What, was "Rudy" on cable last night?

To say that Eliot was dragging would be an understatement. He'd just woken up from the absolute weirdest, most depressing week ever (which was saying something), during which he'd basically been a mindless killer drone with a drill for a hand, and literally all he wanted to do was be home with his partners and do comforting, human things like cook and eat food and then sleep.

The only saving grace was that Parker and Hardison were right there the moment he woke up, both also now normal and healthy, and that they probably wouldn't mind too much if he took a little while to go from "spoke in weird wordless groans for a week" back to "speaking actual sentences and interacting with people". Frankly, the "Big Daddy" had been a little too close to what he might have been if he'd spent enough time working for Moreau than he really wanted to deal with.

[for them's in the narrative and . . . whatever the hell speed play it ends up being]

The Leverage team had been in Fandom more than long enough to know exactly what came after the school prom. Eliot's anticipation of seeing Spike and Gracie again had been tempered by his dread over whatever fresh hell of a revelation of his alternate selves' sex lives. He'd already met a daughter some version of him had had with Sterling, for chrissake, but he knew better to think the island couldn't somehow top that.

But Saturday morning had come and gone, and no "you don't get to be with your partners in my universe" child arrived to taunt him. And it turned out, spending time with a couple kids who belonged to all three of them was really nice.

He leaned back on the couch with his coffee, a giant spread of brunch foods arranged on the coffee table, the end tables, and pretty much every other flat surface not currently occupied by a piece of Hardison's tech (yeah, Eliot lost that battle before it ever began), and watched as Hardison finished setting up a video link to Kathy. Parker was perched on the back of the couch next to him, her knee touching his shoulder, looking about as happy and relaxed as he'd ever seen her, and not just because her mouth was full of chocolate cereal. The kids were sprawled on either side of them, teasing and poking each other in a way that reminded Eliot so much of himself and Trudy as kids it almost hurt. Somehow, after everything, he'd still managed to end up with a family. A large one, even. He could get used to this.

He bit his lip thoughtfully, and took a long sip of his coffee.

Maybe he should start taking steps to make sure he got the chance.

[for the fam, and slow play. AU KIDS!]

Eliot was out for his morning run with Val, both of them enjoying the decided lack of blizzards and snow monsters as they went at an easy pace along the beach. This was Eliot's favorite time on the island, before just about anyone else was up. He liked company -- you didn't end up basically married to two other people if you didn't -- but there was always going to be a part of him that preferred to spend time alone.

Val skidded to a stop with a whine, her nose in the air, then pressed it into the sand. Eliot slowed beside her, frowning.

"Whatcha got, girl?" Val loved running. She wouldn't stop like that for just anything. "Show me."

Val started off again, nose pressed into the sand as she went, save for when she glanced back to make sure he was still behind her. The whole way, she kept up that low whine in the back of her throat.

So much for his nice, peaceful morning.

[ooc: for thems what know.]

Eliot made it through his morning run with Val and half of his breakfast prep before he started cluing in to what was definitely happening along with spring finally springing up around the island. It was the part where he spent several minutes contemplating his vegetables in new and creative ways that did it.

At least he finally knew what the eggplant emoji meant?

"Fuck. I'm going to owe Miguel a beer."

He turned the stove back off, took just long enough to make sure that there wasn't anything dangerous left out that Val could get into, then headed back to the bedroom. He and his partners probably weren't going to be productive anywhere else until this was all over again.

[Establishy, unless said partners want to ping in, but it'll be slow either way, because Easter]

The island had that vacation quiet thing going on, and life in general had been pretty quiet and peaceful for Eliot recently, too.

It was enough to drive a hitter nuts.

He'd bought pretty much everything Williams Sonoma had to offer right now, and had broken in every single piece. He'd actually gotten tired of cooking. So now he was sitting in the living room, reading a political thriller, his reading glasses sliding down his nose.

Oh good god, he'd totally gotten old. This was exactly why he'd talked to Kanan about going off and starting a bar fight sometime.

[for the partners. And probably for slowplay]

There wasn't anything quantifiable that Eliot could nail down, but he could tell when Fandom managed to shake off its latest evil invasion. It was like an enormous, evil weight had been lifted from the world.

It was an enormous relief, but mostly Eliot kind of wanted to take a nap. Again. Apparently freaking out as hard as he had took a lot out of a person, more than sleeping a good 10 hours straight thanks to the medication Hardison had dug up.

"Right," he said. "So . . . what. We should be good through, like, March now, right?"

[ooc: for the family, especially, but can also be open!]

Plumbing, electric, and insulation were all finally done. The joys of completely gutting and rebuilding an entire house. Now Eliot could finally start making this construction site actually start looking like a place you could live in.

The time had come . . . for drywall.

For the most part, this was a relatively simple part of the house rebuilding process, but there were a couple funky sections, around Parker's various niches and Hardison's metric ton of electrical outlets -- and Eliot's huge amount of custom built-ins in the kitchen, let's not pretend he wasn't making this place more complicated himself. Those all just meant that Eliot got to bust out the jigsaw as well as the screw gun.

God, but he loved power tools.

[open!]

The house was gutted down to studs, many of which had been rearranged to make the new configuration of rooms the team had agreed on. Eliot was working on framing the new upper story now, which meant a hard hat, tool belt, gloves, the works.

Seriously, he had this whole men-at-work carpenter look down up here. He hoped his partners appreciated it. Lord knew he did on the few occasions Hardison got down and dirty with a maker get up. He wondered how much Hardison would fuss about the sawdust if they tried to fool around in (a carefully cleared area of) the construction site. . . .

Work was happening, if a little slow. Since the carpenter kept distracting himself with idle fantasies.

[yeah I dunno. Open! Eliot should be visible from the street while he works. . . .]

Everyone was on the island and in one piece, even if their homes weren't. There were no classes to worry about, and Eliot had finally stopped ranting about whether or not he needed to hire contractors to fix up Luke's.

It was time for a family dinner night.

"Okay," Eliot announced as he wiped his hands dry on a dish towel. "We've got spaghetti and farfalle -- bowtie pasta, Parker -- marinara and alfredo, both meatless, and meatballs for the carnivores. Everyone has to take at least a little salad, and there's wine or soda to drink. Please tell me someone remembered to set the table."

The "table" in question was some leftover counter top from rebuilding Luke's kitchen, propped on two saw horses, but that was okay. It matched the "kitchen". Which was several camp stoves arranged on a salvaged desk.

They really maybe needed to think about getting an actual house to live in again.

[for thems what know, up early to be nice to scheduling!]

Eliot had handwavily spent the week looking up tips for teaching guitar. He was self-taught, himself -- other than the tips he'd gotten from Kaye-Lynn during his very brief tenure as a country music sensation -- and it was a skill he'd picked up young enough that he didn't 100% remember how he'd gone about it. It was good to review some of the bare basics for himself, and besides, it'd been forever since he and Kathy had had their regular teaching sessions. He'd rather missed them.

He'd picked up a fancy auto-tuner so they wouldn't have to spend their whole first lesson on tuning by ear -- they could cover that later -- and a variety of beginners chord books in different musical styles, since he wasn't sure yet what kind of music she'd want to play. Probably not the early American standards or country-western classics that he'd first learned. Though he'd probably try to sneak some Hank Williams or Johnny Cash in there somewhere.

He was, in fact, warming up with some Johnny Cash while he waited for Kathy to arrive. He really had been everywhere, after all.

[ooc: for Kathy and the partners, though if anyone else has a burning desire to visit, that's okay too]