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It had been an incredibly long day. Watch duty, training, reports, and a million other little things that had needed her attention. The minute she was finished, she'd made a beeline for the dorms. Nothing sounded better to her than taking off her coat and crawling into bed.

Oddly, by the time she actually made it that far, her attitude had changed just the slightest bit. (It wasn't even that far of a walk.) Her mind was suddenly awake, and her muscles didn't seem quite so sore. Darn body rhythms. Second winds had their uses, but at the end of the day? Sherry sighed and shook her head.

Of course, it wasn't exactly late. Only an hour or three after dinner. She'd just been busy all day. Perhaps now would be a good time to hang out with someone? The idea of social interaction seemed nice. She had spent most of the day alone with Armagnac, after all.



Oh, hush, Sherry replied with a smile. I have to branch out to my other friends every once in a while. She walked right past her own room and continued down the hall.



I love you, too. Sherry was practically giggling.



They'd been over this several times in the past few weeks, too. Armagnac repeatedly informed Sherry that the basis of their partnership was this: Sherry was Armagnac's for as long as she was useful. Sherry liked to think the lindwyrm was just not wanting to admit her own fondness for the hunter.

The door Sherry chose to stop in front of was familiar. So was the feeling of annoyed resentment Armagnac was now giving off. Sherry rolled her eyes and knocked on the door.

She felt like seeing if Jake was in.



I already knocked. Sherry clasped her hands behind her, and waited.

"Yes!" The word out of her mouth before she could stop it. Help with what? Nothing. She had nothing that she needed Jake's help for, not right then. She was kinda happy that he'd actually opened the door.

"Yes," she repeated, giving herself a moment to think. "I....need...." She couldn't just say she needed to hang out. He'd slam the door in her face.



Sherry was getting better at ignoring her weapon.

"What are you up to right now? Am I interrupting anything? Can I come in?"

Sherry may have blinked in surprise when he actually agreed to let her in. That was slightly easier than anticipated. It was what she hoped, of course, but with Jake you never knew. She was still kind of worried he'd slam that door in her face.

Armagnac made some kind of annoyed noise in Sherry's head.

The room was...about like she expected it to be. Well, aside from the chair looking a little sad. She wasn't sure if she wanted to know what happened to it's poor leg. Her eyes flickered back to the Death trainee as he began to speak, thankful that he said something first.

It was probably a good thing that he did tell her where to sit, considering she would have probably just stood in the room being awkward for a moment, or at least until he'd seated himself somewhere.



Sherry had to agree with the lindwyrm as she placed herself on the bed. Her awkwardness was borderline embarrassing, but she almost couldn't help it. But why not? She hadn't been so...so...whatever this was, not before. What was she...Why was she...? Sherry sighed. No wonder Armagnac was grumpy.

Sherry looked back at Jake, and she may not have noticed it, but she smiled. "Thanks." She was quiet for a moment, then asked, "So, being an intermediate still treating you well?"

Sherry nodded as she listened to Jake speak. She had to agree with everything thing he said. So she did. "It's kind of nice, isn't it? The money, the freedom and all that." Sherry gave Jake another small smile, and then might have just stared for a moment. It was suddenly very evident to her that she had not thought about much past saying 'Hi' to him.

Armagnac was strangely silent. Sherry expected some sort of rude remark, but other than vague emotions of annoyance and resentment filtering out, the lindwyrm was unresponsive. Which left Sherry without a very valuable crutch. Without Armagnac's commentary, she usually just floundered awkwardly. Like earlier. She didn't want to do that, though. She liked it better before, when she hadn't been all strange and shy and silly.

Of course, that had all been before...ok, so she didn't know when exactly. It wasn't like it happened all the time either. Sherry suddenly remembered that one time in this very room when she'd--Oh dear. Had she really worked up the nerve to kiss him on the cheek? Armagnac was right though. He had never shown any indication of having feelings toward her. And then--

She realized she was staring. It was also taking all of her willpower to not wrap her arms under her knees and curl up in defeat. This was ridiculous.



Sherry knew what she had to do. She just had to man up and be herself. Stop with this ridiculous nonsense. (She may have had this talk with herself and Armagnac once or twice already.)

Still looking at Jake (good thing thoughts don't take too long) Sherry put her feet squarely on the floor, and her hands on his bed. She was also wearing her excited (or was it expectant?) face. With a grin, of course.
"Speaking of missions, have you found anything interesting for us to get into?" Jake had been the one to find all the neat things to check out, after all.

[A.V.]

After midnight posts are the best posts, I know. emotion_awesome

"I'm not looking for trouble," she gave him her best, 'why would you think that' look. "I'm looking for something fun. You know, to break up the monotony of the daily chores and such."

She sighed and pushed herself a little farther back on his bed. She suddenly found herself a million times more comfortable than she had been. "And I do love spending time with Ofie, but. I dunno." Sherry shrugged. "I like spending time with you, too? I've quite enjoyed our off island adventures."

Her gaze left his face and darted around the room a bit. She did feel a ton more sure of herself after the pep-talk, but that didn't mean...She'd already said too much, for crying out loud. Way too much.

"We could," her eyes flickered back to his, hit with sudden inspiration, "do more shopping tomorrow. Or something."

Armagnac laughed, but continued oozing feelings of displeasure.

"Well, it doesn't have to be shopping," Sherry said. She paused for a moment, looking at her shoes while thinking. "I mean, I usually only shop when I need something..." She looked back at Jake.

"Is there anything you would like to do? Missions count, you know."

"What?" Seriously. What did that look mean? Sherry didn't know.

"Oh." The excitement on Sherry's face began to fall away.



"Ok. Well," Sherry was visibly disappointed for a moment. Then she tried her best to cover that up. "We don't actually have to do anything special, I suppose. "



She was also finding it harder to ignore Armagnac at the moment.

[A.V.]