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

[vdistinctive]

"I don't recommend it," Eliot said. "But I'm guessin' you worked that part out. Personally, insurance crap usually makes me want to beat on things. Preferably the insurance adjusters."

[myownface]

"... Is that actually an option? Because it can't be any more stupid than what I did end up doing."

It could be an option if you really put your heart into it, Sparkle.

[vdistinctive]

Eliot frowned. "What did you end up doing?"

[myownface]

Sparkle bit the inside of his cheek, and then muttered, "Got really drunk, and then apparently thought it would be a great idea to break into Dr. Lecter's place, drink like half a bottle of his expensive vodka, and pass out on his couch."

Which was stupid on most levels, but extra stupid on a 'Dr. Lecter' level above and beyond that, really.

[vdistinctive]

Eliot's eyes narrowed. "What did he do?"

[myownface]

Sparkle kind of hesitated a moment.

"Impromptu field trip to Toronto. Not my Toronto. A Toronto."

While he'd been unconscious. Sparkle wasn't going to mention that part unless he was prompted to.

[vdistinctive]

Eliot frowned harder, more to himself than to Sparkle. "The hell did he say to talk you into that?"

He honestly hadn't expected Sparkle to try to go back to Toronto -- any Toronto -- any time soon.

[myownface]

Sparkle just kind of shrugged his shoulders a little and shook his head.

The answer, of course, was 'the door is locked and we're up somewhere around the twentieth floor,' but Sparkle wasn't saying that, either.

"Wasn't really something I agreed to," he replied. "He called it an intervention."

He'd always sort of pictured more people, at the very least, for one of those. Maybe somewhere not Toronto. Anywhere not Toronto.

[vdistinctive]

The lines of Eliot's mouth and jaw got very, very tight. He might have been pondering terrible things he could do with various tools scattered around him.

"You okay?" he asked, voice low.

[myownface]

Really, Eliot, you'd probably have to get in line behind Atton for this one.

"I'm fine," Sparkle sighed. "I mean, I was less fine? But I'm more fine."

Wow, yeah, that cleared that right up.

"I mean, mostly we spent the week doing stupid tourist shit."

This was not technically false.

[vdistinctive]

The look Eliot was giving him was probably not helping with the feeling more fine thing, at least not until Eliot managed to get that flare of anger under control and stop looking like he wanted to murder someone.

He still wanted to murder someone, but he looked a lot less like it.

"Good. Not the -- tourist shit. You being okay."

[myownface]

Until that look was back under control, Sparkle found himself standing there wondering if maybe he'd made a stupid mistake all over again, really. Which wasn't all that unusual for him, granted. He worried at his lip with his teeth for a moment, picked through the events of that week, and then decided that maybe he ought to leave out the parts that had been ugly.

"Gave me a lot of food for thought," he settled on. "And he paid for all the vegan food I insisted on just to be a dick, so there's that."

[vdistinctive]

One of the side effects of being deliberately scary for most of your adult life was learning to pick up on having scared people, even when they were good at downplaying or hiding it. Eliot reached up to rub the back of his neck, deliberately relaxing his stance to fall back into harmless-adult-mentor-figure mode again. He would probably drive the next nail all the way into the board with no more than two strikes of the hammer, but that just meant he was being efficient, right?

"Pretty sure in that situation you're allowed to be as big a dick as you wanna be."

[myownface]

"So much vegan," Sparkle said, just because that part needed to be stressed. It lacked some context too, granted, but that was probably for the best. "... Hey, Eliot? Can I ask you something?"

[vdistinctive]

"Is it about vegan food?" Eliot asked, trying to lighten the mood back up. He was terrible at that. "Yeah, kid, ask away. I'll tell ya if it's somethin' I don't wanna answer."

[myownface]

"I mean, it could be about vegan food," Sparkle noted. "Like, is there any way in the world to make vegan cheese not taste like weird oil and regret?"

He smiled tiredly, and then shook his head.

"I mean, you can answer that too if you like, but this one's about family. Found family, I guess."

[vdistinctive]

"Not that science has discovered yet," Eliot said, then nodded. "Found family is most of what I got. Shoot."

[myownface]

"Science has let us down," Sparkle muttered, shaking his head. And then chewing on his lip for a moment again before shrugging and just going for it. "Found family is... like... all I've got. And I know it's not the same as whatever it is people have when they grow up in that whole... like... stereotypical nuclear family deal. But I don't really have any basis for comparison."

He fidgeted with that nail a little more, and then looked back at the plans. Somewhere to turn his eyes.

"I guess it's stupid to just ask if it makes up for it. Like, it doesn't go back and erase the bad shit or fill in the gaps or whatever. But it can be worth as much, right?"

[vdistinctive]

"Weren't you the one who told me growin' up in a 'nuclear family' ain't actually worth much in the long run?" Eliot asked. He turned around to lean back against the makeshift table and look out over the work he'd gotten done on this floor so far. "Sometimes," he said, "they can be worth a whole lot more. I did grow up with the typical family. Mom, dad, two kids, even had the dog. My sister's the only part of that I got left, and I wouldn't trade her for the world -- but Parker and Hardison know me better than anyone else in this world or any other. And what I got with Kathy . . . I honestly never knew I could ever feel like that about someone. She didn't fill any holes in my heart, she carved herself her own space, made it bigger so she could fit. Family's family. Doesn't matter where it comes from."

[myownface]

Sparkle's shoulders hiked up a little. Maybe he had said that. Now he wasn't so sure it wasn't a case of saying it so often that he made himself believe it. He huffed out a sigh, and then chucked the nails he'd picked out back into their jars.

"And what if someone is just so used to the shitty kind of family that they'll jump at anything that comes their way? Like... like maybe it does matter a little, where that family comes from. Maybe sometimes it's better to just not have family at all."

Or to open up your heart to the god emperor and the former Sith, but maybe start developing more discerning tastes somewhere around the cannibal.

[vdistinctive]

Aw hell. This kid needed an actual therapist, probably. And not one that thought forcing him to go to Toronto was a good idea for an 'intervention'.

"The thing about family, Sparkle. They can go wrong no matter where they come from. Same as friends, same as lovers. Openin' yourself up to makin' people part of your life means openin' yourself up to get hurt, no way around that. But when you do find the good ones . . . they'll make that risk, the hurt you've felt before, all worth it. I can promise you that."

[myownface]

Sparkle chewed the inside of his cheek at that.

"How do you know the good ones, though?"

Because he had a really, really low bar these days. Most of the people he'd figured were 'the good ones,' ultimately hadn't been.

[vdistinctive]

"Well, that ain't easy," Eliot admitted. "But a good rule of thumb is, the good ones are willin' to work with you, if somethin' is makin' you uncomfortable."

[myownface]

The corner of Sparkle's mouth twitched a little at that.

"Sounds kind of like a start," he noted. "But, like, Lew was willing to work with us right up until he wasn't, you know?"

Maybe he was the exception instead of the rule...

[vdistinctive]

"Like I said, it ain't easy," Eliot said. "Trouble with a good rule of thumb is that the bad folks can learn 'em too. If you draw a hard line in the sand and the person crosses it, you get the hell out, you got me? Maybe they can earn back your trust later, but they gotta be willin' to try and to change. Your rules are your rules. Folks need to respect those."