The coos and awww's had not subsided in the last ten minutes. As a matter of fact, there had been a dramatic increase of dopily smiling grown men passing by him. If he was honest with himself, he'd admit that his curiosity was peaked just a little bit. However, he made no move to get up and find out what the fuss was all about. Instead Gabriel tried to tune it out so he could finish his soul-sucking paperwork and do something with actual meaning today. Those plans were quickly dashed by someone just about warbling out a "That's so precious!" and Elias calling him over to look at something.
Sighing, the man dropped his pen on the stack of papers and stood up. The people who'd gathered around Elias' desk had dissipated by the time he got there, apparently remembering they had work to do. Once the wall of people were gone the picture frames and carefully folded up crayon drawings were easily visible. Rolling his eyes he flicked a green, plastic army man over as he sidled around the desk. Now able to see the pictures in the lovingly maintained frames, he snorted. David and Logan, Elias' boys, featured prominently in every single one of them. Logan eating cake on his first birthday, David in his footed 'jammies' on Christmas last year, both toddlers in the sand at the beach, and several others his eyes skimmed over very briefly. Gabriel's attention shifted up to the computer screen impatiently. His friend was beaming ever so proudly, and he sighed in resignation, knowing what was coming. "Lookit what my wife sent me!" Elias' voice just about oozed glee, even as he clicked the play button.
The excited young man hit a key, and the monitor went black for a moment as it resized the video to fit the screen. Gabriel blinked, unimpressed with the first few seconds of the video. It was just Elias' boys, amidst towers of blocks, tiny plastic people, and a few soft toys. Logan burbled something at his brother, who knocked a small pillar over in his attempt to grab one of the Hotwheels. As he made to go back to his paperwork, Elias grabbed his arm. His grip was surprisingly (read; painfully) strong, and Gabriel found himself dragged back to his previous spot in front of the monitor. For a few more minutes he watched the boys play, the camera fixed upon them. The sound of a car pulling up got the camera's wielder (presumably Elias' wife) moving.
She managed to keep the focus on the boys, and held the camera quite steadily even as she moved across the room, making sure both the couch and the window were in view. "Boys," she cooed at them, giggling when two tiny faces turned to stare at her "Daddy's home!" The effect was immediate. David tottered over to the window of the living room and looked out, even as Logan crawled behind him. When they were both at the window, David squealed excitedly, clearly having seen either a car or his father, and Logan (who was gripping the windowsill to support himself) bounced happily. "Da-a-a-a-addy!" The older boy shrieked, moving away from the window. He ran over to the wash-basket where his mother collected their toys to return them to their box and promptly dumped them all on the floor. David flipped the basket upside-down and pushed it from behind, running across the carpet with it. He pushed it into place up against the baby gate that kept the the toddlers from getting into the kitchen, and waited.
Meanwhile, Logan had crawled over to the couch and grabbed a couple pillows which he struggled to bring with him as he made his way over to his brother. David, upon recieving the cushions, climbed up onto the wash-basket and dropped them over the other side of the baby gate. Then he helped his little brother up onto the box. Using his brother as a stepstool, Logan managed to climb over the top of the baby gate and land with an 'oomph' on the pillows his brother had tossed over. Logan crawled down the short hallway and out of view. Funnily enough, the camera didn't follow after him, instead focusing on David's excited face. The little boy was bouncing up and down like his brother had been minutes ago, a silly grin on his round little face.
However, when Logan didn't reappear after a few seconds, he got impatient. "Hurry up, Wogan!" David commanded, lookig mildly worried. The strange scraping noise paused, and a tiny voice cried out "I tummim!" Moments lated Logan appeared, pushing a wooden chair along. Much like the wash-basket, the chair was guided to stand quite close to the baby gate. The little blond boy fumbled with the latch on the gate, uncoordinated fingers having trouble grasping at the cool plastic.
With a little hard work, the gate was unlatched by a toddler's chubby digits. Both boys worked together to pull it open enough for David to slip through, apparently oblivious to their mother's presence. Once the two were reunited, they took off down the hall. This time, the camera followed them into the kitchen where they sat dutifully on the tile floor. The door leading out to the garage's knob rattled, and the boys got very still. Elias shuffled in, and grinned broadly when his two babies attached themselves to his legs. He bent down, and hugged them to himself even as they shrieked "Daaaddy!" and "Dadada-eee!" respectively.
"There are my big boys!" He proclaimed proudly, kissing the top of Logan's fluffy head, and ruffling David's hair gently. The video cut off there, but Gabriel just stood grinning at the screen for a bit longer, unwittingly letting out an "Awwwww~" He didn't see Elias with the camera until the flash went off, forever capturing the vision of his face with a soppy grin on it. The man took off running, camera in hand laughing like a mad man. Gabriel went tearing after him, roaring in indignation.
"Elias Walker, you give me that fuckin' camera!"
Have another cute, boys and girls! This one comes with pre-k commandos, and a squishy Rorke, who, surprisingly, does not eat babies.