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]

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."

[myownface]

"My rules are my rules," Sparkle said slowly, and then nodded and reached for the nails again. "Okay. That... that's good advice, actually."

He smiled a little, wryly.

"I guess now I just need to figure out what those rules actually are."

At this rate, he was pretty sure 'no kidnapping' was going on the list, but that one would rule out more than just Hannibal. Which... in its own right was kind of fucked up.

[vdistinctive]

. . . Yeah, it really, really was.

Eliot nodded. "They're your rules. Don't be afraid to make them or change them as you figure yourself out more. One of mine was not to con your own crew, but it turned out that was the only way Hardison and Parker could figure out how to let me know how they feel." He smirked faintly at the memory and shook his head. "Hardison tried to dance around it like his whole 'woo Eliot' plan wasn't a con, but seein' as it didn't involve, you know, actually sayin' that they were into me. . . . So yeah. I adjusted that rule for them. On my own terms, in my own way. And they respected it."

[myownface]

Sparkle actually smiled a little bit at that. Okay, that was kind of... sweet? He was pretty sure the word was sweet.

"I kind of... like... want to lay down some kind of 'you can have secrets, but if there's a chance they're gonna get me almost killed you better at least warn me to be careful,' thing." He snorted a little. "But that'd rule out like half the people here."

And, once again, basically all of his friends.

[vdistinctive]

"That sounds like a reasonable rule to me," Eliot said. "It don't have to apply retroactively. Let 'em know goin' forward that that's what you need."

[myownface]

That... that was a good point. Sparkle pursed his lips a little, and then nodded and tilted his head at Eliot.

"So, what are the odds someone from, like, your past is gonna show up on the island waving a gun around or something, and there'll be collateral damage?"

Because, yet again, Hannibal's crashed wedding hadn't even been a first, there.

[vdistinctive]

"Slim," Eliot said. "Ain't gonna say it couldn't happen, but I've got a lot of experience coverin' my tracks. Closest I've heard of is one of 'em showin' up in Baltimore. He wasn't there for me specifically, and we took him out."

[myownface]

Sparkle nodded a little.

"... That was easier than I figured it'd be." Just the act of asking, yes. "I guess you've been around here long enough to get that I don't, like, mean it personally or anything, though. This place is a trouble magnet."

[vdistinctive]

"With my rep back home, you ain't even close to the first person to ask me that," Eliot assured him. He looked away thoughtfully for a moment, then continued. "You're all grown up, so I'm not gonna pretend that I or anyone else needs to be fightin' your battles for you. But . . . you need back up on anything, you let me know, yeah? Especially if it's help gettin' away from someone you thought you could trust."

[myownface]

Sparkle chewed the inside of his cheek at that, and then nodded a little. He wasn't entirely certain what to say, except that... shit... he appreciated the offer. Maybe he'd never take Eliot up on it, maybe he would, but it was good to see that it was there at all.

"Thanks," he said, figuring that about summed it up. He paused, and then followed it up with an, "I'll think about it, okay?"

[vdistinctive]

Eliot nodded. "You do that." He straightened up and moved to grab supplies for the next crossbeam. "You want gum or somethin'? You've been gnawin' on your own mouth pretty hard over there."