Chapter 3: Getting Acquainted Part 1: Arrival


Steph: Three rooms. This is not a good sign.

Harem looks at rooms, then looks at Xel.

All 'cept Steph & Xel: I am not sharing a room with the fruitcake!

Steph: ::rolls eyes:: Then I will.

Duo & Suboshi: ::in unison:: Dibs on the room with the kitchen!

Steph: You can't use it.

Both: Awww ...

Zel: I guess me and Val will take the room next to it.

Val: 'Kay.

Xel: ::to Steph:: Looks like we're sharing a bed ... ^_~

Steph: No we're not. You're sleeping on the floor.

Xel: Awww ... ^_^

Steph: Cope, hentai.

They unpack. Or more accurately, attempt to unpack. That is until Xel gets it in his head to do a hanger raid. He rushes around the rooms, grabs hangers right and left and then pops out to bury them in the back yard. The second he returns, Steph beats the livin' crap outta him. Which ends that particular escapade. And so continues the unpacking.

Insane giggling is heard from Xel and Steph's room. The rest of the harem group together to speculate on the who and the cause. They decide it must be Steph, but the why has them stumped.

Duo: The fruit probably --

Suboshi: -- drugged her. It's the only --

Duo: -- thing that can explain it.

Zel, the logical deductive one here, raises a pertinent question. Two pertinent questions in fact.

Zel: How? And why are you completing each other's statements?

Shrugs all around.

Val: Wanna bet?

Duo: 5 on yes.

Suboshi: Same.

Val: 10 on no.

Zel: I don't bet.

Val: Tough luck then.

Zel: Whatever.

Just then their questions are answered when Steph pushes the door open, still laughing, and waves an odd purple smoke out of the room, dissipating it. Xel floats out looking mighty pleased with himself.

Steph: That is the last time giggle I question why you have a laughing giggle gas bomb. laugh Fruitcake!

Duo & Suboshi: ::in unison to Val:: Pay up!

Zel: They won and that answers my questions.

Val coughs up the coinage, swearing. Finally the work is done and they head downstairs for a long awaited hot, non-lethal, non-moving meal. Or try to, anyway. Xel, the fruit that he is, decides to make the whole enterprise more interesting and kicks Val down, which starts a chain reaction that ends up with everyone in a pile at the bottom of the stairs. Xel takes the banister at mach 5 while Steph walks downstairs, climbs up and over the bishounen piled on the floor, and walks into the dining room, yawning.

Val: ::from bottom of pile:: I get ta kill it first.

Zel: ::above him:: Dibs on second.

Duo: Then he is --

Suboshi: -- ours!

Val: Do you guys always finish each other's sentences?

Duo & Suboshi: ::in unison:: Yup!

Val: Figures. Now get off me! Ya weigh a ton!

Duo: It's the rock.

Zel: When I can move again, you are so dead.

Duo runs out.

Duo: ::yelling back:: I'd like to see ya try!

The bishounen untangle themselves using handy little crowbars provided by Suboshi and then go to the dining room. Duo and Suboshi ensconce themselves in the best strategic position to get a hold of as much food as possible as soon as possible while drooling. Val tries to stab Xel with his knife (who phases out) and accidentally stabs Zel instead, breaking the knife.

Val: @$)(*#

Xel: ::wags finger:: Language -- uk ... ^_^::

Val gets Xel in chokehold and bangs him against the table repeatedly. The food comes and Val drops Xel so he can get some food before Duo and Suboshi inhale it all. This is all followed by the usual fight.

Zel: Hey!

Val: Gimme that!

Duo: ::pausing to breath:: Watch where you're flinging that, some of us --

Suboshi: -- are trying to eat! Do you mind?!

Xel: Not at all. ^_^

Duo & Suboshi: ::in unison:: We're not talking to you!

Val: Yeah! They're talkin' ta me! So stay out of it, ya nut!

Steph ignores all this, used to dodging flying food, thrown utensils, ducking under fork fights, snatching food before Duo or Suboshi can get their teeth in it, and the like. This is all routine for her. So when Zel starts engaging in long rhetorical philosophical discussions with various eating utensils about the various eating habits of his companions, Steph doesn't so much as blink an eye. In fact, she hands him her fork, while elbowing Xel away before he can gank her knodel (dumpling). Finally, exactly 30 knodels, 12 bowels of sauce, and six bowels of salad later, the harem goes into the living room (after punting Xel in there first (to see if it was safe, after all, really)) and proceeds to pass out on various pieces of furniture. Steph stares at the ceiling for awhile before realizing the effort to keep her eyes open was hopeless (she tried fingers, tape, toothpicks, magic, etc.) and rolls off the couch to fall face first on the floor. Prying herself off the floor she snaps the bishounen to their respective beds, drags herself upstairs to her own blissfully soft, warm, inviting, welcoming bed and falls into a travel induced, exhausted slumber. The atom bomb going off around those six wouldn't have woken 'em up.