75 Godiva, Saturday night

[vdistinctive]

Eliot considered swinging by the diner to get his spare change of clothes, but honestly, all he wanted was a nice, hot shower in his own damn bathroom. He'd been in worse spots, certainly, and for much longer.

But he wasn't sure he'd ever been in weirder.

Val went barrelling over as soon as he put his key in the door, and he swooped down to scoop her up and let her lick his chin even though he had god only knew what still stuck in his beard. "Honeys," he called. "I'm home!"

[ooc: for thems as live here]

Comments

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Damn right I am!" Hardison's arms were crossed over his chest now. "Cause you somehow missed the brew pub!"

They really did love each other, gentle readers.

[vdistinctive]

This was just how they showed it.

"Right, the restaurant you were just hopin' I'd notice you bought for me."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Theirs was a special kind of love.

"Who else would I buy it for?" Hardison asked. "Man, I only heard you complain about breweries for years first!"

[vdistinctive]

"How the hell should I know?! You bought a Ferrari to sell that damn Iceman con. It ain't like you're thrifty."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"...How many cars do you own?" Hardison asked. "I mean, besides the world's ugliest orange Camaro. I shouldn't even count that. It's less a car an' more a penance masqueradin' as a paint job."

Shots fired.

[vdistinctive]

"It's a Challenger," Eliot growled. "And it's damn gorgeous and you know it." And Eliot had let Hardison soup up the engine which if anyone wanted to talk about subtle signs of love and trust. . . . "I buy cars, yeah. And I buy kitchen stuff. I ain't bought a building in damn near every city I ever lived in, like some people."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

And Hardison had spent the better part of a week making sure he knew everything about Challengers and how they worked before he'd even touched it. Because, again, love and trust.

"Those buildings serve a useful purpose! Gives us a base of operations that nobody's gon' poke at! An' real estate is a damn useful investment!" Because money was a thing they'd ever have to worry about. Hardison knew a lot about investing. "Not like your orange Cadillac."

[vdistinctive]

"And you tryin' to pretend the Brewpub wasn't our base of operations in Portland?"

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Yeah, but now imagine if that same kinda thing happened in a building we didn't own," Hardison said.

[vdistinctive]

"So, again: how the hell was I supposed to know you were buyin' that place for me if you didn't tell me?"

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Why else would I buy a brew pub an' not, like, somethin' else?"

Honestly, Eliot. Keep up!

"Parker knew as soon as she saw me lookin' at the listin'!"

[vdistinctive]

"Because you have some kind of insane anchovy-and-pineapple agenda?" Eliot shook his head. "I'm guessin' you talked to Parker."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"I'd've bought a pizza place if it was just that," Hardison said. "An'--not about lookin' for somethin' for you. I hadn't even thought about it till I saw the listin'. But then Parker came up behind me an' asked if it was for you."

[vdistinctive]

Eliot went quiet a moment, just sipping his beer. ". . . That when y'all started talkin' about it? About, uh. Me?"

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Pretty much. I mean, what's the point of buyin' an Eliot trap if we didn't agree on what we needed it for?" Hardison said, mirroring Eliot's action. "Not that we had to talk about it much. Pretty obvious we both wanted the same thing."

[vdistinctive]

"Y'all knew you wanted it for that long." Eliot shook his head. "And you let me move to a freakin' island when we got to Baltimore."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Umm, what were we supposed to think?" Hardison asked. "I mean, we were all 'We change, we change together' one minute an' the next, you declared you were movin' to the island right after we all moved to Baltimore. We weren't sure if you were freakin' out or it was your way of sayin' no thanks or what!"

[vdistinctive]

"I was givin' you space!" Eliot said. "And . . . alright, I was givin' me some, too. It wasn't easy watchin' you two get more an' more couple-y and not know you wanted me in on it, too."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"So, that whole thing during the Rundown Job was...what, exactly?" Hardison asked. "Maybe we didn't lay the cards out on the table, exactly, but I thought we gave you a good long peek at what we were holdin'."

[vdistinctive]

"I didn't wanna. . . . If I assumed and I was wrong. . . ."

Eliot was pretty emotionally fragile, surely Hardison had noticed.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Which is why Hardison was pulling Eliot in close, swamp smell and all. "Then you can't complain that we didn't do nothin' to let you know you were wanted," he teased, before kissing his beloved, idiot boyfriend.

[vdistinctive]

"You didn't SAY IT," Eliot insisted. But let himself be hugged anyway.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Man, you can identify a dude by his haircut an' the way his shoes sound when he walks, but you needed us to spell it out for you in tiny words?"