Title : Shopping Shouldn't Be So Difficult
Author : peaceful_sands
Fandom : Leverage
Characters : Team
Rating : PG-13
Word Count : approx. 1200 words
Prompt : Leverage, any except Sophie, shopping
Disclaimer : All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.
Shopping Shouldn't Be So Difficult
So when they first started to spend more time together and Eliot started cooking, Sophie suggested that perhaps they should take it turns to help out. After all, if Eliot was cooking, surely it was only fair that someone else do the shopping and the washing up, even if it was only loading up a dish washer.
It had made sense to at least four of their number, and Eliot might have had his reservations about the shopping part, but it wasn't like he was a great fan of clearing up at the end of the day, so if Sophie wanted to corral everyone into doing something, he could live with it. Hardison, Parker and Nate were just glad to be getting more of Eliot's cooking at that point.
So it should have all been simple, right?
Eliot wrote the list and handed it over to Sophie and watched her walk out the door. He sat and bit his nails and twirled a knife on the counter top the whole time she was gone, worried about what she'd come back with.
In the end, it isn't too bad. He figures maybe this will work out. He turns his attention to his cooking and it isn't until he's almost finished and he reaches for the cream to add to the sauce when he realizes there isn't any. It's redeemable, after all there's a shop just downstairs and Sophie full of apologies dashes out of the apartment and down to fetch some from there.
Next time, he'll check the ingredients before he starts, just in case there's one missing.
Nate goes the next time and when he gets back, half the ingredients are missing. Openly missing, not just a mistake like with Sophie. "So I didn't know where to find that one," he says pointing to the third item on the list, "and I'd got no idea what that one was," moving his finger down to number eight. "That! I couldn't even work out how to pronounce it, let alone find it!" Eliot glances at number ten and has to admit that maybe Nate has a point.
He goes out himself to buy the missing ingredients and they all eat an hour late.
Eliot is increasingly dubious about this whole letting other people do his shopping and tries to come up with any number of reasons why Hardison is too busy to be doing it. But they're between jobs and Hardison's spent the last two days playing World of Warcraft and, with the exception of Hardison, they're all agreed that it's time he shifted himself from in front of his laptop.
It's an unmitigated disaster. Nothing in the bags that Hardison brings back was even on the list Eliot made. Even Nate is stunned at how awful it is.
Eliot doesn't even know where to start with his complaint. "Yeah, well I kinda lost the list you gave me, so I figured pizza would be good. So I ran with that idea and got you all the fixings for pizza." Eliot stares at the mess of ingredients lying on the work surface in front of him because it's not true.
Lying in front of him are five frozen margarita pizzas and a few tins of pineapple, olives and mushrooms (which just makes Eliot shudder in horror at the thought of what they're going to taste like) and some bread that Hardison proudly informs him, he's sure Eliot can make garlic bread out of.
The impending explosion is cut short when Parker sweeps everything off the counter and straight into the bin, telling Hardison not to be so silly, that's not how you make pizza.
She heads for Eliot's cupboards (because this might not be his home, by it's most definitely his kitchen) and starts to pick through things and get out 'real' ingredients for making pizza. Eliot's rage begins to subside as the proper things appear in front of him and he begins to wonder how Parker knows what to get.
She almost bounces from cupboard to cupboard to fridge and only pauses when she realizes they're out of peppers and mozzarella. She sidles up to Eliot and asks if they're okay to get from the shop down on the street, when he nods and the tension goes from his shoulders, she smiles and drags Hardison away, telling him again how useless he is at shopping.
Sophie apologizes while they're out, saying she hadn't believed Hardison could get it that wrong and that maybe from now on he could be relegated to taking out the trash. Eliot had already banned him from washing up after he tried to 'clean' the non-stick out of one of Eliot's pans.
It only leaves Parker and Eliot doesn't know how he feels about that. He doesn't think she knows much about cooking, she'll sit and watch him from the windowsill, but she's never shown any inclination to join in or offer comments on it. Yet, she was the one who knew what to do and what to get when Hardison got it so wrong.
He toys with the list, still fighting the reluctance to hand it over. Wouldn't it be easier just to let him do it himself? He wouldn't mind. Really he wouldn't!
Parker eases the slip of paper from between his fingers and sits down beside him to read it. Once or twice she frowns, but then she reads on and when she's finally finished, she turns and says, "Do you want to come with me?"
Sophie starts to interrupt that that is hardly the point of Parker doing the shopping for Eliot if she takes him with her.
Eliot's already trying to say he doesn't mind, when Parker stops everyone and says, "We've been pretty bad at this shopping for Eliot so far. I just think, if I take him with me this time, he can show me, teach me what to look for and then next time, I'll be able to do it on my own."
It makes so much sense that Eliot just wants to hug her. What kind of world is it when the craziest one amongst them has the most sensible ideas? He's already pulling on his jacket and following Parker out of the apartment before anyone else has time to stop them.
He takes her to his favorite supermarket, telling her the quality is better here. She realizes immediately that without thinking about it, he's written the list in the order she'll find things on the shelves. She keeps him close as she picks the fresh foods, making sure he approves of her choices, getting him to tell her what to look for on the ones she's not familiar with. By the time they're going through the checkout, she knows that next time she can do it without him and she can see that the tension has gone from his shoulders too.
She smiles knowing he might think she's crazy, but he trusts her anyway.