All in all I fare the same; [open]

[letmelive]

Claire hadn't been up to much lately, and while that wasn't entirely a bad thing, it was a little dull. Still, it gave her time to get ahead on lesson plans, and work on training Boon to behave himself a little better.

At the moment she's sitting in the lounge, trying to get some work done, but as the dog (not so much a puppy anymore, though he still wasn't quite full-grown) kept on sneaking up and making off with her data pad, it wasn't easy. Anyone walking into the area would likely observe Claire standing with one finger pointed sharply at the floor next to her as she attempted to get the dog to comply.

"Boon! Come back here with that!"

Comments

[carrieswar.livejournal.com]

There weren't too many pets running around the ship, so Jr.'s initial response was to double-take when he realized one was there. He stood to watch for a couple of moments, lips slowly curving into a small smirk when he realized what was going on here.

"Uh ... having trouble?"

[letmelive]

The new voice broke Claire's fierce gaze on the dog, which gave Boon just the leeway he needed as he was starting to cautiously make his way back to her, and he bounded off again. She sighed, looking over at the young man and smiling in a slightly apologetic way.

"A little. He's great at listening to orders... When he wants to."

[carrieswar.livejournal.com]

"How old is he?"

He crouched down slightly to keep an curious eye on the dog. Definitely not like any kind of dog he'd ever seen back home ... even the artificial ones.

[letmelive]

"Best I can guess somewhere around nine months?" She sighed, resting her hands on her hips and watching the dog run in a wide circle around the couch she'd been sitting on. "He's from a litter that was found in hydroponics when we finally got it open, so it's hard to say."

[carrieswar.livejournal.com]

"Ahh, so he's young still!"

Crouching down all the way, he put a hand out toward the dog. "And pretty cute, too. Is he real? Hey, c'mere boy!"

[letmelive]

Boon was never one to refuse new people who looked willing to pat him, and a quick glance at Claire told him she wasn't moving to drag his new chew toy away from him, so he trotted happily over to Jr., tail wagging madly.

"He seems like an ordinary dog, really. I'm waiting for some weird alien quirk to present itself." Some of the other dogs from his litter had been weird. so far the weirdest thing about Boon was his uncanny ability to find Sherry's books wherever the little girl hid them.

"His name is Boon, by the way." she paused, before mentally smacking her forehead and physically shaking her head a little at herself. "And I'm Claire. I'm sorry, I don't think we've met before."

[carrieswar.livejournal.com]

"Weird alien quirk? I'm sure something'll show up sooner or later. Unless his affinity to data pads winds up being the quirk." He smirked slightly. "And I don't think we have! I'm Gaignun Jr., Jr.'s just fine, though. It's good to meet'cha, Claire!"

He turned his attention back to Boon momentarily to give him a pat. "Hey there buddy," he said as his other hand hovered around the data pad. "You wanna give that back?"

[letmelive]

"Data pads, books, anything we don't want him chewing, really," Claire sighed, watching carefully as Boon got closer to Jr. The dog looked hesitant at first, like he was going to run off again, but his desire to be petted won out over his desire to keep a hold on the data pad and he let it go, letting out a little wuff when his mouth was free.

"What a little attention whore," Claire laughed, shaking her head.

[carrieswar.livejournal.com]

"No dog can say no to attention!" he laughed, picking the data pad up. "My dog can be the same way, sometimes. And since he was on a ship, too, well. Sometimes it's not the prime place to be with all the stuff they can get into. Thanks, boy!" He stood up. "And don't worry, that wasn't a total fake-out, I won't forget about you."

He walked over to Claire and held the data pad out to her. Dog-mouth or not, at least it was out of Boon's possession. For now, anyway. "Here ya go."

[letmelive]

Claire gave Jr. a relieved smile, taking the data pad from him and quickly tucked it away in her bag so that the dog couldn't get to it again.

"Thanks," she said, blowing out a breath and looking down at Boon, who was now wagging his tail and blinking up at the two humans, looking like he was the most innocent creature on the planet. She made a weary sound, before crouching down and ruffling the dog behind the ears.

"You're a handful, you know that?" she muttered to the dog, before glancing over at Jr. again. "You said you lived on a ship before you were here?"

[carrieswar.livejournal.com]

"Not lived, but spent a lot of my time on," he answered, thinking fondly of the huge, red battleship. "Me and my dad," it was still such a reflex to refer to Gaignun as dad in front of others. And while he figured nobody on the ship would care about or really judge their circumstances if he just spoke the truth, he also just didn't take the time to think about explaining things as they were. "sorta split the jobs back home. So I took care of that end of things while he bothered with the more boring stuff at home."

Of course, compared to Stacy... "But it was a pretty good ship for living space while we were on it, dogs included. Not as huge as this ship is, but we never really intended to build something like a city inside of it."

*Jaws theme*

[craaazyisland]

From behind the nearby corner, a shock of red hair peered out to investigate all the yelling. Steve followed behind it shortly once he saw Claire there, yelling at that mischievous dog of hers.

He had been fairly scarce lately, perhaps even scarcer than Claire may have been used to since the whole incident of a few weeks prior. He kept mostly to himself and kept his head down as he wandered around, and had only just been starting to open up a little more when this whole new stretch of scarcity inspired itself.

"Hey, Claire," he said, with an awkward little smile. "Sounds like you have another stubborn guy to deal with around here, huh?"

screeeee

[letmelive]

Claire was a little surprised to hear Steve's voice, but looked absolutely pleased to see him, after she looked away from the aggravating dog. She smiled widely, shaking her head at his question and laughing a little.

"Story of my life." Boon pulled up when he noticed Steve, too, and then beelined for the teen, tail wagging madly. He liked Steve!

[craaazyisland]

"Yeah, no kidding..." Steve still looked a little hesitant as he stepped a little closer, but it didn't take long for the sight of a wiggling, excited puppy to immediately bring him out of his nervousness. He grinned and went down on one knee, holding out his hand for Boon to sniff before giving the dog a deluxe scale ear-scratch-tummy-rub package.

"I haven't seen you in a while," he commented, between baby-talking to the dog. "I, uh... how've you been?"

[letmelive]

In the dog's elation at finding Steve, he finally dropped Claire's data pad and she walked over to pick it up. She grimaced a little and wiped the dog drool off with a corner of her shirt, before crouching down next to Steve.

"I've been all right," she replied to his question, shrugging her shoulders a little and reaching out to scruffle Boon absently. "No complaints, really. You?" She remembered Miku saying something about him acting off, so she glanced up at him when she directed the question back at him, looking for any signs of what the girl might've been talking about.

[craaazyisland]

As usual, Steve was about as subtle as a hammer in the face. He turned a little pink at the question, reaching up to push his hair out of his eyes.

"I'm fine," he said. "I mean, since... all that stuff happened, I have a lot less to worry about. So. I'm totally fine now."

[letmelive]

She caught the blush and frowned lightly, but tried not to press it, instead raising her eyebrows and focusing on looking down at the squirmy dog.

"Okay," she replied, her tone a little too light. "But you know if something's up you can tell me, right?"

[craaazyisland]

"Yeah, I know," he assured her, causing a little more squirming by giving the puppy a belly-rub. "You always say that. But..."

He made an odd expression briefly, then made sure to look away from her face when he answered. "I hate dumping all my issues on you all the time," he said. "That's all I've ever done, and now you finally don't have to worry about me anymore."

[letmelive]

Claire sighed, letting Steve have sole puppy duty, and reached out to gently wrap an arm around his shoulder.

"Steve, I'm always going to worry about you. Just because you're cured doesn't mean I'm going to drop you like you're not interesting anymore. Do you remember when I told you you were family to me? I meant that."

[craaazyisland]

It was a miracle. He didn't flinch, for once.

"I know," he assured her, turning beet red to make up for the lack of awkward flinching. "But... still. You need a break from my problems for once."

[letmelive]

She rolled her eyes, leaning into him a little.

"I've had a break. I barely see you anymore." Her tone was lightly accusatory, like a mother who joked that her son never called her anymore, but it did bother her a little that she hadn't seen him much.

[craaazyisland]

He turned even redder.

"It's nothing personal," he assured her. "I just... I haven't wanted to get out much since all that bullshit happened." It still felt an awful lot like he was being judged every time he went out in public. Of course that was likely just him being oversensitive, as usual.

"And since Luke..." Whoops. He suddenly looked like he hadn't meant to say that.

[hero-sting.livejournal.com]

Chris like Claire hadn't been really up to anything major or important in recent days. He to be perfectly honest, wasn't sure what to do with himself when he wasn't patrolling or training. So he jogged, lost in his thoughts. Unaware that there was a loose dog around.

[letmelive]

Claire was focused on the dog, so she didn't even notice Chris until after Boon did, and by then the animal was running full tilt on intercept, and Claire barely had enough time to call out a warning.

"Chris, watch out for the dog!"

[stupidnecklace.livejournal.com]

Tana had finally started to get accustomed to the whole living on a spaceship (now with flying, possessed ladies!) and had decided to get a move on with the whole mingling things.

Mostly, it was the fact she was studying the different departments, and listening in to conversations that other people on the ship were having that spurred her into sociability. "I didn't know they had dogs aboard," she said as she approached Claire. "Having a little trouble?"

[letmelive]

"I think at this point we've got one of everything onboard," Claire replied automatically as the woman walked up, before smiling. "Regular Noah's Ark." Boon was circling back around, curious about the new person, and in his curiosity he forgot to keep an eye out for Claire. She managed to reach out as he passed her, and snagged the datapad back from his mouth after a brief struggle.

"A-ha! Got it!" She held the data pad up and away from the dog, before turning back to the woman and smiling, while Boon whined plaintively at her heels. "No trouble anymore."