sliceitwithwind | Vice AU

"Yeah, he wears an eyepatch...but don't make pirate jokes around him. He got a lot of those when it first happened and they annoy him. He's got a facial scar, too. He's Olia, pure Olia believe it or not," there were lots of half-breeds after all, "and only five-two."

"Okay, I won't make pirate jokes!" Ben was a good kid and he never set out to deliberately hurt people. Came of growing up around cops! "He's...only eight inches taller than me! I can totally beat that!" Maybe! He hoped!

"My dad was tall. Aya says when I get taller than her she'll take me out to any movie I want."

"Probably." Dilan agreed, "Braig is pretty dang short." it was easy enough to keep from cussing, he didn't do it much under any circumstances that didn't involve Braig bleeding all over him. Then he cussed like a sailor. "Sounds like a good deal to me! Aya isn't that tall either. Me, I'm a behemoth. If you were trying for taller than me you'd never get to pick a film."

Kaaatzuuuuu.

Genetics were against him! Curses! "Yeah...hey, Aya and Braig are the same height aren't they? Her mark is on the doorframe there, and it says five-two right?" Hey, maybe if he got to meet Braig and made friends with him he could get TWO movies out of a good growth spurt!

"Bet I can reach your chin."

"That you might do." Dilan agreed, smiling, "We'll see. If you do manage we can find something else to do, assuming I'm still in your lives. I hope I am, Aya is awesome and I like being her friend." But shit happened. He didn't make promises he couldn't keep. "They're the same height, yeah. I feel like a moving monolith around them." He faux lumbered the rest of the way to the kitchen, then started putting things on the table for proper eating.

Sometimes Dilan was like that.

"Oh no! It's Dilan-zilla!" Ben waved his hands above his head in 'panic' and hopped off his stool, abandoning his duty in the favor of survival. "And you seem pretty cool, so I hope you're here too. And hey, you might be awesome yourself, which means you should hang out with awesome people!"

"I try for awesome." Dilan agreed, "Can't say that I always get there, but I try. Braig, now, he'd tell you that of course I'm awesome...he loves me after all. Braig has a bit of an ego."

"Hey, people get points for trying too right? Which makes you still awesome if you're trying!" IT MADE SENSE GO WITH IT! "And people who love people always say stuff like that. My dad used to say my mom was a wonderful person even though she's not always. Sometimes they're wrong but that's part of love I think..." Since he'd passed over control of the stove to Dilan, Ben set about getting the rest of the table set and drinks for each of them.

Dilan checked the rice, then dumped it into a serving bowl and stuck the pan in the sink to soak, "Pretty much. You can get kind of silly about people you love. For instance, I know that Braig can be a total jerk, but I tend to find it amusing instead of annoying just because it's him."

"He's not a jerk to you right?" Yes, that was a touch of worry because, well, worry! "I guess if he's not mean to you and only mean to people who deserve it can be a little funny?" Dilan had his choice of apple juice, water, milk, and cranberry juice?

Ben was having the first!

Dilan had milk, juice being like soda for him, and said, "When he's a jerk to me, I call him on it. We get along well."

"Oh, okay. So it's like a bad habit?" Being a jerk was totally in the 'bad' as far as habits went right? "Didn't he get in trouble when he was a kid, teachers and stuff don't like jerks."

"Pretty much. And...yeah, but it didn't really make a dent. He really is smarter than most people, you see."

"Oh. Huh." Hmm. Ben served himself and passed dishes as necessary while thinking that one over. "Is he nice to Aya?" Next important question on determining if Ben really did want to meet him now.

"Yup!" Dilan said, "And if he were a jerk to her, he'd get his ass handed to him."

"Good," and it was! "She said it'd be a long time in this mission and being stuck with a real jerk that long would be bad." It would, even if Dilan was there to balance things out!

"And this is good too! What spices did you use in the meat? It tastes different than when Aya and I did stuffed peppers!"

"It's probably the cinnamon. Just a little cinnamon makes a big difference." Dilan said, shaking his head a bit, "Braig is a consummate professional. He'd never risk the job by being a jerk to his coworkers, even if he hated them...and rest assured, he doesn't hate Aya."

"Cinnamon?" Huh, yes, now he was trying to poke apart of a bit of the meat to try to spot the spice. Not that he would but...had to be done! "We used mainly tomato and onion to season, with a bit of garlic and pepper." Who would have thought of cinnamon? Really?

"And yeah, it's hard to hate Aya. She said you guys are good and picked her special, which is why she went back under so soon." He was...a little sore about that. Just a touch of surliness in his voice but...yeah. He liked seeing Aya and they'd taken her away again. Shame on them!

People who ate a lot of middle eastern food, that's who! "There's onion, garlic, and pepper in there too. No tomato, though, I try to keep my fruit consumption down. Some cardamom and clove."

Dilan nodded seriously at the tone in Ben's voice, "We were supposed to have more time before we went under. Some of the other people working on this case...and there are ten teams, so about twenty-five people, got burned. We had to make a judgement call about going in fast and tired or going in with someone else...and Aya is the best at what she does. The only reason she hadn't been put on this case earlier was because she was busy with something else. I'm not going to apologise for needing the best, but I am sorry that needing the best meant that you have to miss her."

Well, they hadn't gotten to those cook books yet! It'd seem normal by then! "Oh right! Tomato's a fruit!" Really a fruit even though they sold it as a vegetable and school called it a condiment or vegetable depending. "Clove is what we stick in oranges for Christmas balls." And cooked with sometimes but the Christmas bit was the best thing he remembered!

And...yeah. Yeeeaeh. "She'd go as soon she knew she was needed," Ben allowed. "Just woulda been nice. She said maybe after this one we can take a vacation, wants me to come up with a list of places I'd like to go so we can pick one."

"Braig and I are planning on going to the Caribbean." Dilan offered, "We didn't get as much time to rest as we needed either. Probably a cruise out, a couple weeks there, and a cruise back. I'll try to make her change that maybe to a definitely, this is a rough one and she's gonna need that vacation. We all are."

"Aya did say out of the country was doable too!" So he'd been researching! "Are cruises nice? Sounded like it'd be kind of boring to be stuck on a boat that long." So he hadn't written it down really.

"And yeah, she likes to say maybe a lot when she can't promise she won't get hurt and have things go wrong you know?" Because then she'd be hurt and breaking a promise and he knew Aya hated that. "But usually maybe means yes when she gets home."

"It depends on what you like. I love them, but I spend a lot of time just soaking up the sun and swimming. Braig likes the party atmosphere, lots of people to mix with, there are usually entertainers doing shows, that kind of thing. You'd want to look for a family friendly one that would have things for someone your age as well as things for adults." Dilan nodded at that explanation, it made sense to him.

Yeah, that was kind of standard phrasing and reasoning among cops! Maybe was a good word! "Huh. I'll look at them! Maybe if we do one we can see you guys on an island for a while or something!" Or maybe they wouldn't, people did need private time and all.

"There's some really neat places in France I saw, did you know they have catacombs?!"

"Yeah, but they're built for Olia and Humans." Dilan said, "Pretty much any catacombs are too small for me to fit in them, since people didn't tend to build them much bigger than they needed them...and people used to be smaller than they are now in general. Braig enjoyed them when we went to France while in college."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject