75 Godiva, Monday

[vdistinctive]

The Leverage team had been in Fandom more than long enough to know exactly what came after the school prom. Eliot's anticipation of seeing Spike and Gracie again had been tempered by his dread over whatever fresh hell of a revelation of his alternate selves' sex lives. He'd already met a daughter some version of him had had with Sterling, for chrissake, but he knew better to think the island couldn't somehow top that.

But Saturday morning had come and gone, and no "you don't get to be with your partners in my universe" child arrived to taunt him. And it turned out, spending time with a couple kids who belonged to all three of them was really nice.

He leaned back on the couch with his coffee, a giant spread of brunch foods arranged on the coffee table, the end tables, and pretty much every other flat surface not currently occupied by a piece of Hardison's tech (yeah, Eliot lost that battle before it ever began), and watched as Hardison finished setting up a video link to Kathy. Parker was perched on the back of the couch next to him, her knee touching his shoulder, looking about as happy and relaxed as he'd ever seen her, and not just because her mouth was full of chocolate cereal. The kids were sprawled on either side of them, teasing and poking each other in a way that reminded Eliot so much of himself and Trudy as kids it almost hurt. Somehow, after everything, he'd still managed to end up with a family. A large one, even. He could get used to this.

He bit his lip thoughtfully, and took a long sip of his coffee.

Maybe he should start taking steps to make sure he got the chance.

[for the fam, and slow play. AU KIDS!]

Comments

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Hardison sat back. "There we go," he said, smiling with satisfaction. "All ready for your girl to answer and tell you how many grandkids you got this weekend." He tipped a wink at Spike. "Grandpa."

[stoleafamily]

Spike snorfle-giggled, a completely unmanly but happy sound. "I love being Uncle Spike. It's the best job ever. What's Kathy up to right now?"

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Eliot'll know better'n me," Hardison said, "but I know she's goin' to school again. NYU. Runnin' her store on the island, though most of what she does is on the website. Doin' okay though, I think."

There's been those couple of weeks last year when she'd gotten snatched back to LA, but she seemed to be recovering from that pretty well. And, well, it didn't seem like the kind of thing to talk about.

[stoleafamily]

"That's cool."Spike relaxed back into the couch, gifting Hardison with a small grin. "We should go visit her, when I get back. Maybe I should check out NYU. Graduation's only a year off."

And don't think that's not freaking him out, Hardison.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"It's a good school," Hardison said, taking the idea seriously. Because he had an idea how much the thought of looming graduation was probably weighing on him. "And you know Kathy'd be glad to have you close."

Sure, this Kathy had only met Spike a handful of times, but that girl was about as hungry for family as he'd been, once upon a time. And that kind of thing didn't go away.

"They still livin' near there in your time? Limbo City?"

They'd seemed like they were settling in for the long haul.

"Bunch of good culinary school up that way, too, if you were still thinkin' about that."

[stoleafamily]

Spike turned a little pinker, color creeping up his face in a wave. "Yeah. Near there. And..." He paused, then said in a rush, "Do you think it's better to do your dream when you're young, or, you know, save it until you have a back-up plan? Like a business degree?" He paused and added, "And does it make me a chicken if I'm this worried about it?"

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Better to do it when you're young," Hardison said without pausing. "Man, you know what life is like. Tomorrow ain't a given, not for anyone. The longer you go without pursuin' your dreams, the easier it'll be not to. Suddenly it'll be too risky, can't afford it with the mortgage an' the kids an' the credit cards. You'll be throwin' away your whole career, people - not us, not your family, but other folks - will say, better to stay a little longer, work a little harder, you can explore it when you're older, when you've retired."

Hardison shook his head. "Nah, you're young. Live a lot. Explore. Experiment. Take time to figure out what you love, not what you can stand. I get why you worry, Spike, I do, but...I'd rather see you try an' fail miserably, than to never try at all and just be miserable."

[stoleafamily]

"How'd you guys get to be such good dads?" Eliot didn't get along with his dad, and Hardison had Nana, but that wasn't a dad. Spike lowered his head and butted it into Hardison's shoulder, the kind of thing he and Parker would do to each other, and sighed. "Yeah. I just... keep thinking of stuff. And some of it sounds cool, like, what if I got to apprentice somewhere outside the country? And then it sounds scary." He tilted his head up, studying Hardison, then frowned, thinking.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Cause we know the kinda dads we needed when we were your age," Hardison said, giving Spike a hug. "But, c'mon, so what if you do apprentice somewhere international? What's the scariest thing you can imagine about it?"

[vdistinctive]

"Doesn't work on me anymore," Eliot said, cool as a cucumber. "I've gotten used to it."

He had not. It was killing him. He wasn't even 45 yet, for chrissake.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Radio says she got at least one teen this year," Hardison mentioned. "But that don't burn at all, right? When some kid old enough to drive comes and says, 'Hey Gramps, what up?'"

Stop trolling your boyfriend, Hardison.

[vdistinctive]

"Man, I got my first kid when she was almost too old to even be a teen," Eliot pointed out. "That don't bother me at all."

It did. Just a little.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Hardison nudged him. "You know what I like?" he said quietly. "That there's a whole bunch of realities out there with various kids who all know you an' love you as their grandpa, complete with holidays an' visits and all that."

God knows, Ada and Spike didn't have that. Wouldn't, probably, even if Eliot's father had still been alive.

"You ain't just their granddad cause you adopted their mom. You earned bein' their granddad."

[vdistinctive]

Eliot hadn't even thought of it that way.

He took a moment to digest the idea. He really liked that, too.

"You know, we play our cards right, and you could get to be someone's grandpa someday, too."

Hardison was going to make an amazing grandpa.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Hardison smiled at that. "Maybe I will," he said. "Kinda jumpin' the gun a bit, though. Raven ain't mine the way Kathy's yours, so probably gonna have to do it the old fashioned way."

Just putting that out there.

His eyes were steady on where Ada and Spike were giggling at each other, over a decade between them but still close.

[vdistinctive]

"Yeah," Eliot said. "I been thinkin' about that."

This was the man who used to have near-panic attacks just at the mention of commitment.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"You have?" Hardison asked, dragging his eyes away from the kids to fix on Eliot. "Ain't needed smellin' salts or a paper bag, though, I noticed. Unless you've been doin' all the thinkin' when I ain't been around."

[vdistinctive]

"Don't be an ass," Eliot grumbled. "And . . . yeah. It ain't like we're planning to break up or anything. I can see actually . . . planning out a future."

Well damn. He had a future.

"You know, instead of just lettin' it ambush us on the regular."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"I like that idea," Hardison said softly. He took Eliot's hand, lacing their fingers together. "I'm pretty okay about whatever kinda future you got in mind, so long as it keeps involvin' the two of you."

Though his eyes strayed over to the kids again.

[vdistinctive]

Eliot definitely noticed.

"Tell ya one thing I've been thinking," he said, keeping his voice low and tilting his head a little towards Spike. "There's some weird stuff goin' on in the entertainment industry out west. . . ."

Somewhere in their world, there was a version of Spike waiting on them to come find him.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Is there now?" Hardison asked, touching his chin. "Kinda sounds like the kinda thing Leverage was founded to look into, know what I mean?"

He coulda left it there. He didn't though.

"So, Kathy's yours," he said slowly. "But Spike...Spike's gonna be all of ours. I was thinkin' we might wanna get ourselves settled before we go out and get 'im."

[vdistinctive]

"You think we ain't settled enough."

Eliot wasn't necessarily disagreeing. But Hardison tended to go a little more . . . all in than was strictly necessary, and he didn't want to agree to something that resulted in them getting, like, some magical soul bond or something.

(He didn't need his partners ending up where he was pretty sure he was going, when he passed on.)

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Well, no, I ain't sayin' that, exactly," Hardison said, backpedaling.

Maybe this wasn't the right time to bring that all up.

"We're fine. We're better'n fine. S'all good."

[vdistinctive]

Eliot huffed. "I ain't freakin' out, man. I ain't even -- you might not be wrong. Alright? I just wanna make sure you ain't thinkin' anything crazy."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Just thinkin' about all the time we spent tryna steal a weddin' for Nate an' Sophie," Hardison mumbled, looking down. "Might be nice to steal one for us, too." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Ain't like it's necessary or nothin'. I mean, we are what we are, no matter what."