The loft above Luke's, Saturday morning

[vdistinctive]

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!]

Comments

[vdistinctive]

"We met on a job that set us both up for life." Eliot shook his head. "Alright. I can do cool babysitter. I just -- think there's any way I can convince them to stop callin' me 'Daddy'? It's kinda creepy."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"An' look what happens when you don't let me invest it for you," Hardison chided. "You lose it all an' have to become a janitor to make ends meet until you meet a dead sexy swimsuit model."

If he was a little more certain about where things stood between them, Hardison would lean in and kiss him there.

"I don't think you can, man. They look at you an' see their Daddy. I know it's weird for you, but...when they look at you they also see a man that loves 'em unconditionally. That dude ain't you, but they don't really get that. Don't--don't that that away from them."

Yeah, it would make Eliot uncomfortable for a few days, but he was a grown man. He could deal. The alternative could mess the kids up for life, because even after they went home to their Eliot, they'd remember the one that didn't really want them.

[vdistinctive]

Eliot ran his hands through his hair again. He really needed to brush it; at this rate it was going to be sticking out sideways. "Yeah. Alright. This is not how I wanted to be spendin' the weekend, man."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Heeeeeyyyyy," Hardison said. "They got bedtimes, don't they?"

Speaking of...where were they going to put them?

[vdistinctive]

"Yeah, I'm thinkin' they'd notice, Hardison."

They hadn't exactly been quiet last night.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"And they're too young to stay at the apartment while we go to your place...Right?"

JUST CHECKING!

[vdistinctive]

"Overnight?" Eliot asked. "Joey might be old enough to babysit, but you really trust those two alone together? They're our kids."

Oh, hey, he even managed to say that without freaking out.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"God, we'd come home to chaos," Hardison groaned. "The one kind that might even be worse than that asshole by the same name." That was a grudge that would linger forever, yes. "Let's hire that student you like. The apologizing one. She seemed responsible!"

Hardison saw nothing wrong with hiring a student to babysit their pseudo-offspring for an epic booty call, no.

[vdistinctive]

"That . . . could possibly work." Apparently, neither was Eliot. "Teenagers are always up for makin' some money, right?"

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Make it money and extra credit," Hardison suggested. "Impossible to resist."

Brilliant!