75 Godiva, Fridday

[vdistinctive]

Eliot was having another "every ice pack in the house" kind of day. He didn't remember a lot from the past few days beyond overwhelming hunger, but he was reasonably certain at one point he'd fallen off a roof. Every part of him ached.

Eliot groaned as he draped a fresh ice pack across the back of his neck. Val looked up from where she was lounging at his feet (she been refusing to leave his side since he'd relocated her last night), ears perked and tail wagging. He reached down gingerly and rubbed her ears.

"I'm getting too goddamn old for this, girl."

Val barked softly and licked his fingers. He was pretty sure she didn't disagree.

[open!]

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[whoisalicewhite]

Parker stumbled out of bed with a muted series of "ow"s and the determination to find some ibuprofen. Then the determination to have some food to ease it down.

She patted Hardison on the head as she struggled out, then headed downstairs.

Slumping next to Eliot, she muttered, "Face hurts. Megabyte okay?"

[vdistinctive]

Val stuck her head on Parker's knee, tail wagging.

"She's fine," Eliot pulled the ice pack off the back of his neck and offered it to Parker. "I think she actually had fun."

[whoisalicewhite]

"Sorry, puppy. Or yay, I guess." Parker told the dog, scritching her behind her ears. She blinked at Eliot, then winced when she took in the icepack, acccepting it and then putting it on her face with a sigh of relief. "How injured are you?"

[vdistinctive]

"Nothin' broken," Eliot said, leaning back and closing his eyes. "Just real sore. And real tired of all this crap."

[whoisalicewhite]

"You ever think..." Parker's voice trailed off, then came back. "Does it ever feel like-- a lot?"

[vdistinctive]

Eliot looked up and shrugged. "My whole life's been 'a lot', darlin'."

But this was the first time in a long time that Parker had gotten hurt, and that definitely had him concerned.

[whoisalicewhite]

Parker hummed, eyes still focused on Megabyte. "It got better. It always gets better." But, watching both her guys get hurt, and Val have to run away... "It's just that it doesn't stop." She leaned into Eliot and grimaced. "I don't know what I'm thinking about."

[vdistinctive]

Eliot nodded gingerly. He was pretty sure he had a mild concussion, and moving his head around too much made him dizzy. "We been doing the same thing for awhile now," he observed. "I ain't sure I've lived anywhere this long since I was a kid."

[whoisalicewhite]

"Is it, what? Four years now, or five?" It seemed longer. And they'd only planned on being there a few months, to start with. "A while." Alots and vampires, zombies and future children, sex pollen and Christmas magic.

[vdistinctive]

"Thereabouts," Eliot said. "Ain't saying it's bad. Ain't real sure it's good, either."

Right now, he was pretty sure it was terrible, but that was probably the achiness talking.

[whoisalicewhite]

Parker offered him the icepack back. "I don't like how it makes planning things harder. For jobs." That was her biggest complaint, really. What if they'd needed to help someone last week, and the Island had acted up? And as much as she felt like the teaching they'd done was good, and wouldn't trade knowing Kathy and Raven or so many others for anything, well... they all moved on, and grew up, and left, for the most part.

[vdistinctive]

Eliot waved off her offer. "Got plenty more. Just need to get up and get it."

Which he'd do eventually.

"If we did leave," he asked. "Where would you want to go?"

[whoisalicewhite]

"Somewhere we haven't been before," Parker said promptly. "Somewhere warm." Somewhere with lots of bad guys who they wouldn't have to use magic on, or kill, because really, that was never their skill-set, was it?

[vdistinctive]

Nothing like watching a run-of-the-mill vampire take down your top-of-the-line hitter to bring that lesson home, was there.

"I've been thinking," Eliot said, letting his eyes close again. "'Bout the southwest." Where there was quite possibly a little boy waiting on them. "And then maybe the Gulf coast. . . ." Where they might end up with a little girl.

[whoisalicewhite]

Parker's expression went thoughtful, and brighter. "That could be-- good. And. Stuff." Yeah, she was pretty sure she wasn't fooling Eliot with that. "Just to see?"

[vdistinctive]

"If we didn't at least check, and it turned out he was out there. . . ."

Well. Let's just say Eliot would have an extremely difficult time with that.

[whoisalicewhite]

"Exactly." They weren't going to expect anything. But if he was there, and he needed help, and he didn't have a family to look out for him.... "We can always check later. If it's not time yet."

But from stuff he said on the last visit, it was getting close.

[vdistinctive]

Eliot hummed in agreement. "Talked about this a bit with Hardison, too. Gather he's on about the same page."

They hadn't been really specific, so he couldn't say for sure. And knowing Hardison, the man was cooking up something much too grandiose to kick the nascent plans into motion.