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Part Twenty-Three

   "Nope," Sam shook his head and crossed his arms like a child. "My willpower is way too strong."

   "...how strong is that tail of yours?"

   Without waiting for an answer, Elijah wrapped two fingers around Sam's tail, lifting with an iron grip until Sam lay dangling, right above the palm of the other hand. He swung back and forth, kicking his legs at nothing, and eventually trying to crawl his way up to Elijah's fingers to bite him when all else failed.

   "Be careful," Leo warned, only because he wasn't paying attention to the way Sam let out hysterical laughs at how hard he was swinging in the air.

   To Sam, who hadn't felt physical adrenaline in what seemed like forever, this was exactly what he needed. To be stretching out his tail, high in the air again like his borrower instincts told him to be, and knowing that the palm was ready to catch him if he ever fell down. Sam trusted Eli, though to a smaller degree than he would with Leo, but that danger was everything to him, and he finally let go the smile he was holding in while still trying to scramble away from the giant fingers holding his tail.

   Elijah laughed right along with him, up until the minute he started to detect a burning smell wafting in from the kitchen.

   "Shit," He cursed under his breath, transferring Sam's tail over for Leo, who looked just as confused about how he was supposed to hold him as Sam was. In the heat of the moment, Leo simply grabbed Sam's tail in the same position Elijah had, and held him over his palm as Sam Swayed back and forth and tried to focus on where Eli ran off too.

   Leo decided it best to swing Sam over to his shoulder, letting him get a firm grip on his sweatshirt before releasing the tail and making his way to the kitchen, where the smell of burnt pancakes finally hit all at once and he nearly gagged at the sudden change in temperature.

   "The hell did you do?"

   "I might've gotten distracted," Elijah mumbled under his breath, holding a burnt pan under the sink and letting cold water run until it stopped fizzing.

   "Don't burn my house down," was all Leo could retort, before walking over and turning off the stove that Elijah somehow forgot to.

   "It's not my fault you called me in to help with Sam!"

   "I blame Sam, then."

   "Uh, no thanks," Sam called from his perch on Leo's shoulder. "I did nothing wrong."

   "Then I'll blame Skip," Leo's finger came up to poke Sam in the stomach, before being smacked away only because the borrower feared he might fall off.

   "He should've been here by now," Eli turned the sink off, spinning around to face his friends. "You think something happened?"

   "Traffic, maybe?" Leo attempted to ease Sam's increasing anxiety. "Let's just distract ourselves with something before he comes back."

   "Like what?"

   Almost as if a flip switched in his childish heart, Elijah's mind raced with images of the blankets still tossed around in the living room outside.

   "Oh, I have the most amazing idea," Eli's eyes lit up, and he sprinted back over to the living room for Leo and Sam to follow.

   With all three boys in the same room again, Leo and Sam watched with tilted heads as Elijah hopped around from one side to the other, gathering all the pillows and blankets that Leo had previously left out. He held as many as he could in his arms, before standing before both the other human and the borrower, and announcing with a strong grin on his face: "Pillow fort!"