Written for comment_fic on livejournal
Prompt was for wee!Eliot, Christmas morning
Author's Note: This is for wee!Eliot, who is adult-brained Eliot who has been trapped for some reason in a young body. His childlike traits come through against his will sometimes, though he is still the same Eliot inside. (A lot of people write in the wee!genre, not my invention. How Eliot got wee! or how he's going to change back are not really necessary parts of these kinds of stories. In other words, enjoy the crackiness!)
Nate had worried that Eliot would be insulted. He was de-aged in body only, and not in mind, and it wasn't clear how he would respond to a stocking full of gifts. But Sophie thought it would be cute, and Parker never had a Christmas as a kid, and Hardison was secretly a big schmoop at heart, and so Nate was outvoted.
Nate knew he was wrong to worry when the small boy (who was not a boy) woke him up that morning by jumping up and down on Nate's bed and yelling, "Wake up, it's Christmas!"
For a second, Nate thought the boy was... someone else. But as his sleepy eyes adjusted, he recognized the blue of Eliot's eyes and the ponytail in back that bobbed up and down as Eliot jumped.
Nate had the urge to grab the boy and give him an airplane ride, but he told himself that though small, Eliot was still lethal, and it was probably a bad idea.
So he said, "Okay, okay," and he rubbed his eyes and got up, and let Eliot excitedly lead him into the living room.
"Look at the tree, it's so BIG!" Eliot said, eyes widening before the 6-foot tall pine covered in sparkling lights and ornaments of every color as it stood at twice Eliot's height.
Just then, Parker came jumping in. Literally jumping. She and Eliot held hands and jumped up and down yelling "Christmas morning! Christmas morning!" until Eliot realized what he was doing and broke off abruptly. But not before Hardison had sneakily entered and got a fair amount of cuteness on his videocamera.
Sophie walked in then, singing a traditional carol, but stopped when she noticed that Eliot was holding his hands over his ears. She said, "Well, I suppose let's get to the gifts," and handed everyone their respective stockings.
Suddenly, Eliot's eyes looked watery. "I didn't buy you guys anything," he said, barely keeping from crying, "I forgot."
"Not like you could go shopping anyway!" Parker snorted. "You're too short to steal the merchandise."
"That's mean!" Eliot said, and then looked back at Nate, "She's mean. I don't need this crap!"
"Okay, first of all, Eliot, nobody expects you to go Christmas shopping under your, um, er , circumstances," Nate said.
"And second of all, nobody expects you to go Christmas shopping because you're Eliot," Parker giggled.
"Come on," Hardison whispered to Parker, trying to get her to lay off.
"HEY!" Eliot yelled at Hardison, "Did you just defend me?! Because the day I need you to defend me is the day I have an extra hole in my head!"
"Okay! Enough!" Sophie said, "We're all just happy to be together today, right? SO let's just open presents and then have some eggnog for breakfast. That's what Americans do, right?"
"At my house," Nate mumbled.
"NO!" Eliot yelled as he stomped his feet. "You have to wait! Nobody opens anything until I get back!! Seriously, I will kick all y'all asses if a single ribbon is out of place!" He stormed upstairs alone as he held back a sniff.
"All of the violence, none of the impulse control," Hardison muttered, "It's like living with Frosty the PsychoMan."
But the team waited patiently for about an hour before Eliot returned, and then obediently covered their eyes as he entered and put something in each of their stockings.
"Okay!" he said happily, "NOW we can have present-time!" and he swiftly dumped his stocking's contents on the floor. Everyone else looked in their stockings as well.
Nate had gotten everyone a generous but very Nate-like gift -- a retirement account and a book on financial planning. That got a series of groans, but he also got everyone a 20-lb chocolate bar, which went over better. Especially with Eliot. And Hardison. And Parker. Okay, with everyone. He also got a baseball glove and a baseball for Eliot which got a big a smile from Eliot as the giant chocolate bar.
Sophie gave Parker a pair of sapphire earings, and platinum cufflinks for the guys. She also got a remote controlled airplane for Eliot, which he seemed to be excited about.
Parker gave everyone a Rembrandt.
Hardison looked at her funny as he said in disbelief, "Thank you, Parker. But...aren't there only like 20 of these in the world?"
Parker giggled, "Don't be silly, Hardison. Never trust the official number."
She also got Eliot and extra gift, a set of paints. "Don't paint over the Rembrandt," she admonished him.
"I'm not going to - geez!!! I know how to act, I'm not really a kid, Parker!"
She just smiled and rolled her eyes and said indulgently, "Fine, you can paint over the Rembrandt if you want."
"NO!" shouted the others, as Sophie offered to 'hang on' to Eliot's financial information, cufflinks, and artwork until he was big enough to get a safe deposit box. She was afriad he would be offended but he was busy kicking a cardboard box into submission, apparently for the fun of it.
Hardison gave everyone a next-generation iPhone-like-thingy of a different brand that wasn't even available to the public yet. He said that there were other gifts for Eliot in the back yard. As Eliot ran out excitedly, Nate gave Alec a skeptical look. "Are these gifts to Eliot going to be a big pain in the ass for the rest of us?"
Alec evaded the question by calling him Scrooge McGrinch as they followed El back. The first thing Eliot saw was the giant trampoline which he immediately starting doing ridiculously high-reaching backflips on.
"That was very kind, Alec, but honestly, we have enough trouble keeping little Eliot in one piece without what amounts to an anti-gravity device," Sophie whispered. But Alec just grinned, looked at Parker, and then the two of them jumped onto the trampoline and laughed as they bounced around in the wide space. Sophie rolled her eyes, but then a minute later she joined them, giving Nate a shrug of the shoulders, and enjoying something she had never gotten to do as a child.
When all but Eliot (who was still jumping) were tuckered out, Alec said, "C'mon, Eliot!"
"Still jumping!"
"No, time for the next gift!"
That got his attention. Alec told him to look under the trampoline to find the next one - a set of weapons - swords, staff, nunchooks, and miscellaneous others - all custom-made for use by a child-size body.
Eliot thanked Alec excitedly as he fawned over them, almost jumping up to hug Alec before he realized what he was doing.
"Is his coordination really good enough for that kind of gift?" whispered Nate.
"C'mon, it's Eliot," Hardison said.
"This is really quite generous," Sophie told Alec.
"I've only had budget Christmases before this one. So I went a little crazy, I guess. But look at his little face and tell me it's not worth it. Hold up your little mace, Eliot!" Alec called out, holding up the videocamera to get more footage.
"Okay, one more gift!" Alec said, and sent a quick message on his phone to someone.
"Am I going to have mixed feelings about this gift?" Nate asked, suspicious of the secrecy.
"Yes," said, Alec, annoyed that Nate was correctly predicting something that Nate might not want in the house, "You will feel delighted mixed with impressed with my gift-giving skills mixed with jealousy that your present was so lame compared to mine."
Nate gave a glance at the large shard of chocolate Alec was nibbling on, which made him add, "Not that it was unappreciated, Nate."
Just then it became clear who Alec was calling. A representative of the local pound who was delivering three puppies to Eliot, who yelled in delight and immediately got on the ground to frolic with them.
"We can't keep pets in the apartment, Alec" Nate tried.
"I'm the landlord, remember?"
"Well, did it have to be three?"
"What I'm supposed to tell two homeless dogs, 'sorry you're not cute enough, have fun being put down'? Don't think so."
"Puppies have a lot of energy," Nate continued to warn.
"That's why THREE of them might have a chance of wearing out Eliot's energy." Alec answered.
"And what about when we get Eliot back to his normal age?"
"Dude, I'm _talking_ about normal-aged Eliot."
Nate sighed. As Parker and Sophie went over to the dogs and laughed as their faces were licked, Nate knew he wasn't going to win this argument either. But he got them to come back in the house, out of the cold air, bringing the dogs with them of course.
Eliot was still excited over his gifts but suddenly paused. "Hey, why did I get more gifts than everyone else?" He looked angry all of a sudden. "Is it because I'm small?"
"No!" said Alec, Parker, and Sophie all at once.
"Yes," said Nate.
"What!? I don't want your pity presents!"
"Then give them back," Alec dared him.
"No way, no backsies!" Eliot said, face turning pink.
"You're very adorable when you're small, Eliot," Nate told him nonchalantly.
"WHAT!? Screw you! That's a load of horseshit!"
Nate shrugged. "You're adorable, Eliot, get over it. We wanted to give you extra gifts because we like seeing you happy. Just like you wanted to give us more presents than we expected."
Eliot started to pout when Sophie said, "Yes, good point, let's open Eliot's presents now."
Inside the clumsily wrapped construction-paper packages were a series of crayon drawings of horses.
"These are lovely," Sophie exclaimed, "Let's put them on the refrigerator."
"No, look on the back!" Eliot yelled impatiently.
"I. O. U. three self-defense lessons and one afternoon playing a video game of your choice," Alec read out loud. "That is awesome, Eliot, thank you!" Alec went over to hug Eliot, but seeing danger in his eyes settled for a fist bump. "Though can I trade it for 1 self-defense lesson and 3 video game sessions?"
"No substitutions," growled Eliot.
"IOU 3 piggy-back rides when I get big again and 1-knife throwing lesson at any time," Parker read aloud. "Thanks, Eliot! I love it! Though I probably won't use the piggy back rides unless I'm drunk or on inappropriately high levels of medication."
"I figured," Eliot said.
Sophie didn't read hers aloud since it said, "IOU backup on one non-Leverage-team job, no judgments, no questions asked." Instead, she just smiled at him and said, "I absolutely love it. Thank you, ELiot."
Nate didn't read his out loud either. Instead he just held back tears as he silently read, "IOU one big thank you for being my father while I've been small, and for being my brother when I'm big."
"You're hard to shop for Nate," Eliot said, "I mean, what do you give the man who has everything?"
"It's perfect," Nate said.
The others were curious but Sophie suggested they eat some fruitcake for breakfast. At their groans, they decided on coffee and sugar cookies, and sat around, enjoying their gifts and each other, trying to get used to the sound of three dogs barking, and to the strange sight of both Eliot and Nate smiling.