Office hours, Wednesday

[vdistinctive]

Eliot straightened up from where he'd been installing screens behind the vent grates. He hadn't held office hours since the unfortunate gremlin incident three weeks ago, and he wasn't taking any chances with ending up convinced he was something considerably worse than a giant six year old bird.

Val looked at the vent and then up at Eliot and whimpered. He sighed and scratched behind her ears. "Yeah, I know. But I ain't crazy this time. And besides, these vents are too small for Parker, anyway."

Yeah, the similarities to his lovely psychotic break wasn't helping his peace of mind much, either. But at least he hadn't busted out any bear traps.

[Open office is open! Just not to gremlins.]

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[vdistinctive]

It took Eliot longer than he'd care to admit to figure out why Hardison had just made a big deal about giving him a bag of mulitcolored paper clips.

Someone was repressing their gremlin bite very, very hard.

"Oh good," he said finally, tossing the bag from hand to hand. "Now I'll have plenty of ammunition for when I finally decide to kill you."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Plenty, huh?" Hardison said, scooping Val up to give her more love and certainly not as an adorable puppy-shield. "Like, how many? You wanna take a sec an' count 'em first?"

Your boyfriend was a troll, Eliot. FYI.

[vdistinctive]

Oh yes. He'd noticed. Mind you, it probably didn't help that Eliot was such a good target for it.

He growled and put the bag down on his desk. "You come in here just to irritate me?"

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Of course not!" Hardison said, looking insulted.

"...I also wanted puppy cuddles."

You had to have known that was coming, Eliot. Had to.

[vdistinctive]

Val tipped her head back to lick Hardison's nose.

"I couldn't've gotten a mean dog," Eliot lamented. "Oh no, I had to get a sucker for cuddling."

That was what happened when your dog was happy and well-adjusted, Eliot.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

And thus we saw how hard Hardison had fallen, not just for Eliot but for Val as well. Because not only did he not protest the nose-lick, he actually gave the puppy a dopey grin and another scritch. Not a complaint about germs or diseased to be heard.

"It's all your fault, y'know," he told Eliot. "She learned it from watchin' you, Mr. Touch-My-Hair-An'-I-Bliss-Out."

[vdistinctive]

"I don't --" Eliot started, then gave up because, yeah, when Hardison or Parker did it, that was entirely true. Or admittedly when anyone else he was involved with sexually. There was a reason he grew it out long, after all. It wasn't like long hair was an advantage in a fight. "Shut up."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Hardison grinned at him. "All I do is win win win no matter what," he sang, coming into the office and claiming one of the chairs for himself. "Got money on my mind an' can't never get enough."

Admittedly, that was more Parker's line than his.

[vdistinctive]

Careful, Hardison, or Eliot will make you practice playing darts again.

"The hell're you singing?"

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Hardison rolled his eyes. "Somethin' new an' hip, so obviously you wouldn't know it." Said the guy who had a Hall and Oates calendar in his office. "Ain't got a single truck or tractor in it."

[vdistinctive]

"Neither does most of what I listen to." More than half, certainly. Probably. "Don't suppose it has any soul in it, either. . . ."

It was hard to tell. Hardison wasn't the best singer. Certainly not when he was just singing at the dog.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Rude! Look, they couldn't all be semi-famous country stars. And baseball players. And hockey players. And chefs. And...

Damn, Eliot was talented.

"Actually, you know, it ain't half bad. Hang on, lemme play it for you." Val was temporarily deprived of pets as Hardison, pulled out his phone and started playing a song.

...It wasn't DJ Khaled.

[vdistinctive]

". . . Huh." Eliot leaned his elbows on his desk as he listened. "That actually ain't half bad. Sounds a little like they're throttlin' that poor guitar, though."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

If Hardison rolled his eyes any harder, he might cause himself physical damage. "Big words after you tried to make me take down Youtube an' scrub all the videos of you performin' it off the net."

[vdistinctive]

Eliot had been nervous, okay? That sometimes led to guitar strangling.

"Which I notice ya still haven't done, yet."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"I notice you still don't understand how the internet works," Hardison said, looking up to the ceiling for divine intercession. "I did crash Youtube an' take--" most of "--'em down. But that don't delete them off people's phones or hard drives or whatever. They re-upload 'em."

[vdistinctive]

"Can't you write some kinda disease thing to automatically take 'em back down again?" That was at least half-joke. For one, Eliot knew the term "computer virus".

[geniuswithasmartphone]

The glare Hardison was shooting him suggested he wasn't entirely sure that was true. "I could," he said slowly. "But what's in it for me?"

[vdistinctive]

". . . Not gettin' kidnapped by a bounty hunter out to collect half a million from Myanmar?"

Look, he teased and all, but Eliot really did have some enemies out there he had to be careful about.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"What did you even--never mind, I ain't even askin'."

Did it sometimes bother Hardison that his bounties were never as high as Eliot and Parker's? Yes. Yes it did. He had thief-envy.

"A'ight, a'ight, gimme a sec an' I'll code you a virus. But only cause I ain't never wanted to visit Myanmar. You got a bounty out on you for, like, Bali or Aruba an' you're on your own." Beat. "There."

Yes, he'd coded a virus, on his phone, in roughly the amount of time it took him to say a few sentences. What? Was he new?

[vdistinctive]

Hardison really didn't want to know what Eliot had done to earn a half-million bounty, no. "I've got bounties out on me in six countries," he said. "Not bein' a FaceTube star or whatever helps with all of 'em." But no, none of them were Aruba or Bali.

Eliot smiled when Hardison finished. "I ever mention how hot it is that you can do that?"

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Excellent way to short-circuit a mini-rant on the proper title of a website, Eliot!

Hardison's startled look turned to one of shy pleasure for a moment before quickly being covered up by an expression of cocky confidence. Like Eliot didn't already know he was a giant squishball or anything. "Well, ain't nothin' comin' to mind," he said, grinning. "So even if you did once, it clearly ain't enough. Feel free to go on."

[vdistinctive]

"You just wrote a virus targeted at one of the largest websites on the internet on your phone, man," Eliot said, demonstrating that whatever curdmudgeonly attitude he took, he had picked up on a few tech details over the years. "I don't even have to be a geek to know that's hot."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

That grin, Eliot. Did you see what you had caused? Of course you did, Hardison's grin was almost too big for the office.

"Aww, an' here, I ain't even think you noticed."

[vdistinctive]

That grin was large enough that Val felt the need to sit up and bark excitedly at it.

"You spend half your time showin' off, man, how was I supposed to not notice?"