Office hours, Wednesday

[vdistinctive]

So the whole "teaching" thing was definitely shaping up not to be a one-off sort of venture, so Eliot figured he should probably start making an effort to do it properly.

Which apparently meant sitting around an office once a week and waiting to see if anyone needed to talk to him.

It went pretty well at first, with Val napping in one of the spare chairs while Eliot enjoyed his coffee and read a bit. By the time lunch rolled around, though, he had a picture of Sterling printed out and hung on the wall as a darts target.

[ooc: OH HEY OFFICE HOURS. Open!]

Comments

[vdistinctive]

"Right, sorry, I musta meant 'helpless'."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"You know, I came in here to talk to you an' keep you company," Hardison sniffed, nose in the air. "But if you're just gonna be mean, I can go to my own office an' get some stuff done."

You know. All the way over in the next room. Which shared a wall with Eliot's.

[vdistinctive]

"Then you shouldn'ta made fun of my dart board," Eliot said, and tossed off a dart that made a bull'seye on the end of Sterling's nose.

Without looking.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"I did not!" Hardison protested. "I just asked if that was what I was supposed to have, too. Since you're all about havin' me run around throwin' rocks at stuff."

[vdistinctive]

Eliot came around his desk and offered Hardison a dart. "Here, give it a try."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Naw way, man," Hardison said, backing up like Eliot was approaching him with a lit firecracker. "We know how this is gonna end. There'll be, like, tears an' yellin' an' property damage an' I don't need all that nonsense before my second class even happens."

[vdistinctive]

"Come on, man, me and Val'll stand right by you. Even you can't hit us, there. And I don't care about any of the rest of the crap in here."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Fine." Never let it be said that Hardison could deny Eliot anything. But also don't let it be said that he gave in with anything approaching grace, either. "But you make even one snide remark an' I'll..." It took him a moment to come up with a decent threat. "...bring Parker to the candy shop in town an' then send her to your house when we're done."

[vdistinctive]

"What?" Eliot gave Hardison a wide-eyed innocent look. That a toddler could see through. "I would never."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Man, get outta here with all that. Sophie'd be more believable right now."

[vdistinctive]

"You gonna throw that dart, or what?"

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Hardison huffed. "You laugh an' I'm eatin' crackers in your bed," he threatened.

Scowling, he held the dart up and flung it. On the plus side, it definitely hit the wall he was aiming for. Nowhere near Sterling's picture, and it just kind of bounced off and hit the floor, but he definitely made contact with the correct wall!

[vdistinctive]

Eliot didn't crack a smile. "Okay," he said. He held up another dart for Hardison while Val went to go fetch the one that was on the floor, tail wagging. "Now try it again, and we'll see what we can do about that grip."

Yeah, like he wasn't going to take this as a moment to teach Hardison something.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Would Eliot "Teachable Moment" Spencer ever pass up the opportunity? No. No, he would not.

"We are so doin' somethin' actually fun after this," Hardison grumbled, but paid attention to the way Eliot was holding the dart.

[vdistinctive]

"This is fun." Just you wait, Hardison. Eliot'll have you bouncing and cheering yet.

"You wanna find the balance of the dart." He explained, shifting his hand to balance his dart sideways on his finger. "And then grip it just behind that balance." He forced himself not to just twirl the thing into place and let it roll slowly instead. "You wanna hold it with at least three of your fingers to keep it steady, and let the other ones relax outta the way." He demonstrated, then shifted his stance. "Once you got a firm hold on it, line up your body with the line of your throw, like this. The only thing movin' once you're ready to aim is your arm. When you take aim, focus on your target, not the dart, and get it all in a nice straight line: eyes, dart, and target. You want to point the dart upwards just a little." Eliot took aim, his elbow just a little below his shoulder, his wrist bent back a fraction, the dart pointed somewhere a foot or two over the picture. "You're not throwin' a straight line, gravity doesn't work that way. You're throwin' in a nice gentle arc. Once you're aimed, you're gonna pull your arm back just a little, to get more force behind your throw, and then --"

He whipped his arm out and held it, hand open and empty, once it was straight. The dart seemed to spring fully formed from the center of Sterling's forehead. He smiled.

"Now give it another try."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Hardison attempted to balance the dart on his finger. It immediately rolled off and fell to the floor, where Val was all to happy to pounce on it. "See? I ain't no good at this!"

[vdistinctive]

Eliot rolled his eyes as he went to go collect the darts still in the wall. "You ain't trying. Were you instantly a master hacker the first time you touched a computer?" He held one of the darts out to Hardison again. "This ain't rocket science. Just basic physics. So try."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"You know if it were rocket science, I'd understand it better, right?" Seriously! Rocket science made sense. But he was grabbing the dart and trying again, mumbling, "You just lucky physics is easy enough to understand to even make this sorta worth while."

It took him several tries, but he managed to balance the dart on his finger--and no, that wasn't a brief flash of a smile before he was glowering again. It was a trick of the light, maybe a weather balloon or marsh gas.

[vdistinctive]

Sure. Uh huh. Eliot definitely bought that.

"Alright, now remember where that is, so you don't have to find it again." How did it take that long to balance a damn dart? Really. It was like Hardison had no muscle control at all. "Get a nice firm grip on it, but don't clutch."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Just remember this feeling of impatience when Hardison made you solve differential equations or do actual rocket science.

"That's what he said," Hardison mumbled, just loud enough for Eliot to hear.

[vdistinctive]

"Hilarious," Eliot said, extra dry. "Now check your stance, man. Your body should be at a, whatsit, a perpendicular angle to the board."

He would use all the math terms he knew if that helped Hardison.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"You mean I should be facin' it?" Hardison asked. He was grinning, but he also really appreciated Eliot's attempts to make this accessible to him. "That much, I figured out."

Still, he shifted his posture a bit so he was facing it directly with his entire body, rather than just looking at the target, his body angled elsewhere. Shockingly, when he wasn't paying attention, he was wont to orient himself towards Eliot. He did the same to Parker, too.

[vdistinctive]

"No," Eliot said. "I mean you should be sideways." He demonstrated. "Perpendicular, man, not parallel."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Aaaaaaaaaand this activity was back to being stupid. "That doesn't make a damn bit of sense!" Hardison protested. "Why'm I gonna be facin' away from the target?"

[vdistinctive]

"You're not facing away, man, you're aiming with your whole body. You're still looking at the board, but your shoulders and hips are on your aiming line." Eliot reached out to physically shift Hardison into place. "Like this."