Summary: Eliot in a clown suit. It's a very disturbing, traumatic sight for Hardison. Written for comment-fic. Prompt: any serious character, getting a job (or a past job) as a clown that performed at kids parties.
Title from Stephen King's clown character in It…What? I couldn't help it. Eliot would make a very scary clown.
You know, I really should be answering all the wonderful, lovely reviews people have left me over the last...two months (I'm slowly getting back to people, so if you haven't heard back from me yet, you will soon), but I wrote this silly little thing for comment_fic, and now I want to post it. So there. (I have absolutely no impulse control, it seems. Baaaad Poesie.)
Pennywise
It doesn't come as that much of a surprise that Eliot is good with kids. Kids love him. Because seriously, he's like a real-life Batman, and what kid doesn't like Batman?
But then again, it's Eliot. And Eliot and kids…the mental image doesn't really mesh with his tough-guy manner (the Santa job notwithstanding).
Eliot in a clown suit, complete with clown make-up (red foam nose included), size 25 shoes, and a curly neon green, pink, and yellow wig, entertaining a bunch of kids really doesn't match up with his usual I-can-kill-you-with-my-pinky-finger-and-not-even-sweat-it demeanor. It's disturbing, actually.
However, the only thing that is truly unsettling about it is how well he manages the twenty or so children and keeps them from disrupting the con. He's gruff and says little, as is usual with him, but he's not scary, not even to the five or so children who had at first started crying at the mere sight of the garishly-garbed hitter. He somehow coaxes them into relaxing, and even laughing at his mimed antics (Hardison doesn't think they're that funny), and by the end of the day, they're the ones who are practically sitting in his lap, completely mesmerized.
It's all very surreal and weird, up until Eliot kills a couple of henchmen with animal balloons. (Okay, he only knocks them out, but he could have killed them.) Then the world turns right side up again for Hardison.
Now if only Parker would stop talking about a killer horse murdering a clown…Because that is just wrong. Wrong, man. Killer horses? Mr. Ed? Naw. Clowns are much scarier than horses. Look at Pennywise. Look at Eliot. See? Scary.