vdistinctive | The loft above Luke's, Saturday morning

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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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"So I guess this is a thing? That happens sometimes." Spike was going with it, and he called after Eliot, "Yes!" Then he went on, grinning. "I heard some other kids in the park talking about it. The place is crawling with munchkins."

Oooo, cool. "Hashbrowns!" Nom nom nom nom.

Parker grabbed bacon, and said, "Name? Age? And won't we-- us-- be missing you?" How could these kids be so laid back about all this?!

"Spike. I'm ten. And probably." He gave her a confident, you-can-trust-me smile. "But you guys will figure it out. And this place looks fun. And you're here." So hey, Spike was fine!

"Nope," Hardison said immediately. "Sorry, little man, but ain't no woman spent hours of labor givin' birth to a child and then decided to name him Spike. Try again, a'ight?"

Had all of these children inherited Sophie's aversion to using their own names?

"It's a nickname, Hardison," Spike said with a sigh. "My mother named me Alejandro de la Vega. Or Alex. I'll accept Alex." And a bit of bacon! Nom nom nom. Heh. So far nobody was making him sit at a table. Parker never did. Hardison and Eliot would eventually if they ever got over being shell-shocked, he figured. "It's the same name as Zorro!"

"Alex it is," Hardison decided, because he wasn't going to call a kid Spike. "Who's your mom?"

Yeah, he was trying to figure out which one of Eliot's exes it was.

Spike got quiet a minute, then pulled out his wallet -- with his Hardison-made I.D., and his money cards, and his emergency stuff. He held out a photo. "This (http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/08/04/article-2022414-0D4C039300000578-671_468x374.jpg) was my mom."

Past tense. "Cynthia de la Vega. She's gone now."

Eliot came back out with a plate of chopped fruit. The kitchen was officially out of food, and he was out of excuses for not dealing.

And there was a kid looking quiet and sad on the couch talking about his dead mom. He mentioned he hated this island, right? 'Cause he hated this island.

Eliot looked over the kid's shoulder at the photo. "Never met her," he concluded. Which meant he wasn't this kid's father. Thank god.

Spike rolled his eyes at him. "Duh. No. She died before I stole you guys." He put the picture away for safe-keeping and perked up a little. "Do you have pineapple chunks?"

"What you see is what you get, kid," Eliot said. "Probably got some downstairs, though."

"Wait, you stole us?" Parker looked confused. "From who?"

Spike snickered. "From your lonely, lonely lives!" He grinned and asked, "Can I have some orange soda?"

"Wait you--what she said," Hardison agreed. "This, I gotta hear."

Spike settled into story-telling mode, because really, this was an awesome story.

"So you guys were working a job in Lake Tahoe, on my bio-dad. The dick."

Eliot grabbed himself some bacon and a seat and settled in to listen.

And immediately had a 12 year old girl draping her arms around his neck from behind and resting her head on his shoulder, sighing happily, apparently completely unaware that she nearly got her neck snapped for sneaking up on him like that.

And then she stole his bacon.

Yeah. Being a 'daddy' was just awesome, thanks, Fandom.

Parker was snickering at both the story and Josie. Becca. Must remember her name!

"What kind of job were we running on him?"

"Rick the Dick was buying up property in a town a few counties over, working on foreclosing on people, planning on getting zoning changed for more gambling, then putting in casinos." See? Dick. "Meanwhile I was staying at his house, but he didn't know it, because he had like five, and this was just his vacation home. And you guys broke in to get to his computer and his safe, but I was already there." Spike looked smug. "So I ordered pizza for us. On his card."

"I'm likin' him," Hardison informed the other two adults. "He's got style."

He rested his arm on the back of the couch, a tentative invite for Spike to cuddle in. Or Ada. Or Parker.

You know, he wasn't even sure anymore. But there were kids that looked up to them and it'd be a cold day in hell before Hardison let any kid feel unwanted. Even if he was still pretty unsure about their entire existence.

Spike's face burst into an even larger smile, eyes crinkling. "That's what you said!" Ahem. "So yeah, you were all 'what are you doing here?' and I said 'hanging out' and Eliot said 'you can't be here' and I was all, 'I was here first, man.'" He reached out for a strawberry, nibbling on it. "So then I told you how the bio-dad didn't want me, so I swiped his wallet when I went to see him, and then I hitched a ride to Tahoe, and got all the storekeepers to think my dad knew I was there on break from my 'private school.'" He rolled his eyes. "And you were gonna try to get me to leave, but I kinda had you for breaking and entering, and then we hung out, and you saw I was awesome, and you screwed over my dad, which was brilliant and I brought you food and told Eliot when my dad's security guys were coming and you adopted me." Ha! "So now I'm Alexander de la Vega sometimes Hardison sometimes Spencer once or twice Parker."

"Clearly we know what we're about when it comes to adoptin' kids," Hardison said, giving 'can we keep him?' eyes to Parker and Eliot.

Look, the kid was smart, savvy, ballsy, and had a backstory that tugged on Hardison's heart strings. This kid was tailor-made for them.

"All these kids are cute."

Seriously. They were all adorable. Parker wanted to pinch Spike's cheeks and she never wanted to do that! She grinned over at Josie, and then at Ada and her boingy hair too.

Weird, weird day.

"So we're cool to stay. Until another blue swirly portal thing grabs us, I'm guessing?"

C'mon, Eliot. Or...

"I mean, I guess we could sleep in the park." Spike looked thoughtful. "You think we could borrow some sheets to make a tent?"

Joey leaned down into Eliot's peripheral vision, grinning hopefully.

Eliot had a headache.

"Sure," he muttered. "Fine. Ain't my apartment anyway."

Oh good, Eliot. Let them know you had an entire house they could still break into.

"Well, if you'd rather..." Ada said, drooping pretty much on cue. "It's not that cold anymore," Ada added. "And if we crumple up newspapers, that's good insolution, or something."

You know. If they were going to be abandoned to the wilds and all

"I've never lived on the street before," Joey said in a sort of detached, British monotone, like an urchin out of Dickens. "I suppose it might be terribly character-building."

The loft above Luke's, Saturday morning

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