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Luke's, Monday

Eliot was not madly cooking today. Rather he was tucked into a booth in the back corner of the dining room, pounding through coffee like it was his job and growling halfheartedly at his staff when they came over to check on him.

"This is bad," the dishwasher said. The kitchen staff was huddled together at the window, watching him from a distance. "I've never seen him like this before."

"Is he even drunk?" asked the cook. The busboy shook his head.

"What are we going to do?" the dishwasher asked.

The three exchanged looks.

Five minutes later, the diner's music was switched to electronica and flashing colored lights had been set up on the lunch counter, as the staff threw an impromptu dance party in an attempt to annoy their boss out of his funk.

Today's specials
DANCE YOUR SADNESS AWAY!
or eat something with lots of chocolate!

Luke's was open.

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Let's do the fork in the garbage disposal!

Edited 2017-01-16 15:20 (UTC)

Really, the music was only making him have to growl slightly louder.

Hardison had to talk to Eliot. Had to! He threw himself into the diner, clutching a laptop to his chest like a precious infant and looked around for Eliot. And Parker. Was she there, too? Hopefully, because he needed to talk to both of them.

"Turn that stuff down!" he hollered at the staff before raising his voice even louder. "Eliot! Eliot, yo where are you! ELIOT!"

Well, that was a nice spike of adrenaline to go with all the caffeine Eliot had ingested since -- last night.

He maybe hadn't slept since then, either.

He almost tripped over his own feet sliding out of the booth so fast. "What? What'd the island do?"

Did he have to punch something? He'd rather like to punch something.

"I got her, Eliot, I got her!" Hardison babbled, holding up his laptop like the strings of code on the screen would instantly explain what was going on.

In fairness, to him, they could.

"I wasn't sure I could, cause I'd been dreamin' 'bout her, too, but then she didn't come, you know? So I'm thinkin', maybe those were just stress dreams an' so I spent the weekend workin' an' I did it!" He flung a fist up in the air and did a mad little dance. "I am the smartest man on the planet!"

That . . . explained a lot. Like how Hardison looked like he might have actually gotten less sleep than Eliot had, even though they had totally opposite overtired manic phases going on right now.

"You got an in on Kathy's world?" He wanted to sound more excited by that, he really did, but it was kind of hard knowing it was much, much too late for Kathy. He was a good boyfriend, though, and what he lacked in vocal enthusiasm he at least made up for in a celebratory fistbump handshake offer.

"Yup!" And Hardison was too excited to be a good boyfriend, or else he would have toned down his joy a bit. He knew how much Eliot was hurting and that his hack had come about eight months too late for Kathy. But Raven was still out there and she was alive, he just knew it. "I finally cracked through everythin' Portalocity had protectin' their portals. There's still about nine million calculations an' algorithms I gotta run, but I got one goin' for LA right now! We're gonna be able to get Raven back, I know it!"

Sure, it would be hard to pinpoint one girl in a city of millions, but they could figure something out! That was what they did! They made the impossible happen.

Eliot was not so certain that Raven wasn't dead. He wasn't certain about it at all. And he really didn't want to have to watch the look on Hardison's face when they found out she hadn't made it.

"How d'you even know she's still in LA?" he said instead. "Kathy's video said they were gonna head east. She mighta gone with that plan, after Kathy. . . ."

That punctured through Hardison's veil of excitement. "Well," he said, "I mean..."

Yeah, he hadn't considered that at all. And the implications were staggering. Literally, and figuratively; Hardison actually stumbled for a second before he caught himself, clutching his laptop close again to keep it from toppling over. And then he sat down, heavily, in a booth.

"I ain't even thought of that," he admitted, rubbing his hand tiredly over his face. The weariness of the past weekend were very evident in his face, now that the grin had been erased. "I got so caught up in thinkin' about how she couldn't be dead, since she didn't show up this weekend, even though I dreamed 'bout her, that I only thought about havin' to search through LA. Not the entirety of the continental US." He laughed, though it sounded more hurt than anything else. "Makes sense though. My girl ain't one to wait around for a rescue. Too self-sufficient for that. Reminded me of you in some ways. Parker, too. Probably why I liked her so much."

Whelp, Eliot felt like a heel. "Hey man, no. If anyone can still find her, it's you. I bet she's waitin' on. . . ."

He trailed off, blinking, as Hyacinthe's weird cryptic message popped up in his head.

"It's never cryptic," he said, then smacked his hand down on the table. "Goddamn."

"What's never cryptic?" Hardison asked, trying to follow Eliot's sudden leap. And failing. "What're you talkin' about?"

Honestly, Eliot would have been astonished if he could. "Somethin' one of my students said last week. Kid's apparently got some kinda psychic mojo and -- fuck, I owe him such an apology." Eliot shook his head, trying to get his brain to stop skipping forward over steps. "I mentioned you and he went all blank eyed and said, uh." He frowned, trying to get the exact phrasing. "'The little lost bird's waitin' at the causeway.' Or 'lonely lost' or -- something --"

Dammit, he should have written this down.

"The lost bird--Raven?" Hardison asked, putting that together since he had slightly more context for the prophecy than Eliot had gotten. "You think he's talkin' 'bout Raven? He definitely mentioned the Causeway?"

Hardison was ready to hunt this kid down and shake the rest of the information out of him if that's what it took.

"Definitely the causeway," Eliot confirmed. "And definitely a lost bird. He said it wouldn't be cryptic, and Raven's the only 'bird' I can think of you'd be worryin' about."

"Unless I suddenly turned British when no one was lookin', you're right," Hardison said. "So, Raven's waitin' at the Causeway? Then she--"

Wait. The Causeway. That meant that she might be there right now. The Causeway could transcend dimensions, everybody knew that.

Hardison made sure his laptop was securely set on the table and took off toward the Causeway at a dead run.

"Shit." Eliot bolted after him. "He said waiting, Hardison, you think if she could just walk over she'd be waiting?!"

"Maybe she needs our help!" Hardison yelled back over his shoulder. "Maybe she's hurt or sick or trapped under somethin'!"

...It had been much easier to catch up to him before he'd done all that exercising fetching Pokemon.

Stupid long-legged boyfriend. "Or maybe she needs a portal!"

I have a dentist appointment a block away from an MLK day protest, this morning.

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Luke's, Monday

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OOC