Characters: Owen, Quinn and Zach Sloper
Summary: The younger brothers meet up with Owen after nearly a month of traveling around Argentina.
Setting: Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 15th
Rating: PG-13
“Ohhh, Zachy-poo! Where are youuuuuu??” Zach heard his eldest brother call out and cringed. He was out on the balcony of his hotel room (that he was sharing with both brothers, but it wasn’t a tent and it wasn’t the ground so he was definitely not complaining) waiting the insanity out. Owen had let he and Quinn nap for only two hours before coming in and waking them up by jumping on their beds, like he’d been pumped full of sugar.
Which, might have been the case if they hadn’t just found out that Owen actually got to play in the tournament, as a starter, which was absolutely amazing and explained his energy, but still, it would have been nice to get more than a light snooze in before being rudely awaken. Traveling around seemed like a fun idea when it had been first proposed to him, but after weeks of hauling a bag around, testing various ice and soil samples for magical resonance, Zach was tired and ready to be home. And back to Brianna. Only he had two more weeks to go, with the world cup and then there was the possibility of extending their investigative travels until just before school started, in Mexico, but Zach didn’t think he could take another month of it
It was actually very interesting investigating the ‘myths and legends’ of some of the villages and sometimes Zach didn’t know why it was a matter for the British Ministry to search out, but it turned out that Unspeakables, while belonging to one government, were sort of tradable and that was how they got their training in so many different subjects; traveling the world and learning different magics from all the different cultures. Zach had a feeling that Quinn was sort of grooming him for a position, because as the weeks had worn on, Quinn had started sharing more and more about the inner workings of the Department of Mysteries (though, he was sure that Quinn was giving him the least classified of materials) and all the things you learned. Of course Quinn had been in this job since leaving school at least eight years ago, so he was all embroiled into everything, and that wasn’t a bad thing, but Zach didn’t think he could do this for the rest of his life.
Well, maybe he could. Quinn had a girlfriend, Annabelle, and his own place and his own life, so maybe it could work. It was certainly something to think about and he did have the grades. He would probably have to talk to Brianna. Maybe. She’d probably decided to dump him for having been gone for two months. Which was probably the hardest thing; even though they had the little voice-boxes, not seeing her or kissing her was just torture and Quinn getting to bring his girlfriend (even though she worked for the Ministry) was just mean.
Zach ducked his head as he heard a crash and two thumps from inside, followed by a howl of laughter. Great, just great. And he couldn’t go hide with his parents because they didn’t get here until the weekend and – “Dondé esta mi hermanitooooooooo?!” there was just no escaping this.
He slouched his way inside to see Quinn pinned to the bed with Owen twisting his arm back, almost painfully, and shook his head. “What the fuck are you doing? That’s not how you pin someone down!” Zach was already pouncing on Owen by the end of his sentence, tackling him to the bed, but miscalculated, sending the both of them bouncing off the edge and crashing into the wall. The picture above the bed fell off the wall onto the ground with a spectacular crash that made Owen just laugh harder.
“Food, O! I NEED FOOD!” Quinn yelled, pulling Zach off of the eldest brother by the waistband of his boxers.
“Yeah, Owen, when are you going to feed us? I want something good, not… cricket stew,” Zach wrinkled his nose, rubbing his belly that gave a sympathetic pang at the memory of a ‘gift meal’ a week ago at some village. He couldn’t turn it down but it was absolutely disgusting. He’d probably lost about two stone and grown another inch, because he was such a picky eater and was very reluctant to try ‘grilled monkey’ or rabbit sandwiches and would only really eat bread and drink goats milk and water for nourishment. Whenever they got to go into the bigger cities he’d stocked up on granola bars and other food stuffs to carry around so he wouldn’t get sick on bread.
Owen smirked at the both of them and Zach didn’t like that smirk at all. AT ALL. “Well, there is this cantina where the waitresses are so poor they work for tips to buy shirts.”
Quinn started laughing at Zach’s face that had gone slack with shock. He sputtered, “That-that’s a skin club, OWEN! That’s not a- they aren’t POOR!”
“Now, now little bro, you can’t be shy! Just because you have a girlfriend, doesn’t preclude you from looking!” Owen tried to calm him down, but Zach wasn’t having any of it. Except that he had lost twenty pounds and wasn’t as strong anymore. Just stringy and full of sharp points, which he used to get Owen in the side, but then Quinn was there and they were headed out the door.
“It’s for your own good! You can’t come to Buenos Aires and not visit Sin Ropa!”
“DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS OWEN!”
“No, but it’s got sin and ropes in it so it has to be good!”
Zach couldn’t believe he was being dragged, literally out of the hotel to this this this titty bar! Ugh, Brianna was going to murder him but, well he had always wanted to know what the inside of one looked like.
Merlin, he really hoped it was worth it. Zach stopped struggling and shrugged his brothers off, “I hate you both. You know it. I hope you both choke or something.”
Owen just laughed and Quinn patted his back, “Such tough words from ickle Zachypoo.”
Which, earned him a sock in the shoulder, one that caused him to wince and Zach to grin triumphantly.
