InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "non-defined non-conventional"

ᴘʀɪɴᴄᴇss ᴏғ ᴘʀᴇsᴛɪᴅɪɢɪᴛᴀᴛɪᴏɴ (cigam) wrote in valarlogs,
@ 2016-08-06 21:02:00

Entry tags:

!complete, yue katou, zatanna zatara

Who: Katou & Zatanna
What: Helping Katou with a glamour for his arm, and Katou showing off his prowess at cooking for a vegetarian
When: Last week sometime?
Where: Chateau Katou
Rating/Warnings: Kinda low!
Status: Complete

It was hard for Katou to admit when he owed someone, but he had to admit that he owed Zatanna big time. She’d healed him a few times when his dreams had fucked him up, she and that Lina chick had helped attach his soul back to his body when it hadn’t wanted to stick around, and now she’d volunteered to help make his arm look normal again. Which, compared to everything else was child’s play, but he still appreciated it. The attention his arm garnered was annoying most of the time. And it sucked every single time he wanted to or had to disguise himself as someone else.

He wasn’t even going to complain about the vegetarian food she’d asked him to cook. It wasn’t like it was hard to come up with ideas. He’d made tamago (vegetarians ate eggs, didn’t they? If not, he’d have no problems finishing it off for Zatanna), some kappamaki (made with the zucchini Anna had given him instead of cucumbers), and a vegetable soba.

His sister had kind of shown him how to make cute food out of their lunch boxes when he’d been a child, but his father hadn’t approved of him doing it and so it wasn’t a skill he had worked on improving. Which meant that the rice ball monkey he’d attempted to make fell short of his original version, though at least someone could tell it was a supposed to be a monkey. If they squinted. And for dessert he’d made red bean mochi, complete with terrified faces drawn on so it would look like they were screaming all the way into Zatanna’s mouth. Relatively pleased with his work, he went out the front door to have a cigarette.

Zatanna did, in fact, eat eggs - eggs, cheese, ice cream, all sorts of dairy. She simply drew the line at meat, due to the fact that her dream self was a strict vegetarian. And thank her love for rabbits, for that whole lifestyle - she started by rescuing one, which somehow turned into three and even more over the years; because of it, she just developed quite a fondness for her furry stage-act friends. Which morphed into foregoing meat in general - quite an interesting transition. But anyway, she was looking forward to seeing what Katou came up with. Food wasn’t entirely necessary as repayment for something relatively simple, yet she was flattered that he’d been willing to barter.

She’d also probably want to hug the boy when she saw those rice balls, because how cute, but that was neither here nor there.

Arriving at the house she’d been to a couple times for one various stressful reason or another (this was decidedly lower in stress levels), she appeared on the porch - with a change and shimmer in the air - right as he lit that cigarette.

Teleporting. Such a handy thing.

“Katou,” the Mistress of Magic grinned. “It’s good to see you.”

There was a certain art to smoking a cigarette. A way of inhaling that didn’t leave you choking on the smoke that filled your lungs. It was an art Katou promptly forgot as he jumped into the air, surprised as all hell at Zatanna just showing up out of nowhere.

“Jesus,” Katou wheezed after his initial coughing fit. “Can’t you give a guy little warning before you appear out of thin air?” he asked.

Zatanna had quite the love of mischief, and the spark of it in her eye revealed as much. After all, if she didn’t keep it interesting, she’d just turn into a boring, old adult - and forget that ever happening. That would surely come much later on in life.

“There’s no fun in that,” she chuckled, a quiet sound, husky and warm. “But as long as I did not give you a heart attack, all is well.” The boy was young and healthy, and he had his head on straight - that was more than some could say. “You’ve been taking good care of the place, I see?”

Seemed like the little cottage-style house had been painted with more of its share of necessary bloodstains but you would never be able to tell; the perpetually broken front living room window was all nice and repaired too, she was pleased to discover.

“I think you might’ve given me a heart attack,” Katou muttered, scowling, though his expression softened a little when he glanced at the house. “Don’t ask me why, by Wendy trusted me with the place. So, you know, I’m gonna at least try not to burn it down.” He’d even pitched to get the front picture window replaced with bulletproof glass. It had cost a pretty penny, but given how things seemed to love exiting through the window instead of the goddamn door, it would probably save him money in the long run.

He took one last drag of his cigarette, then tossed the rest of it into the empty coffee can he’d put out for butts. “You’ve got great timing though. I just finished making everything.”

And Katou was smoking outside, rather than indoors - one of the former matriarch’s rules, Zatanna gathered, and it was sweet of him to still keep up with it even if he technically didn’t have to. But for those you considered family, things were different. “Wonderful,” she followed him into the house once he’d snuffed the remaining burning embers. “Where did you learn to cook, by the way? It’s a skill that not many your age have.”

Even some older adults had no idea how to feed themselves, relying on frozen meals and takeout. Not the healthiest thing. Being that both she and her niece tended to not eat meat, it was simple enough for Zee to make various foodstuffs to last them awhile. She did a lot of Middle Eastern-inspired cooking; it was what she’d grown up with, and learned.

Katou shrugged casually. “I dunno. My sister taught me a lot when I was a kid, and I taught myself a bunch too once I got the basics. I used to do a lot of the family cooking when I was a kid.” It had been one of many attempts to win his father’s favour, before he’d come to the realization that no matter how hard he tried, no matter what he learned or how much he sucked up, his father would never care for him.

At least the skill hadn’t been completely wasted. There were people in his life now who appreciated a good meal, and hopefully Zatanna was one of them. He led her to the kitchen, frowning first at his lopsided monkey and then glancing at Zatanna from the corner of his eye in order to gage her reaction.

It smelled amazing and needless to say, Zatanna was impressed. She took a look around at everything, and of course zeroed in on the rice balls - because their faces were adorable, even if they looked more lopsided than anything else. It was obvious to her what they were and she thought that it was extremely creative. “Oh, these are wonderful,” she laughed, and picked one up to taste right away (she bit the head off, actually, which entertained her far more than it should). She knew enough to remember that rice balls were usually stuffed with fish, in Japanese recipes - but when she bit into it, it didn’t taste fishy at all. More like a sweet bean paste or something, she couldn’t quite pin the flavor, yet she appreciated it.

“Is there a good Asian market around here? You must have done some special shopping,” she added once the treat was on its way to digestion. Now, to focus on the reason she came by. “But alright, let’s see - you can enjoy all this with me once I have a look at your arm. I have a watch I’ve enchanted but in order to get it to where it shifts with you as you change, you’ll need to wear it and then shift once - just to get the settings ‘programmed,’ as it were. It transforms in response to heat and light.”

Katou flushed with pleasure at the compliment, glad that she seemed to like them enough to literally bite the head off his monkey. “Yeah, there’s one not too far away actually. And it’s a helluva lot easier to get there now that I got me a car.” He still didn’t really have a license, but he’d go for it eventually. In the meantime, Kanan had taught him how to drive well enough that he was confident to get there without crashing into a parked car.

“Oh yeah? That sounds neat as fuck,” he said. “And I’ll get the distinction of being the only 18-year-old around who’s wearing an actual watch.”

“I tried not to make it very...old-fashioned looking?” Zatanna said, fishing in her pocket for the watch. A younger guy wearing something dripping in diamonds and gold, like what some person with a penile inferiority complex on Wall Street might wear, let’s just say that wouldn’t work. Instead, it resembled one of those black bands with GPS built in, the kind runners wore. It didn’t actually have the GPS component, but it sort of looked that way. A clever enough ruse.

She gave it to Katou to put on (and ate another rice ball in the meantime). “Go on and test it out - it should be enchanted to be personalized to you, but naturally that is difficult to test without you involved,” the Princess of Prestidigitation added, with a wink.

Katou looked at the watch, flipping it over in his hands, before he attached the thing to his wrist. He also happened to think the Fitbit or whatever they were called craze was stupid, but he spent enough time workout out that having one of them would be believable.

He was pleased when, after he attached the watch, his arm returned to normal. At least, it looked that way. It had been nearly a year since his dreams had taken his arm and given him his replacement, and as handy and badass as his arm was, he really did miss the original. He still couldn’t feel anything with it, even if it did look like flesh and blood, but this was probably the closest he’d ever come to getting his old limb back.

“Looks great,” Katou exclaimed, grinning and flexing his fingers. He flexed his claws, and the knives emerged from the illusion but didn’t shatter it. Evidentally, the magic didn’t extend past his fingertips, but Katou didn’t mind. It managed to look even creepier than without the glamour. “Cool.”

What was the name of that comic book superhero that everyone loved - damn, it was on the tip of her tongue. “Kind of looks like Wolverine,” Zatanna noted, when she saw the knives jutting out. She could probably extend the radius of the contraption’s magic, but it would be a little difficult to program it further past Katou’s own ‘measurements’ - so as long as he seemed to like it, and it worked for him, that was the most important thing.

“Glad that you enjoy,” she smiled. “Let me know if it needs to be changed, upgraded, fixed, anything like that.” There were a few in the Guild who had very potent glamour-making capabilities - Zee could, but she enjoyed consulting with people like Magnus and even her own niece Raven. “Now, I will not let all this food go to waste.”

Time to dig in, perhaps?

Of course, while Zatanna was distracted by food was the perfect chance to test out his watch further. It was easier to transform into someone who was right in front of him - he had to picture every hair on their head, every nail on their hands, and hold it in his mind in order to transform, and it just took less brain power to do that when the object of his transformation was right in front of him. Which was only part of the reason that he decided to change into Zatanna. The other being that he always got the best reactions when people looked up to see themselves staring back at him.

He had to say, he was impressed by the precision of the transformation. It even added the coating of black nail polish that he had pictured. He held his hand in front of him, admiring the nails. The hand. The fact that it didn’t look like there was a (kinda badass) chunk of metal and leather attached to his shoulder anymore.

She’d been calmly enjoying the vegetable soba, utilizing chopsticks to have a go at the noodles rather than a fork, when all of a sudden Zatanna was looking at, well, herself. A surprised puff of air escaped her, a gasp, but she was obviously entertained somewhat. Even if this was technically the first time someone had ever shapeshifted into her (sounded dirtier than it was) that she knew of.

“You’re really good at that,” she complimented, tone impressed. “Nearly gave me a heart attack but I suppose we’re even now from when I appeared on your front porch.”

And seeing Katou further test out the effects of the illusionary watch was good too - everything seemed to be in order, which was relieving. “How’s it feel?” she asked, wanting to make sure it wasn’t uncomfortable or anything.

Katou gave his trademark toothy grin, and even let out a cackle that sounded almost diabolical in Zatanna’s voice. “Revenge is sweet,” he sang. At her question, he shrugged. “It don’t feel like nothing. It’s not like I have sensation in this thing,” he said, not letting the sourness creep into his voice. He still had his right arm, but he did miss being able to touch things with his left. “But it looks fucking great. It’s going to be so sweet to be able to walk down the street without people asking me about it all the goddamn time.”

Zee had certainly let out a few devious cackles in her day - sounded extra witchy though, coming from Katou. And it made her chuckle. “Happy to be of assistance. It’s the least I can do - you’re generally out there also helping, when things get hairy around here. Have you thought about working with the Agency, to get paid for doing it?” she asked, lifting another bite of noodles to her mouth. Sluuuurrrrrrp.

It was perhaps a bit daintier than that, but not by much. And really, she wasn’t a professional recruiter or even one at all, for the Agency - she stuck with OID, and dug into whatever magic-related anomalies she needed to. But Katou might be good for a response team out there, she thought.

Katou morphed back to himself, though the quizzical expression on his face remained the same. “Wait? You mean to tell me I coulda been getting paid for it this whole time?” He was looking for a job, now that Kanan seemed to be hanging up his smugglers hat. He’d been thinking of working with Izzy at the bakery, but while he liked Izzy, he did not like customer service. Getting paid for doing what he’d already been doing for shits and giggles over the last year seemed like a dream come true.

“Perhaps so,” Zatanna replied, distinctly amused. “But better late than never? I will get in touch with someone who leads the field teams. I’m sure they will reach out to you next.” She made a mental note to do so next time she was in the building - and come to think of it, she was pretty positive that a couple team members left recently, to move out of state or onto greener pastures if they weren’t happy, so there were open slots. Asking Director Carter, or perhaps Natasha or even Sharon was probably a good idea.

Probably Natasha. That HR thing she had going on was likely the best, and fastest, way to get someone new on board.

This tamago though. She dug into that next, because it was a light and fluffy omelet that seemed to go perfectly with the noodles she was devouring. At least if Katou needed to, he could always fall back on cooking somewhere?

“That’d be sick,” Katou said. Because how could cutting things down with his sword not be the sickest job in the universe? Katou popped another one of the mochi into his mouth. Part of him wanted to ask how everything was tasting, but she was eating it and hadn’t thrown anything up yet, so it was probably fine. Besides, he didn’t want to give the impression that he actually cared about that kind of thing. “You want a drink or something, by the way? I’m pretty sure we got beer or something in the fridge.”

Ah, yes, the mochi with terrified faces. That gave Zatanna such glee and delight as well, and besides, she was also a fan of red bean ice cream. It had an unusual taste, but sort of reminded her of cookies and cream after a few spoonfuls. “Beer would be nice, sure,” she said. Usually she drank wine, or something like a cucumber martini, but sometimes a beer really hit the spot. Depends on what you were eating.

“I’m just glad you wanted to barter using food. A pleasure doing business with you, Katou.”

Katou opened the bottle of Asahi beer with his metal fingernail, still there even if no one could see it, and then slid the bottle over to her before cracking his own. “I’ll always be up for bartering with food,” Katou said, grinning at her. “But you too. Good to have you over for once when I ain’t bleeding out.”