriginal mythology and the Maori stories Jonah started on about when we were drunkenly inventing stories for his many tattoos. Even the memory of sloshed Jonah imitating various deities wasn't enough to rescue myths about zillions of rivers and mountains, though.

I reached the end of the article and closed it.

It was then that I realised I never normally managed to reach the end of anything without being interrupted. Or without needed to focus on ignoring the sound of women shrieking at each other on reality shows, or without Sam leaning over my shoulder, telling me she was bored and asking me what I was reading. It was suspiciously quiet, and showers didn't last that long.

Where was Sam?

I looked over toward the door dividing the living area and the bedroom and en suite. I thought I could hear the sounds of something straining to do something and not liking the result. The bed creaked, and then I heard something solid be put down on a flat surface. What on earth was she doing?

I stood up to investigate, discarding the iPad on the cushion behind me.

As I rounded the corner, I spotted Sam sitting on the edge of the bed with a roll of duct tape and a pair of scissors, wrapping it all around the ends of her sleeves and pants. She even had some around her elbows and knees. She saw me in the doorway and grinned, standing up to show me her work.

I just stared at her. "Have you been watching the Japanese fashion channel again?"

She gave me a look. "Actually I was watching this cool documentary on Parkour, you heard of it?" I shook my head. "It was about these guys who created an obstacle course out of a construction site in central Chicago. They were doing all these amazing tricks as they ran through it, it was awesome." She was talking animatedly again, the way she always did when she was excited. That, plus the duct tape on her wrists… what a sight. "Anyway, one of them was saying he could get much higher when he wore tighter clothes and taped the ends to his body. Something about aerodynamics."

I watched her. "So you taped your ankles and wrists to be aerodynamic?" She didn't correct me, so I pointed out, "Sam, you wear the tightest clothes on the planet, I swear you're more aerodynamic than those swimmers wearing those banned bodysuits."

She stood up and did a little spin for me to display her handywork. "Yeah, but now I'm even more aerodynamic. Maybe now I'll be able to do those vault-things you do to get on top of buildings."

"You could just do some push-ups and lunges, you know."

She sat back down on the bed. "Yeah, but this duct tape does two things," she said. I waited for her to continue. "You're always saying to put practicality over fashion, especially when we go on expeditions. And you know how I was telling you about those bird-eating spiders Australia has?" She swung her taped ankles up onto the bed. "Well," she said, looking smug and showing me nothing could get into them. "When you have them crawling all over the inside of your cargos, you're going to wish you were as aerodynamic as I am."

Trash & Treasure - Lara, Sam (prompt) - SFW

For Pugletto, who is art-trading with me for Lara/Natla art. She said, "Write me a pugfic!" The tacos are also for Pug, but she shouldn't eat them unless she wants hepatitis.

"I swear it used to be around here somewhere," Sam was saying, thumbing through a map on her iPhone. She stopped on the corner, looking around and then back at her phone. "It's supposed to be here!"

I looked about us. It was one of those awful grey days in London where it was on the cusp of raining. I kept thinking I felt raindrops on my face, but it was never enough to bother hunting around in my bag for my brollie. Despite the fact it wasn't really raining, the wind had picked up and was blowing right through my scarf. I really would much rather have been home inside than hunting around in the dodgy end of the city for a shop, even if it was an antique and rare bookstore.

"It probably closed down," I said. "Don't worry, I'm sure they have a shop online. If not, maybe we could try Amazon."

Sam walked purposefully up to a traffic light, walking around the pole and looking up it. She made a frustrated noise. "Apple Maps never works in London," she said. "These maps are hopeless. I'm going Android next time." I must have been looking at her blankly, because she leaned back towards me, showing me the screen on her iPhone, and then pointed upwards. "It doesn't even have us on the right street!" A couple of small droplets landed on her screen and she wiped them off and took my hand. "Come on," she said, leading me around the corner.

Because of the weather, there was no one around the area. I would actually have preferred to not be around there, either: I was in the middle of writing an article for a journal and it was so close to being finished. I wanted to go back home, turn on the heater and finish it. It was so cold out here that I would have put my hands inside the sleeves of my jumper if Sam hadn't been leading me by one of them.

"Perhaps we should go home," I suggested. "I think it's going to rain."

Sam snorted. "If we stayed home because it was raining in this country, we'd never leave the house."

As she said that, a big fat drop of rain got me in the eye. It was closely followed by several more. Before we knew it, they were covering the street. Sam shoved her phone in her pocket. "Did you bring the umbrella?"

I nodded. "But I don't want to open my bag with my phone and the iPad in it." We were beside a laneway that backed onto some little restaurants that weren't open yet, and there was an awning over one of their doorways. "There!" I said, this time being the one to drag Sam underneath it.

We squished into the doorway together while I unzipped my bag and felt around in it. The doorway was beside a huge rubbish bin, and it smelt like a mixture of week-old yum cha and stale taco meat. There was even wilted chopped lettuce around the base of the bin.

"Do you hear that?" Sam was saying while I was trying to figure out which bloody pocket I'd put the compact brollie in.

"I can't hear anything except the rain," I told her, unzipping the front pocket.

She was giving me a strange look while she listened. "No, I swear to god I can hear something in that bin."

She rushed out from under the awning over to the big rubbish bin, but she couldn't get the lid off it by herself. I watched her struggle with it for a few seconds while the rain pelted down on her and then felt awfully guilty for letting her try to do that on her own. Dropping my bag in the doorway, I jogged over to her, bracing my shoulder against the lid until it creaked in protest and swung open. With the lid off, it smelt even worse.

Ignoring that, Sam put a boot on the steel frame and stepped up, leaning over inside it. "There's something moving in here!" she told me, and starting tossing all manner of rubbish out. I watched a half-cut lettuce, some stale taco shells and a few empty take-away boxes fly past me as I stood beside her, getting soaked. So much for bothering to straighten my hair this morning.

"This is London," I reminded her. "It's probably rats. Or maybe the pigeons have finally learnt how to infiltrate rubbish bins."

She stopped rifling through the rubbish and was completely still. "Oh, my God," she said after a moment of silence, but I couldn't see what she was looking at. "Okay, it's not a spy pigeon." She looked down at me. "You'll never guess what's in here!"

"Salmonella?"

She rolled her eyes and looked excitedly back into the bin. "Come on!" she said in a baby voice. "Come on, come here, boy!"

What on was she…

I put the toe of my boot on the framing myself and climbed up next to her. She had her arms outstretched. On the other side of the bin, just out of reach, a tiny little head was poking out of a chewed-up garbage bag. I couldn't tell what it was at first from the shape of its face, but then it sneezed.

It was a puppy. It had a really strange face, one of those flat-noses with bulging eyes and too much skin. I felt kind of bad thinking a tiny puppy was ugly, but I couldn't help it. It was ugly, but it was also little and helpless. "Is that a pug?" I asked her.

"Uh, huh!" she said, and managed to coax it over the debris and assorted rubbish into her arms. I then stepped back off the side of the bin and let her hand it to me as she climbed down herself.

It was cuter when I could see all of it, but there was still something horribly surprised about its expression. Its stay in the bin had also left it smelling awful. "Who would throw a puppy into a rubbish bin?" I asked, brushing a piece of soggy tomato off its back. I checked the inside of one of its ears. "No microchip."

Sam was dancing around opposite me, desperate for me to give the puppy back to her. "Isn't it adorable?" she asked me. "It's so tiny!"

I passed it to her, and she received it from me with the same level of care as if she were being given a newborn baby. "Hello, little guy!" she said. "You must be so scared and so cold…" She looked at me. "Can you give me your scarf?"

I narrowed my eyes at her, but did as she told me. She wrapped it all around the puppy and cradled it in her arms. I was so completely wet through anyway I supposed it didn't really matter that now I was wet and had a cold neck.

She walked back under the awning, jogging the puppy as if it was her own child. It was actually really endearing. I just stood next to the bin in the rain and watched her; I knew what was coming next.

"He's so adorable," Sam was saying and when she looked up at me, I could already see guilt. "Lara…"

"Sam…" I said neutrally, wondering how long it would take her to actually ask the question.

She winced. "I know we're not supposed to have animals in your apartment, but he's so tiny…" she said, "and it's not like we can't hide him anywhere…"

I crossed my arms and looked at her.

"We're moving soon, anyway!" she said. "Please…?"

It was useless arguing with Sam when she'd made up her mind. As soon as I'd passed that puppy to her I'd known it was going to end up coming home with us. I sighed. Despite its really odd face and tubby little body it was cute. "Alright," I said. "But before you let him loose in the flat let me clean up all the periodicals I've got all over the floor."

Sam ventured out into the rain again to throw her other arm around me and kiss my cheek. "I love you!" she announced – I'd grown familiar to hearing it every time I did something she wanted me to. She then looked back down at the puppy. "Did you hear that, little guy? You've got a new home!" She dragged me back under the awning. "What are we going to call him?" I'd never had a dog before, or any pets, actually. I wasn't sure she was really asking for my input anyway, because she was already looking thoughtful. "I always think it's kind of funny when you give these tiny dogs really proper names. We should give him a totally British name, something really 'posh'."

Posh? I looked down at the puppy. Its little bulging eyes stared back at me. One of them looked a bit lazy and I wasn't sure it was actually pointed at me. "My parents used to have this really proper butler when I was a little girl."

She looked up at me, some of her excitement fading. I never talked about my parents, really. Or my childhood. "Yeah?"

"His name was Winston," I said. "And he always wore a suit."

"Winston," Sam repeated, trying it out as she looked down at him wrapped in my scarf. "Oh, my God. That's so hilarious. Look at him. He's got such a weird little face for a name like 'Winston'. We should totally call him that."

When the rain eased, we left the awning and headed back to where Sam had parked. I had to drive, because Sam insisted that we couldn't wake Winston once he'd gone to sleep in her arms. As I was pulling away from the curb, I noticed a faded sign over a little single-level shop near the corner where we'd been sheltering. Blackwells Rare Reads, I was able to make out. It was the store Sam had been trying to find.

While we were stopped at a red light, I looked from the sign and the beautiful old leather-bound tomes in the window to Sam in the passenger seat. She was gazing adoringly at Winston as he slept – snoring. Oh, God, I thought, now I'll have two snorers in my flat.

When the light turned green, I didn't mention that I'd seen the book shop. I just drove us all home.