"Anonymous asked: Fluff plz"
Hah. Okay.
Don't Wait Up - Lara, Sam – SFW
Pre-Yamatai pre-slash.
Completed in 47 Minutes by Asynca.
I'd been staking out Lara's apartment for her all day. She took so long to get back I even got hungry and was forced to eat her 99% fat free yoghurt. While I was standing at the refrigerator with the tub in one hand and a soup spoon in the other, I had this sudden thought that maybe she'd hooked up with that guy from Civilizations after all. Aside from actually calling Roth to make sure they weren't on some impulse trip to the Amazon or whatever (he was in that generation that had some weird aversion to text messaging), I just had to wait.
After like maybe ten minutes, I decided calling was okay.
Roth answered. "Hullo, Sam…" he sounded a bit confused. And he should be, because I think Lara only gave him my number for emergencies.
Well, this was kind of an emergency. Lara had been MIA for like three hours now. "Hi," I said. "Is Lara with you?"
"Should she be?"
"Well, I don't know. She's been gone for ages. I thought maybe you knew where she went." I had another spoonful of that god-awful water-yoghurt and made a face.
"You know what she's like. She's probably just gone off searching for a periodical that's only in print."
I did know what she was like. She was usually at home whenever I wanted her to be and if not, she answered my text messages. Especially when they were urgent. "She didn't mention any guys lately, did she?"
Roth sighed. "Lara doesn't tell me about her love life, Sam. And I don't ask."
I scrunched my face up, half because of the yoghurt and half because of Roth not having any juicy details. "Okay, thanks," I said, and hung up.
As I did so, I heard Roth sigh again and say, "Alright, Sam… Bye."
I abandoned the refrigerator and went and lay on Lara's bed. There was no point in calling Alex, because he'd freak and launch an enormous search party for her, and there was no way Lara would tell him if she were seeing someone, anyway.
While I was lying there, worrying about what Lara was secretly doing, I saw a really cute sweater hanging on the closet. It was really cute.
Lara came home later that afternoon with a small shopping bag and singing aloud to her iPod as she closed the door. She nearly had a heart attack when she saw me, dumping her shopping and yanking out her earbuds. "Sam!" she said, totally busted. She then squinted at me. "Is that my new jumper?"
I looked down my front. "I'm just wearing it in for you," I said, and then went to investigate her bag. "What's in there?"
"I've been thinking about buying a carpet python, so I decided to do it."
My eyes just about jumped out of my head. "Really?"
She deadpanned. "No. It's groceries."
"Oh," I said. I'd quite liked the idea of the python. "Where have you been?"
She hung up her coat. "At the supermarket." When I looked like I completely didn't believe her, she added, "And you've been here the whole time, haven't you?"
"I don't think the whole time," I said, thinking it was only a little bit of a lie. "I just had something really important to tell you and I wanted to tell you in person."
For a fraction of a second, she looked really freaked out. "Before you say anything, would you like a brew?" she said, trying to hide that expression as she walked past me. "I have an Indian blend that's supposed to be really nice."
I didn't really get it the whole paranoid thing about the important news. "It's nothing serious," I said and then followed her into the kitchen while she filled the electric jug. "Guess what."
She gave me a look.
"Fine," I said. "My submission got accepted into Royales Film Festival. Does this call for a celebration, or what?"
That, she gave me a big smile for, looking suddenly far more relaxed. "That's great," she said, sounding like she genuinely meant it as she switched on the jug. "But I still don't understand why you couldn't tell me that over the phone."
I hopped up onto the kitchen bench beside the jug. "Uh, because we need to celebrate! Also I watched a YouTube video on how to fishtail braid and my hair isn't long enough." I ate a sugar cube out of the tin. "What did you think I was going to say?"
She flinched, going to the refrigerator for milk. "Never mind," she said. "It's important—" She made a frustrated noise and stood up, holding the nearly empty yoghurt container. "I thought you hated this stuff?"
"I do," I said. "But I was hungry and it was either that or the weird blue cheese that tastes like it should have been thrown out like months ago. Or years. Also you haven't told me where you were." I turned a hard stare on her. "Is it that guy from Civilizations?"
The expression she gave me kind of answered that question for itself. "No," she said. "I've already told you no. And no to that other man you think I'm interested in at The North Face, as well." She put the teabags in to soak. "I'm not going to date at the moment, so you can stop asking me about boys."
I shrugged. "I have this weird fear that one day you're going to date someone and I'm not going to find out until you're like, married to him and pregnant with his three children." At her frown, I said, "You've got to admit, you're pretty quiet on this stuff."
"I'm quiet because there's absolutely nothing to report," she said. "Do you want daily updates on that?"
I kind of did, actually. I didn't say anything about it, though. I just accepted my cup and then let her tell me all the boring details about the tea that I was drinking.
The next morning, I woke up to a text message. I rolled over, half-awake, and checked my phone. "Just wanted to let you know that I'm lying in my bed. Alone."
I laughed. I had intended to text her back, but I fell asleep again and woke up closer to noon and another text message. "I'm at uni in a very boring geology tute. Also, I'm still single."
Early afternoon, I got up and when I walked out of the shower there was another one waiting for me. "A man just asked me what time it was. Does that mean we're dating? Y/N."
In the late evening while I was sitting in front of my Powerbook and trying and failing to make the sound sync properly with a video I was working on, she sent another. "I'm at home, all alone." It was followed quickly by, "By the way, you never braided my hair and I just washed it."
I looked at my computer screen and the annoying track that wasn't cooperating with me. I could take a break. "Okay, I'm coming over," I texted back, and then thought for a second before sending another message. It was pretty funny, I decided. "'Someone just texted me to tell me to come over. Don't wait up, I'll probably stay the night'."
While I was trying to decide which shoes to wear, she replied. "It makes me stupidly happy that you're talking about me for once."
I stared at the phone for a moment with a big grin plastered across my face and with butterflies in my stomach. Wow, I needed to get a grip. Having Lara share stuff with me wasn't that amazing, was it? She was my best friend, she was supposed to share this love life stuff with me.
Whatever, I couldn't think about it now. I had a train to catch.
