"You're a potter fan? For real?" Cisco didn't seem convinced and, from what James remembered, he was the toughest one to crack here. They were kind of dicks to each other so apparently if he could find some kind of common ground, maybe that would be the gateway to acceptance.
"He's such a fan, he's trying to make a wand. No joke. Like a cool one that summons holograms like a patronum buuuut he won't let me play."
Cisco's eyes were wide with awe and his seat fell forward from it's casual leaned back position, almost climbing over his desk in an effort to get closer and get Hartley's attention. "Dude! That is the best idea ever! You have to lemme see. I have ideas already. Oh man, I need to draw blue prints. This is exciting!"
"Does it do anything else? Because you could totally adds a laser to it for lumos." Ronnie piped in, seeming equally as interested in this potential project. "I could probably make one small enough. In theory."
James grinned playfully and sat himself on Hartley's desk without asking. "You guys are all such geniuses, I have no idea how you function being that smart." So good at flattering.
"It's called a 'Patronus', not 'patronum'." Hartley realized that James might have actually said it wrong on purpose to get him to actually weigh in. He was tricky like that. Whatever, apparently this was a lost cause. At least the food was legitimately delicious. There were so many reasons to date an Italian guy. Hartley looked up when Cisco and Ronnie both seemed to actually be into this. Seriously?
He hated when James was right. He rolled his eyes at the obvious flattery and shrugged after swallowing. "It's for a convention. I don't know how well a laser would be received." Also, he wanted to sink into the ground.
"We can make it a harmless laser, not a proper laser. I don't want to blind anyone."
"Woah, woah, woah, hold up. There's a new Potter Con?"
"Oh, shit, I missed that. I'm with Cisco. There's a Potter con? Where?"
"When? I need the deets."
"We're so going. Right? Hartley, man, this will be so cool."
James just sat back smugly and watched as Ronnie and Cisco got all excited and Caitlin got ... he assumed excited on their behalf because mostly she just seemed to be humouring them. Look at that, Hartley had someone to go to his dumb con with.
"Then you could save yourself the effort and just build a flash-light." But still, Hartley felt himself smile in spite of the rampant idiocy at work here. It was lunch break, seeing how he had food, if they spent some time talking about Harry Potter, he supposed that wasn't too bad. "It's in a month. Down at the Central City Center." Which was an incredibly stupid name, but he supposed with a city name like this, it was hard to avoid. "I think you can still get tickets."
He glanced at James, wishing that his heart didn't speed up like that when he saw that smug smile. Handsome bastard. He reached out to feed him a bite of the food he'd brought him, not really thinking about it. That was the issue about hanging out with James, it made him forget what normal boundaries in a friendship were.
"I just got the tickets." Cisco moved fast when he wanted something, booking three passes and assuming Hartley already had his. "You got yours, right Hartley? I got you one too Caitlin and, oh hey, James? You in or what?"
"Nah, I'm good." He tilted his head and stole the food from Hartley's hand without a second thought, not really considering it gay. He was hungry and food was being offered. That was just being polite. "You kids have fun, I have work."
"Work?" Caitlin was just going to politely ignore whatever the hell was going on between these two, hitting both her dumb idiot boys before they asked or said anything stupid. "What do you do for a living, James?"
"I work in the city." He licked his lips and shrugged. "I do odd jobs. It's not important."
"He mostly just get on my nerves." Which was Hartley accused pretty much everyone of, especially most of the people here, but this time said with undeniable fondness. He had left his street days behind him for the most part, but not James. Not Axel, either, if he was to be honest with himself. Tricksters. Just no way to get rid of them. "Do you want to see what we're working on?"
"I get to see the cool tech? Oh hell yeah, I am so in for seeing that." James jumped to his feet excitedly and then gestured for Hartley to take the lead. He never got to live this kind of life. Walk around a lab and look at tech and people doing science. How cool was that?
Cisco nearly protested that they weren't allowed to give lab tours but he was too dumbfounded by Hartley being nice to people and too charmed by James to truly protest. Instead, he held out his pass to James. "There needs to be two passes to look at the cool stuff, you can borrow mine, just get it back to me at the end."
"Not all of it. I just want to show you the parts I've told you about a little..." Hartley wanted to backtrack, because he knew that wasn't professional. Hell, Cisco had given a tour to his asswipe of a brother last week, they all did it all the time, but he was supposed to be better than that. But in the end he just nodded again and grabbed James by the arm to drag him along. "I'm doing calculations right now, which is boring. But there's more fun stuff that I've already done."
"I would rather see the fun stuff." Oooh, like that cool shiny thing over there. He took Hartley's hand and linked his fingers into Hartley's so he could playfully tug him over to Cisco's prototype of the accelerator that was tiny, small and designed to see how stable the material was to hold the blast and not much else. Cisco called it his particle blaster. "What's that thing and how do I play with it? Can I play with it? Or is everything here all 'look but don't touch' like the time you took me to that museum to look at things."
Hartley did notice that, no, they shouldn't be holding hands, but pulling away would probably be even worse. "It's not a toy, Giac." He let go of him to explain the components and what it did, at least in a way that he thought James could still follow. He wasn't stupid, he simply hadn't studied this the way he had, but Hartley had discussed such things with him for years now, so it really wasn't like he wouldn't get it. "It's just here for some calculations. We need to ensure the real thing can't malfunction."
"Cool so we can blow shit up and see if the material can hold it? I got it. That's pretty cool." Setting himself down on a nearby work bench, he smiled at Hartley and watched him explain everything, talking away and telling him all manner of calculations he could kind of follow. He liked Hartley like this, all passionate and excited. He was so happy that someone had seen his potential and given him this chance.
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"He's such a fan, he's trying to make a wand. No joke. Like a cool one that summons holograms like a patronum buuuut he won't let me play."
Cisco's eyes were wide with awe and his seat fell forward from it's casual leaned back position, almost climbing over his desk in an effort to get closer and get Hartley's attention. "Dude! That is the best idea ever! You have to lemme see. I have ideas already. Oh man, I need to draw blue prints. This is exciting!"
"Does it do anything else? Because you could totally adds a laser to it for lumos." Ronnie piped in, seeming equally as interested in this potential project. "I could probably make one small enough. In theory."
James grinned playfully and sat himself on Hartley's desk without asking. "You guys are all such geniuses, I have no idea how you function being that smart." So good at flattering.
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He hated when James was right. He rolled his eyes at the obvious flattery and shrugged after swallowing. "It's for a convention. I don't know how well a laser would be received." Also, he wanted to sink into the ground.
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"Woah, woah, woah, hold up. There's a new Potter Con?"
"Oh, shit, I missed that. I'm with Cisco. There's a Potter con? Where?"
"When? I need the deets."
"We're so going. Right? Hartley, man, this will be so cool."
James just sat back smugly and watched as Ronnie and Cisco got all excited and Caitlin got ... he assumed excited on their behalf because mostly she just seemed to be humouring them. Look at that, Hartley had someone to go to his dumb con with.
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He glanced at James, wishing that his heart didn't speed up like that when he saw that smug smile. Handsome bastard. He reached out to feed him a bite of the food he'd brought him, not really thinking about it. That was the issue about hanging out with James, it made him forget what normal boundaries in a friendship were.
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"Nah, I'm good." He tilted his head and stole the food from Hartley's hand without a second thought, not really considering it gay. He was hungry and food was being offered. That was just being polite. "You kids have fun, I have work."
"Work?" Caitlin was just going to politely ignore whatever the hell was going on between these two, hitting both her dumb idiot boys before they asked or said anything stupid. "What do you do for a living, James?"
"I work in the city." He licked his lips and shrugged. "I do odd jobs. It's not important."
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Cisco nearly protested that they weren't allowed to give lab tours but he was too dumbfounded by Hartley being nice to people and too charmed by James to truly protest. Instead, he held out his pass to James. "There needs to be two passes to look at the cool stuff, you can borrow mine, just get it back to me at the end."
James smiled and nodded his head. "Can do."
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