Chapter Text
Hardison wanted the impossible.
Well, for him, there was very little that could be classified as impossible. Age of the Geek, and all that.
But his level of expertise fell in the realm of technology, not people.
Ask him to hack the Pentagon servers and you need to step back and give him some elbow room because he's gonna whip some security encryption ass.
Ask him to flirt? Or blend in with a bunch of jocks? You might as well stick a fork in him because he'd be fried and done.
So when it came to Parker, the strangest, most quirky, out of the ordinary, stand alone human being he had ever met, and she wasn't the least bit self conscious about any of it, he admired it on a level so deep that he was hers from the start.
Parker has this thing where she doesn't understand boundaries or personal space, which is totally fine with Hardison.
He loves it when Parker randomly starts climbing him like a tree to wrap her legs around his waist yelling "Giddyup!"
Or when she gives him what she calls happy kisses (usually on his elbows because, you know, funny bone) or on his ears because according to Parker, everybody knows ears are happy, and other random places that no one would think to kiss.
One time she kissed his kneecap when she'd kicked him a little too hard during one of their sparring practices because she thought his knee went too wibbly wobbly.
Everyone would feel damn lucky and damn happy to have Parker all up in their business like that.
Everyone except Eliot. Or so he'd thought.
Eliot only lets himself enjoy Parkers affections (or anyones affections for that matter) on very rare occasions.
When they'd finally convinced Parker to leave the rehab facility with Hurley, she'd run straight up to Eliot and jumped into his arms. And instead of him scowling and holding her off like he usually does, he'd actually ducked down a bit and caught her with one arm, let her wrap both her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist, and giggle in his ear how much she'd missed him.
"When do the happy pills wear off?" He'd asked, but the look in his eyes betrayed him.
Or when Hardison got...and he can't even bare to say it.
They put him in a coffin, damnit!
The way Eliot let him wrap both arms around his middle and bury his face in his neck because they'd come for him. They'd saved him
"Man don't do that again! Don't do that again!" He remembers Eliot whispering angrily in his ear because how dare Hardison get himself kidnapped and buried alive in a cemetary and make Eliot...feel things.
While Parker just takes what she wants and accepts Eliot's answering response, good or bad, with no hard feelings, Hardison takes those little moments where Eliot lets the wall drop and tucks them away in his heart because while he fell for Parker almost immediately, Eliot crept up on him like the grumpy, punchy, emotionally unbalanced lurker that he is.
And Hardison thinks he's a little bit in love with their Hitter.
Yeah, he can be patient with Parker. He knows she'll come around on her own terms and that's completely okay with him. She's already giving him more than enough with all her piggy back rides and implied 'I love you's' in the form of full body bear hugs and...pretzels.
But Eliot? Eliot makes him feel that bottom of your belly, sour burn of want when he stands just inside Hardison's personal space and all Hardison wants to do is lean in that much closer so that they're touching but he can't because...Eliot.
Or when Hardison wants to show him something on the computer and Eliot leans over his shoulder, so close that his hair tickles the side of his face, calloused fingertips brushing against Hardison's neck when he leans in closer to catch what Eliot calls Hardison's geek spiral when he gets too excited about the technical stuff.
Hundreds of light touches and close encounters that drive Hardison mad with desire and never enough full body contact.
And it's not just a physical thing either. Never has been. Not when it comes to Eliot or Parker.
Hell, if that was the case Hardison would have been finished a long time ago.
While he and Parker have gotten a little hinky here and there, they still haven't put a label on anything or made things...official...if you can catch his drift.
But what he loves more than that, is that she gets all starry eyed and dreamy when he tells her stories about his NaNa. That she says she wants to meet his NaNa. She trusts him enough to cry in front of him and she wants to learn hacker things and she wants to teach him thief things and she protects him and cares for him and she's just. Amazing.
And it may be selfish but he can't help it. He wants that with Eliot too because Eliot protects him too. Puts his life on the line for him. Would kill for him.
Logically Hardison knows that you don't do that for someone unless you love them but would it hurt for Eliot to let him at least show him how grateful he is to have him at their backs? Or let him tape up his bloody knuckles? Massage his tired muscles?
Day after day he watches Eliot limp back to the apartment, his hand hovering over his ribs after putting himself between his team and the opposition.
Watches him flip the bathroom light on, looking down at his shaking hands covered in blood before he slams on the tap and washes his sins down the drain.
Watches as Eliot slowly strips his dirty tshirt up and over his head and into the hamper behind the bathroom door. The muscles in his back and neck ripple under sweaty skin as he stretches.
And Hardison wants all of him in every conceivable way possible. Mind, Body, Soul.
He's not sure if he could ever really tie a man like Eliot down. He's not even sure if Eliot would be into that sort of thing. In the two years that they've been working as a team he's never really seen Eliot show the slightest amount of interest in anyone, male or female, unless they were a mark.
Hardison has always known that his attraction to the human race comes from mental, emotional, and physical connection...not sexual oreintation.
But he has never been gut punched with the love-gratitude-fluffy-dirty ball of mixed up emotions that he feels for Eliot.
He was beginning to think that maybe Eliot just wasn't capable of letting his walls down. Or that he just didn't want to. Not even for them.
Or maybe he'd caught Hardison staring too long when he'd come in the house shirtless and breathless after a long run and he didn't want Hardison to get the wrong idea so he remained extra gruff with him.
But then again. Hardison has never been that good at reading people.
They'd just gotten back to Nates place after taking down Damien Moreau in San Lorenzo so maybe Eliot had just been in an unusually not so grumpy mood that day.
Eliot tossed his coat on the rack by the door before he grabbed a beer from Nates fridge and hopped over the back of the sofa to settle while Hardison put football on the giant eighty-inch screen hanging on the wall.
Hardison had been fiddling with the remote but he looked up just in time to see Parker coming up behind Eliot with her giant bowl of celebratory Fruit Loops in one hand and that dazed smile she always got on her face when they'd pulled off an impossible con that she was sure would get them killed.
When she was standing right behind Eliot where he lounged on the couch she let her free hand slip into the layers of hair at the back of his head and closed them into a fist.
And Parker wasn't done. Nope. Because when is Parker ever done?
She uses the grip she has on Eliot's hair to yank his head back so he's looking at her upside down now, his throat fully exposed and Hardison can hear a low growl rumbling in his chest.
She ignores all the warning signs and simply bends down and kisses him lightly, right in the middle of his forehead. Quick and stealthy, just like her. Her mouth probably sticky and sugary from the crunchy bowl of diabetes she's still clutching in her left hand.
"Thanks for protecting us, Eliot." She says, light and airy like she does when she's fascinated by something.
And then she untangles her fingers from his hair and hops up onto the arm of the loveseat, perching there like a house cat, smiling as she shovels another spoonfull of drippy rainbows into her mouth.
All of this happens within a matter of 3 seconds, tops, but to Hardison it was like watching an hour long documentary on the nature channel of a lion tackling a gazelle.
And he's not even sure who the lion would be in this particular scenario because while he's used to Eliot overreacting when anyone gives him any sort of affection, physically or otherwise, what he is not used to is the fact that Eliot is blushing, blotchy red spots on his cheeks and all the way down to disappear behind the open collar of his shirt and Hardison wonders if his hand would come back burned and blistered if he were to touch Eliot there.
Eliot almost looks like he wants to be annoyed with himself for being pleased by what just happened but can't make his face agree with the emotion.
His mouth is open and his lips are wet because he keeps licking them over and over.
His eyes look slightly dazed and confused and angry and behind all of that Hardison thinks he sees...heat. Eliot's eyes were lower, darker...hungrier, and it made Hardison feel equal parts terrified and mesmerized because this isn't the first time Parker has given Eliot surprise kisses.
He usually does the "Damn it, Parker! Knock it off!" bit, while furiously wiping at whatever part of his body Parker had decided to violate.
So what changed this time? What had Parker done differently to short circuit Eliot? He needed to find out because that small glimpse of surprised arousal from Eliot made him want to watch even closer. Hardison wanted to see more.
"Do you think Eliot likes us?"
They're swinging in the hammock Parker fastened to the ceiling below the ten foot skylight Hardison put in for her.
Usually Parker liked to sit on the edge of 50 story buildings and stare at the stars and the horriffically scary drop to the ground when she was feeling introspective but if he was going to keep being her supporting shoulder during these times they had to come to a compromise.
"Parker. Of course Eliot likes us. What makes you think he doesn't?" She's got her body plastered to his with her head tucked under his chin so he can't read her face. Not that seeing Parker's face would help in the first place, but, he just really likes her face.
She exhales, tangling the neck of his tshirt between her fingers. "He doesn't like touching. Or happy kisses."
Hardison smiles at that. "I'm not sure many people know what happy kisses are, Parker. And don't you remember? At first you didn't like the touchy feely stuff either. You just gotta give him time."
"Eliot is a hard lock to fiddle."
He chuckles. "Yes he is."
She sits up suddenly, making the hammock swing hard enough to have him gripping the edges nervously.
"Oooh! Can you hack him?" And she's being all squirmy.
"Park- Parker. I know you're cool with the twenty foot drop to the floor but I'd like to stay put for now."
She stills immediately. "Oh. Sorry."
"All is forgiven."
And now that the hammock has stopped trying to kill him, he lets go of the sides to wiggle his fingers at her. "I got the magic fingers, babe. But I can't hack a Hitter."
"But you hacked a potato that one time. Just pretend Eliot is our potato."
The way her mind works amazes him sometimes. "How about I start with talking to him first?"
She scrunches her nose. "Hmmm. Not as fun as potato hacking but okay."
She shrugs and resettles herself against his side with her head on his chest and exhales.
"You know what I'm in the mood for?...pretzels!
"Heeeeey." He sing songs.