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If she wants to lie to herself, Parker blames the whole thing on the funeral home job.
Because before that she really thought she had the Feelings thing under control.
There were team feelings, and more than just a team feelings, and weird pretzel Hardison feelings, but none of them were too bad and anytime they inched toward being too much, she would just throw herself off a bridge in a fun, safe, rigged sort of way, and then everything would be fine again, all the thoughts in her brain scrambled up and shaken out by the free fall.
Things were good. She was better, maybe better than she had ever been before, being happy most days just because, instead of the way she used to be nothing most of the time and then sharply scarily happy whenever she got her hands on something expensive or shiny. It felt like it was enough to say pretzels and to do the thing where she sneaks in to Hardison’s room at night so they could exchange a kiss or two, and she could revel in the way it felt better every time, in how he seemed to find the perfect places to press into her, like his hands on the space beneath her ribs or his lips against the corner of her mouth.
It was all fitting together nearly, and then, suddenly, Hardison was underground and he needed her to stay on the line and she needed him to be okay, to stay with her, and it was all so much, so much and she couldn’t leave, couldn’t step back until everything cooled down. All these emotions inside her that were simmering nicely just boiled over, scalding and violent.
She doesn’t think she’s ever been so afraid in her life.
Because there are things that have happened where she felt backed into a corner, where she felt her brain short out and go white and rely entirely on some deep feral instinct inside her bones to get to safety. But those moments were always about her, the fear was a defense and a weapon that she knew exactly how to use.
But this.
She’s never felt so powerless, so useless, so close to breaking.
If he’s not okay… if he’s not okay, if he’s not okay…
She needs him. She needs him so much and if something happens and he’s gone, it’ll be like losing a piece of herself that she didn’t even realize she had given to him. But it’s so much harder to have to protect something outside of herself, to know that Hardison is not close enough for her to protect, that he’s away from her and yet has this part of her heart in his chest.
When he breathes and he’s okay, he’s alive, he’s okay, the fear still doesn’t abate. She still feels a shake in her bones, her pulse racing. She’s flooded with all these other things. Relief, for one, but more more more. All those weird pretzel feelings, her Hardison feelings, that soft little fizzle when he’s close enough that she can feel his breath, except more, except flooding through her and wiping everything else away, eroding new paths in her stone foundation. It’s good warm feelings, but it’s all so much, it’s all so much that it wraps around back to something that hurts.
And she knows it’s not supposed to hurt, that in movies with their rose-tinted lighting and shiny smiles and everything, the… L thing is good, it’s the solution and not the problem.
She just doesn’t know what to do, how to reshape herself with all these new things inside her, all these feelings that are too big for her body, that are pushing outward.
Hardison is okay. That should be enough, she should be enough, she should sweep in and hug him the way everyone else did, she should kiss him on the cheek the way that he kissed her, she should be kissing him just like all those other times they have except maybe more, maybe all that other stuff that happens when the movies fade to black.
But she can barely breathe with the knowledge that he almost wasn’t okay, she feels raw and hollow and full all at the same time. All her nerve endings have migrated to the place on her cheek where he kissed her, all burning and electric and wonderful but too much. She’s shorting out on it.
She wants…
She doesn’t think she can do this.
That night she crawls into the vents and makes her way to Hardison’s room. There’s a small opening in the back corner, and she presses her cheek to the metal grate, tilting down so she can peek out and see the rise and fall of his chest across the room in the dark. She folds her hands under her, curls up tight and stays there, watching him, vigilant. Nothing can take him like this, not if she’s here, counting his breaths, staying awake. (Not with Eliot out on the couch in the living room either, asleep, but not for long, not if they need him.)
There was a job Archie wanted to do once, at a fancy government building with a lot of security. Most of the plan was a piece of cake, nothing she hadn’t done before, vents and lasers and sneaking around, all her favorite things. But there was this one hallway that was under constant guard and no other way to the security vault, and so Archie put in the plan that she would fight the two guards that were there.
It was one long hallway so she couldn’t sneak up on them. There were metal detectors in one of the first levels of security so she couldn’t bring a taser. The plan was to race down the hall and knock the two guards out, just her and her fists and a fight.
Archie had her training with some muscled professional under the guise of ‘self-defense’ and she wasn’t bad at it, but she knew she couldn’t do it. Everything in her ached to run, to hide, to not be seen, to not confront. Things that are straightforward and direct never worked for her, especially not like this, where she wouldn’t know if she would be okay until she was in the fight, with no way out if she wasn’t.
It rattled her so bad, had her spinning out and breaking down in the worst ways, all frayed nerves and trembling hands, that Archie had called the entire heist off and told her to take a break, rest for a few weeks. It still makes her jaw clench when she thinks about it, still keeps her up sometimes because she’ll never know if she could have done it or not, just that it scared her too much to try.
But it’s the sort of job she does every week now. Not because she’s any more ready to run straight at a fight with no exits, but because she has the team, she has Eliot now, who can do those things she can’t, like be direct and win fights.
There are some things she can’t do. She thought this pretzels thing was something she could, some new skill she was exercising little by little. And she thinks— no, she knows— she… loves Hardison. A lot. Too much.
She loves him, but it hurts and she’s not sure she can do the rest, the hugging part and the holding part and the saying part. There’s always something about her that’s a little off, a little wrong when it comes to these things and she hates that she knows that it’s all not quite right, that she should be able to do certain things here with him, but she can’t.
The metal edges of the vent are cool beneath her cheek but she still feels a tingle in that spot where he kissed her. It makes her feel like crying, when she thinks about it, how he kissed her, how he thanked her. And it shouldn’t. She should be happy.
And this is how Parker knows she’s in love because anytime she’s ever wanted something, she’s just taken it, but she doesn’t want to take Hardison, hoard him for herself when she doesn’t know how to love him right.
She wants him to be happy. She wants to be what he deserves but if she can’t be, since she can’t be, she’ll… she’ll have to make sure he gets it anyway, that he’ll be happy. So she can watch.
Just like this, watching him inhale and exhale, watching him sleep safely and soundly.
She can do that much, she can watch, and feel that pulse of satisfaction in her.
If he’s happy, she can be happy. She just has to find someone that can make him happy.
***
It’s like a job. It’s easiest if she thinks about it that way. She’s gonna steal Hardison a… an actual… a better…
She’s gonna steal someone for Hardison.
So she has to find the right someone.
Only the last time there was a someone and Hardison, there were all these bad feelings, terrible twisting things in her gut like snakes. And she may love him and want to make him happy, but she doesn’t think she could do it like that time, let herself feel that bad again even if it did mean Hardison was happy. She’s too selfish for that. (She’s too selfish to love him herself, too.)
And there were more important reasons why that time was bad. That girl, Ashley, she was all boring and normal. Normal enough to know how to love someone, but too normal for Hardison. Hardison is all the good things about being normal, the knowing how to talk to people and get them to like you parts, but everything else about him is different and special and good. He’s all magical and thinks faster than anyone and is really good at stealing things. He likes winning, in the little worlds on his computer and in races to the couch and in little dares like who can steal more of Eliot’s dinner forks before he notices (though she usually wins that one). And he likes weird things, like his movies with explosions and writing programs that hook his computer up to the fridge so every time he presses the shift key it spits out ice.
He needs someone who will understand that, and understand him, and be weird with him when he wants to, and like those not normal things about him just as much as the more normal ones.
And the other problem with Ashley was that she would ruin the team. If she and Hardison were going to date, then she would want to spend time with him, which meant he couldn’t come on month long jobs with them out of Boston, and meant that after jobs he’d go hang out with her and not the rest of them at Nate’s apartment, and that some nights when she wanted to go to his place and have him pick out some Important Movie She Needs to Watch, he wouldn’t be there and she wouldn’t know where he was. And the other girl probably wouldn’t like that Parker likes sneaking into his apartment in the middle of the night, would probably think they were having sex or something, when the whole problem is that Parker can’t have sex with him, can’t do all the more normal romantic things she’s supposed to without feeling like she’s going to implode. So she would have to stop and Hardison would be with them all the time and everything would be terrible.
Those are big obstacles, a really airtight security system.
It stumps her for a while, most of the first night and then the morning when she naps in the corner chair in the living room while Eliot cooks for them and Hardison does some important wrap up stuff for the job on his laptop on the couch. She feels all maudlin and frustrated, and it doesn’t help that Hardison is a little less today, quieter and slower and all tense in his shoulders, all wrinkled in his forehead.
She wants to fix it for him, she wants him to be happy so bad, because his hurt makes her hurt. But she doesn’t know how to. She can barely get her own brain to stop spinning out from yesterday, let alone know how to comfort him. And the fact that she can’t make it better, makes her hurt worse.
The whole thing is keeping her up, even though she’s pretty tired, so close to a crash.
But gratefully, it means she’s still awake when Eliot finishes in the kitchen. He puts together this huge plate of food, bacon and eggs made all fancy and some sauce and the little green garnishes she always picks out when he isn’t looking, and he comes around the couch, on Hardison’s side, where he’s all knotted up and tensely typing. And, like magic, he sets the plate down on the coffee table, and his hand drops to Hardison’s shoulder and banishes the tension like it was never there. Hardison’s body relaxes and eases back into the cushions. His eyes flutter a little and his forehead smooths out, and she feels that calm race across the room and rush over her too.
Hardison blinks up at Eliot, who does one of his tight little nods, that all-clear squint, and everything is suddenly better.
Eliot heads back to the kitchen to grab her plate and the drinks and everything else, and she stares at him as he goes, sizes him up against this job she has swirling in her head, and she smiles.
Of course it’s Eliot. Of course.
It’s always Eliot. He can do the things she can’t, he can cover her. And he was the first one there yesterday, yanking Hardison up and pulling him into a hug the way she wished she could but couldn’t bring herself to because of the way she felt like she would snap if anything touched her. He held him tight and let Hardison hug him back, and rocked him side to side and loved him enough right there to make everything okay.
And he knows Hardison, probably as well as she does, all the not-normal stuff too. They do their little arguments and they have their own competitions and fun things, and they like each other. Eliot is on the team, so they’ll be able to spend time together on jobs, and she’ll always know where they are, even if Hardison is over at Eliot’s. And Eliot knows her, and will know that she’s not having sex with Hardison and won’t get mad at her or think she’s too weird or make Hardison spend less time with her. And she knows Eliot, and likes spending time with him.
And he can make her food.
Eliot is perfect for this.
It feels right in her chest, like the first lock of a heavy security system popping open, none of the bad stuff, the jealousy. Like a weight off her chest, she feels floaty and satisfied, and not frustrated for the first time in days.
This is going to work.
***
It’s not good to con your team.
That’s a really important rule, especially with Eliot, and even though she likes to break rules, she knows that with people you love rules aren’t so much like laws as they are like rigs for safety.
However rules, whether laws or rigs, always have loopholes and tangents and work around.
And the one for this is simple. Cons on your team are bad because cons involve lying and tricking and hurting feelings to get what you want at the expense of what others want. Cons involve stealing and gloating and the person you’re conning losing something.
What she wants is for Hardison, and Eliot, to be happy, to gain something. She’s stealing for them. So if she lies a little and tricks a little and treats this a bit like a job, it won’t matter because at the end, nobody loses anything, everyone is happy.
In her head, she gathers the team around the couch and the TVs. A little Nate in her head says, “Hardison, run it.” And the little Hardison in her head steps up and pulls up happy pretty pictures of himself and lays out all the things she knows about him, about Eliot, about why taking this job is important.
(In the real living room with the real couch and TVs and team, Hardison is talking about their next job, some hedge fund manager who’s stealing from his female employees. When he sits back down on the couch, his shoulder brushes hers and it makes her stomach flutter. She wants to throw herself into him, burrow herself in his chest next to his warm steady heart. She also wants to throw herself off a bridge to stop feeling so much.)
She starts with recon, with scoping out the obstacles in her way.
That night after they get back from early grift work on the mark, she waits in the kitchen, eating marshmallows out of the bag. It doesn’t take long before Eliot finds her there and scowls.
“What is that?” he asks.
“Dinner,” she offers through a mouth of fluff.
His jaw tightens and he snatches the bag away from her, spinning towards the fridge and grabbing pots and pans as he goes. She makes a noise of protest, like he didn’t just step right into her con.
She likes Eliot a lot when he’s cooking, almost as much as when he’s fighting. He’s all precise movements and careful control. And he smiles a little, like he doesn’t even know he’s doing it so it’s all easy and relaxed.
She sits on a stool at the island with her legs crossed under her, and watches him carefully.
“That smells good,” she says after a moment, breathing in deep.
“It’s just oil and garlic,” he says, shooting her a skeptical look. But it also makes his eyes go a little brighter when he turns back to the chopping board.
Eliot is really pretty. She knows that much, and knows that a lot of people think that too. She’s mostly sure Hardison thinks so, because he looks a lot and blinks a lot and one time dropped a soda bottle on his foot when Eliot came out of the shower shirtless. She knows Hardison likes boys and girls and others, since he told her one night while they were watching some movie with big explosions and monsters and stuff, all quick and quiet like she was supposed to have an opinion on it. Her opinion was that it made the most sense since Hardison likes liking people, and that she liked knowing things about him. Both answers made him smile.
“You’re quiet,” Eliot mutters, almost accusatory.
“I’m thinking,” she says, leaning forward to rest her face on her hands, closer to the stove so she can feel the heat against her forehead.
Eliot looks back at her, but doesn’t tell her she’s going to burn her eyebrows off like he usually does. He sweeps some chopped vegetables into the pan, before stepping to the side and facing her across the counter.
“Hey,” he says, his eyebrows going all serious. “I know last week was… rough.” She freezes. “How-how’re you doing? You okay?”
She feels stuck, tricked. Eliot never talks about feelings, no ever does check-ins like this, like Hardison and Sophie do.
He must notice the bolt of sudden panic in her eyes, the way her muscles are all suddenly tense as a bowstring, because he leans back, his eyes softening.
“I… I already told Hardison, but…” he says, gratefully also looking uncomfortable. “I'm never gonna let something like that happen, ever again, okay? Not to either of you.”
She nods quickly, because that’s something so obvious it barely warrants saying. But then again sometimes you have to say things, to make sure everyone’s on the same page.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she adds.
He smiles but it’s sad. She used to be so confused by things like that. You smile when you’re happy and frown when you're sad. Lately everything she feels is so complicated and messy and overlapping that she hardly knows how to decide what to do with her face let alone what it actually does.
He shrugs lightly, shifts down to stir the stuff in his pan. “Can’t be everywhere at once,” he replies like he’s prepared the answer ahead of time.
“You got him out,” she says, sitting back so she can stare down at her hands instead of watching him and all his complicated pretty faces.
“Nah,” he says, voice low and grumbly. “That was all you.”
Oh no. She flexes her fingers and folds them together against the countertop. There’s the jumble again, that flooding surge of so many emotions she can’t separate them out.
“I didn’t—” she starts.
His hand moves just slow enough for her to see it before it lands on her shoulder, warm and steady.
“You did,” he says firmly. She doesn’t meet his eyes, but he doesn’t make her, just squeezes her shoulder very lightly, just enough for her to feel it, before releasing.
It takes her a few minutes to work herself up to looking at him again as he moves around the kitchen, finishing his fancy vegetable dish. It’s just a job, no need to think about emotions, just silence it all out and focus.
She lets her eyes scan over Eliot as he moves. He’s a little taller than her, but not by much, so Hardison could settle right behind him the way he does with her sometimes, rest his chin on Eliot’s shoulder. Broader than her, a little harder to hold, but his arms are nice and could wrap around Hardison’s waist all snugly.
She slips off the stool and around the counter, moving in closer to him, in and out of his space as he moves like a little dance, cataloguing his expressions as she moves. He’s softer when he’s cooking, lets her get in much closer than he usually would, until she’s pressed against his side watching some sauce bubble on the stove.
He gives her a look, but doesn’t say anything, doesn’t shove her away, just lets her stay there.
She makes a note of it, that if she can get him to cook something for Hardison, get Hardison here in his space where it’s warm and the food smells so good, maybe they’ll get all pressed close and soft with each other and…
There’s a little tickle in her chest. She takes a step back.
Too much planning. She shouldn’t get ahead of herself, should do more recon, make sure everything is solid, that the con will work, that the money is where she thinks it is.
“Can I kiss you?” she asks, leaning her hip against the counter.
Eliot coughs sharply, eyes narrowing as he glances at her out of the corner of his eyes. “What?”
She’s not sure if it’s the kind of question where she should repeat herself or the kind where she needs to clarify.
“Can I?” she repeats, gesturing vaguely at him with her hand. “Kiss you?”
He turns slowly, and there’s a slight furrow in his brow that means he must just now be realizing he let her get this close.
“Parker,” he grumbles.
She almost rolls her eyes, because that’s not an answer and he definitely heard her, but she waits for him to think it over anyway.
Though he doesn’t seem to be thinking as much as he seems to be drifting towards her, a million little expressions flickering over his face, in his eyes.
“What are you doing?” he asks, suspiciously, the way he does when he hasn’t picked up on what game they’re playing and wants to decide if he should tell her to stop.
She can’t tell him the full game yet, so she just answers plainly.
“I’m asking you to kiss me,” she says and offers him an encouraging smile for lack of any sort of other look in her repertoire.
Eliot steps closer, his shoes coming up in line with her socked feet. His eyebrows are still all tight and lightly threatening, even though she can tell from his eyes that he’s actually something softer and shakier.
“Hardison?” he says, voice pitched up like a question.
She blinks, feeling another complicated emotions twist, this one part relief and part shock that he’s somehow figured out what she’s doing. She thought she’d been doing better at cons, but it’s also been a while since she’s done a job truly by herself.
She nods in response, and something… good flashes in Eliot’s face, his eyes getting a little wider, his lips pressing together in a thoughtful line. And he moves in a little more, which she thinks means he’s on board, he agrees, that this job is a good idea. Which is such a relief, that she doesn’t need to con him, that he’s going to help, that this is going to work, he can pick up her slack and everything is going to be okay.
His hand trails up her arm, his thumb brushing against her cheek, somehow finding that spot right where Hardison had kissed her last week. She feels a little shiver across her shoulders, feels her skin burn.
And Eliot closes the distance and kisses her. For a moment, she forgets to pay attention to the details of it, just gets lost in the warmth, in the soft sensations of Eliot’s thumb on her skin, his mouth moving over hers. He’s good, like she thought he would be, and it makes her feel melty and wild and happy.
But after that blurry second of nice mindless kissing, she starts taking notes again. His hand on her cheek is good, it’s like how sometimes she has to balance herself with a hand on Hardison’s face, needing her fingers to guarantee that he’s real. When Hardison kisses, it’s in little bursts, one kiss is actually three or four or ten. Eliot kisses longer, continuous, deeper, his lips parted over hers, pulling her in.
Both really good, warm and nice and lovely, very earnest and carefully paced. She can almost feel out how they’ll fit together, how they’ll have a little back and forth but find that overlap of small easy motion they have in common.
Eliot’s face is still all funny when she pulls away, almost shocked, like he’s not the one who kissed her.
“Parker,” he says on an exhale. It reminds her of the way Hardison says her name sometimes, the way it can bury beneath her skin and make her feel more real, more like herself than usual.
“Sauce,” she says, pointing, half because she does notice the sauce is doing an angry bubbling thing, half because the look on his face is making her heart swing dangerously.
He swears and spins to face the stovetop again to fix it, and she sneaks a step back, hides her shaky hands behind her back.
“So,” Eliot says after a moment, sneaking looks at her. “What… How do we…?”
She feels her heart drop in her chest, just a little, just an inch maybe.
This was going to be her thing, her job, her way of fixing things, of making Hardison happy and… if Eliot’s on board, that’s good, it means it’s going to work, but it also means that technically he can just take over from here, just do the flirty thing he does with his face at Hardison, and then all the other romantic things she doesn’t know how to.
“I can take care of it,” she says quickly, and she knows her voice is all strangled.
Eliot finishes stirring the sauce and takes it off the fire. He glances over at her skeptically.
“Okay,” he says slowly. “And… he really wants to do this?”
See, okay, she’s still needed here, to tell another little lie for the job, so it can all work out okay.
“Yes,” she says, inching back until she reaches the counter and can hop up onto it.
It won’t be a lie for long. She’s gonna take care of it.
Eliot is still looking a little unbalanced, but he’s plating her dinner in a fancy bowl and then handing it over to her. He doesn’t tell her to get off the counter or sit at a table, just taps his hand against hers, pushes up to press a light easy kiss to her temple before moving away to start on the dishes.
She swallows hard and wonders if this is just a thing now, where she gets surprise-attacked by the softest of kisses that make her feel like she’s being unraveled. The food is good even though they’re vegetables in it, but when she watches Eliot’s back over by the sink, she feels the way she thinks people must feel like when they misplace something important, when they find themselves locked out of a room.
She’s so tired of new feelings.
***
She plans for after the con. It’s a simple one, a variation of the Tuscaloosa Twist, so provided that even when everything goes wrong and they have to change up the plans, it’ll be four days max before the end of the job.
So she has to move fast. Which means less time for careful recon and planning, more relying entirely on the wonderful webpage she found about proper date planning.
“Are you free Friday or Saturday night?” she asks Hardison as casually as she can while hanging upside off the side of the mark’s office building.
“What?” Hardison asks over the comm, in a whisper since he’s supposed to be convincing the office manager that he’s a reputable art dealer.
“Are you—” she begins to repeat.
“Parker,” Nate says crisply. “What are you doing?”
And it’s not like she has a good cover for Nate of all people.
“Oh… no, there’s a bird,” she offers. It’s a bad lie but she stops talking so Nate doesn’t call her on it.
But that much is fine, because she can make sure Hardison is free Friday night.
The rest of the article is more complicated.
She tags along with Hardison in Lucille while Sophie shows the mark her “fruit wine distillery” and pops her comm out while they sit by his screens.
“Would you rather have a relaxing night in or an adventurous night out?” she asks, while tapping absently on the desk, casual, calm, the picture of ease.
Hardison turns his chair slightly to face her, his eyebrows furrowed together. “Uh… is this about the skydiving thing? Because relaxing night in, all the way. You know, usually when people say adventurous night they mean, like, going to a club, not—”
“Do you prefer spending quality time with someone by doing a shared activity or by having a conversation about a common interest?” she continues, since she got the answer she needed.
Only he doesn’t answer this one, just watches her as she picks at the edges of her nails. Though she’s not sure why she’s pretending to be casual if he’s not even going to answer.
“Why do you wanna know?” he asks, after another second passes, not sharply, just curious, half amused. When she glances over at him, he’s smiling gently. It makes her want to smile back, makes her want to lean in and rest her head against his shoulder.
She shrugs. “It’s an interesting question.”
Hardison lets out a little laugh and nods. “Sure,” he says. “Look, girl, if you want me to take some Buzzfeed quiz you can just—”
“It’s not from Buzzfeed,” she corrects before wincing. “It’s not… it’s just a question.”
“Right,” Hardison says slowly. His hands land on top of hers, untangling her fingers before she can pick her cuticles bloody. Her heart thuds loudly against her chest, blood rushing in her ears. She catches his hand in hers before she can stop herself, interlacing their fingers so he can’t just pull away. His eyes burn spots onto the side of her face. “Shared activities are nice, though… with the right person, I don’t really care what I’m doing, just as long as we’re together, you know?”
It’s soft and sweet when he says it, but it’s not a direct answer so she loses her place in her flowchart.
“Right,” she says, squeezing down on his fingers.
“Parker,” he says, and it hits her in the chest again, her name in his voice, feeling like a rug being stolen from beneath her. “Why don’t you just ask what you want to know?” It’s a true suggestion the way he says it, like a little offering for her, a hey try this out if you wann a.
She swallows hard and keeps her eyes on their fingers. “What do you look for in a first date?”
His fingers twitch a little beneath hers. She listens as he clears his throat and shifts in his seat.
“M-movies are good,” he says. She comes up a little short, sneaking a quick look at him. They’ve done movies. He’s even done movies with Eliot, and they’ve done movies all together. It never seemed like a date thing. Hardison, like always, seems to see the question before she can even think about verbalizing it, because he nods and squeezes back. “I guess… for me a date is just spending time with someone special. What we do doesn’t actually matter, it’s more about… the feeling of having a good time, maybe kissing on the doorstep at the end of the night, you know?”
She doesn’t. She’s never thought about dates, outside of how it’s always really easy to steal from people on dates because they’re so distracted making eyes at each other that they’re not paying attention to their valuables.
“Okay,” she says, abandoning the flow chart, rearranging the whole plan in her head. “How about Friday night?”
He breathes in sharply, and… oh, this probably all still sounds like she’s trying to… like she’s finally figuring out how to be normal and how to do dates and how to kiss on the doorstep even though that would be such a bad idea, leave you exposed on the sidewalk where anyone could come up and lift your wallet.
“Eliot can cook,” she says sharply. “Because he likes cooking, and then a movie after. You can pick so it’s fair.”
She holds her breath and meets his eyes, trying to say everything without saying anything, all her apologies and all her feelings, how much she cares about him and how this is how she can care about him, letting Eliot do it since she can’t.
“Eliot,” Hardison echoes. She nods. It makes sense. She knows it does, but she thinks if she has to say all the things about why Eliot is a better choice for this than she is that she might do something really stupid like cry. “You… A date with Eliot?”
He sounds a little surprised but not objectionable. In fact, there’s something a little sparkly in his eyes, like he’s interested, like he’s excited.
Which is good. Great. That he doesn’t protest, that he likes the idea too, that he’s not caught up on her backing down and away, that he agrees.
She forces her shoulders to relax down her back and nods, smiling softly.
Hardison nods back. “He… yeah. Yeah, okay.” She hasn’t ever really seen this type of grin on his face before, slow and a little uncertain, but mostly hopeful. There are bricks settling in her stomach, but they don’t matter.
He’s going to be happy. Eliot is going to be happy.
So she’ll have no reason not to be, either.
***
“What is a first date to you?” she asks Eliot, and spooks him enough that he bumps his head on the top of the shipping container they’re hiding in.
“Parker,” he hisses, sharply.
She shrugs and raises her eyebrows. It’s not like they have anything better to do. He grinds his teeth together but settles back down.
“I don’t really do dates,” he says. “Haven’t for a while.”
She frowns. “That’s not true,” she says. “You sleep with a lot of people.”
He exhales, a mix of the annoyed exasperation variety and the fond conceding kind he gives when she makes a good point that he doesn’t want to admit is a good point.
“Alright,” he says. “I guess a date for me is usually the period of time between when I introduce myself to the person I want to have sex with and when we’re having sex.”
Oh, she thinks. Sex.
It sits funny in her chest for a moment before she remembers that she’s not going on a date with Eliot, this isn’t about her, this is about Hardison and Hardison is probably fine with having sex with people and most likely wants to have sex with Eliot. It isn’t a problem at all. Everything is fine.
“What if you, uh, already know the person and the period of time before sex also includes the runtime of a science fiction movie thing?” she asks quickly, glancing at a point over Eliot’s shoulder.
His breath wavers slightly, and she feels him shift closer to her in the cramped space, his shoulder pressing against hers.
“That sounds good,” he says softly, low in his throat. “Real good.” She feels the praise in her stomach, the pride that even though she can’t do this, can’t be someone romantic, she can still figure out how to plan a date that sounds good to Eliot.
“You could cook,” she adds. “It’s more time but—”
His calloused fingers brush her wrist.
“Time is good,” he says. “Time… for this, time is really good.”
She breathes out.
Everything is going well.
“Okay,” she says softly. “So… Hardison’s. Friday, at 6.”
She hears and feels Eliot’s nod, the subtle shift in his body in the dark. “Yes.”
Like pieces falling into place. Like hook line and sinker. Like a vault cracking open.
She’s glad it’s dark because she’s not sure what her face is doing but it’s probably not right.
***
Everything is all set up and right, but for some reason, Thursday night, as she curls up in the vent above Hardison’s room and tries to get some sleep, she feels everything in her brain rebel, fast and overwhelming.
It’s wrong. It’s bad. Like she’s been made and the plan is falling apart and she’d better cut and run now before she gets caught. The panic is in her blood, the wrongness sinks in her stomach.
She shouldn’t be feeling this way. Everything is fine and everything is working. They’re wrapping the job tomorrow and in eighteen hours, Eliot will come here and cook dinner and Hardison will pick the movie and they’ll be happy and everything will work.
But she feels her breaths coming fast, feels her eyes prick with tears.
She doesn’t know what to do, so she bites it all down, forces all of these big sharp feelings back in, locks them down tight, and finally caves, pushing the vent open and dropping into Hardison’s room.
He’s under the covers already but not asleep enough to miss it when she climbs into bed next to him.
“Hey,” he mumbles sleepily, eyes blinking open slowly. “Hey, Parker.” Her name, just like that, curved in his tired mouth like it’s precious.
His hand reaches out and she takes it, letting him guide her closer on the mattress, into his arms. She hasn’t done this since the funeral home, since two weeks ago now, since she started this job.
And this might be the last time she ever does.
Eliot won’t misunderstand, he won’t get mad at her, further than his usual little grumbles that mean the opposite of being mad, but it still won’t make this something she can do. Because Eliot’ll be here instead, and beds aren’t big enough for three.
“You okay?” Hardison asks, like his hand on her back isn’t already more grounding than any rope or harness.
“Are you okay?” she asks, and she knows it’s mean to turn the question back on him, but it’s all she can bring herself to say.
“Yeah,” Hardison says, nodding against the pillow. “I’m okay.”
She breathes out slowly. That’s all that matters. That's enough.
She rests her hand on his side, feels the rise and fall, the subtle shifts of his body, warm and alive and right here with her. Her terrible stupid heart is doing everything all wrong again. He’s okay. She’s happy. She loves him. But it all feels too much, feels so good that it loops back over to bad and makes her want to cry.
If she cries though, it’ll make Hardison sad, make him want to comfort her and talk about what’s wrong. But he can’t fix this, can’t fix the fact that there’s something wrong with her, that she can’t do this without being so paralyzingly afraid.
So she kisses him instead, digging her fingers into his shirt.
He holds her close and kisses her back, and she can feel the soft smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as it presses against hers. It pulls a smile up out of her as well, like magic.
“What’s that for?” he asks, when she pulls away and settles down into the bed against his side. She shrugs, hiding her face in the sheets. “Okay.” His lips press against the top of her head.
She wants to ask him if she can stay, but doesn’t want to risk him saying no, however small that chance might be.
So she just lies still until his breathing evens out and sleep takes him again.
She closes her eyes, but she doesn’t sleep.
***
The job wraps up fine, the gloat is nice. She’s still off, still nerve-wracked and tight-strung, but she’s pretty sure only Nate has noticed, and since it’s not about a job, he probably won’t ask her anything.
She shows up at Hardison’s a half an hour early with all the other extra date stuff the article said she should get. It’s a good thing she does because Hardison hasn’t done much to prepare except throw out the expired milk in the fridge and empty the trash can. He’s still in a t-shirt and some jeans when she comes in through the window, and flinches both at her sudden appearance and at the button down she throws at his head.
“Whoa,” is all he has to say for himself when he comes back from changing in the bathroom, and sees her lighting the last of the fancy candles she stole from the supermarket. “We’re really… going for this, huh?”
She glances back at him, wondering if this is where the job goes wrong like it always does, if he’s going to try to call it off. But he’s just smiling, eyes scanning over to the spread of flowers she paid for (if only because the lady at the counter let her pet her dog).
“Flowers say things,” she tells Hardison, in case he didn’t know. He probably did, it’s one of those romantic things that are only out of her reach. “I didn’t know what you wanted to say though, so I got one of everything.”
“Smart,” he says, smiling at her all amused.
She leaves the candles, takes another circle of the room to make sure it all looks nice and romantic.
It’s a stall, and a bad one at that. It’s Hardison and Eliot. They’ll work it out even if the candle is an inch too close to the TV. She just has to let go, trust the plan to finish itself the way Nate always does, like a line of dominoes falling, like a river flowing downhill.
But her feet feel heavier than ever, gravity pressing in and down, keeping her in place for another second and another. She breathes in shakily and forces her feet to unglue, to step away from the living room.
But before she can disappear out the window, there’s a knock on the door, and yeah, this is what she gets for stalling.
Eliot is ten minutes early, with a bag full of groceries and his hair lightly wet like he just took a shower. Hardison ushers him in and closes the door, and this is her signal to go, to leave them. But… Eliot looks so good, so smiley and bouncy, and when he sees her on his way to the kitchen, he doesn’t seem surprised or frustrated that she’s still there. He just gives her one of those quick blinks they share sometimes, like a wink but both eyes so it’s not as obvious, so it’s more secret.
She smiles back at him, without thinking about it, feeling his happiness leak into her, the way Hardison’s does. Their emotions are so much easier to feel than her own.
He starts unpacking and prepping, and she drifts closer almost accidentally, because she really does love watching Eliot cook.
But that’s not what she’s here for. Not tonight, maybe some other… it won’t be the same, but it’s not like Eliot would just stop cooking for her, not like Hardison would not invite her over for dinner anymore.
It’s just tonight, for the plan. This was all just part of the plan.
She turns to find Hardison, and he’s there, by the couch, standing with his arms crossed, smiling at them. She raises her eyebrows meaningfully, but he doesn’t read her, so she resorts to grabbing his wrist and tugging him over to the kitchen, nudging him gently towards Eliot where he slices into a piece of meat. Hardison gives her a questioning smile, but goes when prompted, sliding up to Eliot’s side like she knew he would and laughing awkwardly when they accidentally bump hips.
Her heart burns, that pot of love she has boiling overflowing sharply, scalding the inside of her ribs.
They look great together. They look…
“So what’re you making for us this evening, chef?” Hardison asks, poking at the ingredients spread out on the counter until Eliot slaps his hand away.
“Hands to yourself ‘fore you lose a finger,” he grumbles. “Pork chops, chocolate balsamic glaze. Don’t touch that.”
“New recipe?” Hardison asks, deliberately poking at a bag of potatoes while Eliot watches and Parker…
Parker steps back. Even though the food sounds delicious and she wants to try it, even though Hardison looks happier than he has in two weeks, even though Eliot is smiling more than she’s ever seen, even though she wants more than anything to slip up onto the counter behind them and talk about all the flower sentences she made up in her head on the way back from the shop and tell them about the dog and the lady and the plant pot she saw that had dollar bills painted on it.
They look happy. So she’s going to be happy. Her next breath makes a wet little noise, but she steps back again, fighting against the gravity, against the pull that ties her to them.
“Hey,” Hardison says, his back and forth with Eliot trailing off as he glances back at her, eyebrows dropping. “What’s up?”
Eliot makes a questioning noise, glancing over at her too, and she won’t be able to bear it if she ruins this for them somehow.
She backs quickly towards the window, moving faster when she sees them start to frown.
“Nothing,” she says, as reassuringly as she can with her heart in her throat. She tries to smile, even as her face fights her for it. “Everything’s fine, you guys… you have… ‘Night.”
She doesn’t wait for them to say goodnight back, or say anything else, before she ducks and rolls out the window. She climbs until she hits the roof and runs until she hits the next one.
***
Up in the air, she waits for her insides to settle. It’s easier being alone because she doesn’t have to focus so hard on being the right thing. Without anyone else, all her feelings could be simple, the exhilaration of a jump, the thrill of a theft, the fear of being caught, everything one to one and reasonable and contained.
But as she sits on the edge of a tall apartment building down by Cambridge, her legs swinging off the side, heels kicking against the concrete, she still feels all the same tumultuous things, all that love that’s so much it makes it hard to breathe.
She feels bad. Not that jealousy she felt the last time, just… lonely.
***
Sophie is very surprised to see her.
“Parker,” she says loudly. “What are you doing here?” There’s a sudden thumping noise from deeper in the apartment, and Sophie winces. “I’m… cat sitting. For a friend.”
“There’s a cat?” Parker asks, standing up a little straighter.
“It’s allergic,” Sophie adds quickly, nodding solemnly.
“To me?” She didn’t know cats could do that, but she also doesn’t know a lot about cats.
“Is everything alright?” Sophie asks, which is the worst possible question she could have asked but also the one that Parker prepared for the most on the way over.
“Yep,” she says, as brightly as she can muster. “Can we… hang out?”
It’s not the most convincing, since her voice is still all scratchy from the emotions she’s been choking around, but it’s enough to get her in the door, Sophie grabbing her a warm mug of tea from the kitchen and getting her bundled into the corner of the couch with it.
“Have you had dinner yet, darling?” Sophie asks, instead of making her talk. She shakes her head, and Sophie bustles about a little more, pulling out take out menus and spreading them out on the couch between them.
She knows Sophie is watching her carefully as she reads over the menus, but she feels a lot calmer with something to do, something to think about besides…
“This,” she decides quickly, pushing one of the menus back towards Sophie and settling into the couch.
The TV is off, but maybe that’s better because she doesn’t want to think about whatever movie Hardison picked out and if it’s something they’d watched together before or something they haven’t, if it’s something Eliot would like. She shakes her head to get all the thoughts out and sips at her tea while Sophie calls in the order.
There are some light pacing footsteps coming from Sophie’s bedroom that make her wonder how big that cat is.
“So,” Sophie says as she settles back into the couch with her own cup. “I don’t mean to pry, dear, but… you know I’m always here if you want to talk.” She pauses consideringly, taking a small slurping sip of her drink. “Especially boy troubles.”
Parker sighs, tucking her feet under her and letting her hair spill over the back of the couch. “It’s fine. I fixed it.”
Sophie pauses, sitting up a little straighter. “Oh, well, darling, what are you doing here then?” she asks, smiling softly. “Not that you’re unwelcome, of course.”
She shakes her head. “No, I—” Tilting her head to the side, she glances over at Sophie all sideways and swallows hard. “It’s too much,” she admits softly. “All the feelings, they’re too much, and it hurts sometimes, and I can’t do it right.”
Sophie is frowning, and scoots a little closer, her hand dropping over Parker’s in the couch.
“What do you mean?” she asks. Her fingers are cool and steady on top of hers.
“It’s too much for me,” she says. “Love.” She looks away, towards the ceiling, feeling her cheeks burn. “I can’t do the romantic things without… freaking out. I don’t want to have sex. I don’t… know how to be in love. It… scares me.” Sophie’s fingers smooth along the back of her hand.
“How did you fix it, darling?” Sophie asks carefully.
Her stomach twists. She feels like a coward, like a tiny little mouse, scurrying around, hiding in the walls. She’s too scared to face this, to love Hardison right, to crack herself open to learn how to do it, and so she just handed off the responsibility to Eliot, Eliot who always cleans up their messes and takes care of things for her, and somehow she’s the one feeling bad about it.
“I just want him to be happy,” she offers weakly. Both of them. Eliot looked so happy earlier and that was almost enough for her to feel okay. He’s like a touchstone sometimes, for when she doesn’t know what to do or feel, like if he’s smiling, she can smile too. “Even if it’s without me, you know?”
Sophie grips her hand for a second before releasing, getting up and taking the tea carefully from her lap. Parker stays still and focuses on breathing, not thinking, just letting the time pass. If she can just make it through the night, she thinks maybe it’ll get easier, maybe it’ll stop hurting so much.
There’s the crinkle of a plastic bag as Sophie returns and drops the takeout on the table.
“Oh, Parker,” Sophie says softly, and that’s when Parker notices that she’s crying a little, hot slow tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes, like all the emotion is just melting right out of her. Sophie comes in closer, pressing a pillow into her arms and guiding her to lie down with a hand on her shoulder.
“I—” she starts croakily, but Sophie shushes her, smoothing her hair away from her face.
“Just relax, dear,” she says. “We’ll work it out.”
It is worked out, she wants to protest. It’s better this way.
But there’s a reason she doesn’t do jobs by herself anymore, because she can’t do it all, because it’s better with the team, to make sure everything goes right.
She presses her head into the arm of the couch and closes her eyes tightly.
She hears Sophie step away and after a moment some muffled voices from the bedroom, but she’s still tired from last night, too tired to bother caring that there isn’t a cat.
***
There are still voices when she wakes up, closer, much closer. She can feel little points of warmth against her shins, near the top of her head.
“No, man, I thought… hang on, she’s waking up.” There’s a shift down by her legs, a light touch on her ankle.
“How do you even—” She rolls carefully onto her back, stretching her shoulders out, before opening her eyes. And sure enough, there’s Hardison, perched loosely on the arm of the couch and glancing down at her. “Hey baby.”
There’s something soft in his eyes, gentle and just for her, and she’s suddenly overwhelmed by just how happy she is to see him.
“Hi,” she says through a smile. For a moment, she feels something calm settle over her like a blanket. And then she feels a thumb brushing gently against the hem of her pants, and glances down to find Eliot there, sitting over on the floor, his arm parallel to her leg, chin resting on his elbow. He shoots her a tiny smile, and the wave of everything crashes over her again.
She sits up fast, her head spinning.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, looking between them quickly. “What time is it?”
“Parker, what are you doing here?” Hardison asks, shifting on the couch so he’s turned towards her.
“Quarter to ten,” Eliot offers, sitting up straighter, his back up against the coffee table.
She presses her hands against her forehead, tries to smooth over the skin there like that’ll get her to wake up faster, to start thinking again. She shouldn’t have slept. She should have explained things better to Sophie. She shouldn’t have come here at all, should have stayed quiet in the vents at Hardison’s to watch over everything, make sure it all went well instead of running away because she let her feelings get hurt.
“Hey,” Hardison says, in that slow soothing voice of his. “What happened, baby? What went wrong?”
She pulls her knees up towards her chest, shifting her weight underneath her, and tries to resist the urge to run and hide until she can figure this out. She didn’t have enough back up plans, she didn’t think of something like this.
“Okay,” she breathes out. Okay, she can figure this out. She hops off the couch and takes stock. The rest of the apartment is quiet so Sophie and Nate must have left. There’s a carton of Thai food on the coffee table and it’s probably cold, but maybe they made it through dinner before they came over here. If they start a movie now, it’ll probably be over slightly after midnight, but that’s okay, right? The article didn’t mention anything about when was too late for a date to end so maybe there weren’t any hard and fast rules about that.
Hardison and Eliot are watching her, waiting for her to say something, and not moving. She rolls her eyes and gets to work, grabbing Hardison’s wrist and tugging him down to the couch, pulling on Eliot’s shoulders until he gets up and can be guided down next to Hardison. It’s not Hardison’s apartment, and there aren’t candles or flowers, so she doesn’t know how exactly to make the room more romantic, but there’s probably some fancy wine somewhere, and that’s romantic. She grabs the remote from the coffee table and shoves it at Hardison, who looks a little bewildered.
“Parker,” Eliot says, his hand catching her by the arm before she can start searching for the wine. She meets his eyes, tries to reassure him that it’s all still fine, that everything is going according to plan, but he just blinks back at her, confused, not understanding. “What’s wrong?”
“What—?” she echoes absently, feeling her fragile hold on the situation start to slip again. “I’m fine.”
“So why’d you run off, baby?” Hardison clarifies, his hand coming up to take hers, rubbing circles on her wrist with his thumb, as Eliot’s hand trails smoothly down her arm to take her other. “How do we fix it?”
She feels pinned in place, standing in front of the couch, holding onto both of them when she should be letting go.
“You…” she starts, blinking fast and hard. “You’re supposed to be on your date. You should be on your date.”
Hardison and Eliot exchange a look of mutual confusion, some unspoken communication passing between them like a volley of questions and answers before they come to some conclusion together and turn back on her.
“Our date,” Eliot echoes. She nods.
“No,” Hardison says softly, squeezing her hand. “ Our date.” He draws a little triangle in the space between them, him to her, her to Eliot, Eliot to him. “Us.”
It sends her heart skipping and tripping over itself, all it’s sharp edges getting tangled and scraped as it tries to beat steadily.
“Parker, you said—” Eliot starts.
“No,” she says quickly, shaking her head urgently. “No, I did, I told him it was you, I promise, I …”
She should have just let him do it, she should have just stepped back. She wants to rub at the place where her head is aching, but they still both have a claim on her hands and aren’t letting go.
“Parker,” he says, a little sharper and she almost flinches, but he pulls her hand to his lips, brushing his mouth over her knuckles, soothing right over the sting.
“We wanted you there,” Hardison says, his fingers squeezing hers. She can’t keep her eyes from ping ponging between them. “We thought you wanted that, too.”
And she does. Oh God, she does. But…
“I can’t,” she says. “I can’t do it, the date thing and the romance thing and the sex thing. I don’t know how to do it the right way.”
Hardison tugs gently at her until she steps forward, her knees knocking against theirs. “That’s okay, baby,” he says. “We just find what works for us, okay? That’s all we want.”
But that’s not enough, not to fill the pit of fear in her gut.
“You planned a perfectly good date, darling,” Eliot adds. “You just gotta stick around for it next time.”
She feels the panic creeping up her spine, the itch to run, the need to stop the hope and want and love inflating in her chest like a balloon before it pops, before it breaks her open and leaves her exposed and bloody.
“No, I—” she breathes. “I can’t, I’m… it’s too much, I’m too—” She hangs her head, grinding her teeth together. “I’m too scared.”
Hardison’s thumb sweeps across the back of her hand, steady and soothing, guiding her fingers to the place at his wrist where she can feel his pulse and ground herself with it.
“That’s good,” Eliot says, shifting forward so his knee presses harder against hers. “That’s normal. Means you’ve got skin in the game.”
“I don’t like playing games I can’t win,” she grits out. Or that she doesn’t know the rules to, or that she can’t cut and run from without leaving her heart on the table.
“Then we make sure you win,” Hardison says, so sure, so certain.
“We?” she echoes, peeking over at him.
He smiles. “Yeah, we—” He pauses and glances over at Eliot, who nods, knocking their shoulders together.
“Yeah, man,” he agrees. “Together.” He cuts a glance towards her, careful and slow. “If that’s what you want, darlin’.”
Her tongue feels too thick in her mouth so she nods instead of trying to speak.
There's still all this uncertainty twisted up in her gut, all these doubts of how she can make this work, how she can feel these things without letting them tear her apart from the inside out, but… there’s nothing she can’t do if she’s working with them, if they’re a team, if she has Hardison planning the way, if she has Eliot watching her back. She wants to believe them. She wants to run directly into this, straightforward and direct, and know that even though she’s scared, even if she can’t do it right, she won’t be stuck alone, she’ll have them there to pick up the slack.
“How do we win?” she asks carefully, letting her fingers close over theirs, letting her hands grip like she never wants to let go, because she doesn’t.
Hardison smiles brightly, guides her forward so she’s off her feet, down on the couch with them, in and out of both their laps, just a tangle of close warm bodies.
“I dunno,” he says, glancing over her shoulder at Eliot. “Kinda feel like I just did.”
Eliot huffs out a laugh against her cheek, and she tries to trust the emotion, lets it fill her, smiles slowly and tentatively until it stops feeling wrong.
“Well, I lost a perfectly good dinner,” he grumbles. “Went to the nice butcher downtown for nothing.”
Hardison shares a conspiratory smirk with her, and she feels alight with the knowledge that she’s going to get to kiss him again.
“Alright, we’ll work on that for next time,” he says.
“That easy?” she asks.
Hardison presses a devastatingly light kiss to her forehead while Eliot presses one to the back of her shoulder.
“That easy.”