"Well," Adon philosophised reasonably as he settled himself onto the sofa, "they wouldn't sell on the black market if they weren't worth something."
 
Leave it to Trevelyan's kids to ask about the going rate of livers on the black market.  If they kept asking easy questions like this, though, he'd be able to last all night. Babysitting really wasn't so bad, after all. You fed the kids, kept them from eating pens, furniture, or each other, and made sure they got in their jammas, brushed their teeth, said their prayers, and sang kumbaya before bedtime. Anna, who was currently working herself up the corporate ladder, would come home "right chuffed" or something insanely British. He might even get a half-smile for this one. Anna was proving a tough critic, particularlly as he had established himself as someone child-oriented from encounter 1. He did not know what could be more paternal or loving than goddamned Father Christmas, but he was trying.
 
The youngest Trevelyan, however, was somewhat easier to please. A brief recitation of military credentials and an overly stern comportment had been enough to imbue a healthy amount of hero-worship in Artie Trevelyan; this would be quite easy indeed. So long as Gwenna didn't try to lodge any more pencils in his kneecap. That one had been a near hit. "I wouldn't get your hopes up though as far as investments go, Art. Livers are finicky little things" he said non-chalantly to the somber child standing before him before reaching out to poke Artie in the stomach. Artie's eyes widened and he took a step back, lifting his shirt a moment to evaluate the damage. Adon appeared unaffected as he continued, "You've only got one, and I suspect your sister wants it, so I'd guard it well." He winked before he pulled out the plastic lighter from his pocket, wedging it between the neck and ruffled, metal rim of the cream soda bottle cap. Artie's eyes on him, he jerked it up, listening but not watching the cap scatter across the floor. He offered the bottle to the kid. "Save some for your pizza. Don't want you to spoil your appetite," he stated, rather paternally.
 
This parenting thing was really a cakewalk. If only the delivery would arrive on time. Pizza hut, like most things American, seemed like a good idea at the time. If only they could deliver.
 
He repeated the process for Gwenna, now watching as the cap clattered across the table. "Out of curiosity, why do you ask?" This, however, was directed towards Trevelyan, who was standing near the door, looking down at the iphone, typing away with his thumbs. "TRACY!" he barked.

"Yeah!" Jonas called back automatically, intensely focused on the process of sending an extremely longwinded text message to his ex-wife.  "That sounds fine, mate!  Just don't break anything!"

Gwenna bared her teeth in her father's direction.  The delivery of a cream soda was enough to spur her into looking up from the picture she'd been drawing, where brightly colored pencils had been put to work in order illustrating the weaker points of defense already discovered on Adon's body.

"He never listens," she informed Adon grumpily, finishing off the red arrow that pointed to the Auror's right kneecap with a flourish.  "You can ask Mum.  And I don't want Artie's liver," she added, sniffing as she eyed her younger brother with considerable disdain.  "It's too little.  It wouldn't fetch very much on the open market."

The arrival of their Israeli houseguest had already caused considerable friction in the Trevelyan household.  Artie's quick attachment to Adon had visibly irritated the family's eldest child, who considered herself to have a right to the Auror's attention due to priority established by first zombie attack.  Gwenna had been casting dark looks at her younger brother all evening, and after Jonas had banned her from drawing pictures of Artie's death by decapitation, monster feeding, or impalement, she had instead taken to showing her ire by alternating between glaring at the boy or ignoring him at every turn possible.

"Yours, though," she said, eyeing the region of Adon's stomach, "might be alright.  Or we could take Dad's," she added with some thought as she reached for the cream soda.  "It's probably older, but he'd never notice."

"He never listens," she-fiend accused, sounding very much like the grown up she-fiends Adon had encountered in the past. Adon gave a crooked smile as he held his hand up for silence. Leaning in, he said in a low voice, "Careful. He might be listening."

The mischievous smirk growing, Adon tapped the side of his nose twice before shifting on the sofa to get a better look at Jonas. This required less craning of his neck and he could properly assess the situation. Jonas, engrossed on -- surprise -- his iPhone. Standing in the same spot he'd been standing on for the past, approximately, eight minutes.  He grinned evilly at the suggestion of stealing Jonas' liver. "That is a thought, now, isn't it?"

Turning back to look at the kids, he curled one finger to Artie to call the boy to his side. To Gwenna, he leaned in. "Now," he said, not whispering -- that would likely raise suspicion and be more notable than the same tone of voice they'd been carrying on, "we'll need to work as a team if we're going to pull this operation off, yeh?" He glanced over to Gwenna. "I will need to see your plans, Executioner," he said, holding his hand out expectantly and officiously. "And that red pencil."

Once Adon had obtained pencil and paper, Adon appraised the work. "Excellent assessment, Executioner. I have some revisions, however." He laid the paper back down onto the coffee table, spinning it so that the lanky figure faced him. He coloured over what was clearly black hair -- his black hair -- with the red pencil and scrawled "Daddy."

"So," he said, drawing in two small, stick figures flanking Jonas. "Artie," he said, tapping the shorter, "I think this is a good approach." He pointed to Jonas's shoes, drawing a tangle of shoelaces. "You can be our on-the-ground support. And Executioner?" he said, tapping the other, "I will need to utilise that expertise." He tapped lightly to the kneecap. "Only," he added, "no blunt force is necessary. A push from the back should do the trick." In fact, if he could get one knee to buckle, and the shoelaces already tied . . .

Operation Revenge is Sweeter than Cream Soda.

Though she relinquished the pencil without much debate, Gwenna watched suspiciously as Adon took control of her attack plans.  Eyes narrowed, she leaned her elbows on the table, sucking at the mouth of the glass bottle as the Auror made his alterations.

"Not even Artie calls him Daddy,"  she informed him accusingly, eyeing the man as if he was trying to baby her in absentia.

The plan seemed to meet with some approval, though.  Gwenna shot a look over her shoulder at her father, and then looked back to Artie and Adon, regarding the two males as if sizing up their potential as co-conspirators.  "It might work," she said doubtfully.  "But Artie can't lace his shoes yet.  Maybe you should be the one who -"

"I can so!" Artie insisted, pulling a face at his sister.

Gwenna rolled her eyes back in her head and jutted out her lower lip, letting out a moaning sound as she made a face back at her brother.  "He can't," she informed Adon firmly, and then paused, a thought occurring to her.  "But you know a spell to do it, don't you?" she asked the Auror excitedly, enthusiasm building in her voice at the possibility of supernatural violence.  "Can't you just magic the laces together so we'll have him?  That's what me mum said, she said we had to listen or you'd spell us, only Dad said you probably wouldn't since he was here," she added, eyeing her parental figure's back again.  "Except it might be a good thought as a threat, love," she concluded, dropping her voice to a gravely tone that matched her father in accent if not timbre. 

"Not even Artie calls him Daddy.

"Well!" Adon said, raising his eyebrows. He crossed out the word and replaced it with "TRACY." "There."

Taking the debate on Artie's overall competence in shoe-tying in stride, Adon listened, nodding as he moderated. He broke out in a bright peal of laughter at Gwenna's rather passable impersonation of her father -- and the words being repeated -- and added, "Well, let that be a lesson, then. Let's not reveal too much in sotto voce." Not that they were really at risk. The kids listened -- even if they didn't obey. Jonas, however, most certainly did not.

"While magick-ing Dad for not listening might be appropriate, considering," he said, thoughtfully, "I'm functioning in a supervisory role today. Switch roles, then," he said. "Dexterity," he said, pointing to Gwenna, "and brute force," to Artie. "Though not too much. And on this one," he said, pointing to the drawing that demonstrated Jonas's good knee. "Are you ready?"

Gwenna studied the plan of attack again, still looking slightly suspicious as she eyed Adon's alterations to her drawing.  "No sleeping gas or anything?" she asked, sounding disappointed. 

Sighing loudly, she kicked at the table leg, gave Artie one last appraising look, and then rose to her feet.   "Alright, then. But you'd better be ready to hold his head down so Artie can run and get the tools for extraction," she warned Adon, starting on a roundabout circuit towards her father.

Text message had apparently been insufficient for the thoughts that Jonas had been in the process of expressing.  Sometime in the intervening minutes of planning the attack, the private investigator had switched to a voice call, and was standing with his back to the rest of the room, one finger in his unoccupied ear to block out any unnecessary noise.

"Yeah, except I don't know if -"  He paused, listening.  "Well, yeah, there's a thought, too.  But that's the rub then, innit?" he asked insistently, nearly stepping on Gwenna as he started to pace.  "There's nothing much you can do there, is there?"

The girl scowled, shooting a dark look back over her shoulder at Adon as her target moved out of position, and then crawled forward again, intent on her father's shoe laces.  Next to Adon, Artie muffled a giggle with both hands and began to carefully creep into place.

"Well, yeah, that should help out a bit with her, but Art's still got some years yet, and I just don't think -"  Jonas cut himself off again, stopping just short of the wall, and let out a sigh, completely heedless as his daughter pounced on his shoes and set to work.  "Yeah, we can discuss it later," he agreed resignedly.  "Sorry, love.  It just occurred to me, and I reckoned it was worth talki-"

"I WANNA BE WITH YOU FOREVER!" Artie erupted, flinging himself at the back of his father's legs.

With a yelp, Jonas lost the phone, his balance, and his dignity all in one go as he crashed into the wall.  Gwenna let out a triumphant cry and pounced on her father, flinging her arms around him in an attempt to hold him down.

"Quick!  Get his head!" she called gleefully to Adon, over the litany of completely non-child-safe swears that were arising from the private investigator.  "Artie!  Fetch the extraction tools!  Artie!" she shouted in exasperation, attempting to glare at her brother and wrestle her struggling father down all at once.  "Stop hugging him!  You're a unicorn, not a starfish!"

Flailing limbs, screams, and barked-out orders. Adon felt quite in his element. With a smirk, Adon approached the din, stooping over in order to pick up the telephonic device. A woman's voice, Anna's, was speaking abnormally loudly.

"What? Anna? No, no. He's fine. There's only been an insurrection. Which, considering, is better than Gwenna's resurrection reenactments." He was silent a few moments. "Yeh, I’ll tell him . . . " Adon pulled the phone away from his ear to look at the screen, which was ticking away the time. He frowned, once more holding it to the side of his face. "Well, I don't know how to turn this off, so yill just hang up, yeh?"

There was no response on the other side. Shrugging, Adon laid the iphone aside onto a nearby windowsill in order to evaluate the status of the coup since he had last looked.

"So," he said, noting that Jonas' legs had been pinned down by Artie. He winced slightly. "Sargeant Artie, release the prisoner." Leaning forward -- and risking a punch in the process -- he sniffed. "Gwenna, I'm afraid you're right. This one's liver is no good. Too old."

Somehow in the intervening chaos, Jonas had managed to twist partially onto his side.  As Adon leaned over, he let out a low growl and made a fierce grab for the Auror's shirt, the attack only foiled when both of his children dogpiled back onto him to hold him down.

"What the bloody hell?" the private investigator demanded, his face reddening as he attempted to climb back to his feet.  His shoes, still laced together, lost traction and he collapsed back onto his side, glaring daggers at Adon.  "I was on the bloody phone!  What the hell is this?"

Gwenna was growling herself, trying to wrestle her father back to the ground.  "You weren't bloody listening, so we decided to steal your bloody liver.  Check his kidneys, Lieutenant Adon," she ordered the Auror.  "Maybe we can still get something for them."

Jonas opened his mouth, and then abruptly shut it again, apparently thinking better of the language that he was about to use.  "Get off," he growled at the two children.  Despite the dead weight still hanging off his neck in the form of a perpetually determined Gwenna, he started up again, wincing as he straightened his leg, moving slowly to keep his feet together.  "And you're supposed to be here to bl- ...to help," he snapped at Adon, shooting a dark look at the younger man.  "Gwenna, let go!  Where the h- ...where'd the goddamned phone go?  Artie, get off already!" he shot at his son, who had clamped onto his leg again as he struggled up.

Adon had to confess himself somewhat surprised at the actual, apparent, and genuine display of anger on Jonas's face. This was not irritation. He'd actually tried to --

Well, it was poor form, and Adon wasn't sure exactly what Jonas had tried to do, only that it definitely wouldn't have worked, even if the kids hadn't been atop him.

The thought that he'd genuinely upset Jonas, that Jonas might be angry with him, curbed his amusement. "Alright, kids," he said, taking Artie by the middle and swinging him away from the din. "You, too, Gwenna."

However, events had been set into motion. . .

"You weren't bloody listening, so we decided to steal your bloody liver.  Check his kidneys, Lieutenant Adon. Maybe we can still get something for them."

"Nah, I want pizza," Adon replied, simply before a shit-eating grin spread on his face. "Steal his wallet."

"And you're supposed to be here to bl- ...to help," he snapped at Adon, shooting a dark look at the younger man.  "Gwenna, let go!  Where the h- ...where'd the goddamned phone go?  Artie, get off already!"

"Phone's on the ledge. Don't worry. I got it safe." He looked down at the two grunting children -- when had Artie rejoined the fight? And once more grabbed Artie, squirming and protesting like a puppy, by the back of his shirt and pulled him back a fair distance. "Stay put, sergeant," he commanded before returning. He tried his best to keep the amusement at this mutiny in check. "Alrightalrightalright," he said, picking Gwenna up and slinging her over his shoulder before hanging her a bit upside down, swinging her slightly.

The doorbell rang. "Who's ready for pizza?"

The private investigator added some choice phrases under his breath as he eased himself upwards with a wince.  One look at his laces proved that they were hopelessly knotting; making a face, Jonas managed to pull each one off, keeping one hand against the wall to steady himself as he let them fly in Adon's general direction.

"I should make you pay for the bloody pizza," he grumbled, stepping unsteadily as he regained his footing.  He dug into his pocket for his wallet, and then freed a pair of bank notes, shoving them at the Auror.  Without giving the younger man - or an upside-down, squirming Gwenna, who was shouting something about death to traitors as she tried to twist enough to bite Adon's kneecap - he snatched up the phone and limped over to the kitchen table, putting it to his ear as he hit redial.

By the time Adon had made it back with the pizza, Jonas's temper had subsided somewhat.  Sighing, he set the phone down on the table, giving his friend a tight-lipped expression that was almost a smile as he approached.

"No answer.  Reckon she had to go back in," he said, leaning back in the chair as Artie determinedly clambered onto his lap.  "Sorry, mate," he added tiredly, resignedly draping an arm around his son.  "What were we talking about?"

"And then after we burn them, we eat them," Gwenna hissed at Adon, still on the man's heels as she stalked him back to the table.  "We were talking about you not bloody listening," she informed her father sulkily, crossing her arms so that everyone knew how betrayed she felt as she grumpily took the chair across from Jonas.  "And Adon said it would be appropriate to magic you, except he's got a supervisory role today," she added, adopting a hint of the Israeli's harsh consonants as she glowered at him.  "Except then he betrayed us.  I'm going to remember this," she informed him in a low, foreboding voice.  "And then one day, when you least expect it, I'll wait until your back is turned and I'll -"

Jonas cleared his throat, looking decidedly more amused as he stretched out his bad leg under the table.  "Did you want some pizza, Gwen?" he interrupted over her, reaching for the pile of paper plates.  "Well, I hope you at least told Anna that I wasn't dead before you hung up on her," he informed Adon nicely as he opened the pizza box, as if having his daughter continue to rant about death threats at the dinner table was a perfectly normal occurrence.  "Reckon you never know in this house."

Handing over the note, Adon waited for the box to shift hands. The cardboard was warm, almost moist with the heat, and Adon began to realise how hungry he was. And the fact that he'd forgotten lunch. Those kids better not be too hungry. The deliveryman began to shuffle through his pockets for something. Adon's brow knit.

"Six, seven. . ." he muttered under his breath. Adon could tell from his concentration he was doing some math.

"Just keep the whole thing, brother," Adon said with a smile. The deliveryman's eyes widened. Adon realised he ought to be, perhaps, a bit better at math; he didn't think the difference too great. Well, too late now. "Cheers, brother," he said, closing the door and turning to survey the chaos from over the scent of cardboard and cheese.

"And then after we burn them, we eat them". . . Not much had changed. Adon moved over to the couch in several, fluid steps, avoiding several collisions with Gwenna, who seemed persistently dogging him. He did a little circle around her as he neared the couch, dropping the box onto the coffee table.

"Dinner," he pronounced before opening it and pulling the largest piece out. He didn't wait to take a bite.

"Well, I hope you at least told Anna I wasn't dead before you hung up on her."

"A dead body doesn't scream." He considered a moment. "Or curse." Another moment. "Usually." He settled on the couch, perched on the edge. He'd have slumped back into the seat like Jonas had, but, well, he knew Jonas' kids better than to do that. At the ready, he reached once more for the abandoned cream soda. "Which is mine?" he asked, hand hovering over the three. Before an answer could be given, he shrugged and grasped the most full one. "Besides," he tossed back at Jonas. "She ended the conversation. Said she had to get back to work. Dinner?" He looked upwards at the ceiling pensively. "Work."

The red-haired man gave his phone a longing look as he passed a slice of pizza to his sulking daughter, and then claimed a piece for his son.  "Working dinner," he said resignedly, sounding a bit put off as he finally took one for himself.  "And I know she had to get back to it.  I just reckoned -"

That they needed to talk.  That they needed to talk now.  That there were important decisions that needed to be made, and waiting the three or four hours until his ex-wife returned home was too much for his already-frayed patience.  But there wasn't a way to finish the sentence without it sounding considerably like whining, which there was plenty of in the room at present as Gwenna voiced an extremely vehement complaint that there wasn't enough blood on her pizza.

He cleared his throat, preempting any halcyon of silence that Adon might have tried to leave.  "Well, I guess it doesn't matter too much.  Tam offered me a badge," he informed the younger man completely noncommittally and without emphasis, his attention entirely focused on tearing open a packet of pepper to add to his pizza.   "Gwen, the bits that look like olives are dried up eyeballs.  And mouth closed when you chew, yeah?  You ought to practice; there's only a limited supply of brains in London."

Jonas was predictable. The lighter the tone, the graver the message. The day Jonas entered whistling, was the day he expected very, very bad news. So when Jonas shrugged and spoke in a breathy voice and a non-chalant smile, Adon braced himself.

At Jonas's words, Adon eyed him sharply. The impulse to smack him upside the head was strong -- prevailing for a moment -- then one, two, three. . . .the urge subsided and he was able to lean forward to get at the pizza box. Jonas pointed towards some olives. Adon rolled his eyes.

"There's only a limited supply of brains in London."

"And very few brains in this house," Adon chimed in. "Badge," he said, tugging a piece of pizza loose. He didn't care if he was supposed to eat this with fork and knife. Into the mouth it was going. "An Auror badge." He took a bite - - what really ought to have been two -- and tilted his head towards Jonas. "Why doesn't that matter too much? It seems to me like it should."

Gwenna gave her father a look that made it very clear which member of the household was currently lacking in brains.  "I'm not a zombie, I'm an executioner," she informed him haughtily.  Baring her teeth at the adults, she tore a piece of pizza off with her teeth, gnashing and gnarling as she pointedly chewed with her mouth wide open.

"Well, you know."  Jonas was very intently adding the pepper to the top of his slice of pizza, one pinch at a time, taking care to arrange each flake.  " A lot of factors that go into it, aren't there?  Like the kids," he said, flicking away a flake of pepper that had gotten too close to the crust.  "There's a chance it could get right well hairy with the Ministry.  And if I get into trouble, it's not like they'd be very difficult for someone to get to, yeah?  Not to mention that Anna really deserves to know what I'm getting her into."

"Although," he added, giving up on maintaining the pattern; it was too much work, even when it gave him a good excuse to avoid eye contact.  He settled for dumping the rest of the hot pepper in an incoherent mess, crumbling up the wrapper, and tossing it across the coffee table at Adon.  "I suppose everyone involved should know what I might be getting them into.  I told Tamis I reckoned that you could probably use a partner," he informed the younger man nonchalantly, picking up a packet of parmesan cheese to add to his work of art.  "Which you might want to think about too, Houdini.  I don't think I'd be much use with magic."

"Yeh. Exactly. It does matter. That's my argument, genius." Adon glanced over to Gwenna, making a pointed gesture at Jonas' supposedly vacant cranium. Jonas had been so intent on not making it a big deal, then contradicting Adon just to contradict him that he'd now launched into full on Big Deal.

"Hairy with the Ministry?" Adon repeated with some irritation. "Come on, brother, you still on about that?" If Jonas couldn't trust the Ministry by now, after running around with all of Knockturn Alley, it'd never come. "You want to just go back to what you've been doing, then? That's better for the kids?" He looked at the kids then back to Jonas. He'd heard about Halloween. This was communicated with glances. This really wasn't the place, though. Not in front of the kids. They were kids, for Godssakes. They'd seen and heard too much already, Gwenna flinging out accusations about her dad with a familiarity that was . . . well, it was troubling. Adon shouldn't encourage that as he had been.

As Jonas sprinkled the pepper on with abandon, Adon considered Jonas' words with knit brows and a silent countenance.
A partner. Adon tried not to show how his stomach -- well, it had almost leapt at that mention, if he had to be honest with himself. Which he wouldn't be with Jonas. He'd start talking about "bromance" and "wizards" again, and Adon didn't want to go down gaystreet arm-in-arm with Jonas just now.

Not in front of the kids, he thought to himself, his lips curling sarcastically.

"Well," he said, keeping his response minimal to avoid having to decide just how he felt about this -- which vacillated between elation and trepidation -- "you're rusty, sure. We'll get you into practise in no time. I don't think Tamis' let you, otherwise."