InsaneJournal

Who: Zuko and Pansy
When: Early February
Where: Zuko and Draco’s place
What: Drinks, Video games, and talking
Rating/Warning: Low/None
Status: Complete



Pansy apparated straight into the kitchen at Draco and Zuko’s place. She had a hand clamped over her eyes, just in case her brother and brother-in-law were … doing something she didn’t want to see. She reached a hand out to the fridge door and pulled it open without looking. “Draco? Zuko?” She called out, then turned and leaned into the fridge, peeling her hand away from her eyes for just a moment to pull out whatever drink was in there.

Zuko never stopped being amused at how Pansy invited herself in and then acted like she was going to be completely affronted if she accidentally caught an eye full of something. And while it actually was something she should have been concerned about, today she could breathe freely.

"Yes?" Zuko was sitting at the kitchen table -- a pile of books and papers in front of him, clearly in the middle of a mess of homework. College was interesting, but it was clear he took on a bit more than he ought to have. "Hello, Pansy."

Not necessarily affronted… but embarrassed? Surely Zuko remembered what it was like to walk in when Pansy was in the bathroom. Right? Not exactly affronted, but close. She didn’t exactly want to walk in on Draco and Zuko and accidentally catch sight of a penis or something. Gross.

“Hey, Zuke.” She said, turning to steal a glance. Once she realized there were clothes on his body, she moved the hand from her face and stood upright again. “Homework?” She asked, moving over to the table to plop down and use the edge of the counter to pop open the top of her drink.

Yep. No naked here. Just homework. Funny how that worked. Zuko snorted a little and then offered a nod. "Enough of it too," he said, sounding a little sullen. Over achieving and over reaching were things he did often, and wasn't really sure how to differentiate.

Dropping his pen down on top of his books and notebooks, he glanced up at Pansy, raising an eyebrow. "What's up?"

“Nothing.” Pansy said, shaking her head a little. She gulped three large gulps from the bottle, and set it down in front of her on the table. “...just hangin’ out.” She added, though there was definitely something on her mind now. “What are you studying?”

"Business." He paused, and looked at a different book. "And math." And then he looked over at a book on the other side of the table. "And social sciences." Zuko paused and then held his hand out for Pansy to grab him a drink too. "Get me out of this for a bit, huh?"

“Yeah. You need to get away from the academics.” Pansy said. She left her bottle behind (only two sips in anyway, and stood. While drawing out her wand with her wand hand, she offered the other to him. “C’mon. I know something fun we can do.”

Zuko didn't need to be told twice -- only flipped the nearest book in front of him shut and stood up to make his way over to Pansy. "Do tell," he prompted, even though he supposed he didn't really need the details in order to agree. Anything was better than social sciences. Anything.

Pansy simply grinned a little more brightly. As soon as Zuko’s hand was in her own, she disapparated with a CRACK! dragging him along with her. There was a twisting and a constricting, something that often nauseated young witches and wizards the first few times they experienced it, and then they stumbled to a landing in the alleyway at a local mall. Thankfully, the alleyway was empty. No one seemed to have heard the CRACK as they arrived.

Pansy let go of Zuko’s hand and tucked her wand away. “C’mon. There’s an arcade in here I wanna try.”

Zuko wobbled the first few steps after the apparating, but seemed to recover quickly enough after that. He was sort of used to it at this point -- being married to a Wizard and having one as a sister in law kind of helped with things like that.

"Oh," he said, turning around the corner with her. "We'll have to stock up on quarters."

“I can replicate some.” If they had a handful of quarters, Pansy could multiply them. They didn’t have to be exact copies, and no one was going to look at them too closely. “A little magic goes a long way. C’mon.” She waved him with her over to the machine that made change, and stuck a five dollar bill in. With a little extra magic, she made the machine give out about twice as many quarters as were due for a five dollar bill.

Then she waved her wand again, and the number of quarters doubled once more.

"That's nearly like theft," Zuko said, but he didn't seem to be judging Pansy so much as he sounded strangely interested -- particularly when the machine just kept spitting out quarters. Or things that were close enough to be quarters.

"I'm still jealous of you wizards," he admitted, pocketing a fair portion of the quarters. "Not that fire bending isn't cool, but it's not nearly as multipurpose."

“Nearly.” Pansy agreed. Okay, so maybe it was theft. But it wasn’t as if this place wasn’t ripping people off day after day. She justified it to herself that way, anyway. They got prizes for a couple of cents each, then charged over a dollar’s worth of tickets to claim them? It was ridiculous. She was just… taking back a bit of her childhood--mostly spent pumping quarters into these machines and getting nothing from it.

“Well, you could probably make a good name for yourself as an arsonist. Or something.” Pansy said, and shrugged, then stuffed handfuls of the tokens into her pockets before giving the rest to Zuko. “What are we playing first?”

“Skee-ball,” Zuko said with a firm nod to a row of the game in question at the back of the place.

“And I guess I could. But how many people really need an arsonist? Can’t exactly throw a sale, either. Buy one fire, get the other free?”

Pansy followed him back toward the skee-ball. Honestly, she could make the machine spit out more tickets than normal, too, if they really wanted to cheat. Or she could duplicate the tickets after they came out. Either/or.

She laughed. “Yeah, I suppose that’s probably not in your future, is it?” She asked, grinning brightly. “...but the business stuff… that sounds good. You’re gonna manage Draco’s career?”

Zuko fed some of the fake quarters into one of the machines and was suitably impressed when it spat the balls out like normal. Huh. Cool. It wasn’t really like he was worried about getting more tickets or anything - he was content to just play the games and didn’t really care for the prizes.

“Yeah,” he said. “I mean. I’m trying now. But I think I can only get better at it after-- you know. College or whatever I guess.” Sometimes he was a little concerned that Draco should get a better, more seasoned manager, but he seemed happy so...

Pansy was all about the prizes. She wanted to win the good stuff. The tablet computer, the Keurig coffee machine, whatever. She stepped up to the Skee-ball machine next to his and pumped a coin in. Then she got to work while they chatted, rolling the balls up into the little circles to earn points, and therefore tickets.

“Hey, so long as you guys are happy.” It wasn’t as if Draco needed to work. Or Zuko, for that matter. They were both living on family money, just like Pansy was. They could do whatever they wanted to, really.

Which was nice -- not having any pressure at all was sort of great. But it didn’t mean they shouldn’t all try achieving more for their lives.

“We’re pretty happy,” he agreed, rolling the ball up the wooden ramp, and missing any points at all. “...How’re you?”

“I’ll survive.” Pansy responded. “I’m getting better at tricking arcades out of their tickets and prizes.” She said, giving a little shrug of her shoulders. She took another shot, rolling the little, wooden balls up the track and into the hoops for points. “It gives me something to do, anyway. Thinking about applying for a job at that… Torchwood. Maybe.”

“Oh yeah, I saw the posting for that.” Zuko frowned, before taking his next turn -- this one better aimed than the last. “Seems like a scam. Who posts for job openings to a secret underground organization that’s above and outside the government on a internet message board?”

“I dunno.” Pansy said. “Valarnet harbors a lot of secrets right out there in the open. There’s lawyers and doctors and cops all talking about weird dreams they’ve been having, as if they’re real. If anyone with any real authority looked at that website, we’d all be locked into loony bins or cut into pieces for government testing.” But he made a valid point. “I dunno, maybe I won’t look into it. There’s a ton of people on Valarnet looking for employees.”

They both sort of had a point there. Still. You’d think that’d be the sort of organization that scouted for talent, not took in resumes and applications. Zuko didn’t think there was anything wrong with having a healthy suspicion. “I’m not saying not to,” he amended. “Just be careful with it. The guy could be a creep. I’d hate to have to set someone on fire.”

Pansy laughed. The machine spat out a handful of tickets. She took them and shoved them into her pocket. “...seriously. I’d hate if it happened and I missed out on the two for one deal.” She said, turning to look around the arcade. There was a basketball game right next to the skee-ball, so she went over there and pumped in some tokens to give it a try.

Zuko trailed after her, more content to watch than actively particulate - even pretend sports weren’t really his thing (discounting volleyball. Obviously). “Oh,” he said dryly. “Didn't you know? You’re family. The two for one deal always applies.”

“Gotta love the friends and family discount.” Pansy said. She was pretty much crap at the basketball game. Though, the machine spit out as many tickets as if she’d made every shot perfectly. She pocketed them and turned around.

“So, we should--ohmygod, DDR.” Pansy lit up like a Christmas tree, grabbed hold of Zuko’s arm, and tugged him across the room toward the Dance, Dance Revolution machine.

“Shit,” Zuko said, sounding sour about it -- but almost eagerly feeding quarters into the dancing game. Pretending he didn’t like it wouldn’t stop his high scoring on this one. “Now we’re going to be here all day.”

Pansy beamed. She pumped some tokens into the machine and climbed onto the pad next to his. “You’re gonna kick my ass at this,” she said, though she didn’t really care. It was fun either way. And they had a shit ton of tokens to toss at the thing.

The first song started to play.