vdistinctive | The loft above Luke's, Saturday morning

Eliot's clothes had all wound up in the general door to couch area, and it wasn't like he had any spares lying around (and trying to wear Hardison's would make him look like a kid playing dress-up), so after a quick shower (when did Hardison and Parker get all this hair stuff? And why was it all the stuff Eliot used?), he wandered out into the living room area in nothing but a towel to at least find his shirt before he got started on breakfast. (He'd learned early in his cooking career that you just didn't work with those kinds of temperatures without covering your chest. And aprons didn't count.)

And froze, grabbing onto the towel to hold it in place, when he spotted the twelve year old girl standing over by the door.

"The kitchen staff downstairs said you'd be up here," she said.

"Um," said Eliot.

"Why are you living with Uncle Hardison and Aunt Parker?" she asked.

"Um," said Eliot.

"You guys need to clean up in here better, Daddy." She nudged the crumpled pile of pants by the couch with the toe of her shoe. "Mummy would not approve."

Eliot rubbed his hand down his face. "Goddammit, Fandom."

[ooc: generally for the assortment of folks currently at or soon to be arriving at the loft, with bouts of slowplay on all sides, but also open!]

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"Well, that answers one question," Hardison said to no one in particular. They only knew one person that committed to having a ton of fake names.

"What?" Eliot glared at him. "No it doesn't!" He was standing in Hardison's apartment wearing a towel and holding his pants and nothing had been explained, dammit.

"Daddy," Joey said very seriously. "You should really probably put your pants on, now."

"I'm not your -- what are you --" Eliot shook his head. Complete sentences were not happening here. It was time to bail. "I'm going to go put my goddamn pants on."

And he stalked back towards the bedroom to get dressed (involving stealing one of Hardison's shirts, since his was still on the floor near the door) and freak out for a few moments.

"Daddy. Daddy. Daaaaaddy." Parker drew the word out, then shook her head. "Nope!" Then headed for the kitchen. Maybe coffee would make this make sense.

"Dammit, Parker!" Eliot came back out wearing pants and pulling one of Hardison's t-shirts over his head. "I ain't nobody's daddy!"

"That a double negative," Joey said, smirking. "It means he is."

Thank god the small child had spoken up first, because there was a response to that bubbling up behind Hardison's lips that would not have been at all appropriate.

"A'ight, so you're the un--" Hardison, do not call a child unholy, your nana would be ashamed! "--you're tryna tell us that you're Eliot's daughter. With Sophie. Because Eliot an' Sophie got together an' had a baby."

Nope. Saying it out loud did not make it make any more sense than when it was in his head.

"That isn't true!" Ada protested, not letting go of her deathgrip on Hardison's leg. "He's not her Daddy, he's mine!"

"Excuse me," Joey said. "I am older than you. I have dibs."

Parker was watching this in fascination, clutching her coffee. "You don't know each other?" she asked, because that seemed... weird.

"Daddies are not handed out by dibs." And Eliot could not believe he actually just said that. "Look, kid--ssss," there were two of them how were there two of them? "How did you two even get here?"

He was reasonably certain he hadn't fathered any children. He was completely certain that he didn't know any well enough for them to call him 'Daddy', dammit.

"You know..." Ada said, suddenly vague since she knew she wasn't supposed to go through any portals. "We just did."

Oh god, this little girl was adorable. "That ain't --" Eliot sighed hard. "I hate this island." He ran his hands through his hair. ". . . Right. Who wants pancakes?"

Whatever else was happening, he could still cook. And then he wouldn't have to think about the tiny little girls calling him "daddy". One of whom was apparently Sophie's.

. . . Nope, not thinking about it.

"Oooh! Oooh! I do! I do!" Ada said, raising her hand! "But only if you make 'em, Daddy. You said that Papa's not allowed to, even with me helping. Not after last time. Even though he replaced your nice pan with the orange bottom."

"And he's your papa?" Eliot asked, pointing at Hardison. Just to make sure he was keeping this whole crazy thing straight. "Damn right he ain't allowed to cook."

"Excuse you," Hardison said at the same time Ada chirped, "Of course that's papa!"

"I am allowed to cook in my own house, you know," Hardison continued on. "I am a man grown, I'mma cook if I want to."

Then he had to pause and check. "...I did live there, right? Wherever it is you live? I live there, too?"

"Of course you live there!" Ada replied, rolling her eyes. What an absurd question. "You and me and Daddy and Aunt Parker! But Daddy does get to tell you that you can't cook. I mean, you can use the microwave to cook your frozen food--" said with all the disdain a child unnaturally gifted with attitude could muster "--but not the stove or with Daddy's special orange-bottomed pans. There are rules."

And there was Eliot's first real smile of the morning. "Yeah, Hardison. There are rules."

Yeah, he was skipping right past the whole 'three thieves and a baby' thing right now. That way lay a brick wall labeled 'Eliot's commitment issues' that no one wanted to deal with, right now.

"Are there rules about who can touch my computer equipment, then?" Hardison demanded. "Cause if we're all gonna make rules about who can and can't do stuff, I wanna make some, too."

Ada shrugged. "Sure. But nobody wants to."

Which...wasn't entirely true. But if Papa didn't know that Ada liked to hack his systems, he'd probably be more careless with his tech!

"Daddy doesn't do computers," Joey said. "He once broke my phone by looking at it."

Hardison grinned at that. "See? Baby girl knows what I'm talkin' about."

The loft above Luke's, Saturday morning

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