Food cures all? [Gene]

For the first time in her life, Penny could not focus on her work.

When Albus Dumbledore was murdered, Penny threw herself into her work. Through a war, she threw herself into her work. When Hogwarts turned into itself during the dome fiasco….Penny could be found buried in a book.

Which is why it was frustrating that all it took was breaking up with a boy to completely knock her out of focus. She never thought she would be one of those girls who waste their lives pining over a boy. A mere boy.

Penny took the book she was not reading and shoved it to the side of her desk. Checking her watch she realized it was almost time for lunch. Maybe food would make everything better? Just as she was debating if she had energy to leave the Ministry for lunch or not, she heard a soft knock at the door, and a memo slid underneath.

Interoffice memos were of course not allowed to be delivered directly to the department, so they were all redirected to the front desk. For a moment Penny’s heart lurched, thinking it was Donn sending her a note, before she remembered. They had decided to cut off all contact, to make things easier. That had been her idea, and now she was regretting it.

She picked up the memo and smiled slightly to see it was from Gene, reminding her that they had planned to grab lunch together. She wondered what the folks at the Department of International Magical Cooperation thought about the fact that she quite unnecessarily used them as her cover story. Sure, she didn’t have to hide the fact that she was an Unspeakable, but she liked keeping secrets. And no one had told her off for having her memos redirected there. No harm, no foul.

Penny was thankful that Gene sent the reminder — she probably would have forgotten otherwise, and it would be bad if he showed up at the Department of International Magical Cooperation looking for her. If she had remembered she was seeing a friend today she would have…maybe brushed her hair? She quickly re-braided her hair, trying to make herself look presentable. She was wearing what she thought of as an Old Penny outfit — the kind of outfit she wore before she started trying to make an effort. Plain black robes. Black flats. Plain Penny. Like she was before she met Donn.

Penny rolled her eyes at herself and grabbed her coat in case Gene would be game to go outside the Ministry for lunch, and headed up to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to meet him. Over the past few months, Penny had gone to lunch with the younger boy a few times. He was the runt of the department, like she was, and she liked hanging out with him. One of her and Donn’s biggest arguments had been over his jealousy of the boy. As if lanky Gene could hold a candle to handsome, dangerous Donn.

And WHY am I thinking about Donn again?

Penny rounded the corner and made the effort to put a smile on her face when she spotted Gene.

“Canteen, or something new this time?” She asked as she approached him. She was hoping he’d want to go out for lunch — it had been an uncommonly nice spring day when she left the house earlier, though she had no idea what it was like at the moment, since she had no windows in her office.

Now that he wasn’t just reporting to Hermione Granger, thanks to the high demand in MLE for workers on a low enough paygrade to heedlessly exploit, Gene had needed to get used to people who couldn’t schedule to save their lives, and had (as such) become something of a nag. Having been irritating his entire life, he had taken to it rather well, and only a few people had asked him to knock off sending multiple reminder memos for things. Generally these were for interdepartmental meetings, which Gene suspected his superiors would love an excuse to forget about. Occasionally these were for more dubious things, like the ten-minute breaks Sal Sutherspoon pencilled in for a destressing smoke break whenever she’d just spoken with Cattermole, or the four barristers scheduling what he was pretty sure was just a weekly poker game in courtroom six after-hours.

Gene had about six reminder memos going out today; the last was just lunch with Penny, and wouldn’t get him fired if he’d gotten it wrong, so he shot it off to the DIMC and then picked himself out of his chair and made his way to the lift.

It wasn’t that Gene was having a hard time befriending his colleagues – that wasn’t the case at all – but most of the people he got on with were at least three times his age. Sure he knew a few younger coworkers, already in their mid-late-twenties, with enviable confidence and not still living in their childhood bedrooms (not that he was complaining), but Gene had always found it easier to get along with people old enough to be his grandparents than with his peers.

Given that, he was really very happy to have befriended Penny, who – though he was sure she couldn’t possibly have been the only youth in her department, because a ton of the ambassadors’ assistants were young and good-looking and he’d been trying unsuccessfully to arrange meaningful eye contact with the one from Cameroon for three months – got it. Got it a little too well, and was always trying to give him advice, but he hadn’t spent eighteen years being friendly to elderly without developing a thick skin for unsolicited advice.

She approached; he craned his neck to look at what the canteen had today, and said, “Not the canteen. Falafel again, or d’you know anywhere else?” He hadn’t thought it possible he could get sick of what were purportedly the best falafels in London, but nine months into this job, he was starting to.

Thank Merlin, Penny thought to herself — not only did Gene want to go out for lunch, but he was finally seeming to get tired of the same old falafel place they always want to.

Penny loved falafel, she really did. In fact, she liked any kind of food that was surrounded by carbs and wrapped in either aluminum foil, or brown paper. The kind where the grease runs down your arms and your breath smells to high heaven. But after months of falafel at least twice a week…well it got tiring.

At first she thought of suggesting her family’s favorite shawarma place, but that only brought up memories of her and Donn’s first date and she needed to avoid that. Plus, it was too close to her father’s office, and then she might spot him, and he might get hopeful that Gene was her new boyfriend or something.

“Up for something new? I know a great place that serve these really tasty dumpling things called momo. It’s a bit of a walk, but our departments won’t burn down if we take a bit of a longer lunch today, right?” Penny rarely ever took long lunch breaks, but she really, really needed it today.

“Or we could apparate if you need to get back sooner…” She added, hoping that Gene wasn’t going to be nearly as much of a goody-two-shoes as she usually is.

Regardless of where they went for lunch, heading outdoors was the first step, so Penny led the way to the atrium so they could floo out. Sometimes working below ground really took its toll on her. The place she had in mind was muggle, as were most of the places she liked to eat, and she wanted to walk most of the way.

“How’s your week been going, Gene?” Penny asked, as they walked into the elevator. She hoped he was having a better week than her, at least.

“That Chinese?” said Gene – he had never liked Chinese food much, but he supposed he could pick something off the menu that looked inoffensive and make sure they didn’t put any chopped nuts on top of perfectly good food that would throw the whole thing off. And put the sauce on the side.

He wasn’t opposed to a bit of a walk, although he was pretty sure he was in no position to assume the department wouldn’t burn down without him. Gene was getting a sense that the Ministry ran on the backs of its secretarial staff, and that a lot of the dismissive and disrespectful treatment he got was, like, dismissive and disrespectful, but in a fond way. He looked at his wristwatch and said, “Well, I’ll keep an eye on the time, Emerson’s pretty strict about punctuality.” He’d always gotten the impression that Walpole was as well, but he supposed Penny must have been working here long enough to feel more secure in her job. Also possibly, she was just less anxious about things.

They got into the lift; Gene jabbed the button to go up and then put one knuckle in his mouth to chew on. “Alright, I think,” he said, around it. “It was my mate’s birthday Wednesday so we had his annual birthday poker tourney. Didn’t win but I got, like, two quid out of it.” He’d gotten eleven quid, but was unsure how much high-stakes recreational gambling Penny would condone, particularly drunken gambling (on everybody’s part but Gene, who still didn’t like beer.)

“How’s yours?” he added, to be polite.

"Nepalese, I think?" Penny replied, with an air like she didn't know exactly where momo was served, and everything about its history. As if she didn't look it up after eating momo for the first time. This was a tactic that her mother, of all people, taught her. Just because you know the answer doesn't mean you need show off, she had said. In her quest to be less of a know-it-all, Penny started posing answers like these as a question.

"Wonderful. We could always apparate back if time's getting too tight," Penny said as they exited the Ministry.

Penny took a moment when they walked outside to take a deep breath in. Working in a basement devoid of even magical windows was really starting to get to her.

"Poker, really?" Penny said in surprise. She didn't know anyone who played poker.

"Is it a fun game? I've never played."

Penny didn't know much about gambling, but she was confused as to how Gene could have won money despite losing. She didn't push the issue though, not wanting to reveal her ignorance if it was something obvious.

As Gene asked her about her week, Penny froze for a moment.

Gene was a nice friend, but they had never really gone beyond these surface level pleasantries. Should she be honest and tell him how miserable her week was? She didn't want to emotionally burden him, but on the other hand, who could she talk to about it? Her parents were too busy being smug about how terrible Donn had been for her to offer any solace.

And besides, this was how friends became closer, right?

"To be honest, my week was kind of terrible. I just broke up with this guy I had been dating for a year, and it's hitting me hard." Penny tried to sound somewhat non-chalant about it all, but to her horror she heard her voice hitch a little at the end, and her eyes started prickling at the edges with tears.

Penny turned away from Gene for a moment and faked a sneeze.

"Sorry. Allergies." She said, hoping it would explain her red eyes. 

“Cool,” said Gene. Did they like peanuts in Nepal? He’d figure it out. They could apparate back, said Penny; “Cool,” said Gene again.

It was nippy outside; Gene regretted having worn a cloak instead of a coat, which he could have worn in Muggle London less conspicuously (and with less concern about things spilling on it, or sweeping it into suspicious puddles or drips) and shoved his hands into his pockets, where his fingers were probably getting covered in lint. “Fun enough,” he said, “Fun for me, anyway, I’m good at bluffing and I know when to fold ‘em. It’s all about which of your mates can’t lie to you. Like – I got this friend Rose, she gets twitchy when she’s got a hand she’s not sure about. Stuff like that.”

He wasn’t going to say it to Penny, whom he thought might have a not-awful perception of him, but he prided himself on his ability to lie about as much as he hated himself for it: he’d always had a knack for it, and he’d always had a healthy respect for an intellectual exercise with a bit of life-ruining risk. Not that that was anything he’d ever be able to explain to anybody. (He’d tried.)

Gene cracked his knuckles in his pocket, glanced back down at Penny and tried to moderate his walking pace to suit her shorter legs, and slowed down significantly as she froze in place.

“Aw,” he said – he sucked at comforting people who’d just had breakups. Rose had them all the time, since none of her boyfriends ever seemed to be decent or normal people, and all Gene was good for in those cases was badmouthing the ex-boyfriends and then putting on a movie for Rose to cry silently through. He said, cautiously, “Was he like… a dick?” If he was, that gave him at least one conversational option.

Penny faked a sneeze and then faked having allergies; Gene extricated one hand from his pocket and patted her back awkwardly. “Aw,” he said again. “I’m sure it’s for the best.” He sounded like a tool; he barreled on. “It’ll work out.”

Penny was annoyed to see that her excuse of allergies didn't work, as Gene continued to try and comfort her. He probably thought she was like a typical girl who cried over any guy. She decided to ignore it, and keep the conversation going.

Had Donn been a dick? Penny supposed looking in from the outside, he had been. But a part of her, the part that always wanted to be right, didn't want to admit that to her parents. But Gene, well he knew nothing about Donn.

"Honestly, yes. He had some temper issues, and some family baggage that got in the way," Penny said, not wanting to get into some of the very real reasons that Donn had been dangerous on paper.

Like the fact that he came from a Pureblood family with ties to Death Eaters. Or the fact that she was pretty sure that he would have jumped on the chance to be a Death Eater himself. Not to mention the deadly curse one of his books put on her on their first date.

"Actually, I have no idea what I was doing with such an asshole, honestly. Thanks, Gene, you're a good listener." Penny genuinely felt better. She didn't need Donn. She had a great job, she was making friends, and she knew all the best spots in London to go for lunch. She was tens time better than him, at least.

"So," Penny started, as they approached the block where her favorite momo place was, "Poker. Sounds like a cool game. I'd be terrible at it, I reckon, since I'm not great at lying," Penny lied, just to see if Gene would believe her.

"Ah, here it is," Penny said and pointed to the humble place. It was little more than a counter with a bar and some high top seats on the sidewalk, covered with an awning to protect against the rain.

Penny took a seat on one of the stools and gestured for Gene to join her. On the other side of the counter one man was filling and dumplings and handing them off to a woman who crimped the dumplings closed with an almost super-human speed. Next to them was a large bamboo tray filled with beautiful little momos all being steamed.

"What do you have today?" She asked the woman. They always had different flavors when she went to this place.

"Spinach momo, tandoori momo, vegetable momo in chili sauce, and goat momo," she responded without breaking her stride crimping dumplings.

Penny held back, letting Gene choose first. She was super excited about the choices available today.

Temper issues… family baggage… this bloke sounded like the whole package. “What a piece of,” he decreed, a little more stridently than was proper; he lowered his voice a tad to finish, “shit.” This seemed good enough for Penny, who possibly had not wanted to discuss it in such detail at all; she thanked him for his alleged listening skills (he’d listened to all of three sentences) and they moved along.

Gene, having no clue what to do with the conversation now other than ask about work (he’d kind of already done that, asking how her week was going) or if she was seeing anybody else (it was way too soon for that, right?), was glad that she turned it back on him, as he was perhaps the one person he could reliably discourse about for any length of time. “Oh, I’m sure you’d be fine at poker,” he said, “Isn’t just about lying, you know, it’s about playing your cards right.” Also, for whatever reason, she didn’t strike him as a bad liar – she seemed a little too sure of herself all the time to mean that.

There wasn’t even a door, at this place; Gene followed Penny over to the counter and hoisted himself atop one of the stools, propping his heels on the rail and trying surreptitiously to arrange his knees to jut off in the direction that Penny wasn’t sitting. Across the glass, two beleaguered restaurateurs were manufacturing the momos (what a word); Gene tried to find a menu absolutely anywhere, but Penny skipped the middle man.

“Er,” said Gene, “Tandoori, please.” He wasn’t wild about tandoori but he didn’t like spinach, he didn’t like chilis, and he didn’t like goat. “That hasn’t got sauce on it, has it? Can I do it without sauce?”

He glanced back at Penny as she ordered. She seemed to be bearing up reasonably through this breakup with this mysterious arsehole, so he doubted he should ask about it; he said, after a moment, “So… how’s your boss then? Still driving you into the dirt?”