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.]

Comments

[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?"

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"You spent a long time not noticin' a lot of things," Hardison pointed out, turning that grin towards Val for a moment because she really was the cutest.

[vdistinctive]

"And who finally asked who for a threesome?" Eliot asked. "You an' Parker had a great thing and I was perfectly happy just makin' sure nothin' happened to the two of you until you got too delirious to keep tryin' to be subtle."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Bought you. A brewpub." Hardison declared, because he was never going to let Eliot live down not realizing that had been a declaration. "Also, what? You remember The Rundown Job differently than I do or somethin'?"

[vdistinctive]

"You need to actually tell people when you buy them restaurants. It wasn't like I was looking at the paperwork on that thing." Eliot was never going to let Hardison live down being incompetent at gift giving, either. "I'm extremely certain that while I was getting shot on a subway you weren't asking for any threesomes."

Hell, for all Eliot knew, Hardison and Parker had been making out in the tunnel while he was bleeding and waiting for them to come back and help him finish tying up Udall already. (He was reasonably certain that was what they'd been doing, actually. It was an adrenaline thing.)

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Hardison wasn't going to answer that, no.

"Right, cause you look at me an' Parker an' the first thing you think is that we really wanna open a restaurant," he retorted. "The closest we get to fine dinin' without you is her extensive collection of sugar cereals, but we thought openin' a restaurant would be fun."

[vdistinctive]

"It was barely a restaurant at that point," Eliot said. "You were all gaga about your beer and Parker was having fun coming up with terrible marketing schemes. And it's not like either of you are exactly known for makin' sound business decisions."

Mr. 'I bought this Ferrari for the con isn't it amazing' and Ms. 'I like my money liquid so I can roll around on it naked'.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

In fairness, both Eliot and Hardison were both very pleased when Parker rolled around naked on her money.

"Well, we couldn't look like we hated it, especially not right off the bat," Hardison protested. "We just assumed you'd figure it out at some point."

[vdistinctive]

Well, yes, but that didn't make it a sound investment opportunity.

"Right. By the magic of your complete lack of any kind of indicator. Which is admittedly kind of impressive. It's not like you're subtle with anything else."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

She didn't need to make sound investments. That's why they had Hardison. Or was Eliot forgetting the incredible amount of money he'd handed all of them at the end of their first job?

"Which just makes it that much sadder you didn't pick up on me an' Parker both."

[vdistinctive]

"Because you have zero game." For real, Hardison. "And anyway, I kinda figured our roles were, you know, settled. You and Parker did your thing, and -- I protected you guys. Made sure you got to keep doing it." He shrugged. "It worked for us."

You know, the way all unrequited relationships based on one of the people thinking they didn't actually deserve what they wanted and convincing themselves that any signs from the other people they saw was just wishful thinking on their part worked.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Worked." You'd better believe that Hardison was using finger quotes for that one. "It left all three of us wantin' somethin' none of us were sure we could have. This now. This works for us."

[vdistinctive]

There might still be a part of Eliot half convinced the two of them were just obliging him. Because, you know, it wasn't like they'd gone to weird lengths trying to woo him or anything.

"This works, too," Eliot agreed. "I'm just sayin', buying a brewpub isn't the best first move when you haven't even managed to let a guy know anything was on the table."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

One day, Hardison was going to grab him by his wolf pendant and shake him until he acknowledged that they loved him far too fiercely to simply be 'obliging' him. One day.

"It was step one of a multistep process," Hardison sniffed. "Which woulda eventually culminated in us bein' on a table, probably. Wearing bows an' pretty smiles so you'd know for sure what we meant."

[vdistinctive]

Now there was a mental image.

"See, now, most people would do that in the opposite order."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Hardison just looked at him. "First of all, we're thieves. When we ever do anything like other people do? Second, we're us. Even more of all that, c'mon now!"

[vdistinctive]

"Yeah, what you seem to be missin' is that there are reasons some things are done the way they're done, Hardison."