What, was &quot;Rudy&quot; on cable last night?

"I can get your brush." Parker wandered in, still human, and cranky about it. ALthough, seeing the tangle Eliot was in was going far to reconcile her to it. "What is all this stuff in your feathers?"

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It'd be easier if he wasn't a little too awkardly shaped for the shower right now. "Chocolate milk. Cotton candy. Whatever crap the sky is dumping on us, today."

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"Oh, of course." Parker flopped down on the couch, and ran the brush over his head, first. She grimaced. "I'd say it isn't fair because I want to be a flying cheetah. But Hardison might bite me, and, well. This doesn't look anything but itchy on you."

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Eliot sat down on the floor in front of her and leaned into the brushing. Holy crap, that was almost better than when she played with his human hair.

"It's pretty gross," he said after a moment of luxuriating in being brushed. "I had to dice tomatoes today with my claws."

Had to, wanted to try to. . . .

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"How well did that work?" Parker asked, curious. She flicked the brush to get some of the dried candy out of his feathers, amused at how relaxed Eliot was becoming. "I just hung out on the roof and yelled at the sky. Then parkour'd around a bit... did you see there's a new tower in the middle of the park?" She worked her fingers through part of his fur, separating out the strands that had gotten all sticky. "Do you think a bath would help?"

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There was a reason cats and birds both basically melted when someone they trusted pet their heads. "Mmm," he said. "Yeah. Kinda matches the maze, I guess. Not sure I'd fit in the bathtub." He was not small as a griffon. Which was part of the fun, but also part of the irritation. Funny how that happened. "How'd the parkour go on the soap streets?"

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"Mostly I stuck to the roofs. No soap there. But I did get one long slide down Unicorn that was awesome." She grinned, and rubbed her knuckles over the place on his shoulders where his wings met his back. His feathers were getting all super-fluffy, and Parker was still sad to be left out of this animal transformation, but at least she could take care of her guys better this way. "It looks like a princess tower. I'm gonna climb it tomorrow maybe." Brush fluff, brush-fluff!

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Oh good lord that was good. Those were muscles Eliot didn't even usually have. He arched into it, his head back, beak in the air.

The noise he made might have been a purr.

"Sounds fun. Maybe I'll fly over and join you."

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"Cool." Parker hummed, amused by the purring, and made sure to scritch that spot again. "Hardison sounded super-annoyed on Radio this morning. I hope it got better for him. Maybe he'd like his mane brushed too."

She was so going to break out the hair-brush when Eliot was back to human, and make him sit still for lots more playing with his hair.

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Just so long as she didn't braid it.

Actually, he'd totally let her braid it.

"I bet he would. He doesn't even usually have hair. Gotta take advantage of it while ya can."

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"He has hair. On his face." Which was also not long enough to braid, so. "Good plan. Unless I get to wake up as a flying jaguar or cheetah tomorrow." She fluffed the tuft of feathers on top of Eliot's head. "I looked up griffons. They're protectors." So totally appropriate for him.

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"Yeah," Eliot agreed, and tried to gently nip her fingers. "All noble and hooey."

"Hooey" had not been the word he was aiming for, Fandom.

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"Hooey?" Parker gave her snorting giggle, and flicked a finger at his beak. "That's a new one."

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"Yeah, yeah." Eliot laid his head in her lap and sighed. "This would be so much cooler without all the weird cartoony extras."

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"Awwwwww." Parker petted his head, and ran careful fingers around the feathers near his eyes. "Maybe you'll turn into a bigger griffon with less cartooniness sometime. Or I'll turn into a cartoony ferret." She cocked her head, considering that. "I could get so much done that way, if I could remember stuff and talk while I was a ferret, wow."

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Eliot laughed. "I actually prefer you human, you know."

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"Well, I'd hope so!" She gave him a kiss between his eyes, then sighed and sat back, still stroking his feathers. "But we gotta time this better, one of us is always getting left out." She cocked her head and added, "We could be cartoony humans, I guess. Maybe the weird physics would work better for us then."

Parker, you already break the laws of physics all the time.

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"You tryin' to give this island ideas, now?" Eliot asked, almost half asleep with her lap as a pillow.

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"Maybe." She smirked down at him, and added, "As long as it's paying attention..."

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"What else're you gonna tell it?"

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"That's for me to know. And you to never see coming."

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Eliot chuckled happily into her lap. "Oh sure, make me paranoid."

He didn't need help with that, Parker.

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"I got junk in my mane and tail, too, you know," Hardison mentioned. Not that he was specifically asking to be brushed or anything. Just, you know, putting it out there.

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"Awww. And it's such a pretty mane, too. All those colors." Parker smirked at him a little. "Would you let me braid it if I brushed it, maybe?"

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If Parker looked closely enough, she'd realize that his hair was the exact same shade as Squeeze Orange soda and gummy frogs. Hardison wasn't sure what the island was insinuating with that bit of detail, but whatever it was, he was ignoring it completely.

"Is there enough to braid?" he asked, a little dubious. "It ain't as long as Eliot's."

There was plenty, he just wasn't used to having this much. Or this texture.

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"Maybe a teeny one," Parker coaxed. "Just to see if you like it." As much as it annoyed her to be left out of magic-talking-animal-time, it was kind of fun to get to play with two life-size talking fluffy versions of Hardison and Eliot. "You didn't get chocolate milk in your mane like Eliot did, did you?"

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"...I made the kitchen staff hose me off 'fore I came over here," Hardison muttered.

As grumpy as he was right now, the chocolate milk clouds had been drawn to him like bees to nectar.

"An' paid for a covered rickshaw ride from there."

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That got him a hug around the neck for all that inconvenience and annoyance. "You completely deserve a sulk." She patted his nose and added, "It's not gonna last forever?"

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Hardison nuzzled Parker. A very horsey nuzzle. "You ain't scared of me?" he asked. Because, you know. Pony. It's what he'd been most afraid of before showing up. A Parker that didn't want to get anywhere near him.

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Parker smiled, and then leaned in to whisper in his ear. "Every-pony else is scarier," she said, as quiet as she could. "But you sound like you. And I can't-- I just can't be scared of you."

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Hardison gave a great horsey sigh of relief. "I'm glad of that, mama," he admitted. "The thought of you bein' scared of me for any reason is horrible."

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Parker hummed, then scratched underneath his jaw, looking for any itchy spots. "I'm getting better about horses. And Pinkie isn't scary. But yeah, all these ponies everywhere was... startling." To say the least. That might have contributed to her being on the roofs all day yesterday. "I heard you on the Radio, though, and you sounded so you. So."

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Very grumpy and a little bitter, yes, but unmistakably him. "I was gonna see if you wanted me to stay at Eliot's this week so you didn't have to be freaked out," Hardison admitted, eyes closing and giving a little whicker as she found a particularly itchy spot. "I mean, we still can't really all curl up together, but at least we can be in the same room or whatever."

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"I'm not leaving either of you alone to be unable to open jars of peanut butter or need brushing without help." Parker blew a raspberry. "And just 'cause you guys are kinda too big for all the furniture doesn't mean I'm going to skimp on hugs." She smiled though. "But that's sweet, that you thought of that. Does it feel weird? Weirder than it looks?"

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"Definitely feels weird, but only when I'm thinkin' about it," Hardison said. "That's the scariest part. Like, if I ain't thinkin' about how much I'd like to have my thumbs, it doesn't feel as weird as it, like, should."

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"Yo, was that a pony joke?" Hardison asked, sulking as hard as a cartoon pony could sulk. In most circumstances, he wouldn't mind being a pony so much, but he has just stopped being a teddy bear. This was entirely TOO SOON.

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"What?" Eliot looked up from his attempts to self-groom and scowled faintly. "Nah, it's just what I figure might actually work on this gunk in my pelt."

"Gunk" was not the word he'd meant to use, there.

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"How come you get to be a griffon an' I'mma damn pony?" Hardison grumped. "At least you get claws. How'm I supposed to work a keyboard with only hooves?!"

He would be surprised at how well he could type when he got around to trying it. It wasn't easy, no, but it was surprisingly possible.

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"Yeah, it's much better to slice everything I touch instead of crushing it," Eliot said. He didn't look nearly as grumpy about that as he probably should. "Might as well ask why I was a wolverine and you turned into a teddy-bear, man, there ain't no reason to it all."

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