75 Godiva Road, Sunday Afternoon

[geniuswithasmartphone]

At some point on Saturday--Hardison had stopped keeping track of time after his fifth shot of Red Bull and Orange Soda--Eliot and Parker had shown up at the library covered in shark goo and hustled him home, talking about sleep and showers and real food. Probably. By the time they'd shown up, Hardison had been hopped up on so much caffeine he could practically see through time and most of what they'd been saying had sounded like a teacher from the old Peanuts cartoons.

After almost twelve hours of solid sleep, a shower that felt great even though it was cold, and a breakfast that was too good to have come from the camp stove Eliot had cooked it on, Hardison was starting to feel like a person again. He was standing in the living room, staring out the window and sipping his cocoa. "We can fix up the guest room for the girls again," he was saying. "Let 'em stay with us. An' Luke's is busted, but the freezer's still workin' an' folks can get to--oh shit!"

That oh shit? Was for the two--no three--was that four sharks being propelled through the air towards their house. At high speed. "Get down!" he yelled flinging himself behind the couch, just before a total of five sharks slammed through the front walls of the house and causing serious structural damage to most of the downstairs.

He should have stayed in the library.

[For them that are there!]

Comments

[whoisalicewhite]

Parker went up, instead of down, because that was the way her monkey-brain was programmed. Also there was a lot of screeching comparable to a chimp's, as she started throwing knives at the incoming predators.

[vdistinctive]

Eliot looked up from the dishes at the "oh shit". Val howled -- honestly, she'd been really noisy since the storm got started, so that wasn't surprising -- and dove under the coffee table moaning. Eliot stayed in place just long enough to spot Parker diving for the rafters along with Hardison ducking behind the couch, then dropped down behind the kitchen island, arms going up over his head just in time to protect it from what felt like his entire Williams-Sonoma collection crashing down around him.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

The noise seemed to go on forever--probably due to the continued thrashing around of the sharks. "My electronics!" Hardison wailed as he tipped the couch backwards over him to provide a little more protection from shattered glass and bits of, well, house.

[vdistinctive]

"Can be repla --" Eliot's grumpy chastisement was cut abruptly short. By a hammerhead shark landing very nearly on top of him.

He'd read somewhere that you could disable a shark by punching it in the nose. That had sounded aggressively stupid at the time, and frankly still did, but there was a hammerhead shark basically in his lap and he frankly didn't have any other ideas.

Well. Other than using his boot-clad foot instead of his bare fist, anyway.

[whoisalicewhite]

"Don't go back for the laptop! You can build another one!"

Parker might have hid some things in the rafters, too, so-- "Eat fire, Toothy!"

fooooooooooooosh! That aerosol can she'd picked up somewhere came in handy after all.

"ELIOT WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"

[vdistinctive]

"Dammit, Parker!" Eliot kicked the shark's head away and glared up at the rafters. "How many times I gotta tell you to let me do my job?!" He narrowed his eyes at her weapon of choice. "And don't set the house on firNNNGH." The shark had swung its head back and in its panicked gnashing, managed to graze its teeth sharply over Eliot's calf. He yanked his leg away before it could dig in and try to take out his whole calf muscle, but only barely.

See, this was what happened when you distracted your hitter mid-hit.

He grabbed a cast iron frying pan off the floor and walloped it in the eye.

[whoisalicewhite]

"SEE, like that!" With weapons! And not... "Oh, crap, HARDISON ELIOT GOT HURT!"

Parker was now dropping crap on the sharks, because stay the hell away from her Eliot!

[geniuswithasmartphone]

And Hardison was vaulting over the couch because--that's what you did when your partner got attacked by a shark, apparently? You left all common sense behind and leapt into the fray like you were actually going to accomplish something.

In fairness, he at least knew this was a terrible idea. He was powerless to do anything else, but at least he knew.

"Aww hell naw!" he yelled, snatching up a chair and whacking the shark with it.

[vdistinctive]

Eliot was going to have so many words with his partners after this. So many.

"Panic room in the basement?" he suggested, trying to edge his way back from the death throes of the hammerhead without getting in the way of Hardison's wild swinging or Parker's flamethrower. (So many words.) He made it past the kitchen island, only to see a tiger shark draped across the entrance to the basement stairs. ". . . Or just, you know . . . outside."

In the storm. Full of sharks.

Eliot missed the alien abductions and getting turned into cartoon animals.

[whoisalicewhite]

"Could we get out of it again once we got in?" Parker flipped downward so she could be eye-to-eye with her partners, then saw the tiger shark. Upside down, but... "Okay, maybe we need a panic room that's. On the ground floor."

A neat flip and she was on her feet, looking at Eliot worriedly. "Um, we could go up on the roof? If your leg is okay for that?"

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Where's the closest first aid kit?" Hardison asked. He eyed the kitchen. "That ain't fulla shark? That can't be healthy, yo. Shark's mouths are all kinda gross."

...He was assuming.

[vdistinctive]

Eliot shrugged. "It's bleedin' fine, that'll keep it from gettin' infected too fast. Escape first, then triage." He limped roughly past the remains of his favorite blender (dammit) and surveyed the damage. "Roof is only asking to get hit by more sharks. We need some place fortified."

[whoisalicewhite]

Parker had picked up a couple more sauce-pans, and was holding them like cudgels. "Do you think we could get to City Hall?" She frowned, worried. "Is City Hall even still standing?"

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Hardison darted into the remains of the living room, making sad whale noises at the state of his electronics, then came back with Val's leash. "C'mon girl," he called, beckoning her over. He planned to hold her, but having her leashed seemed like a good idea anyway.

"Might be a bit far," he said. "Ain't there empty houses just on this street?"

[vdistinctive]

Eliot leaned against one of the remaining walls and nodded. "We'll grab what supplies we can carry, hole up over there. We can always move again if we have to."

What? He'd totally evacuated on worse than a bleeding leg.

"Hopefully the . . . frozen shark plan will work soon."

[whoisalicewhite]

"We are going to make soup out of the remains of our enemies when the storm is over," Parker said, nodding and looking a little vicious. Also she was now wondering how many of her bolt-holes were still intact, gah. "Plan. I have my tazer. I'm good to go."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"I'mma grab a couple of our bags," Hardison said, because they needed more supplies than just a tazer. They might need explosives that looked like toothpaste, for example! "I say we find the first place that looks stable and go in."

He didn't ask Eliot if he needed any help, just stood in leaning range once he'd grabbed their bugout bags.

[vdistinctive]

Eliot whistled for Val, then casually slung his arm around Hardison. This wasn't even the second time he had to use either partner as a crutch. "One of you grab the camp stove, too. For makin' the soup and all."

[whoisalicewhite]

Parker nodded and went to the cupboard where that was, and then made a grab for two other things. "And chocolate. And the peanut butter!"

Because of reasons.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"An' somethin' for me!" Hardison reminded, since he was allergic to peanuts and no one tried to get between Parker and chocolate if they wanted to live.

[vdistinctive]

Eliot gave a long suffering sigh. "Room-temperature orange soda, then."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Hardison leaned over and gave Eliot a kiss on his cheek. "Least I ain't askin' for the Red Bull, too."