trans_9 | Meet and Greet Part Deux: The Socialing

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Meet and Greet Part Deux: The Socialing

The new people will find themselves ushered out of Obs Deck, so it can be shot down to the planet again, to pick the crew up. Eventually, the crew members on the mission are brought back up, and the doors open to let the two groups meet.

The newbies are likely not expecting their new crew-mates to come back bearing presents--which some of them are.

[ooc: This time anyone can post in. REMEMBER TO TAG OTHER PEOPLE, THO. This is set after the mission so mission peoples can meet the newbies. Latecomer newbies, if you want, you can just tag your guys into this one to make things easier.]

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"Hey you two!" Claire beamed at the sight of Leon and Sherry, moving towards the pair while shifting her bags around so she had one arm free. When she reached them she gave Leon a quick kiss hello before bending down to scoop Sherry into a hug.

"Oh, I missed you guys." It wasn't a very long trip, and it had been fun, but it was funny how good it felt to be back on the ship.

"Hey!" He was glad to see she was alright. Admittedly, it was a little different with her going on the mission and him being the one staying behind and waiting, but he knew she could take care of herself, so he hadn't been going out of his mind worrying.

"We missed you too. You have a good trip?" He reached out, intending to take some of those bags off of her hands.

Sherry clung to Claire and sighed. No, she hadn't missed Claire at all, obviously. "You didn't blow anything up, did you?" Sherry added into Claire's shoulder, one eye on the bags of presents.

She nodded her head at Leon's question, letting him take the bags from her. She laughed a little at Sherry's question, patting the little girl's head.

"No, I was nowhere near anything that could blow up. Strictly holiday cheer. I had time to shop, though!" which was amazing. Claire was ridiculously pleased she was able to get real things that weren't holograms or breathing.

Leon chuckled a bit at the mention of shopping. Much as Claire could be a tomboy, she was very girly sometimes.

It was cute.

"What'd you pick up?" Now that he had her bags, he decided to rifle through her stuff.

"Presents?" Sherry chimed in and turned her head to look at Leon. She did her best to not look excited, but the little girl's voice betrayed her. If there was a present for her (and she was fairly sure there was), she wanted to see it.

And shake it.

And weigh it.

And then open it.

"Oh a little of this, a little of that," Claire smirked, detecting the excitement in Sherry's voice as she straightened up and reached out to pry one of the bags away from Leon. He wasn't going to find much by way of unwrapped stuff, she wouldn't have relinquished the bags so easily if that were the case, although in one bag there were some clothes she'd picked up for herself that she obviously hadn't wrapped.

"This bag's yours, sweetie," Claire held the bag with at least three wrapped boxes inside out to the little girl, before glancing back at Leon. "You can probably figure out which one is yours." She'd actually labeled them, so she wouldn't forget.

Truth be told, if Leon hadn't mastered the art of linefacing, he'd probably be bouncing with excitement himself. Government employees were barred from giving him gifts, he had very few friends who didn't work for the government, and he was almost never with his family for either Christmas or his birthday; it had been a while since anyone had actually given him a present.

He was able to pick out which bag was his, though he looked through the others anyway. It was a force of habit.

But with his curiosity satisfied for the moment, he put the other bags down, and started to unwrap his presents.

"Presents!" Sherry exclaimed and took the bag excitedly, her usual pretenses dropped. She would probably regret it later, but there were presents to be opened and mothers to thank.

Speaking of which, "Thank you, Mom!" With that out of the way, Sherry started her present-opening process. In the back of her mind, she hoped Claire hadn't gotten her something mundane. Like socks.

Claire just grinned and leaned back to watch the two open their presents, feeling quite satisfied with everything right now. Leon would find the spectacularly boring gift of clothing in his bag. But considering how often she'd heard him complaining about his plant suit, she knew when real pants were appreciated. There are also a couple brain teaser books. Oh and rope. Have fun figuring that one out, Leon.

Sherry would similarly find her first box was disappointingly boring clothing, but the next box would be of far more interest to her, containing several multi-chapter books. Claire had been kind of running blind, so she picked a mixture of mystery novels and fantasy, figuring Sherry had had enough of science fiction in real life for a while. And the third box would contain a locket somewhat similar to the one she lost in Raccoon City, a little more oval in shape than round, and a little smaller, and with the obvious difference of having a picture of Claire, Leon, and Sherry Claire had taken with her omnicomm shortly before leaving, as opposed to her real parents.

Claire? Leon is going to hug you now, and will not stop for at least the next five minutes. If he were the type to cry tears of joy, he'd be doing so right now.

When Leon was infected with a plaga, after a while he could feel where the thing was inside him. After all, it was only a little smaller than a football, so it was hard to miss it wriggling around in his chest, pushing against internal organs, and hugging his spine where it attempted to hijack his brain. He remembered how the tail of that thing used to drag against his stomach, which caused it to itch like crazy. He was glad to finally be rid of it, though sometimes he'd have some phantom echo, some ghost of a feeling that something inside of him was moving in ways that it should not.

And then he got the plantsuit. Which was like one massive echo of that situation. He was keenly away of every small movement of the suit, every pulse, every contraction; He could feel it feeding off of his skin, and poking around in his brain. There were days that he would swear that it put something inside of him that's moving around, occupying the space where the plaga used to be.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, there's been a constant stream of 'UGH! AUGH! WARGARBLE!' that he's forced himself to ignore. He's had to fight the urge to either rip the suit off and run around naked (but wouldn't because his holsters would chaff like crazy), or set himself on fire, neither one of which would be helpful.

He's had to suffer in silence, essentially, since talking about it would require him to further acknowledge it was happening and make him pay attention it. But he doesn't have to suffer anymore. Because he has pants. And other articles of clothing that don't have a pulse and aren't feeding off of him.

So, thank you Claire. Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!

...but don't think he didn't notice the rope. He'll ask about that later.

Edited 2010-01-06 20:33 (UTC)

The first box earned a slight nose crinkle (like most of the children, she'd just adapted to the suit, so the constant pulsing hardly crossed her mind anymore), but she was happy to find things she could just wear around and not feel like some extra in bad B-movie on TCM. The box was put aside and she moved on to the next one, which garnered a much happier reaction.

"Mom got me books!" And clothes. But those weren't going to register until she decided to wear something different. Besides, her father was busily distracting her mother, so Sherry moved on to the final, smaller box. Sherry looked up at them and then back at the little package. Well, it was too small for socks, at least (and she already had those now).

Sherry wasn't one for dramatics (and she had a couple of years to go before she could start doing that, anyway), but the little locket in the box had the opposite effect on her that Claire probably hadn't anticipated.

She burst into tears.

Claire had figured Leon would appreciate the clothes, but she didn't really know how much. Not to say the hugging wasn't a welcome thank you, she was just a little surprised he was that happy about it.

"Geez if I'd know you'd like the clothes that much that would've been all I got you," she smirked a little, although her smile promptly cut off when she heard Sherry crying and she pushed away from Leon so she could turn her attention to their daughter, immediately seeing she'd upset the little girl with one of her presents and feeling awful for it.

"Oh, sweetie, I'm sorry, I didn't want to upset you." She knelt down and reached out to brush a comforting hand over Sherry's hair, her eyebrows furrowed.

Leon was about to respond when Sherry's crying got his attention too. He was... well, confused. He could've sworn she was excited not two seconds earlier.

"Sweetheart? What's wrong?"

"I'm not upset!" Sherry replied between sniffles. She rubbed at her eyes quickly to clean up her face a little. "I like it a lot!"

Okay, so she probably didn't look like she was happy, Sherry realized. But she was! "And I'll take really good care of it," she added and worried her lip between her teeth. "I promise!"

Oh. Happy tears. Claire looked relieved, smiling a little and leaning forward to kiss Sherry on the forehead.

"I'm sure you will, sweetie."

Leon took Sherry's hand, and looked at the gift that made her burst into tears. He smiled as he looked at the locket, then gave a brief look to Claire before turning his attention back to Sherry.

"Yeah, I think you'll manage to hold on to this one."

Sherry nodded and sniffed again. She took it out of the box and looked at it again, her other hand still wiping off the last messy little trails of tears. "Will you help me put it on, please?" she asked after a second of fiddling with the tiny clasp. She'd had the same problem with her last necklace. Well, this one looked to be a little better.

Claire glanced up at Leon briefly and smiled at him a little, before focusing back on Sherry. She reached up to help brush the tears off the girl's cheeks, before gently taking the locket from her.

"Sure thing. It's a pretty tough clasp, so it shouldn't break easy." She figured with some of the things Sherry got into, she'd need something that would be durable. Carefully undoing the clasp, Claire leaned forward to fasten it around Sherry's neck. Once it was secure again, she leaned back and straightened the locket out, smiling a little.

"There."

"Looks good on you," Leon commented, smiling down at Sherry.

"Yeah..." Sherry looked down and picked up the locket where it laid against the skin of the plantsuit. "I think so, too." She perked up slightly and hugged Claire, "Thank you again, Mom."

"You're welcome, sweetie." Now that Sherry wasn't crying anymore, Claire was back to feeling warm and fuzzy that she was able to make two of the most important people in her life happy, and she hoped she'd be able to get around to delivering the other presents she had to their intended recipients.

"And how about those books? Will those keep you busy for a while?"

"Knowing her, she'll probably get through them in a week," Leon stated, putting his arm around Claire.

"But, yes, thank you," he stated, realizing that he hadn't actually said that out loud. He also leaned in to kiss Claire. So, sorry Sherry, you'll just have to put up with your parents being gross right in front of you for a few seconds.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to change into something that isn't constantly groping me." He was about to leave, but paused and whispered to Claire "...unless you want to have some fun with the rope first."

"Well, Kelly put a bunch of books on this thing," Sherry pulled the electronic reader from her new bag (efficiency lessons begin now, Leon), "too, so it'll be a while before I start complaining." Two months, at least.

Sherry wrinkled her nose at her parents, but kept mum. She was currently trying to figure out how to fit all the books in the bag and not tip sideways when she tried to lug them up to her room. "Bye, Dad," she added absently.

It was a good thing Sherry was now distracted by her books. Claire had been about to make a witty comment about groping, but that died in her throat when Leon quietly brought up the rope. She turned a little red before leaning into Leon.

"I'll come by later. You enjoy the pants now." as tempting as it was to go with him she had a few others she needed to seek put first.

Edited 2010-01-08 23:45 (UTC)

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governmentninja - 2010-01-09 05:55 (UTC) - Expand

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