75 Godiva Street, Monday Afternoon

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Another weird weekend and Hardison wasn't entirely sure what to do with it. Being a teen seemed a lot more fraught than being a little kid and that wasn't even taking getting beaten up by a tiny version of his boyfriend into account.

But that wasn't the main issue on his mind right now. Hardison was looking at the howling wasteland that was their kitchen and shaking his head. Tiny!Parker had kindly left some of his sodas behind during her burglary spree, but not much else.

"How'm I supposed to get breakfast?" Hardison asked Val, who was sitting by his feet. "No bowls, no fridge--I'm pretty sure she even stripped the countertops!"

Hopefully she hadn't gotten very far with their belongings, or Eliot was going to have to remodel their kitchen. Again.

[Open! Will pickup pings when I'm conscious again.]

Comments

[vdistinctive]

Eliot had spent the weekend hiding out on the preserve, which was thankfully much less crowded than the damn beach around here. On Saturday, that was because he was a broody, emotional mess who couldn't be trusted around people. On Sunday -- it was because he was a broody, emotional mess who couldn't be trusted around people and old enough to know better. But as tempting as it was to just hide out as a hermit for the foreseeable future, he knew he had to face the music eventually. So he headed home.

Plus, he really needed to wash his hair.

He stopped dead in the doorway when he saw Hardison in the kitchen. What was left of the kitchen. Maybe he could claim that he was freezing up because of Parker's thoroughness. Hardison wouldn't believe it for a moment, but he could try. . . .

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"I know the loss of all that Williams-Sonoma is a damn tragedy," Hardison said without turning around, "but even that ain't enough to make you go all still like that."

See? Eliot had been right.

"Sup?" His voice was carefully neutral, giving nothing about his emotional state away. In part because he didn't even know what his emotional state was right now.

[vdistinctive]

Yeah, Hardison sounding that level and neutral was never a good sign. The man flipped out over the tiniest things -- he only went quiet like that when things were major. Eliot closed his eyes with a wince, wishing he could find his own teenage self and kick him in the ass.

"You want me to clear out for awhile," he said, his own voice just as even. "I'll understand."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Dammit Eliot," Hardison said with a sigh, "Just gotta put it all out there up front. Can't let a man figure stuff out in his own time."

He turned around finally, looking at Eliot. Val also ran over to him, sniffing in excitement, cataloguing all the time he'd been in the Preserve. The bruises hadn't gone away when he'd gotten older, and the cut on his lip pulled when he smiled a bit at her antics--though it faded fast enough when he looked at Eliot again.

"Let's just get through a conversation and breakfast before we start making any big decisions, okay?"

It wasn't a yes?

[vdistinctive]

It wasn't a no, either.

Eliot was pretty sure trying to talk about anything else first would just make everything worse, but he didn't really feel like he was in any sort of position to turn Hardison down. So he just nodded, shoving his hands into his pockets as he came into the kitchen proper.

"Parker take all the food?" he asked. "Or just the stuff with processed sugar?"

[geniuswithasmartphone]

No worries, Hardison had meant having a conversation about the weekend. There was no way he could focus for long on talking about anything else. But there was no way they could talk at all if Eliot wasn't here to talk to.

"I ain't even had a chance to check," he replied. "Just had to take a second to appreciate the scope of her ambition."

[vdistinctive]

Eliot rubbed the back of his neck. "I, uh. Mighta encouraged her a little. She was stealin' from the diner, and teen-me kinda figured the big fancy house's kitchen was a better target."

Well. There. At least 'teen Eliot' had now been brought up.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Hardison laughed, but it was a tired sound. "Teen-you made a lot of choices over the weekend, didn't he?"

Particularly, ones that Eliot would come to regret as soon as he came back to his senses as an adult.

"Maybe we'll be lucky an' Parker ain't got too far with anything. Some on-island safehouse somewhere?"

For someone who'd intended to talk, he sure wasn't saying much.

[vdistinctive]

"Was tryin' to protect small businesses," Eliot said. Because not everything he'd done as a teenager had been terrible.

Just most of it.

"One of the abandoned warehouses, I'd guess." Eliot was just going to follow Hardison's lead, here. "It'd take time to set up fences for all this stuff, and she wouldn't know what was on the other end of the causeway."

[whoisalicewhite]

Parker was looking just a little sheepish. Because while she was proud of her teenage self, she kind of thought the guys would be... less than pleased right now.

"Take out for breakfast?"

[vdistinctive]

Eliot gave a small nod, and exhaled through his nose in what might almost be called a laugh, if the circumstances were different.

"Real breakfast," he said. "I'm guessing you ain't ate much more than ice cream in awhile."

[whoisalicewhite]

"There were chips," Parker admitted, shifting from foot to foot. "At Steve and Tony's party." She paused and bumped into him, watching him closely. "Did you eat? After I ran away?"

[vdistinctive]

"I was a teenage boy, darlin'," Eliot said, leaning into that bump a little. "It takes a lot to keep 'em from eating."

[whoisalicewhite]

"Good," Parker nodded firmly. Then hesitated. "He-- you-- didn't scare me. That's not why I ran away. Just so you know."

[vdistinctive]

"I probably should have," Eliot said. "But nah, I gather I just managed to piss you off."

[whoisalicewhite]

"Yeah. And after I talked to little Alec, I was going to lay all these traps here in the house. It's-- a good thing you didn't come back." And that she'd had time to take them down yesterday. So. Sorry, not sorry?"

[vdistinctive]

"Traps," Eliot said. He rubbed his forehead. "Fucking hell."

He'd been a real piece of work as a teen.

[whoisalicewhite]

To be fair, so had Parker. She'd just been an un-aimed primed grenade, unlike Eliot, who was being pointed at everything not 'normal.'

"They probably wouldn't have killed you," Parker added, trying to reassure him. "But there would have been trips to the Clinic." She frowned, looking over at Hardison. "Which might have been fair. But." Okay, whose side was she supposed to be on here? Could she not be on someone's side?

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Think we're gonna need takeout for a lotta meals, little mama," Hardison said, reaching out to draw her into a hug. He really needed a hug right now, and she, at least, was safe. She wasn't an emotional minefield waiting to happen. "You did not kid around when it came to this place, did you?"

[whoisalicewhite]

Clinging to Hardison wasn't something she usually did; but letting him cling, then burrowing in, was. And it was good to have tall-confident-known Hardison back. "I had plans for how to make money off the house, too. Eventually." She sighed into his neck, and whispered, "Are you okay?"

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Hardison paused, wanting to be tall-confident-known Hardison for a little while longer, and then shook his head. "Not really," he admitted in a low voice. "Kinda a jumble here. Ain't the first time I landed in the clinic cause of this damn fool island messin' with Eliot's head. Problem is, probably ain't gonna be the last, either."

And that was a problem.

[whoisalicewhite]

Parker squeezed him a little too tightly. "Would you feel better if you punched him?" She was way out of her depth here. How did you fix something like this? "Or you can borrow my taser."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Nah, but thanks, mama." He knew how special the taser was to her. "Punchin' don't fix things between people you love," he said. "An' it ain't like it's really his fault. Not our Eliot's. Just the kid he used to be."

Hardison would admit to having some non-charitable thoughts about punching teen!Eliot, though.

[whoisalicewhite]

"That kid needed to be shoved into a lot more snow," Parker said, frowning. "How did he even decide to beat you up?" It was baffling. "Did he just want to beat up a geek?"

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Not quite that cut-and-dried," Hardison came in. "He came in an' was an asshole to me, so I was a dick back. Kept goadin' him about the gay thing. Wouldn't stop, even after he took the first swing."

Because there was pride in going down talking shit, even though you were still going down.