Oh, yeah? Interesting. Oddly enough, Edgar's actually got some bits and pieces being written for/with him, although of course none of that's really been seen yet...and I actually managed to completely forget that I'd written in Brenda and Charlie. /sheepish look/ And you're quite right about Agen____t; for the most part, I think ze just goes for androgynous, unless there's really a need to do otherwise, and then I think ze just alternates? I have no idea. It hasn't really come up.
And, well, as for the Purim joke...I look forward to seeing where it goes. It's pretty funny.
And, of course, thanks for the heads-up. And, um, thanks for this sentence as well: "If they stand there impassively chatting while green-apple slime rains down on them, it would just be no fun."
Because, of course, now I have to make sure I use that...even just a little.
--
"Ooh, shenanigans?" Jacques grinned, paused briefly to swipe at his shoulder, and then went on. "Well, I'm sure I can think of a few..." He grimaced, wiped at his hair, and kept talking, now shaking his hand off to the side. "Mind you, I am fairly sure Purim is a holiday, but...you never know!"
"Anyway, shenanigans. Well, I've now done missions with Elves, missions with--hold on, sorry--" He wiped off both sleeves, shook his hands mostly clean, and kept talking. "Where was I--oh, right. Well, you know what ESAS missions are like--or do you?--well, there was this one time where this Sue just wouldn't die. I don't mean she was a Sue Lord--she just wouldn't die. I had to drop her into the Fiendfire in the Room of Requirement in the end, though it took quite a bit of seducing to actually get her there. And then of course there was the time when I ended up going after a Sue who made herself both a necromancer and the daughter of the Middle-earth version of gods. That was just about the most--oh, great. Excuse me."
He flashed Lonny a smile before he turned and walked several steps to the side, to where two children (both two years old, both dressed as hamantaschen) were sitting. One of them, a girl, had slipped in the green slime that had been raining down on Jacques, while the other, a boy, was staring at his basket of slime-covered hamantaschen. As the ESAS agent approached, the two-year-old boy took a cookie from the basket and handed it to the girl. Jacques began to reach for it, but stopped when instead of eating the cookie the girl threw it in the general direction of two other children (these ones older) who had produced the green slime in the first place. As Jacques watched, the boy also began to throw the slime-covered hamantaschen.
Jacques chuckled. "Having fun?" he asked. He eyed the green slime on the floor for a moment before shrugging and kneeling in it. The suit was ruined anyway, although the tie was still--
A great glob of green slime hit Jacques square in the chest, completely covering the visible part of the blue tie. The former character replacement sighed, and lifted a hand to wipe it off.
Well, maybe part of the suit jacket was still salvageable--
At that point, the two-year-old girl in the hamantaschen costume scrambled to her feet and threw her arms around his neck, bringing even more slime with her. Jacques sighed and wrapped an arm around her in return, ducking his head to the side to avoid having an eye poked out by her sparkly tiara. "Well, that's me answered," he said. "It's good to see you too, Seren. Where's Ruby? And your mother?"
Seren shrugged, and began a long (and mostly incoherent) description of how she'd been hit by slime. The boy, meanwhile, lost interest in throwing hamantaschen at the kids with the slime guns, and turned to Jacques as well. For a long moment, he simply stood and stared, the last hamantaschen clutched in his hand. Then...
"No, Owain," Jacques said firmly, raising his free hand. Seren wriggled away, slipped in the slime, and sat down hard. Owain's head turned, as did Jacques'; when Seren did nothing more than pout, they looked back at each other, blue eyes meeting blue. "Now is not the time to throw things at me."
Owain pouted. "But I wanna."
"I know, and it looks fun, but I really don't feel like having things thrown at me right now."
Owain stamped his foot. "I wanna throw it!"
"Then throw it at a table or a wall, if you can find one. I'm not your target today."
Owain scowled. Seren got to her feet, and scowled too, as Owain looked at her, considering.
"If you throw it at me, I'll tell Mama," she threatened, and Owain's scowl became a pout again. Jacques did his best to hide a smile.
"Either throw the cookie or put it down, Owain," he advised. "And remember, Seren and I are out of bounds."
Owain pouted even more fiercely. About to put the hamantaschen back in the basket, he caught sight of something behind Jacques, and stopped. Raising his chubby hand, he threw the triangular cookie with all his might. Well, most of it, anyway. Jacques, too late to stop him, turned just in time to see the cookie sail past his own face and hit Lonny's leg.
Great.
"Owain Taliesin Sato, that is not a good thing to do," he scolded, scooping a two-year-old up in each arm as he stood. Owain kicked him lightly once before he hid his face in Jacques' slime-covered shoulder; Seren grabbed his shirt collar in a death grip, and began to look around from her new vantage point. "Lonny, hey, I'm really sorry about this, he's--well, he's really got a thing for finding loopholes just now. Sorry." The side of his mouth quirked up in a smile. "Let me make it up to you."
--
I...I don't know whether to apologize for the length or not. You tell me, I suppose. I thought I'd bring in someone from my original list of people to be shot with slime guns, and somehow went from the agent dressed as Rassilon to the two-year-olds dressed as hamantaschen. And then...it snowballed. Rather a lot.
Both kids (and their older sister Ruby, who got a mention) were created in a badfic, and adopted by one of the agents who were sent to take it on in 2011 (the mission report is currently in progress). While Jacques was not the one who adopted them, he's recently been serving as an honorary uncle of sorts (for a good reason that I won't go into just now). As you can see, they're rather fond of him.
And yes, all three children have the surname Sato. And no, none of them are actually related to the Torchwood character with that surname, although it was chosen with her in mind.
Fun, isn't it? I wonder how the Bellisario kids will take having hamataschen thrown at them (if they even reach them, who knows, these are two-year-olds we're talking about). And, um, I hope you don't mind that Lonny got hit; if it's any consolation, I doubt it hurt much...or at all...
And now to end this before my note gets to be as long as the scene. At least none of the kids is named 'Purim'; that would make for an interesting conversation...
~DF
