Work Text:
“Dad, what’s your login for your computer?” Kathleen shouts from the kitchen counter, propped on a stool in front of her dad’s macbook.
“My what?” Elliot shouts back from his bedroom where he’s folding and putting away his laundry.
“Your computer password.” She repeats more quietly as he’s joined her in the kitchen.
“Oh, it’s 63134015.” He asks her why she needs his computer as he heads back to his room.
“I bought Grandma a digital photo frame and I need some good photos for it.”
“Oh, that was nice of you Kathleen, I bet she will love that.” He shouts from his bedroom.
A few moments later as he’s reaching into the basket for the last shirt when he hears “EWWW Dad, what the fuck?”
“What?”He rushes back out to the kitchen, confused at what could possibly be on his computer to cause her outrage.
“What is this?” she demands, pointing to one of the similar looking thumbnails, there are about 10 in all.
“What is what?” he leans in to see the small version of the image. “I can’t tell what I’m looking at, click on it.”
“Oh no! It’s a naked picture of you, I’m not pulling it back up.”
He flushes and slams the laptop shut.
“Why the hell are you taking nude selfies?” she demands, “I would have thought you were better than that!”
“I took those for work,” he grumbles and starts to walk away.
“For work?” she questions incredulously and follows him, “You need those types of photos for your job?”
“It’s a long story Kathleen,” he turns back and walks to the fridge, somewhat panicking in his embarrassment now. But Kathleen is right behind him and eyes him expectantly when he turns back around with a bottle of water. Work rarely served as an excuse any more now that his work has killed their mother and put them all in danger.
He starts gulping down the water, trying to buy some time to figure out the best explanation. “We needed to make a suspect’s husband jealous,” he decides on semi-honesty, “so we planted a fake string of texts and images in his wife’s email when we knew he would be looking. To make it look like we were in a relationship.”
“Oooo, that’s devious” she grins at him, “but it still doesn’t explain the full monty images dad.”
“Well, that…umm…I…you know what? I don’t have to explain myself to you.” He was feeling self confident that day so snapped a couple full nude selfies when he tooks a few for Angela’s email. But then he promptly deleted all but the couple he turned over to Jet for the operation.
He grabs the laptop off the counter and walks away from her again. “I thought I deleted them,” he mumbles to himself a moment later as he sits on the couch and opens the laptop back up.
“You probably only deleted them from your device, your phone dad” she expounds as he still looks confused, “but there is an option to delete from the device and icloud. Though your phone should be synced if they are loaded to the icloud…” she trails off, genuinely confused on how this happened. Only dad, she thinks, how does his generation survive with tech nowadays?
“Oh. I didn’t know that was a thing.”
“Clearly,” she laughs.
“Well, how do I delete them from the icloud?” Elliot is searching through the settings on the computer, but it all might as well be in Latin to him.
“Are you sure you want to?”
“Yes,” he answers quickly without any thought.
“I mean, you definitely need to delete from your main album, none of us ever need to see that much of you, but you might want to keep the photos for later use.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” He looks up from the laptop to see a teasing grin on her face.
“You need to think about getting back out there, you know dating.” He looks away, shaking his head. This isn't the first time she brought this up with him. His dating life, or lack thereof, has been the topic of conversation between Kathleen and Bernie at least once a week for the last two months. And these photos of course added fuel to the fire.
“And what do those photos have to do with ‘getting back out there’?”
“Dating is different now than it was when you were last dating, you know, the Stone Ages”
“Har, har. You are so funny.”
“Seriously dad, most dating starts on apps now and people are more comfortable with more risque texting and image sharing. So you might want to have those photos saved in a hidden album or locked note for future use.”
“Private album…locked what?” His eyes slant and head tilts a bit.
“Damn dad, you really need a tech 101 course. Can’t Jet show you this?”
“Probably,” he grumbles. But there is no way in hell he’s going to ask Jet how to hide photos, she’d never let him live it down.
Sensing his displeasure she gets up and joins him on the couch. “Alright, let me see your phone.” She holds her hand out while she waits for him to fish his phone from his pocket. “I’ll walk you through it, with a different photo. If you have any questions when you want to move your dirty ones, you will have to google it like the rest of us.
He unlocks and hands her his phone.
“Okay, here when you pull up this photo, you have the option to…,” she walks him through how to hide photos and how to move photos to his notes app and lock it.
“How do you know so much about this?” Kathleen may be an adult, but he’s genuinely curious how his daughter knows how to hide so much on her phone.
“Oh dad,” she laughs, “everyone knows how to do this, except you apparently.”
He thinks on that for a moment, “Wait, you think Eli has these locked and hidden apps on this phone?”
“Oh for sure,” but then realizing that she just snitched out Eli who still lives at home, she adds, “but don’t go searching. It’s like reading someone’s digital diary. It’s totally not cool.”
“Fine, fine. I won’t look through his phone.”
“Good call.”
A few moments later she asks “Alright, did you follow how to do that?”
“Yea, I think so.”
“I’ll wait, why don’t you try it with one of your nudie photos to make sure you got the hang of it.” Her tone is still teasing, now that the initial shock has worn off, Kathleen thinks the whole situation is hilarious.
She waits while he taps on his screen. “And if you feel like you need any more security, you are going to have to download a photo vault app.”
“I don’t plan on taking any more of these types of photos.”
“Suuuure you don’t,” she grins at him “now that you’ve done it once, you’ll do it again. Some men get hooked on this.”
He shakes his head, “nah, it’s not my style. I’m not even sure why I’m saving these.”
“Maybe because you have someone in mind who you want to share these photos with?”
“Kathleeeen” he draws out in a warning.
“Daaaaaaaddd,” she parrots in a mocking tone. “Seriously dad, we are all adults here, well except Eil but he will be fine. We know that you aren’t going to be single forever, and” she bumps his shoulder with hers, “we all know who you have eyes for.”
“Yea,” he sighs in defeat. There was no reason to deny it. All of his kids heard him tell Liv that he loved her and saw his anxiety and excitement when she and Noah joined their Christmas celebration. He rubbed his hand over his head, feeling the tiny hairs trying to grow back. Maybe I should grow the beard back. Did Liv like the beard? His mind wonders for a moment.
“But, I don’t know that we are ever going to get to the, eh, selfie sharing phase, so to speak.” He pauses, then continues, “I hurt her, Kathleen, I really hurt her. And I don’t know if she will ever forgive me. At least enough to be…” he’s not sure of the proper description, “to be more than friends.”
“She will, dad. I think she’s already on her way there. She wouldn’t have been at the trial or helped with Eli if she didn’t want to be back in your life.”
“Maybe you’re right,” and after a moment he adds “I hope you are right.”
She leans over and hugs him from the side and gets up to leave, she’ll wait a day or two before she tries to find good photos for Bernie’s album. “I am right about this, you’ll see.”
As she opens the front door, she turns and shouts at her dad still sitting at the couch on his phone, “And remember dad, Rule 1 of dick pics is to never send them unsolicited. But I bet Livvie will be asking for them in no time.”
“Kathleen!” he shouts to the closed door.