vdistinctive | The loft above Luke's, Saturday morning

Entry tags:

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!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I don't have a mom, silly!" Ada said, laughing. "I have you, and Daddy, and Aunt Parker!"

How many more parents did they think she needed? Three was already more than most kids had. Especially three parents who lived together.

She held the sides of her tiny jean skirt and gave them a little curtsy. Fairy tales and Disney movies were currently very big in their house. "I'm Ada Grace Hardison-Spencer," she said. "Pleased to meetcha!"

That was really, really cute. Even Parker could tell that.

Hardison-Spencer.

"Did they get married?!" Wow. "Was I there?"

"Of course you were, Auntie Parker!" What was with the adults and their ridiculous questions today? "You all did! Papa stole you all a wedding and you got married! I was there but I was too little to remember. Nana held me during the ceremony though."

There were pictures!

There was a crashing sound from the kitchen. "We're what?!"

And someone just ran headfirst into that 'commitment issues' wall, yeah.

"Daddy, are you okay?" Ada called, ignoring his clearly unimportant question.

Beat.

"Can I have some cold-pressed blood-orange juice, please?"

"There's some in the diner," Eliot said, and ~~ran away~~ went to go get some.

Without remembering to put shoes on. Or brush his hair.

Now Ada was going to turn big eyes onto Aunt Parker, who was just as much her parent as her dads, even if she went by Aunt instead.

"Did I do something wrong?" she asked. "Is Daddy mad at me?"

"What?" Small child. Small child with big eyes. RED ALERT. "No! No no no he's just... he didn't expect this. And he doesn't live here. With us. Yet." Parker blew out a breath and said, "We just started dating him."

"We...might not yet even technically be," Hardison hedged. "We hadn't really talked about what next."

They hadn't really talked. Ahem.

"For all we know, this might just be a thing to him, not a thing. We can't assume."

"It's not you," Parker said, getting down in front of Ada. "It's really, really not." She took a breath. "Do you want a hug?"

She could hug little girls who looked like Hardison and Eliot. No problem. And give Hardison a 'fix it fix it fix it!' look while she was at it.

Ada sniffled and had no hesitation clinging to Parker. Whatever else happened in their lives, this future child had never lacked physical affection, not even from Auntie Parker.

"She's right, little bug," Hardison soothed, placing a warm hand on her back. "Eliot's downstairs workin' through some things. But you gotta understand, this ain't about you. This ain't ever about you. What he's workin' through is between him an' us. He thinks you're a sweet l'il cutie-pie, just like we do. An', more importantly, your Eliot--your daddy, the one that had you--he loves you so fierce it hurts. That's one thing you ain't ever gotta worry about. Your parents love you an' ain't never gonna stop."

He could speak with surety on that one. He'd seen enough unloved kids in the system to know what that looked like. And Ada Grace was nothing like them.

"Yeah. Yeah. That's true." Another, slightly tighter hug, and hoping that Ada Grace wasn't squishable. "You're just a surprise. A good surprise. And hey! I bet he comes back with food."

And Eliot came stomping back up the stairs with a bottle of juice, grumbling. Which had clearly been going on since before he came into earshot.

". . . kicked outta my own goddamn diner -- THAT SIGN DOESN'T EVEN APPLY TO STAFF!" He swung the door open again maybe a touch too hard and his eyes went right to the sniffling little girl. "Holy crap, Parker, what'd you do?"

It would occur to him that this might be his fault momentarily. He hadn't actually really processed the whole 'Daddy' thing, yet.

That tore it.

"Hey man," Hardison said with a smile that a lot closer to the baring of teeth than anything Hardison usually wore. "Why'n't you hand that juice over to baby girl right there and then come help me check on somethin' downstairs, a'ight?" He slung his arm around Eliot's shoulders, grip tight. There was no way he could drag Eliot downstairs if Eliot didn't want to go, but he knew Eliot would be able to feel the tension in him, especially when he gave Eliot's shoulder a 'friendly' squeeze. "There's that thing we gotta check, remember?"

Eliot looked from the sniffling child to Hardison, and yeah, he wasn't an idiot, he was figuring out that it wasn't 'Aunt Parker' making the kid wibble, it was freaking 'Daddy'. He managed a smile for the kid -- a real one, dammit -- and held out the juice bottle. "Cold pressed blood orange," he said. "They, uh, got some carbonated stuff down there, too, if you wanted that. I'm gonna go get lectured by this guy, now."

"Thank you," Ada said, taking the juice without letting go of Parker. "This is my favorite."

And another reminder that she wasn't really Daddy would never have let the fridge run out.

"You're in trouble?"

"Naw, little girl, he ain't in trouble." Not as much anymore. "We just gotta set some ground rules for this house, too." He rolled his eyes. "Since apparently I ain't allowed to cook or something."

That got Ada giggling and her grip on Parker loosened.

Hardison turned to Eliot and nodded to the door. "Shall we?"

"Yeah, man." Eliot straightened and started back towards the door, making sure he was facing away from the small child before he let his exhaustion show in his face. "Not to the diner, though. They're pissed I'm not wearin' shoes."

"We can chill on the stairs outside," he said, leading them out the door and pulling it shut behind them. "I just ain't gonna argue with you in front of the kids. They don't need to see that."

Not that he expected it to be much more than a heated discussion. But with a strictness that belied how quickly it had occurred to him, Hardison had realized that he would never, ever fight in front of the children. Not when there was real anger that they could pick up on.

Which was an instinct Eliot didn't have, as he was just realizing. He'd never even thought seriously about being a father, not since he was a teenager. He was good with kids, he liked them, but he beat people up and got shot at for a living. He'd only barely manged to reconcile that with getting a puppy.

"Yeah," he said, scowling to himself. "Look, man, I'm sorry about that, but this -- I ain't -- and then she's sayin' we're -- I am not prepared for this!"

The system left its marks on everyone who went through it, even someone like Hardison who'd been relatively lucky.

"Oh, cause me'n Parker are?" he demanded. "You saw her! She practically froze when they saw her. But you know what? She managed not to make anyone cry this mornin'! Even if she did get blamed for it."

"Parker doesn't have two of those kids claimin' they came from her! And that -- Adelaide or whatever the hell her real name is -- me and Sophie? And then the little's talkin' about the three of us all bein' married and --" He cut himself off, realizing the panic he was feeling was actually spilling out of his mouth, now. He turned on his heel and strode down a few stairs, then stopped himself before he decided to actually run away. He ran his hands through his hair instead, and held it back, concentrating on the pull against his scalp, and just breathed. "I didn't mean to make her cry, I was just gettin' her goddamn juice."

"She thought you were mad at her," Hardison said evenly, recognizing another person's set of issues even as he sat mired in his own. "She realized that something she said or did upset the hell outta you an' since all she was doin' was tellin' you about her life, assumed that meant that she upset you. They're some bright girls in there. Perceptive. But still kids. So they're gonna see stuff an' they're gonna try to interpret it and god only knows where it'll end up."

He rubbed his chin, tiredly sitting down on the steps. This was so not how he'd anticipated his morning after.

"They ain't ours. You get that, right? I know what they're sayin' and what they believe, but they ain't ours. Not definitely. Not for real. The futures they're talkin' about? They ain't real. Not yet. Maybe not ever."

Eliot closed his eyes and sighed, then let his hair go and looked back at Hardison. "Yeah, man, I'm not an idiot." It did make him feel better to hear it, though.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject