Work Text:
He fuckin' hated Home Depot. Eliot stalked through the milling homeowners, dodging the pointy bits and pieces of their quaint weekend projects, and for the hundredth time he cursed the siren song of self-checkout and relative anonymity that had drawn him in to restock on a weekend. He kept his hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets to fight the urge to clock someone.
Then he turned the corner to find a cute girl in combat boots and a short skirt scowling at the duct tape display, and his day got a whole lot brighter. She didn't notice his approach - no one ever did in these big box monstrosities, probably wouldn't notice a marching band - and he waited til he was standing at her elbow before speaking. "Can I help you, miss?"
"I sure hope so," she said, and punctuated it with a frustrated huff of breath. Then she gestured at the dizzying array of adhesive products on display. "I ran a comparison search, which, of course I didn't remember to bring with me, you know, on the adhesives, and tensile strength, thickness, and I was going to go with Gorilla Tape, but you.." she turned to face him and her words trailed off, "...don't work here," she finished with a sheepish smile as she took in his lack of apron.
Eliot grinned. "No ma'am, but if you don't mind my saying so, I know a fair bit about duct tape. If you tell me what you're fixin' to use it for, I can probably point you in the right direction."
"Apocalypse survival kit," she said.
Which was definitely not the answer he was expecting. "Excuse me?" he asked, and took a step back to reevaluate her appearance for batshit crazy or militia member.
She didn't seem to notice his confusion as she blithely explained. "You know, alien invasion, zombie plague, EM pulse that fries everything sends us back to the dark ages. End-of-the-world preparedness. Because I am awesome, but once the lights go out - pfffffft." She made a thumbs-down gesture to go with her deflating sound. "I mean, I'm resourceful," she continued, brightening at the thought. "And I'm pretty good with guns. Just not so much with the 'grrr' aggressive, you know?" That last statement was accompanied by a claw-like gesture that was about as threatening as a newborn kitten, so he believed her. "So," she gestured down the aisle to what Eliot now realized was her cart, which contained various bundles of rope, a portable water filtration system, several tarps, and a bunch of batteries in various sizes, "apocalypse survival kit. So I can hole up until I have a plan to make myself indispensable to our new overlords." She turned back to face the display again. "Any suggestions?"
"Well," Eliot thought, "wouldn't be the first time I ignored a little bit of crazy," so he shrugged it off and got to helping. "It depends what you're looking for," he said, and started picking rolls of tape off the shelves for consideration, commenting as he went. "...holds up well under water, but it sticks better to itself than anything else. That one tears easy, so not great for tying people up, but it's good for sealing up plastic bags..."