75 Godiva, Wednesday

[vdistinctive]

The house was gutted down to studs, many of which had been rearranged to make the new configuration of rooms the team had agreed on. Eliot was working on framing the new upper story now, which meant a hard hat, tool belt, gloves, the works.

Seriously, he had this whole men-at-work carpenter look down up here. He hoped his partners appreciated it. Lord knew he did on the few occasions Hardison got down and dirty with a maker get up. He wondered how much Hardison would fuss about the sawdust if they tried to fool around in (a carefully cleared area of) the construction site. . . .

Work was happening, if a little slow. Since the carpenter kept distracting himself with idle fantasies.

[yeah I dunno. Open! Eliot should be visible from the street while he works. . . .]

Comments

[whoisalicewhite]

Parker was wandering around with a hard-hat on. And a tape-measure. Mostly to see if there was space for a hidden stairway as well as the proposed re-designed panic room.

She did pause to give Eliot an appreciative grin.

"An outside slide spiraling off the roof would be cool."

[vdistinctive]

Eliot rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "We're not buildin' a funhouse here, darlin'," he pointed out. ". . . Would be useful for quick evacuations, though."

Who decided these two should collaborate on designing a living space?

[whoisalicewhite]

"It would! And you know we'll need to quickly evacuate again sometime," Parker agreed, rising up on her toes. "It could be either a real slide, or one of those net tubes. Whichever one Hardison could manage easiest."

It went without saying that the two of them might be just jumping off the roof.

[vdistinctive]

"It's Hardison. We might be best off stockin' up on sedatives and carryin' him out bodily, if it comes to that."

[whoisalicewhite]

"Maaaybe. But if we make it fun for him, maybe he'll use it." And maybe Parker will have a lot of fun with it before that. Parker leaned into Eliot and said, "There could be a hidden staircase too, right. Or a passage-way."

[myownface]

Sparkle had just been out walking. Just... walking. He had a lot of pent-up antsiness since the whole surprise Toronto trip, and while having a functional business again helped with a lot of that, he was still looking for ways to burn it off.

Which meant, of course, that he was pausing to kind of stare at Eliot for a bit from the street. Not just because it was a nice view (and hahahahaha oh god Sparkle would never tell Eliot that anyway), but also because, look, another potential distraction.

On a whim, he called out from the street, "Hey! How much would I slow you down if I asked you to show me how to swing a hammer?"

[vdistinctive]

Eliot looked down, resting the two-by-four he'd been lifting into place on his shoulder. "You got reasonable hand-eye coordination," he decided. "I can probably still make my quota for the day. Come on up."

[myownface]

Sparkle really hoped he had reasonable hand-eye coordination at this point. Though it would explain just how much shit he tended to get himself into if he didn't...

He grinned at that, and then made his way over and up, picking his way through the assorted building supplies with relative ease.

"If I slow you down too much, you can totally kick me out," he decided. "Just seems like one of those things I should know around here, you know? I can do, like, emergency repairs, but not anything really meant to last."

[vdistinctive]

Eliot nodded. He was all for people knowing how to fix their own stuff. "Plus, it'll give ya something to do when bleach fumes from cleanin' get to be too much," he said, giving Sparkle a knowing look. "Grab yourself a hardhat. There're any number of folks on this island who'll kill me if you end today concussed."

[myownface]

Sparkle smiled a bit sheepishly at that bleach fumes comment. Oh, his bedroom was so goddamn clean these days. Even Milady's fish tank had never been cleaner. He nodded, went to grab a hard hat, and settled it on his head.

"I'd say I have a pretty hard head anyway, but that's not exactly going to save me from falling beams or whatever," he allowed. "Let's avoid the concussions. I try to save those for things that are actively trying to kill me, at the very least."

[magnusrushesin]

Now that Magnus knew about the coffee shop on island and no longer had to go to the mainland to get his frappuccino kick, he had way more free time. Somehow that translated into taking Steven for a walk.

He paused, sipping his sweet, sweet pumpkin spice treat as he looked at the building. Then whistled in approval. "Nice work!"

[vdistinctive]

Eliot looked down and saluted with his hammer. "Magnus. How's it goin'?"

[magnusrushesin]

"Still here. Got to fight some sharks," he said. "Learned that Craigslist here is not, in fact, a gnome named Craig who puts job postings up."

[vdistinctive]

"I mean, it could be," Eliot mused. "Just, you know, he puts it up on the internet instead of a bulletin board or somethin'."

[magnusrushesin]

"I like the bulletin board thing better," Magnus decided. "Way less insistence on people wearing leather armor there. I mean. Sure, it's nice for movement and all, but I so need a higher AC."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy." A smile like that suggested that Eliot might not have as hard time selling a sawdust fantasy as he might have worried about. "If I'd known the construction workers were gonna be so damn hot, I'da made my way over to help awhile ago."

[vdistinctive]

Eliot chuckled, low and throaty. "'Help'," he said, shooting Hardison a raised eyebrow over his shoulder as he lifted a crossbeam into place. "Sure. That's what we're callin' it."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Hardison paused a moment to lick his lips. Watching Eliot work was always a delight, whether he was building something or taking someone apart. He was just so comfortable in his body, the same way Parker was in hers, though they used theirs in very different ways.

"What?" he asked, a beat too late for it to sound natural. "You sayin' you don't need a hand?"

He...might?...not have intended for it to sound that...innuendo-y?

[vdistinctive]

Eliot looked Hardison up and down without even the faintest effort at trying to hide it. "Yeah," he said. "I could absolutely use a hand."

He definitely meant that as innuendo-y as it sounded.

"Should probably finish with at least this crossbeam first though." Case in point. "If you wanna hold up the other end for me, we can get to that 'hand' even faster."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"I think that's somethin' I can do," Hardison said, rolling up his sleeves. Maybe subtly flexing, just a bit.

He had surprisingly nice arms for a computer nerd. Not that this was anything Eliot didn't already know.

[spin_kick_snap]

Ew dad! You had a daughter now! Wasn't it time for you to be all mature and sexless? Ew!

Though, honestly, Kathy would have been happy for him if she'd known which way his thoughts were trending. (Though happier still to not know any details.) The crew was pretty much her role models of what a successful and functional relationship looked like--that fact that it was a triad only made it better. Still, secretly happy or no, appearances had to be maintained, even if only in narrative.

"Eliot!" Kathy called up. "Water delivery!"

Try not to pour it all over yourself in as cheesecakey a fashion as possible, Dad.

[vdistinctive]

Baby, Eliot was in his forties. Not dead.

"Can't say no to that," he said, wiping his forehead on his arm and tucking his hammer into his tool belt. "How's it goin', darlin'?"

[spin_kick_snap]

Rather than toss the water bottle up to him, Kathy bounced her way to join him on the upper story and handed it over. "Figured you could use a break," she said. "It's still pretty hot out, especially if you're working hard."

And before he could say anything, she was grabbing a hard hat and tucking it firmly onto her head. One accidental death per lifetime was enough, thanks.

"Not bad. Pretty lazy this week for no good reason at all. Maybe just enjoying the last bit of summer?" She shrugged. "Gonna have to move into the new place soon. Everything's all set to get our stuff?"

[vdistinctive]

Eliot nodded approvingly at the hardhat and took a long swig of the water. All innuendo aside, construction was hot, sweaty, thirsty work. "Nothin' wrong with the occasional lazy week," he noted. "You all can go get it whenever you like. Damage to the place was all support-based. I didn't even see much water damage up there other than some stains around the windows."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I'll miss it," Kathy said, more than a little wistful. "It was a good apartment. An insanely good apartment. Thanks for letting us turn it into a home."