on hiatus

It’s a very distinctive handicraft.

It’s very telling about the kind of roles Christian Kane is cast in that I thought this was a legit subtitle for a minute and couldn’t tell if it was Leverage or The Librarians (outside chance it was Angel, honestly). 

*pokes you* Make it fic for me, Sam. If not now, then next time you’re doing a Midnight Theatre. I’m putting my order in now because I am NEVER awake when you ask for prompts. Pretty please?

Guess who’s got legal weed and a will to create! 

(Quick shout out to Dispensary 33, where 1920s facial hair meets 2020s weed edibles!)

Title: A Very Distinctive Backstitch Rating: General Summary: Parker returns home to find Eliot has discovered both pinterest and handicrafts, and Hardison has had to use the fire extinguisher again.

Parker got home three days after the boys did, on that particular mission. When they were planning it, they seemed to think this wasn’t fair, and she’d told them they were right; she felt terrible, having so much fun without them. Still, they’d just have to keep a stiff upper lip about it and she’d let them have all the fun next time.

(When she mentioned that, Alec got his “You have misunderstood my intentions” face, but she l…she lo…she loved Alec in part because even when she didn’t understand, he wasn’t ever mean or judgey. He didn’t always explain, but he always accepted. In this case, he just got her a GoPro so she could tape herself on the stunt bike course during the mission.)

Anyway, she spent three days having so much fun, and didn’t even mind the long drive back to Portland in the taquito truck. But when she finally arrived home, letting herself into the loft above the brewpub, she was met with a mystery. As she entered she found, draped over the kitchen island, a large fold of cloth, heavily embroidered in the style of the Bayeaux tapestry.

“Did you take an entire other job without me?” she demanded, as Alec walked into the kitchen carrying an empty plastic takeaway container. He shouted, flailed, and threw it at her. She caught it and tossed it into the sink. (She was all for throwing them away, but Eliot got a really pinched look when they did that, so now they washed them and saved them forever in the Sacred Take Away Container Reliquary, aka the bottom drawer on the right of the dishwasher.)

“Parker!” Alec yelped.

“What kind of job would you need the Bayeaux tapestry for, anyhow?” she asked.

“Woman,” Alec sighed, but he hugged her, and once she’d gotten used to them hugs were nice, so she enjoyed that part. “Welcome home. It’s not the Bayeax tapestry. I have some bad news.”

“If you’re getting some 7535 you might as well grab the 7110!” Eliot’s voice drifted out from the bedroom.

“Eliot’s lost his damn mind,” Hardison finished.

In theory, Parker knew that this job would be rough on Eliot. It required their hitter to take a beating. Eliot had said he was fine with it, but he’d taken more of a hit than anyone (possibly including the bad guys’ goon) had intended. In practice she’d been prepared for him to be bedridden, doped up, and cranky, but she hadn’t been prepared for cryptography.

“What’s 7535?” she asked in a whisper.

“Embroidery thread,” Hardison replied, reaching for a plastic bin on the counter. He held up a hank of wooly yarn, wrapped in a piece of paper that did indeed read 7535. “Did you know there are seven different shades of black?”

“Well, yeah,” she said, perplexed. “I mean, Venetian Black is totally different from Cherry Black, and then there’s Dark Black – oh! I found it!” she added, plucking the other color, 7110, out of the box. “What does Eliot want with red and black yarn?”

“Thread. Embroidery thread,” Alex said. “He got high and picked up a hobby.”

At that point Eliot himself, apparently impatient with Alec’s lack of speed, thumped into the kitchen on a crutch.

“It’s not a hobby, it’s a historical tradition,” he said. “Hi Parker, welcome home. Textiles have always been dismissed as crafts while paint and sculpture are arts,” he added, aggrieved.

Parker turned to Alec. He shrugged.

“He found a really compelling Pinterest right as the opiates kicked in,” he said.

“I learned how to embroider at three in the morning,” Eliot said to her proudly. He held out his next project after the fake Bayeaux tapestry. It was a cross stitch announcing All Cheese is Hubris. Parker studied it, impressed.

“He also almost burned the building down,” Alec interjected, as if he wasn’t used to both of them almost burning things down on a very regular basis. It was cute how he always acted surprised.

“It’s a long story,” Eliot said. “Anyway once I got the hang of it, I thought, I’ve never forged a textile before.”

“Ooh, me neither,” Parker said thoughtfully.

“But there’s a couple of panels from the Bayeaux missing, right?” he continued. “And like…why shouldn’t one of the missing panels have aliens in it?”

Parker checked the tapestry on the kitchen island. Among other more traditional motifs, it did indeed have two large-eyed aliens abducting a monk.

“He’s still high?” she asked.

“Another two days on the Vicodin,” Alec confirmed.

“It looks very authentic,” she said loyally. “Construction-wise, I mean.”

“Thanks,” Eliot said. He accepted the thread Alec handed him. “I’m gonna go finish this one. It’s for the kitchen.”

He hobbled off. Alec looked at her, his face a careful mask.

“Poor baby,” she said. “I got to base-jump twice and you’ve been tripsitting him through the hobby store.”

“ART STORE,” Eliot’s voice drifted out from the bedroom.

“Yeah, well, you know, it’s been rough, but I held up,” Alec said, putting on a mock-brave face. She grinned and kissed his cheek.

“Go play some video games. I’ll handle him from here. With a little nudge, he might learn to knit before we have to get him off the hard stuff,” she pointed out. She felt the benefits of knitting were self-evident, but Alec frowned.

“Why do we want Eliot to learn to knit?” he asked.

“Hello? Custom sized winter hats?” she pointed out. Hardison fell well within the one-size-fits-all range of most machine knitted hats – she’d done measurements while he slept – but she just knew if he had a tailored toque he’d feel better about wintering somewhere it rained every single day from Halloween to St. Patrick’s Day. She herself had quite an oval head and hadn’t gone back to off-the-rack hats since her first tailored ski mask.

“I’m gonna go…Goose Game,” he said.

“Be extra horrible for me!” she told him, and bounced off to initiate a subtle campaign to shift Eliot from embroidery to knitting.

I’M DYING THIS IS ADORABLE

[Image id: The “x is something that can actually be so personal” meme of Antoni from Queer Eye edited to say “Eliot’s hair in the baseball episode is something that can actually be so Gender. /end id]

obvs eliot was terrified as hell going into the pool scene but do you ever wonder if moreau had a brief moment of fear, opening that door and seeing eliot spencer on the other side. thinking that maybe this was the day where everything karmically and violently caught up with him (feeling a lot like acteon, torn apart by his own hounds). but then he sees how coiled eliot still is around him, how subdued and pliable, and takes up the reins of control again in the time it takes for his smile to return

She/They autistic Parker supremacy

He/They chronic pain Eliot supremacy

He/They adhd Hardison supremacy

I did promise memes

I love how Parker blowing up a house as a little child is just never ever expanded upon or even mentioned again. The Leverage writers were just like this tells you everything you need to know about the character and that's all you're gonna get, die wondering about it

everytime I watch the queen's gambit job and eliot gets drugged I have a lot of feelings that I can't really put into words

like something something out of control something something him kicking the shit out of the bad guys to fight off that feeling something something hardison catching onto that immediately and pointing him in the right direction

maybe it's that I've just moved from one kinder than canon au-for-eliot wip to another, maybe it's lingering angst sensitivity from the lethal weapon trainwreck, but I was not expecting such a strong "the man is fifty, let him rest" reaction to the trailer.

ALEC 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉 HARDISON

God, rewatching Tara's first episode with the knowledge of her true identity is so funny, she's like

'Yeah, I still think the law is the only way to go now more than ever.'

Just boldface lying to this man's face, no fucks given.

Icon behavior.

And then she has the gall to look him in the eye and say

'I like to think you learned something from me today.'

Like Bitch, I'm in love with you.