plurk meme { 2020 } christmas shenanigans

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Word Count: 31,200

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and i turned round and there you go | behrad & zari | 1,057

[tarazi]

Zari’s heels click-clack against the floors of the Waverider as she wanders through the suspiciously empty halls. The ship is rarely quiet enough that she can hear herself think – usually the desired quality – but it isn’t until she reaches Behrad’s room that she finds another person.

“Where is everyone?”

“Heading home for the holidays,” Behrad replies, tipping his head back over the edge of the couch so that he’s looking at her instead of the video game screen. “Usually around Christmas, everyone scatters to the wind for their favorite holiday celebrations.”

“Oh.” Zari frowns as she makes her way in, mildly disgruntled that she got all dressed up for no one but Behrad. “Were they going to tell anyone?”

“I think they know I expect it at this point.” Behrad holds out the bowl of popcorn to her, and she waves it off. Behrad shrugs before taking some and popping it in his mouth. “But usually, it’s just Gideon and me. I usually Home Alone it.”

“Home what it?”

“It’s this really old movie that Nate made me watch. This kid gets left behind when his family goes to travel for Christmas, and they forget him at the house.”

“That sounds like really irresponsible parenting.”

“You’d think that until you spend an hour and forty-three minutes watching him fend off two robbers with nothing but the toys at his disposal and his creative ingenuity.”

Zari still seems skeptical at the idea that leaving a child home alone while his family travels for Christmas is fine because he can fend off the robbers on his own, but movies aren’t supposed to make sense. Or at least that’s the theory. “So how do you do that on the Waverider exactly?”

“Well, no one’s here, right?” Behrad flashes her a grin. “So we can do whatever we want, and no one will ever know. No one but Gideon, anyway. And she won’t tell.”

“Mr. Tarazi is right. My proverbial lips are sealed.”

Zari frowns. “Are you sure none of them are coming back early?”

“Positive. We won’t see any of the Legends for at least a couple of days.”

Zari takes a deep breath before nodding. A chance to let her hair down can’t be such a bad thing, especially if it’s only Behrad here. “Fine. What are we doing first?”

He passes her one of the controllers. “I’m going to teach you the beauty of Mario Kart.”

She makes a face as she takes it. “And after this, I can pick?”

“Deal.” Behrad grins. “Let’s do this.”

Zari shakes her head as she kicks off her heels and resettles onto the couch. Video games aren’t usually her thing, but maybe this will be fun.

- - - - - -

A few hours later, they’ve had a montage of various adventures, poking into the areas of the ship they know they’re not supposed to go. Eventually, Zari insists that they change gears, which leads the Tarazi siblings to the kitchen, though not for the reasons Behrad hoped.

“So you’re giving me food, but you want me to put it on my face rather than eat it?” Behrad squints at her.

“Video games are your form of self-care; facials from your fridge are mine,” Zari comments as she reemerges from her room, where she was busy changing into something slightly comfier than she was initially wearing. “Trust me. Your dry skin patches could use it.”

“Rude.” Behrad reaches for one of the apples on the kitchen counter. “My face is au natural.”

“And so is this face mask.” She fishes avocado, yogurt, and a few other ingredients out of the fridge and pulls out a bowl to mix it. “Your skin is just as important as the rest of you.”

Behrad slowly nods as he bites into the apple. “Do you enjoy all this stuff?”

Zari frowns as she looks up at him. “What?”

“All these skincare, makeup, hair stuff.” Behrad makes a gesture with his hands. “When we were kids, you were never that girly. It didn’t start until everything that happened at Heyworld.”

Zari shrugs. “I mean, there is a certain part you have to play. For better or worse, I am my image, so I need to take care of it. No one was going to do it for me.” She shrugs. “And then, after a while, it became something I could do for me. It reminded me to take five minutes not to be surrounded by other people and breathe.”

She finishes swirling the face mask mix together before gesturing for him to sit somewhere comfortable. Once he’s settled, she scoops up some of the mixture onto her fingers and starts applying it to his face. His nose wrinkles at the sensation, and she taps it.

“No wrinkles. You’ll crack the mask.”

“Fine.” He relaxes his face as he looks up at her. “You know you were pretty cool the way you were, right? Why couldn’t the girl you were have been your image?”

“Because the girl I was, wasn’t strong enough to deal with all of this.” Zari interrupts him before he can interrupt her. “You take a lot of punches when they thrust you into the spotlight like that. They didn’t want her. They wanted me to be someone else. And Mama and Baba didn’t want her either, not really. She still believed in unicorns and dragons and fairy tales. That world isn’t built to match.”

“Especially not unicorns.” Behrad shudders. “Never again.”

Zari settles next to him before putting on her face mask. She uses her reflection in the window as a guide as well as years of experience. “Besides, can’t the person I am now be pretty cool too.”

Behrad shrugs as he leans into her shoulder a bit. “She’s getting there. Slowly. I think time with the Legends has been doing you good.” He pauses to swipe some of the face mask mixture out of the bowl and pops it in his mouth. “Doesn’t taste half bad either.”

Zari laughs before closing her eyes and relaxing on the couch. “See? Not quite a waste, is it?”

Behrad shakes his head. “This still isn’t quite what I meant by Home Alone-ing it.”

“Uh-huh,” Zari sighs as she feels the tension ebb away. “Sometimes it’s good to try something new.”

“Whatever you say.”