75 Godiva, Friday

[vdistinctive]

So. Hardison and Parker were officially going to be moving in. The first rush of "yes, please, be where I can keep an eye on you and make sure you're not turning into creepy zombie versions (or alien bug versions, or any other kind of creepy versions) of yourselves" had worn off, and Eliot was starting to realize what that actually meant, logistically. The house couldn't just be his place, anymore. He had to make sure that they had the space to make it their own, too. It wasn't as if Eliot's house was small, but, well. He'd been living there for coming up on three years now. It had stuff in it.

So today, Eliot was cleaning house. He'd cleared out the dining room (never used, they always ate in the kitchen, so that'd be great as, like, an office or study or something) and was now tackling the basement.

Which would be how a box full of bear traps ended up on his front stoop.

He had no idea what he was going to do with those.

[open!]

Comments

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan had been out walking the dog. Just that. Just walking the dog. And normally Stance was fairly well-behaved. Kanan didn't tend to bother with the leash when the island was behaving itself, because he was, so far as puppies went, something of a suck-up, trotting in step beside Kanan and only wandering off for the occasional sniff of this and that when his curiosity got the better of him. Kanan had the Force to thank for that in a fairly large way; Stance tended to have a pretty good sense for when wandering off was going to end poorly, when he and Kanan were on the same wavelength.

So imagine Kanan's surprise, just for a moment, when Stance, slightly overwhelmed by the scent of cookies hanging in the air everywhere, decided to take off at a gallop to investigate the box on Eliot's doorstep as they passed by. Maybe that was where the smells came from! And smells were great!

Yeah, if anybody wanted to see a grown man take a flying tackle at a gawky leaping six-month-old rainbow-spotted puppy, today was their lucky day. Not that he suspected any of those traps were set to go off, but Kanan wasn't about to take any chances around this place, thank you very much.

[vdistinctive]

Eliot opened his door to set another box on the stoop -- another box of bear traps, even, look, it wasn't his fault -- just in time to see that tackle.

He just stood there and watched for a moment.

"Kanan," he greeted. "How's it going?"

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan... coughed, from where he was laying on the flat of his back on the ground, arms wrapped around a wriggling, excited puppy who now wanted to go and investigate Eliot. Did you smell like cookies today, Eliot? Did you? Huh?

"Dog," Kanan reported. "Everything is pretty much going dog right now."

Stance stepped on Kanan's stomach in his excitement. Kanan made a 'woof' sound of his own.

[vdistinctive]

Everything smelled like cookies today.

Eliot chuckled, shuffling the clanking box to one arm so he could reach down and pet Stance. "Yeah, dogs'll do that. You need a hand there?"

[uncertain_dume]

"No. Maybe." Stance was now sitting down on top of Kanan, looking up happily at Eliot. He liked pettings! Pettings were the best! "Probably. We're still working on 'don't go running at strange things.' He's usually better at it, but the smell everywhere is tripping him up."

[vdistinctive]

"Yeah, Val's been goin' a little nuts today, too." Though that might also be the strange packing and retrieving of things that were last seen during the crazy times! Eliot set the second box down on the first and went to gently shoo or pick Stance up off Kanan. "Honestly, it's kinda weirdin' me out, too."

[uncertain_dume]

Well, now you had a spotty dog in your arms, Eliot. Enjoy that for a moment while Kanan rolls over and picks himself up again.

"You mean the way it's everywhere and there isn't a single baked good to be found? I'd be lying if I said I wasn't thinking of heading to J,GoB just so that I can pretend whatever I buy is what's giving off the smell. My head might know better, but nobody has to tell my nose."

[vdistinctive]

Eliot was delighted to have a spotty dog in his arms. "You shoulda seen me trying to cook breakfast. Eggs are not supposed to smell like that. Are they, Stance? Noooo." He caught himself being goofy and coughed once to cover. While rubbing the dog's ears. "I'd offer to join ya, but I'm a little busy today."

With the boxes of bear traps and all.

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan saw you there, Eliot. And he wasn't going to say a word about it, but he was definitely going to smirk all the same.

"Busy, huh? Looks a bit like you're expecting a pack of venomous lisks to come stampeding through or something." He squinted down at the boxes. "Or... Not expecting them anymore, I guess. Cleaning house?"

[vdistinctive]

"Whatever a lisk is," Eliot grumbled. He gave Stance a final fluffing and then set him back down. "Cleaning house. There was a whole -- thing. Couple years back. Elder god, people goin' crazy. . . . It's a long story."

Though, really, that kind of summed it up right there.

[uncertain_dume]

"Seems to me like you've got the gist of it covered," Kanan mused, smiling and reaching down to rest a hand on Stance's head. "You ever catch anything in those, or were they just precautionary?"

[vdistinctive]

"Not a damn thing," Eliot said. "Thank god."

If Hardison actually HAD stuck his foot in one Eliot would never have heard the end of it. Well, except for how Eliot probably would have just run away to be a hermit in the Gobi Desert or something when he recovered and realized what he'd done. Hardison probably still would have tracked him down just to make sure he never heard the end of it, though.

"The snare traps, on the other hand. . . . Parker was pretty pissed at me for that one."

[uncertain_dume]

"You caught Parker?!" Kanan wasn't sure whether to be amused or horrified. Since Parker still seemed to be alive and well these days, he settled on amused. "Okay, so was that because she went crazy, or you did?"

None of his business? No? Yes? Either way, Kanan was offering Eliot an out.

"You figure out what you're going to do with all this?"

[vdistinctive]

"I did," Eliot said with a sigh. "Not my proudest moment." Not even close. He still regularly had to remind himself that there were some seriously extenuating circumstances. "And no, not yet. Just know I gotta get 'em out of the house, finally. You want 'em?"

[uncertain_dume]

"Do I want two boxes of large animal traps?" Kanan looked at Eliot like he was crazy all over again for a moment. Then... nodded. "I mean, who knows when they'll come in handy around here. Sure."

They'd be great if the island ever found itself overrun by mindless hungry things again.

Kanan was apparently not going to let Eliot have a monopoly on the crazy.

[vdistinctive]

And he didn't even have "cursed by an elder god" as an excuse. "They're all yours," Eliot said. ". . . Don't suppose you'd be into a couple of boxes of old surveillance equipment, too?"

When Eliot went nuts, he didn't do it by halves.

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan barked out a laugh at that one. Stance just barked.

"Really? I mean, I might be able to find some kind of use for it, but I doubt it'll be surveillance by the time I'm through. Or, uh, not all of it, at least."

This was only encouraging his paranoid tendencies, Eliot.

"Maybe I should at least have a look at that before I agree to anything. Earth's technology is a bit different from what I know. I might not know what to do with it anyway."

[vdistinctive]

"C'mon in, then." Eliot opened the door and waved the two of them inside. "Place is a bit of a wreck right now. I wouldn't be botherin', but if Hardison moves in and this crap is still in the basement, he's gonna give me hell."

[uncertain_dume]

"Moves in, huh?" Kanan, stop it with the little grin there. "Had enough of living alone, huh?"

So much was made clear, here. Or, all least, so much of the housekeeping was. Kanan stepped inside, followed shortly behind by the dog.

"... I've seen worse."

Given the places Kanan had stayed, this was not actually a helpful statement.

[vdistinctive]

A slightly doofy smile made its way across Eliot's face, and he banished it with effort. "Just makes sense, man, my place is bigger'n theirs and splittin' time between here and there just gets tiring." He gave Kanan a raised eyebrow as they got to the living room, now overtaken almost entirely by boxes. "Weren't you raised on a cargo ship or somethin'?"

[uncertain_dume]

"Actually," Kanan said, stepping into the living room and taking a look around at the boxes. "I was raised in a temple."

Which almost made this sound like high praise after all, didn't it?

"That said, I'm more used to freighter cargo holds these days than anything else. I might as well have been raised in one." He gestured around at the boxes. "This is pretty cozy. I'm sure they'll love it."

Brat.

[vdistinctive]

"You're hilarious, kid." Eliot might have put a little extra emphasis on the 'kid' there. He wanted this place to be perfect for his people. It was a tiny bit stressful! "S'pose you wouldn't recognize what three years of livin' someplace looks like."

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan gave a little snort at that, watching Stance closely as the pup started sniffing around. If there was anything he could get his nose caught in, he wanted to avoid having to tackle his dog a second time today.

"I'm only starting to get my head around what a few months of living someplace looks like. Apparently it comes with a dog. Nobody told me it came with a dog."

But such was life.

"And judging by the animal traps and the surveillance equipment, three years of living here is its own special creature anyway."

[vdistinctive]

"Reasonably certain those don't come standard." They were what happened when a curse cranked your paranoia up past eleven. "But I wouldn't be surprised if most folks around here had somethin' bizzare sittin' in a box on a shelf somewhere."

[uncertain_dume]

"You know, now I'm going to have to start asking around. 'Strangest thing you have in your home thanks to Fandom Island and why the hell you're still keeping it.'"

Because for Kanan, the dog was still the weirdest part. But then, he was about to bring home a couple of boxes of bear traps, so maybe he was going to have to reconsider his position on strange things to keep around the home.