So Brain, What are we going to do tonight?
Characters: Aidan Bradley and Aaron Summers
Authors: lis_lamb and jane_lamb
Date set: 2037
Rating: Teen
Summary: Aaron and Aidan sit and snipe at each other the way that friends do.
"So, Brain, what are we going to do tonight?" Aidan lounged across the sofa, tossing a small ball in the air. Up and down. Down and up. And so on and so forth. It was the off season, but that didn't mean he didn't need to keep coordination up and muscles loose and flexible. There was a starting position for chaser open for Tutshill and the twenty year old was priming himself to take it.
He read the papers, the magazines, and knew what his competition looked like. Aidan "The Bulldog" Bradley would be facing mainly second-stringers as well as fresh faced kids from Hogwarts, most everyone else had contracts. He was better than everyone else, or at least he looked it on paper. There were whispers, of course, about his father's "madness" and how it was possible that it could have been passed down from father to son. Oh, Benedict Bradley was mad alright, mad as a fucking fox. There was a reason why the Bradley family presided over two of the more popular pubs in Diagon.
While his father presided over the Raven's Nest like he always had (and probably always would), his mother had turned her sights onto the Leaky Cauldron when Susie and Seth had first entered Hogwarts. His parents had turned a rather dingy little place into a family gathering spot. Now all he was waiting for was for his parents to go on their merry little way and buy the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade so the family domination through alcohol and pub grub was complete.
"The same thing we do every night, Pinky," Aaron returned from where he was draped sideways across an armchair. "Try to take over the world." An incantation muttered under his breath had the weight of the ball Aidan was tossing increase tenfold.
If Aidan noticed the weight change, he didn't respond. Besides, it would only up his strength training. Hardly a bad thing. "Oh, and how are we going to do that? Pudding?"
A momentary frown crossed Aaron's face at his mate's lack of a reaction. "Don't underestimate the power of the pudding. There's got to be a way to unlock its sloppy secrets and bend them to our will."
"Who are we bending? The sloppy secrets or the will of the people. Need to be more specific here, Brain."
"Neither. We're bending people to our will though master manipulation. Possibly using pudding." He idly wondered if Aidan had any in his fridge. Probably not, what with that whole healthy, athletic outlook he had. Pillock.
"There's custard in the fridge," Aidan remarked as he banished the small ball to his room. Standing, he stretched and began to lope through the reception room and into the kitchen. Grabbing some fruit and the aforementioned custard, he began to throw them together. He wasn't the best cook in the world, but if he had the ingredients already prepared, he could usually throw something together. "Want any?" he asked as he grabbed a slice of peach, popping it into his mouth.
He'd probably drop in to Mum and Dad's for dinner, but Aaron saw no reason to turn down free food. "Sure. And don't give me a bloody fork this time, moron."
"What's wrong with a bloody fork?" Aidan's grin turned predatory as he licked the peach's juices from his lips. "More easy to stab you with, my dear."
"You're a mad bastard, bulldog. Anyone ever tell you that?"
"All the damn time." Swiping another slice of peach through the custard, he popped it in his mouth and chewed. "Runs in the family, don't you know. Mean, Mum had eight kids and Dad quit in the middle of a successful carreer. Madness. It's infected all of us."
"Just be sure and keep it to yourself. Taint my brilliant plans and I'll have Uncle Ced eviscerate you." Aaron wasn't actually sure if eviscerating came under an Unspeakables' job description, but it sounded good enough.
"Uncle Ced would do no such thing," the quidditch player said confidently. "Mum wouldn't let him. Besides, who would be around to serve as Pinky? Your owl? I think not."
"Could rope Dani into it. As long as I figure out a spell to keep her from grassing to Dad." He paused, as if thinking it over. "Too much effort, mate. Guess I'm stuck with you."
Aidan snorted when his friend debated the pros and cons about using his little sister as coconspirator. "Trying to keep your little sister from spilling the beans, especially to your father, is like keeping mine from resisting a shoe sale. Damn near impossible."
"She's a weak link," the shorter agreed with a speculative tone. "Should definitely be kept in the need-to-know pile."
"Seth wouldn't be bad either," Aidan surmised. "Of course, that's all dependent if Susie's distracted or not. Girl's as subtle as a freight train. Or your sister Brooke. Not too subtle at times, but gets shit done. Of course, she's kinda wrapped up in marital bliss."
"Brooke's got the whole loose-canon-temper thing going on, besides." He loved his big sister, but he'd had his whole life to get used to the occasional eruptions that were Brooke.
"There's Emmy, but she wouldn't want to get her hands dirty." Aidan held back a snort. The eldest Summers child was priss beyond measure. "Brothers?" His own brothers were a mixed bag.
"JJ couldn't keep anything from Mum if his life depended on it," Aaron reportedly sadly. The eldest of his brothers had usually been a willing partner on Aaron's various adventures when he'd been small, but the guy spilled at even a hint of choc chips.
Aidan snorted. "Sounds like Kev." He didn't get that brother sometimes. He put up such a hard front that could be undone by a simple look from their mother. It really wasn't very impressive. Kevin was all bark with very little bite. But then again, he'd seen the Slytherin after a few rounds of brawling. There were reasons Aidan didn't wrestle with him.
"I love that your resident family badass is a mummy's boy," Aaron commented with a laugh.
The taller of the two shook his head. "Have you seen him and Dad go at it? I swear, if Mum didn't get tired of the shouting, they'd probably go on for hours."
Aaron snorted. "You've heard the Emmy and Mum bitchfights, yeah? I'm pretty sure it's only magic keeping some of those doors on, the number of times they've been slammed."
Aidan rolled his eyes. "Merlin save us from proverbial pissing matches." While he might have been a Bulldog on the pitch, he knew the natural pecking order of things. He was more or less content on letting his father, or his captain, have their way before he went about and found a sneakier way to do what he wanted in the first place. A lot less yelling went on that way. "And hormones."
"Just be thankful you've only got the one sister to deal with," Aaron quipped, though he privately thought he'd take all three of his over one Susie any day. "Finn's a sneaky bugger when he wants to be," he added as he continued his musings.
"Yes, but that one sister is Susie," the quidditch player pointed out. "The baby. I'm surprised she didn't get beat on more." Of course he knew why, though. It was because she was the baby and the only girl. Dad could put up with plenty of roughhousing between the brothers, but stop the presses if Susie kicked them and they hit back. "She's quite lucky in the fact that Seth's so easy going." Honestly, the patience of the kid was astounding.
"She's not that scary if you ignore her, you know." He should, he'd been doing it for years. That her little fits of temper didn't affect him only seemed to irk her more.
"Been there, done that, all it earned me was a permanent dent in my shin." Aidan struck a tragic pose. "Never will I be the example of manly perfection I was meant to be." Rolling his eyes, the quidditch player bent down to root through his fridge to find something to eat. Meat perhaps. Meat was manly.
"D'you have any pie?" The brunette mused. He was definitely going to drop home for some. Preferably while Dad was busy working and couldn't ream him out for stealing a piece.
Aidan raised an eyebrow. "Do I look like your mother?" Aaron's father's love of the stuff was made of family legend. He was pretty sure Aunt Mandy had started baking her husband his own pies so he'd stop bitching at other people. Though pie did sound good.
"If I drink a lot and squint, and maybe cut you off at the legs, you'd be getting close."
"Fuck you, Summers. Just for that, I don't think you deserve pie... if I had some." Aidan continued to rummage around his fridge, now truly looking for some animal product, preferably red meat. Coming across some leftover steak, he pulled the container out and took a sniff to see if it was still edible. It was. "Steak?"
"Yeah. Mushroom sauce?" the brunette asked hopefully. He'd kill for some right now. Lazing about in Aidan's flat musing about their eventual coup detat was hungry work.
Aidan gave him a look. "Do I look like the sort to keep fungi in my house, Summers?" He shuddered theatrically. Neither he nor his father kept with that sort of business.
"Pansy." Bradley men, for all their bravado, were big bloody wusses when it came to food they didn't like.
"Fine. Don't have any steak. See if I care. My flat, my rules." The fact that he was leasing from Aaron's father went unsaid. The man would never say if he was giving the quidditch player a price break, he was too cagey for that, but there was a stipulation in his lease that if he saw any unsavory character leaving Emmy's flat that he had an obligation to hex his balls off. As far as he knew, his cousin didn't know about that.
"Fine, I'll just order a pizza, you poncy git." And it'd be piled high with mushrooms, just for Aaron's vindictive enjoyment. The corner of his lips twitched into a smirk.
"Do I look related to my Uncle Justin?" Aidan said with a raised brow as he cut the steak with his wand, popping a piece into his mouth.
Aaron smirked. "Yeah. Someone mentions something you don't like and you get this little pursed-lipped look like someone set fire to your polo mallet."
"I think you're mistaking your horse fascination with me," Aidan mocked as he took another bite of cold steak. "Wasn't it you that hatched up a plan to steal a winged horse when we were in our second year and keep it in the dorms?"
"Hey, an Aethonon would have fit if Dani hadn't bloody written home all excited about it." An extremely sternly worded letter had come from home the next day advising that he was in no way allowed to keep one in the dorms where his Mum couldn't see it. "Usless bint," he added, though his words were fond and held no malice.
"Which is why you don't tell little sisters anything." Susie had gone through her horse phase, of course, but that had been short and quick and relatively painless. He couldn't imagine having sisters (or a mum, for that matter) who still got excited over the word 'pony'.
"Damn straight." As he watched Aidan devour the steak, pizza was sounding better and better. "Right. Thin crust peperroni, no mushrooms. I'm buying. Got any beer?" He shouldn't even have to ask the son of a publican, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
"Left pantry," Aidan said as in between bites of steak. You could tell the man who owned the building appreciated kitchens, or at least knew somebody who did. There was plenty of shelving and space for things. With two pantries, one of which Aidan kept fully stocked with all types of alcohol.
"Cheers." Aaron made his way over, casting a cooling charm on the six pack he'd found on his way back to the couch. He set them on the coffee table before moving over to the fireplace, flooing in the pizza order. He was starving.
"I know you just want me for my alcohol stash. Don't bother to try and deny it." His snack of steak, custard, and fruit done, Aidan wandered back into living room, flopping onto the couch once more.
"The stash and the coat tails. I'll be riding them when you're a famous quidditch star." It was something Aaron teased him about regularly, though at heart the shorter man was still the quiet boy he'd grown up as; he had no interest in crowds and adulation.
"Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm already famous." Not as famous as he would be, of course. Aidan had all the intention of going straight to the top. Nothing was going to stop him from getting there.
"Legend in your own lunchbox, aren't you, sweetheart?" Aaron teased, his stomach rumbling as if it agreed.
Aidan leaned back enough that he could glance at his mate upside down. Vaguely, he thought the shorter man looked better this way. "And my lunchbox is bigger than you could ever imagine, sweet pea. Now if you're hungry, you have legs. Left your custard in there. Don't forget a fork."
"Typical, tell me after I've ordered the bloody pizza." Aaron rose and loped to the kitchen, snatching up his snack. He moved back to the doorframe, leaning against it as he dug in. "So how long till your try-out, tinkerbell?"
"You'll survive." Aidan snorted and stretched. "And a week, thumbelina." Idly, he scratched his stomach and wondered how long it would take his mum to knit everyone and their dog jumpers in the team's colors when he got on, because it was no longer a question of if.
"Have they actually bothered to get anyone else to come in and try out? Or is it all just a formality at this point?" Formality or not, there'd probably still be a horde of Bradleys and Summerses there to watch him. Hopefully Mum and Aunty Han would pack snacks. Aaron was willing to bet Uncle Ben would even close the pub to come along.
"Formality." It had to be. Hell, he already had his built in fan base if you counted the assorted aunts, uncles, and cousins. Add in his last name (which still garnered some attention) and the fact that his father owned and ran a popular Quidditch-crazy pub, well, he was just gold for them.
"So you're already wearing Tutshill coloured underwear, then?"
"Wouldn't you like to know, Princess. You're paying for this pizza, right?" Aidan hoped he was, considering his money was in his room and he was too lazy to even summon the damn thing.
"Your powers of observation are astounding," Aaron shot back once he'd finished his mouthful. Years of Mum-glares about talking with food in his mouth had paid off. "You can return the favour with caviar when they sign you up properly."
"Do you even like fish eggs?" personally they sounded cross to him. "And would you like that on a gold plate as well, your highness?"
"Platinum, peon. And yeah, if you get the right ones, they're delicious." Finished with his dessert, he banished the plate back to the sink and returned to his armchair. "Never fear, Aidan. I'll show you a better way to fritter away your quidditch fortune than shoes and ponies." A library stocked with first editions and a healthy cellar would be the first way to go.
"You're the pony collector, not me, Brain." And his sister was the one with the healthy shoe fetish. Personally, Aidan thought trainers, brown shoes, and black shoes were the way to go. He didn't know what he was going to do with his money just yet. He'd ask his father first. Ben Bradley had invested his wisely. Aidan was hoping to follow in his footsteps.
"You're never letting that go, are you, Pinky?" Never mind that he'd spent fruitless years trying to convince his parents just how very much he'd needed a pet dragon, even throwing a rare, teary tantrum over it to his father.
"Not by the hair on your chinny chin chin." Aidan smirked. He had been the normal child, pestering his parents for racing brooms and quidditch supplies and books rather than highly dangerous beasts. Of course, that didn't always mean he got what he wanted, but he was still the more normal of the two and that brought him some satisfaction. "Princess."
"'M not Mum," Aaron answered distractedly as he shifted over to the bookshelf that housed his mate's DVD collection.
The taller man smirked. Sometimes Aaron made it just too easy. ""If I drink a lot and squint, and maybe cut you off at the legs, you'd be getting close," he parroted the earlier words back. "Though, honestly, you do share your mum's coloring." Aidan was lucky, he shared a good mixture of both his parents.
"But a manlier version, right?" Until he'd hit a growth spurt two years ago, Aaron had been the quite little runt of his family (well, Emmy and Dani hardly counted, they were all but Hobbit-sized like Mum). He'd managed to surpass Finn, much to his older brother's chagrin.
Aidan smirked.
Authors: lis_lamb and jane_lamb
Date set: 2037
Rating: Teen
Summary: Aaron and Aidan sit and snipe at each other the way that friends do.
"So, Brain, what are we going to do tonight?" Aidan lounged across the sofa, tossing a small ball in the air. Up and down. Down and up. And so on and so forth. It was the off season, but that didn't mean he didn't need to keep coordination up and muscles loose and flexible. There was a starting position for chaser open for Tutshill and the twenty year old was priming himself to take it.
He read the papers, the magazines, and knew what his competition looked like. Aidan "The Bulldog" Bradley would be facing mainly second-stringers as well as fresh faced kids from Hogwarts, most everyone else had contracts. He was better than everyone else, or at least he looked it on paper. There were whispers, of course, about his father's "madness" and how it was possible that it could have been passed down from father to son. Oh, Benedict Bradley was mad alright, mad as a fucking fox. There was a reason why the Bradley family presided over two of the more popular pubs in Diagon.
While his father presided over the Raven's Nest like he always had (and probably always would), his mother had turned her sights onto the Leaky Cauldron when Susie and Seth had first entered Hogwarts. His parents had turned a rather dingy little place into a family gathering spot. Now all he was waiting for was for his parents to go on their merry little way and buy the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade so the family domination through alcohol and pub grub was complete.
"The same thing we do every night, Pinky," Aaron returned from where he was draped sideways across an armchair. "Try to take over the world." An incantation muttered under his breath had the weight of the ball Aidan was tossing increase tenfold.
If Aidan noticed the weight change, he didn't respond. Besides, it would only up his strength training. Hardly a bad thing. "Oh, and how are we going to do that? Pudding?"
A momentary frown crossed Aaron's face at his mate's lack of a reaction. "Don't underestimate the power of the pudding. There's got to be a way to unlock its sloppy secrets and bend them to our will."
"Who are we bending? The sloppy secrets or the will of the people. Need to be more specific here, Brain."
"Neither. We're bending people to our will though master manipulation. Possibly using pudding." He idly wondered if Aidan had any in his fridge. Probably not, what with that whole healthy, athletic outlook he had. Pillock.
"There's custard in the fridge," Aidan remarked as he banished the small ball to his room. Standing, he stretched and began to lope through the reception room and into the kitchen. Grabbing some fruit and the aforementioned custard, he began to throw them together. He wasn't the best cook in the world, but if he had the ingredients already prepared, he could usually throw something together. "Want any?" he asked as he grabbed a slice of peach, popping it into his mouth.
He'd probably drop in to Mum and Dad's for dinner, but Aaron saw no reason to turn down free food. "Sure. And don't give me a bloody fork this time, moron."
"What's wrong with a bloody fork?" Aidan's grin turned predatory as he licked the peach's juices from his lips. "More easy to stab you with, my dear."
"You're a mad bastard, bulldog. Anyone ever tell you that?"
"All the damn time." Swiping another slice of peach through the custard, he popped it in his mouth and chewed. "Runs in the family, don't you know. Mean, Mum had eight kids and Dad quit in the middle of a successful carreer. Madness. It's infected all of us."
"Just be sure and keep it to yourself. Taint my brilliant plans and I'll have Uncle Ced eviscerate you." Aaron wasn't actually sure if eviscerating came under an Unspeakables' job description, but it sounded good enough.
"Uncle Ced would do no such thing," the quidditch player said confidently. "Mum wouldn't let him. Besides, who would be around to serve as Pinky? Your owl? I think not."
"Could rope Dani into it. As long as I figure out a spell to keep her from grassing to Dad." He paused, as if thinking it over. "Too much effort, mate. Guess I'm stuck with you."
Aidan snorted when his friend debated the pros and cons about using his little sister as coconspirator. "Trying to keep your little sister from spilling the beans, especially to your father, is like keeping mine from resisting a shoe sale. Damn near impossible."
"She's a weak link," the shorter agreed with a speculative tone. "Should definitely be kept in the need-to-know pile."
"Seth wouldn't be bad either," Aidan surmised. "Of course, that's all dependent if Susie's distracted or not. Girl's as subtle as a freight train. Or your sister Brooke. Not too subtle at times, but gets shit done. Of course, she's kinda wrapped up in marital bliss."
"Brooke's got the whole loose-canon-temper thing going on, besides." He loved his big sister, but he'd had his whole life to get used to the occasional eruptions that were Brooke.
"There's Emmy, but she wouldn't want to get her hands dirty." Aidan held back a snort. The eldest Summers child was priss beyond measure. "Brothers?" His own brothers were a mixed bag.
"JJ couldn't keep anything from Mum if his life depended on it," Aaron reportedly sadly. The eldest of his brothers had usually been a willing partner on Aaron's various adventures when he'd been small, but the guy spilled at even a hint of choc chips.
Aidan snorted. "Sounds like Kev." He didn't get that brother sometimes. He put up such a hard front that could be undone by a simple look from their mother. It really wasn't very impressive. Kevin was all bark with very little bite. But then again, he'd seen the Slytherin after a few rounds of brawling. There were reasons Aidan didn't wrestle with him.
"I love that your resident family badass is a mummy's boy," Aaron commented with a laugh.
The taller of the two shook his head. "Have you seen him and Dad go at it? I swear, if Mum didn't get tired of the shouting, they'd probably go on for hours."
Aaron snorted. "You've heard the Emmy and Mum bitchfights, yeah? I'm pretty sure it's only magic keeping some of those doors on, the number of times they've been slammed."
Aidan rolled his eyes. "Merlin save us from proverbial pissing matches." While he might have been a Bulldog on the pitch, he knew the natural pecking order of things. He was more or less content on letting his father, or his captain, have their way before he went about and found a sneakier way to do what he wanted in the first place. A lot less yelling went on that way. "And hormones."
"Just be thankful you've only got the one sister to deal with," Aaron quipped, though he privately thought he'd take all three of his over one Susie any day. "Finn's a sneaky bugger when he wants to be," he added as he continued his musings.
"Yes, but that one sister is Susie," the quidditch player pointed out. "The baby. I'm surprised she didn't get beat on more." Of course he knew why, though. It was because she was the baby and the only girl. Dad could put up with plenty of roughhousing between the brothers, but stop the presses if Susie kicked them and they hit back. "She's quite lucky in the fact that Seth's so easy going." Honestly, the patience of the kid was astounding.
"She's not that scary if you ignore her, you know." He should, he'd been doing it for years. That her little fits of temper didn't affect him only seemed to irk her more.
"Been there, done that, all it earned me was a permanent dent in my shin." Aidan struck a tragic pose. "Never will I be the example of manly perfection I was meant to be." Rolling his eyes, the quidditch player bent down to root through his fridge to find something to eat. Meat perhaps. Meat was manly.
"D'you have any pie?" The brunette mused. He was definitely going to drop home for some. Preferably while Dad was busy working and couldn't ream him out for stealing a piece.
Aidan raised an eyebrow. "Do I look like your mother?" Aaron's father's love of the stuff was made of family legend. He was pretty sure Aunt Mandy had started baking her husband his own pies so he'd stop bitching at other people. Though pie did sound good.
"If I drink a lot and squint, and maybe cut you off at the legs, you'd be getting close."
"Fuck you, Summers. Just for that, I don't think you deserve pie... if I had some." Aidan continued to rummage around his fridge, now truly looking for some animal product, preferably red meat. Coming across some leftover steak, he pulled the container out and took a sniff to see if it was still edible. It was. "Steak?"
"Yeah. Mushroom sauce?" the brunette asked hopefully. He'd kill for some right now. Lazing about in Aidan's flat musing about their eventual coup detat was hungry work.
Aidan gave him a look. "Do I look like the sort to keep fungi in my house, Summers?" He shuddered theatrically. Neither he nor his father kept with that sort of business.
"Pansy." Bradley men, for all their bravado, were big bloody wusses when it came to food they didn't like.
"Fine. Don't have any steak. See if I care. My flat, my rules." The fact that he was leasing from Aaron's father went unsaid. The man would never say if he was giving the quidditch player a price break, he was too cagey for that, but there was a stipulation in his lease that if he saw any unsavory character leaving Emmy's flat that he had an obligation to hex his balls off. As far as he knew, his cousin didn't know about that.
"Fine, I'll just order a pizza, you poncy git." And it'd be piled high with mushrooms, just for Aaron's vindictive enjoyment. The corner of his lips twitched into a smirk.
"Do I look related to my Uncle Justin?" Aidan said with a raised brow as he cut the steak with his wand, popping a piece into his mouth.
Aaron smirked. "Yeah. Someone mentions something you don't like and you get this little pursed-lipped look like someone set fire to your polo mallet."
"I think you're mistaking your horse fascination with me," Aidan mocked as he took another bite of cold steak. "Wasn't it you that hatched up a plan to steal a winged horse when we were in our second year and keep it in the dorms?"
"Hey, an Aethonon would have fit if Dani hadn't bloody written home all excited about it." An extremely sternly worded letter had come from home the next day advising that he was in no way allowed to keep one in the dorms where his Mum couldn't see it. "Usless bint," he added, though his words were fond and held no malice.
"Which is why you don't tell little sisters anything." Susie had gone through her horse phase, of course, but that had been short and quick and relatively painless. He couldn't imagine having sisters (or a mum, for that matter) who still got excited over the word 'pony'.
"Damn straight." As he watched Aidan devour the steak, pizza was sounding better and better. "Right. Thin crust peperroni, no mushrooms. I'm buying. Got any beer?" He shouldn't even have to ask the son of a publican, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
"Left pantry," Aidan said as in between bites of steak. You could tell the man who owned the building appreciated kitchens, or at least knew somebody who did. There was plenty of shelving and space for things. With two pantries, one of which Aidan kept fully stocked with all types of alcohol.
"Cheers." Aaron made his way over, casting a cooling charm on the six pack he'd found on his way back to the couch. He set them on the coffee table before moving over to the fireplace, flooing in the pizza order. He was starving.
"I know you just want me for my alcohol stash. Don't bother to try and deny it." His snack of steak, custard, and fruit done, Aidan wandered back into living room, flopping onto the couch once more.
"The stash and the coat tails. I'll be riding them when you're a famous quidditch star." It was something Aaron teased him about regularly, though at heart the shorter man was still the quiet boy he'd grown up as; he had no interest in crowds and adulation.
"Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm already famous." Not as famous as he would be, of course. Aidan had all the intention of going straight to the top. Nothing was going to stop him from getting there.
"Legend in your own lunchbox, aren't you, sweetheart?" Aaron teased, his stomach rumbling as if it agreed.
Aidan leaned back enough that he could glance at his mate upside down. Vaguely, he thought the shorter man looked better this way. "And my lunchbox is bigger than you could ever imagine, sweet pea. Now if you're hungry, you have legs. Left your custard in there. Don't forget a fork."
"Typical, tell me after I've ordered the bloody pizza." Aaron rose and loped to the kitchen, snatching up his snack. He moved back to the doorframe, leaning against it as he dug in. "So how long till your try-out, tinkerbell?"
"You'll survive." Aidan snorted and stretched. "And a week, thumbelina." Idly, he scratched his stomach and wondered how long it would take his mum to knit everyone and their dog jumpers in the team's colors when he got on, because it was no longer a question of if.
"Have they actually bothered to get anyone else to come in and try out? Or is it all just a formality at this point?" Formality or not, there'd probably still be a horde of Bradleys and Summerses there to watch him. Hopefully Mum and Aunty Han would pack snacks. Aaron was willing to bet Uncle Ben would even close the pub to come along.
"Formality." It had to be. Hell, he already had his built in fan base if you counted the assorted aunts, uncles, and cousins. Add in his last name (which still garnered some attention) and the fact that his father owned and ran a popular Quidditch-crazy pub, well, he was just gold for them.
"So you're already wearing Tutshill coloured underwear, then?"
"Wouldn't you like to know, Princess. You're paying for this pizza, right?" Aidan hoped he was, considering his money was in his room and he was too lazy to even summon the damn thing.
"Your powers of observation are astounding," Aaron shot back once he'd finished his mouthful. Years of Mum-glares about talking with food in his mouth had paid off. "You can return the favour with caviar when they sign you up properly."
"Do you even like fish eggs?" personally they sounded cross to him. "And would you like that on a gold plate as well, your highness?"
"Platinum, peon. And yeah, if you get the right ones, they're delicious." Finished with his dessert, he banished the plate back to the sink and returned to his armchair. "Never fear, Aidan. I'll show you a better way to fritter away your quidditch fortune than shoes and ponies." A library stocked with first editions and a healthy cellar would be the first way to go.
"You're the pony collector, not me, Brain." And his sister was the one with the healthy shoe fetish. Personally, Aidan thought trainers, brown shoes, and black shoes were the way to go. He didn't know what he was going to do with his money just yet. He'd ask his father first. Ben Bradley had invested his wisely. Aidan was hoping to follow in his footsteps.
"You're never letting that go, are you, Pinky?" Never mind that he'd spent fruitless years trying to convince his parents just how very much he'd needed a pet dragon, even throwing a rare, teary tantrum over it to his father.
"Not by the hair on your chinny chin chin." Aidan smirked. He had been the normal child, pestering his parents for racing brooms and quidditch supplies and books rather than highly dangerous beasts. Of course, that didn't always mean he got what he wanted, but he was still the more normal of the two and that brought him some satisfaction. "Princess."
"'M not Mum," Aaron answered distractedly as he shifted over to the bookshelf that housed his mate's DVD collection.
The taller man smirked. Sometimes Aaron made it just too easy. ""If I drink a lot and squint, and maybe cut you off at the legs, you'd be getting close," he parroted the earlier words back. "Though, honestly, you do share your mum's coloring." Aidan was lucky, he shared a good mixture of both his parents.
"But a manlier version, right?" Until he'd hit a growth spurt two years ago, Aaron had been the quite little runt of his family (well, Emmy and Dani hardly counted, they were all but Hobbit-sized like Mum). He'd managed to surpass Finn, much to his older brother's chagrin.
Aidan smirked.