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“Hardison. You’re joking.”
“Eliot. Do I look like I’m joking?”
“You can’t be serious. They’re not real!”
“Hell yes I’m serious! And says you—you weren’t the one fighting them off. They felt real, I can tell you that. I can tell you that for sure. All that… All that scuttling around… All that lurking in the shadows…” There comes a great shudder at that, one of utter horror and disgust.
“Eliot, I really think you should do it. Just in case. Please? For us?”
For a moment, Eliot simply stares at the two idiots he loves so dearly. They’re both on the bed, lit by the gentle glow coming from the lamp on the side table: Parker’s sitting up against the headboard, and Hardison’s in her lap. Now, you might be picturing him just sitting there, cool as a cucumber. That’s where you’d be wrong. Parker’s the one who’s cool. Hardison, meanwhile, is not merely sitting in Parker’s lap—he’s cowering in Parker’s lap, eyes wide and arms latched around her neck, his knees pulled up to his chest so she can wrap her own arms all the way around him, almost like she’s carrying him. They look like one of those pictures they take sometimes at haunted houses right when people get jumped by something. Parker’s the weirdly relaxed, strangely unaffected one, and Hardison’s the big fraidy-pants who got scared right off his feet and into her arms.
It’s absolutely ridiculous. It’s also, unfortunately, absolutely adorable.
Still, Eliot sighs, because he has to put up at least a little bit of a fuss. He’s pretty sure it won’t ever matter how long him and Hardison have been together—he’ll always have to give the man at least a smidge of guff about anything and everything. It’s unavoidable, really; it’s basically a stipulation in his Boyfriend Contract.
“Is that so?” he says to Parker. “You really think I should check the closet for video game monsters?”
Both Parker and Hardison nod, one of them slow and steady and the other frantic. Guess which is which.
“And under the bed,” Hardison says. “Don’t forget under the bed.”
“Yes,” Parker agrees. “Under the bed too.”
“Park, you weren’t even scared,” Eliot says. “Matter of fact, as I recall it, all you kept saying was ‘Ooooh, coooool. Ooooooh, cooooooool.’” He says that in his best approximation of Parker’s admiring croon.
“Well, yeah,” Parker says. “They were cool.”
“Then why don’t you go look for monsters if you think they’re so cool?”
Parker wrinkles her nose. “Because I’m holding Hardison,” she says, like he’s some kinda dumbass.
“Parker would probably try to, like, make friends with them or something too,” Hardison points out.
Okay, that’s actually a fair point. Parker would absolutely do something nuts like that. She’d probably want to keep one as a pet. At that point, Eliot wouldn’t even stop at making her be the one to feed it and take it out—she’d have to move into a whole other apartment. No way he’s living with hellspawn in the house.
“C’mon, Eliot,” Parker pleads. “We can’t let Hardison be scared. That’s not fair.”
“Thank you.”
“Also then we won’t get any sleep.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Parker pats the top of Hardison’s head, and Hardison—in a manner unfairly precious—buries his face in the curve of her neck. “C’moooon, Eliot,” she says again. “Pleeeeeeeease?”
It’s at that point that Parker starts pouting and batting her eyelashes, and that’s definitely playing dirty. It was already hard enough having to handle Hardison, but now Parker’s being cute too? Terrible. Awful. He’s dating the two most fiendish masterminds in the whole world. It’s like they have no sense of fairness. They’re doing this on purpose to make him suffer.
Once again, Eliot sighs. But this time, it’s not a sigh of fussiness—it’s one of defeat. He knows Parker’s right that if he doesn’t take care of this, Hardison will never fall asleep, and then they’ll have to deal with him twitching and hiccuping at every shifting shadow or unquestionably innocuous sound until the sun comes up and it turns out that none of them have caught a wink. And okay, yeah: he doesn’t like seeing his boyfriend scared either. Deep down, Eliot finds the whole thing silly—it was a video game, for crying out loud—but Hardison seems like he’s truly been spooked. And that don’t sit right with him. Makes him feel off-center, knowing one of his sweeties ain’t totally okay.
“Alright,” Eliot finally says. “Which you want first? Closet or under the bed?”
“Under the bed,” Hardison answers, immediate. “Don’t want nothing grabbing us when you check the closet after.”
“Okay, yessir.”
Eliot walks around from the end of the bed to the side, feeling Hardison and Parker’s eyes on him the whole way. When he reaches the edge he stops. He looks at Hardison, and Hardison gives him a nod.
Eliot crouches down to his knees before finally flattening himself on the hardwood. When he peeks under the bed, there is, of course, nothing to be seen. This only makes sense—Parker hates clutter, and he himself is, according to Hardison, “a militant neat freak.” There’s not even any dust bunnies down here. That’s how serious he is about vacuuming. No runaway socks either, or stray empty packets that once held gummy frogs. (The same, he knows, can’t be said of other rooms in the apartment. One day he’ll get Hardison to understand the concept of throwing something away right when you’re done with it, instead of thinking to yourself, I’ll get that later. One day.) The floor beneath the bed is spotless.
“See anything down there?” Hardison calls from up top.
“Not a thing, darlin’,” Eliot answers.
“You sure?”
Eliot rolls his eyes. “Would I lie to you?”
“Yes. If it was for the bit, yes you would.”
Eliot bites back a smile. Hardison’s not wrong. Another thing Eliot’s sure will never be affected by how long him and Hardison have been together: He will always, always have to goof around with the man at any given opportunity. Sophie had just commented the other day after Hardison spent ten whole minutes tearing apart the briefing room trying to find his presentation clicker because someone—no telling who—had hid it that they were “still like teenagers, weren’t they? Always pulling each other’s legs.”
To be clear, Eliot did impress upon Sophie the fact that there was no confirmation that he’d been the one to hide the clicker—he was only grinning something stupid because it was funny to watch Hardison cuss and stomp around the room, not because he was proud of a job well done. That said, as for any of the other recent pranks that had been his doing (the rubber spider nestled amongst Hardison’s collection of orange sodas in the fridge, the presentation two briefings ago where all the text had somehow been changed to Comic Sans), Eliot would call that “keeping the spark alive.” What’s romance without something to keep you on your toes! Gotta keep things exciting; don’t want anyone getting complacent. Plus, it’s not like Eliot can just sit on his hands after all the crap Hardison’s pulled—and continues to pull—on him. You think he’s gonna hang back after that time Hardison squirreled away all his shirts for a whole week and left him only with crop tops? Or the day that he un-organized his once extremely precise shelf of cookbooks? No. Nuh-uh. Those things can’t slide by. There’s gotta be some kinda retribution.
(Side note: Yes, he’s aware that he could’ve just not worn the crop tops. But that would’ve meant buying new regular-length shirts to wear in the meantime, and that felt wasteful. Plus, the whole mission ended up coming back to bite Hardison in the ass once Eliot realized how much power he wielded with just a simple stretch of his arms above his head. By the end of the week, Hardison was so sweaty and out of sorts over it all that even Sophie had told him he needed to pull himself together. He was also kinda obligated to give Eliot his shirts back at that point because Eliot had so many hickeys over his stomach that they really couldn’t go unhidden any longer. Not if they ever wanted Nate to stop sighing and shaking his head every time he caught sight of them.
Haha. Overwhelmed Hardison + his shirts back = point Spencer, as far as he’s concerned.)
No pranks tonight, though. Not after this. Which is kind of a funny thought, actually. Used to be that Eliot never passed up a single opportunity to mess around with Hardison. Now, don’t get him wrong—he still takes about ninety-five percent of those opportunities. But the other five percent belongs to times like tonight, times where he knows Hardison would be too exhausted or frustrated to laugh, or where he knows it would be cruel to add to whatever misery he may already be feeling. He’s gotta keep his boy safe, y’know? And safe doesn’t include pranks when the conditions aren’t right. Has he gone soft? Maybe. Whatever, though. It’s his job to protect Hardison, and Parker too. Always has been, plain and simple. So when it comes to messing around with him, there’s a time and there’s a place.
Speaking of places, there’s one in particular that Eliot no longer wants to be, and that is the floor. With a grunt of effort, he pushes himself back to standing, and he makes a show of dusting off the front of his T-shirt once he’s up.
“Well, no monsters down there,” he says.
“Positive?” Hardison asks.
“Double-checked and everything. That’s a Spencer guarantee.”
Hardison curls further into Parker’s embrace, but he seems more soothed. “Good. Closet?”
Eliot gives his man a salute. “Aye-aye.”
The closet door’s closed as it always is, because it annoys Eliot to see it hanging open for no good reason. He pulls it wide and steps inside.
The room’s a cavernous thing: On either side there’s racks for hangers that go back a couple yards, one row on top and one on bottom, and at the end of it in the center there’s a big chest of many drawers. Most of it’s Hardison’s stuff, actually—his various tees and sweaters and scarves take up a not inconsiderable amount of space on the racks, plus the con-stumes he’s made for the three of them and the non-con-stumes that he’s made for himself (“Cosplay,” Hardison’s always stressing to him, “not ‘dress-up clothes’”). Parker comes in second, the dresses she’s inherited from Sophie after random jobs padding out her own collection of clothes, and last is him. He’s got a small section of the racks for shirts and sweatshirts and a couple jackets, plus one drawer of the chest for jeans and one for socks and underwear. Most of the chest is full of Hardison’s stuff too, fabrics and buttons and other bits and pieces for his sewing. One of the drawers is open, actually, a roll of lace edging spilling out of it; Eliot walks over to tuck the material back in and close it.
“Anything in there?” Hardison calls from the bed.
Eliot bonks his head gently against the edge of the chest. His sweet, impatient chicken. “Gimme a sec,” he calls back. “Ain’t even had time to look.”
“Aren’t you gonna turn the light on? It’s dark in there.”
It is—the glow from the bedside lamp helps but it doesn’t quite reach far enough, leaving the furthest corners of the closet still inky-dark. If he was genuinely doing a thorough search, he’d flip the switch just inside the door. Maybe that’s exactly why he should. If he looks like he’s half-assing it at all, Hardison’ll have a fit. He won’t shut up about checking every goddamn corner of the place until Eliot actually does it. Okay, fine. Eliot walks back over to the door.
“Good idea, babe,” he says as the closet is suddenly lit with the soft light from the frosted fixture on the ceiling. “Alright—lemme take a peek.”
Moving slow enough to be believable (it’s not that he’s not really checking, he’s just a quicker scout than Hardison would probably feel comfortable with), Eliot starts shuffling through the hanging clothes, peeking between swaths of fabric to make sure there’s no leggy mannequins or bloodied nurses hiding within them. He has to hand it to Hardison’s game, actually—those monsters were pretty creepy. The legs would come from nowhere, scare the piss right outta you (well, outta Hardison), and the way those nurses lurched back and forth was unsettling. Not to mention their non-faces. He’s not saying he was actually scared of them, seeing as it’s only a video game—a fact that Hardison seems determined not to understand—but if they were real, he’d rather not run into either of them in a dark alley, that’s for sure.
The rest of the game wasn’t half-bad either. He’d originally sat himself in the armchair to read just so he could be in the same room while Hardison played his game and Parker half watched, half fiddled with her Box o’ Locks, as they called it, but eventually he’d found himself pulled away from his book and drawn to watching too. The mysterious story sucked you in, the atmosphere was cool, and the music really added to that atmosphere too, bizarre and noisy as it was. Weird-ass town, though. Wouldn’t ever want to find himself there either. Especially not in a dark alley.
And don’t tell Hardison he said this—he’d never live it down—but it’s… It was kinda hot, honestly, to watch him play. For as much as he spent his time screeching when something jumped at him, he was also a surprisingly good shot under pressure (“surprisingly” given how completely ass he is at it in real life), and an expert at sniffing out extra supplies too. Competence, man—it’s sexy as hell. And Eliot’s not immune to that. He’s actually been hoping ever since they called it a night that he might get to watch Hardison play again sometime soon.
Work first, though. Once he’s finished checking the racks, he moves on to the chest of drawers. He’s purposefully loud as he opens and shuts each one to make it absolutely clear what he’s doing.
“Still not seeing anything,” he says.
“Make sure to check real good,” Hardison tells him. “Check under the clothes and stuff too, make sure nothing’s hiding. You never know.”
Eliot can’t help but roll his eyes yet again at Hardison’s logic, or lack thereof. The man’s a certifiable genius, can do anything you ask of him as long as you give him a clear deadline and a budget, and yet here he is, afraid that there might somehow be human-sized creatures hiding in their drawers. How the hell would that even work? What, are they like those little dehydrated things you used to be able to get in those plastic balls, the ones where you put ’em in water and then they grow into a washcloth or a dinosaur or something? That thought actually makes him chuckle. Imagine finding a tiny shrunken sewed-together pair of pairs of legs, and then you plop it in the bathtub and it swells up to its normal size. And then it kicks you in the face with one of its stumpy limbs and kills you. Wouldn’t that be wild.
“What are you laughing at?” Hardison asks. There’s an edge of what might be annoyance encroaching on the fear in his voice. “Something funny?”
Even though Hardison can’t see it, Eliot shakes his head. “I’m not laughing at you,” he says. “Turn off your Batman ears and keep your pants on.”
“It’s never actually been proven that the ears on Batman’s costume help him hear better. That’s still a fan theory.”
Is it sick that hearing Hardison rattle off his nerd junk like that makes something in Eliot’s chest soften? Again, whatever. He’s past caring at this point. His boyfriend’s a dork and he’s not afraid to show it, and Eliot thinks that’s cute. So sue him.
“Turn off your regular bat ears, then,” he says. “Hold your horses, alright? I’m workin’ here.”
There comes some soft murmuring then, in Parker’s light voice. Curious, Eliot steps back closer to the door to listen.
“It’s alright,” she’s telling Hardison. “Eliot’s gonna make sure everything’s fine, okay? There’s probably nothing in there. And if there was, he’d rip it in half.”
“Gross,” Hardison says, although he sounds like he’s laughing too.
“Yeah. We’d have to clean so much blood out of the closet. Also the dismembered legs. Or the decapitated nurse corpses.”
“Okay, not helping anymore.”
Parker cackles, and then there’s a big, cheery mwah. Eliot wonders where Parker might’ve kissed Hardison; he’d step around the door jamb to peek, but he doesn’t wannna be caught shirking his duties. He hopes she kissed Hardison on the temple, though. Man likes his temple kisses.
Quietly, Parker picks back up with her reassurances, and Eliot forces himself to tiptoe back to the drawers. He’s made it through most of them now, just the bigger ones on the lower half to go. He pulls one of them open and rifles carefully through the neat stacks of Parker’s miscellaneous tops. Lots of neutrals, all of it soft. Oh, wait. That’s— Is that his? Yeah, that’s his. That’s his Red Wings shirt that’s been missing for weeks. Or “missing,” apparently. And now found.
Eliot stares at it with a smile tugging at his mouth and a warmth on the back of his neck. He has the brief thought of reappropriating it… and then he lets it stay in its pile, the rest of Parker’s shirts coming back to rest on top of it. He doesn’t need the shirt that bad. He hasn’t been in any kind of hurry to wear it; he was only wondering where it was. He’d found something else to wear when he went over to Nate and Soph’s for the Wings game against the Avalanche last week, and he’ll find something else to wear again for their next game. If Parker wants it, she can have it. Makes him feel fizzy, anyway, knowing she’s got it. She’s always been shameless about stealing clothes, so to find out that she’s done it again is nothing new, but still gets him every time. Never feels less good.
Once the shirts have been searched, the bottom drawer’s the one that’s left. This one’s a bit of a nightmare—it’s Hardison’s miscellaneous sewing drawer, the one where he keeps all those aforementioned bits and pieces for finishing up his different projects. It’s all meticulously organized, because if there’s one area of his life where the guy doesn’t play (besides his electronics) it’s his sewing stuff, but even so, it’s… It’s a lot. There’s gotta be a hundred different sorting trays full of snaps and fabric scraps and spool upon spool upon spool of thread. It makes Eliot dizzy just looking at it. Still, there’s searching to be done. Gotta make sure there’s no dehydrated leggies or nurses in here either.
Although… If he gets in there to check under trays and ends up messing up Hardison’s system, it’s a very real possibility that he might get— He was gonna say he might get his fingers chopped off, but Hardison’s too much of a softie to even suggest something like that. It’s entirely possible that he might have his imported coffee beans hidden for the week, though, or maybe he’ll get denied handjobs for a to-be-determined length of time.
Or… No. That’s such an awful thought that Eliot doesn’t even wanna think it. He’s scared to put that evil into words. But maybe… Maybe Hardison will even temporarily revoke his little spoon privileges. He’s threatened it before but has yet to deploy the actual punishment. Says he’s “saving it for a really special time.” Given how particular Hardison is about his system for his sewing paraphernalia, that time could certainly be now.
That scares Eliot more than anything he saw in that damn game.
Well, shoot. They’ll just have to hope that there really aren’t any shrunken monsters hiding underneath all the myriad hardware and fabric. If Hardison asks about that drawer specifically—and you might think that’s unlikely, but trust him, it ain’t—he’ll put on his best smolder and distract by means of flirtation. Hasn’t failed him yet.
He’s tucking the drawer back into place when he hears Parker’s voice: “Eliot? You almost done? We wanna go to bed.”
“I’m comin’,” he calls. “Just wrapped up.” When he’s steps from the door, though, he picks up on Parker’s words again, and he pauses.
“It really is gonna be okay,” she tells Hardison, and her voice is gentle around those words in a way that it wasn’t before. Not that she was being harsh or anything earlier—she’d just sounded like Parker then. Even, matter-of-fact. Like she could’ve been talking about anything. Now, though? Now she’s soft, careful. Care-ing. A touch worried, even. Eliot can practically see her holding Hardison’s head to her chest. Maybe she’s got one of her hands stroking over his short hair.
“You promise?” Hardison asks. The words are a mix of exaggeratedly childlike stubbornness and genuine hope.
“I promise,” Parker says, with another soft mwah. “The monsters won’t come get you. Even if they did, me and Eliot would fight them off—Eliot’ll punch ’em to death, and I’m really good with a pipe, just like— What’s his name?”
“James.”
“Yeah, just like James.” Parker makes a wshhh, wshhhh, CLANG sound, presumably to accompany a demonstration of said pipe skills.
Hardison snorts. “Maybe you should start keeping one by the bed, just in case.”
“Yeah, maybe. Just in case.”
There’s a few beats of quiet after that. Eliot risks a peek around the edge of the doorframe to see what awaits him in the bedroom. Sure enough, Parker does have Hardison’s head on her chest, her cheek resting on top of it. She’s not stroking over his hair, but she is rubbing his back. Hardison’s got his eyes closed.
“I know it’s stupid,” he mutters eventually. “I know it’s not real. It just… gets me. Always has. Brain tries to run way ahead of everything and convince me that there’s something around every corner, even if I know there’s not.” He pauses. “Probably.”
“It’s not stupid,” Parker says. “Is it stupid that I still don’t really love horses?”
“No,” Hardison replies. “They’re just a thing you don’t like.”
“Exactly. And you don’t like leg monsters and zombie nurses. Which is probably reasonable.” Parker squeezes Hardison in closer. “Why do you play the game, though? If it scares you?”
Another sound of amusement from Hardison, this one softer. “’Cause it’s still fun, even if it’s scary,” he says. “I like the story. Just wait ’til you see the other business James gets up to. Stuff’s wild. And really sad. But it hurts so good. Been obsessed with it since the first time I played it. And…” Hardison tucks his face down further. “It’s more fun too now that you and Eliot are here,” he adds quietly. “Makes it feel a little less scary. I know, I know,” he says when Parker makes a sound of confusion, “doesn’t look like it from here. But it’s true.”
Parker hums. “Well,” she says, “we’ll keep watching if it helps. I do like watching you kill stuff. And I like the puzzles. But mostly I like watching you kill stuff.” She kisses Hardison’s temple. “And we really will keep you safe,” she adds, back to that gentleness. “Nothing’s gonna come after you as long as me and Eliot are around. And we’ll be around forever, okay?”
For the first time that conversation, Hardison smiles a genuine smile. He tips his face up to kiss the underside of Parker’s chin before pillowing his head on her again.
“Okay,” he says. “Thank you.”
“Mmmmmhm. Love you love you, mister.”
Hardison’s smile grows wider. “Love you love you, mama.”
And then they both go quiet.
Meanwhile, Eliot is standing out of sight behind the wall, trying to breathe through the sudden ache in his chest. It’s just— Those are his people out there. His “People,” as Parker likes to say, “We’re you’re People, aren’t we,” audibly capitalized and slanted with italics. And he loves them. So much. They’re so good, and they’re so good together. And even though he already knows that it’s his job to protect the both of them, it’s something different to hear them acknowledge it with their own mouths. Especially when he’s protecting them from some fantasy creatures made of pixels and not, y’know, the Russian mob, or even just some local toughs. Something that they shouldn’t really need his protection from, in other words.
But he still ends up between the creatures and his People anyway just by virtue of being in the room while Hardison plays his game, and it turns out Hardison takes comfort from that. And that’s worth more than its weight in… Anything, really. It’s all Eliot could ever want. All he could want and almost more than he can handle. For Parker to make that promise of forever too, for her to be so certain (and so correct) about the fact that he’s not going anywhere—not for anything—floors him as well. They know. They trust him and they know. It’s everything.
For a few moments, Eliot has to stand with his back pressed against the wall, taking deep breaths until he can get himself settled. Only when his chest no longer feels like it’s gonna crumble under the weight of his love does he round the doorframe and start walking to the bed, switching the closet light off—and shutting the door, of course—before he goes too far. Hardison looks up at him hopefully as he enters the room.
“Didn’t find anything?” he asks.
Eliot shakes his head. “Not a thing.” He offers Hardison a gentle smile. “You’re safe.”
Hardison lets out a sigh that sure sounds genuine, definitely not for show. Eliot’s heart trips a beat.
“Cool,” Hardison says. “Thanks, man.”
“See?” Parker chimes in. “Told you it’d all be okay.”
“And you’re always right about everything, aren’t you?” Eliot says.
Parker pulls a face. “Uh, duh. Now c’mon, cowboy.” She pats the bed next to her, on the side that’s behind Hardison. “It’s past bedtime. We all need to go to sleep.”
Eliot ducks his head to try and hide his smile. “Ma’am, yes ma’am,” he says, because who is he to disobey a command like that?
It’s only a few more steps to the bed, and then he’s slipping onto the mattress. It’s early October now and the last throes of summer have worked their way out of Mother Nature’s system, meaning it’s been consistently cool enough for them to bring out the heavier duvet. They’ve got the autumnal bedding out too, a deep sage green for the duvet cover and half the pillowcases and a warm burnt orange for the sheets and the other half of the pillows. Parker couldn’t care less about the sheet colors, and Hardison’s only lukewarm on it, but he cares. There’s something nice about the rhythm of matching things to the seasons. He’s not much for other kinds of seasonal decorations—that’s where Parker and Hardison take their turn to go crazy—but he likes stuff like the bedding and the hand towels in the bathroom and the kitchen. Maybe the blankets in the living room too if he’s feeling really fancy. Just feels nice.
For the first time, actually, he wonders if it could be because this is the first time he’s ever been anywhere that felt enough like home to do that kinda stuff. Their apartment isn’t just somewhere he cooks and sleeps and watches ball when he can—it’s where he lives. It’s where his things are. It’s where his People are.
That thought makes his throat tighten. He’s long since lost track of how long he’d yearned for something like this, something he knows he can always return to. He knows that his line of work doesn’t always afford for much stability, but he’d always wondered: Was it too much to ask for some kind of foundation? Even just the barest version of it. After what happened with Aimee, he’d figured he’d gotten his answer, and that answer was a resounding “yes.” It was way too much to ask for, so he’d best give up hoping.
Apparently the universe still had some surprise left in her, though, even for a guy like him who definitely didn’t deserve it. For that reason he’s been trying to stop questioning it, lest the universe sense his doubt and yank it away from him. He has a home. He has People. People who trust him enough to check the house for monsters and believe him when he says he didn’t find any. Ain’t that something?
Eliot watches as Parker continues holding Hardison, her cheek pressed back to the top of his head. She’s started humming something soft now, and she’s even rocking him slowly from side to side. Hardison’s not making a peep; Eliot wonders if maybe he’s fallen asleep. If he has, it’d probably be best not to move him. Eliot still needs to ask his next question, though.
“Can I hold him?” he says to Parker.
She picks her head up and looks at him for a second before she breaks into a smile.
“Yeah,” she says. “Here.”
As she goes to hand Hardison off, the man in question scoffs (not asleep, then).
“‘Can I hold him,’” he repeats. “What am I, some kinda baby? Just pass me around, huh.” But he also doesn’t fight the way that Parker’s nudging him off her lap, and once he’s out of her arms he shifts right into Eliot’s, simple as that.
Hardison’s weight over Eliot’s legs isn’t an unfamiliar one—he’s been taking a cue lately from Parker’s own behavior and parking himself in Eliot’s lap whenever the opportunity arises (as long as the spot’s not currently filled by Parker herself, of course). He’ll sit himself on Eliot as he waits on one of the stools at the briefing table for Sophie to pack the last of her stuff before they go do field work, or while he’s on the couch at home during movie night, or as he’s on a chair at their favorite coffee shop while they wait for their drinks. At first, Eliot had complained about it, but only out of that contractual obligation. On the inside, he was thrilled. Giddy, even. Hardison’s heavier than Parker, of course, and it’s not that Parker’s weight isn’t good enough for him (it definitely is), but the extra Hardison sure is nice. Plus, he can wrap his arms around Hardison’s sturdy waist and let his cheek rest against one of those muscly biceps. And he smells so good. Like, so good. Shea butter and Old Spice and maybe a whiff of coconut if one of Hardison’s well-lotioned hands wafts past his face. Sometimes Eliot genuinely has to stop himself from drooling.
He gets a whiff of that coconut now when Hardison reaches up to loop his arms around his neck; he gets his arms around Hardison in return, tugging him in close. At that, at the action of Eliot bundling him up, Hardison makes a soft sound that’s both tired and happy, and damn if Eliot’s stomach doesn’t backflip to hear it. Makes it feel a little less scary, he hears in his head. It’s true. When he looks down at his boy, Eliot sees that Hardison’s eyes are closed once more, expression relaxed. He looks comfortable, contented. Like he could drop off any second. That’s good. That’s very, very good.
“Awwww,” Parker coos into the quiet. “Look at you two. Aren’t you adorable.”
She’s still smiling when Eliot shifts his gaze back to her. When their eyes meet, she leans up on her knees to kiss his forehead.
“Bedtime, though?” she offers. “I really am tired.” As soon as the words are out of her mouth, she yawns.
She’s got a point—it’s probably late. Oh, yup: A glance at the clock says it’s 11:38 PM. Normally they’re in bed earlier than this because Nate is one of those birds that always has to have the first worm, which means that the rest of them have to be too if they’re gonna get any work done together, but they’ve got a day off tomorrow. It’s a Saturday, and since their current job is one that revolves around a nearby high school, there’s not a whole lot to be done on the weekend. Especially since they’re at that part of the job where it’s less recon and more boots on the ground. So, ever so magnanimously, Nate said they could reconvene on Sunday instead for some extra prep ahead of Monday’s work. Whether this generosity also has something to do with “tomorrow’s date day” that Eliot overheard Sophie gushing about as they were leaving, he wasn’t sure, but he had his suspicions. Still, even though they’ve got nowhere to be tomorrow morning, Eliot would rather not be up late enough to require a lie-in. He’s got ideas about putting some Southern spin on breakfast, and he wants to be up at a reasonable time to start working on biscuits.
“Alright,” Eliot agrees. “Bedtime.” He looks down at Hardison. “Can I tuck you in, li’l baby?”
Hardison snorts, but he says “Yes, pwease” all high-pitched and childish. Eliot snorts back and pokes him in the ribs.
“Stupid,” he mumbles.
“You love it,” Hardison says on a yawn of his own.
For better or for worse, he does.
With a bit of shuffling they get all three of themselves under the covers, and as soon as they’re in, Hardison latches back onto Eliot, pushing him to lay on his back so he can line up against his side and rest his head on his chest, arm thrown over his stomach. As an afterthought, he hikes a thigh up and over Eliot’s too.
He’s fully trapped. He loves it. Hardison’s hand has found his waist and his foot’s idly brushing back and forth over his calf and it’s perfect. Maybe they don’t need biscuits tomorrow; maybe he should stay here for as long as he can. With the hope that it might help keep Hardison in place, Eliot gets his arms around him too, one around his shoulders and one laid over his side. And when he nudges Hardison’s head up just enough to kiss his temple and Hardison whines softly and digs his face back into his chest, Eliot grins.
On Hardison’s other side, Parker crowds herself in against Hardison’s back; Eliot can tell because he can feel the way that her movement squishes Hardison even closer to him. Her arm drapes over Eliot’s, and her fingers squeeze his elbow before she sighs.
“Night-night?” she asks.
“Night-night,” Eliot says. Gently, he touches his chin to Hardison’s forehead. “You gonna be able to sleep?”
“Mmm. Think so. ’M s’eepy. ’Specially since there’s no monsters.”
Yeah, he’s definitely gonna be out like a light in no time at all—the slur in his words tells Eliot all he needs to know. It’s a little gross, almost, how cute he sounds. Eliot half-wishes he could justify keeping him awake longer to hear more of it. And it makes something light up along his ribs, knowing that he’s played a part in making Hardison feel like that, making him feel safe enough that he could tip so quickly toward unconsciousness. And he didn’t even ask about the bottom drawer. Bonus. He takes a second to let the feeling shine through his insides.
“Yup, you’ve got a no monster promise,” he finally says. “Get some rest then, alright?”
“Mmmm.” Then Hardison giggles, a light, bubbly sound.
A grin kicks back up on Eliot’s face. “What’s so funny?” he asks.
Hardison keeps giggling. “Nothin’,” he says. “Jus’… No res’less dreams here. Not’f that town.”
“Huh?”
“The introoooo,” Hardison says, poking him clumsily in the chest. “Mary’s letter. ‘In—’” His words break off as he executes another huge yawn. “‘In my res’less dreams… I see that town…’ ’Member?”
“I don’t,” Eliot says. He’d come in a few minutes late to the game because he’d been too busy picking out his book.
“Awwwww. Is so good. Sh’ld I start over fr’m th’ beginning nex’time?”
“Noooo” Eliot and Parker both say at exactly the same time.
“No extra monsters,” Parker says.
“Yeah. Last thing we need is you seeing more of those.”
“Mmmpfhf. ’Kay. I’ll YouTube it f’r y’then. T’morrow.”
Still grinning, Eliot rolls his eyes. The man’s words are flopping out of his mouth like Jell-O. He needs to go the hell to sleep. As he starts rubbing a hand over Hardison’s shoulder, Eliot presses his lips to Hardison’s hairline.
“Babe,” he murmurs. “I think it’s time for bed.”
“Okaaaayyyyyy.” Hardison sounds grumpy about it, but he also snuggles in closer. “Time f’r bed,” he says.
“Good.”
There’s only a few seconds of quiet before Hardison starts giggling again. Lord have mercy. They’re never gonna get to sleep.
“You’re the Giggle Monster tonight,” Parker observes.
This gets Hardison going harder. His words are still punctuated by little laughs as he tries to say: “Not— Not res’less dreams w— with the town… In— In my res’ful dreams, I… I see you.”
It takes a few seconds for Eliot to comprehend what Hardison’s saying (and also to understand it, given the giggle breaks). When he does, he chuckles.
“Haha, funny,” he says. “Go to sleep, darlin’.”
But now Hardison pouts. “S’not funny,” he says. “Well… It is. But it’s…” A third yawn. “S’true.”
That sits in the air between them. Hardison sounds serious. That weight’s starting to creep back onto Eliot’s chest.
“That so?” he asks.
“Mmmmmhm. You ’n Parker. In m’dreams.”
Yup, there we go. That weight’s back again. Because it’s something he’s never wondered about, whether Hardison and Parker dream about him. He sure dreams about them, but he’s never stopped to consider the reciprocal. Feels like too much to hope for, somehow. And now it turns out it’s reality. Abruptly, he has questions—so many questions—about what Hardison’s dreams are about, what he’s like in them. But he knows he has no choice but to tuck those away for now, because if Hardison doesn’t fall asleep in the next ninety seconds, he’ll be shocked.
In the meantime, though, he can at least hold the thought. Turn it over in his hands, feel the weight of it. Feel how soft it is. In his restful dreams—in those moments of peace, those pockets of calm—Hardison sees him. Him and Parker. The three of them together, same as they always are in real life. Maybe that’s really all he could ever want. To still be able to be there in some capacity even when it’s physically impossible. It soothes something in the deepest part of him, suddenly knowing he’s been doing that.
Parker trills happily then, shaking Eliot out of his thoughts, and if the way Hardison jostles against him is any indication, she’s doing one of her excited wiggles too.
“Yayyyyyyy,” she cheers, “dream visits! Ooh, maybe we’ll all hang out again tonight. That would be fun. I hope we go flying. Or steal something. Or we steal something and then we fly away with it. That would be awesome.”
“I’ll do my best,” Hardison says with a smile in his voice.
“Yayyy. Good. Good good good.” Eliot watches Parker kiss the back of Hardison’s head, and then he feels her squeeze his elbow again. “If we wanna do that, then, we should go to bed,” she says. “Sleepytime for real, okay?”
“Mmmmyessir,” Hardison replies. “Sleepytime for reeeeeeeal.”
Eliot tries to chuckle like he’s not blinking the blurriness out of his eyes. He considers it a success when he manages to say “Yeah, sleepytime for real” in a mostly steady voice.
“Good,” Parker says again. “Well, night-night, my boys. Love you love you, my Hardison. Love you love you, my Eliot.”
“Mmmmph. Love you love you, Park. Love you love—” There comes Hardison’s biggest yawn yet. “Love you love you, E,” he says.
Eliot swallows. He shifts his arm so that he can squeeze Parker’s elbow right back, and then he rests his face against the top of Hardison’s head. His short hair’s soft against his nose, and his scalp smells fresh and clean. His eyes slip shut.
“Love you love you, babygirl,” he whispers. “And you, sweetheart. Love you love you.”
At that, Parker and Hardison let out happy sighs so similar and simultaneous that Eliot can’t help but laugh. They’re so damn cute, the both of ’em. So much so that he nearly can’t stand it.
The room falls back into silence for a whole ten seconds before Parker gasps “The light!” and flings herself up to sitting. Hardison’s just started up a protesting groan when the room goes dark and Parker’s back to her previous position. Mollified, Hardison quiets down, and he wriggles like he’s re-making himself comfortable. Then he’s still.
For several moments, Eliot lays there, focusing on the feel of Hardison against his face. All he can hear is Parker and Hardison breathing. Now that they’ve all been under the sheets for a bit there’s a comfortable heat built up around them, warming him all the way to his toes. His heart aches like it’s been squeezed too hard, but in a good way. He’s tired. He’s comfortable. He’s home and he’s got his People, and apparently he’ll still have them even after he drifts off. Everything’s okay. Everything’s good.
Everything’s perfect.
With a quiet exhale, he nuzzles in closer to Hardison’s scalp. Then he lets his body relax into the mattress. It occurs to him that he’d like to keep enjoying this, late hour be damned. It’s a good thing he once trained himself to force off sleep when necessary. Thankfully, it’s a skill he has little use for anymore, but in times like these, he’s glad it’s never totally left him. He won’t force himself to stay up forever—biscuits, remember—but just a few minutes. Five, tops. Just to really soak this in.
As he soaks, he wonders if maybe Hardison’ll want to use their free time tomorrow to play some more of his game. He does genuinely want to see what might be lurking in those dingy apartments he came across before they all called it a night. If he does, maybe instead of taking the armchair he’ll sit on Hardison’s other side on the couch. He could put an arm around Hardison too. A little something to keep him grounded, y’know, make him feel extra safe. One around his shoulder, potentially, like he’s got right now. Or he could go around Hardison’s waist. Let his hand rest on Hardison’s hip so he can squeeze it reassuringly when something pops out of the dark. Jeez, he can hear himself saying, that was somethin’, followed by an appreciative Nice shot when Hardison—despite his fretting—gets right into position and shoots his attacker dead-on, laying ’em flat with just a few bullets. He could kiss Hardison when he’s done too, a brief one to his cheek before he settles back into his side. Some positive association might not hurt, might take a little bit of the fear out of it. Yeah, he likes the sound of that. If Hardison wants to play his game so bad, he’ll work his damndest to make it tolerable for him. It’s the least he can do.
Pleased to have that sorted, Eliot finally lets his thoughts turn to drifting. He listens to the sheets rustle as Hardison shifts in his sleep, catches the very faint sound of Parker snoring. Their arms are perfect weights over him. So’s Hardison’s thigh still over his. He feels perfectly borne down into the mattress, safe and secure.
Eventually, his thoughts start to drift so far apart that he knows he won’t be able to force himself to stay awake any longer. That’s alright—he feels like he’s had his fill. For now, at least. When he thinks about it long-distance, he’s not sure if he’ll ever get his fill of either of them. He loves ’em too much. For now, though, for this particular moment before he drops into much-needed sleep, it’s good. Satisfying. And then tomorrow morning, he’ll get right back to it.
One last time, Eliot kisses Hardison’s forehead. He strokes his fingers over Parker’s elbow this time instead of squeezing. And while he’s positive that they’re both still asleep—Hardison’s too heavy against him to be anything but deep, deep under, and Parker’s still snoring—Hardison hums and hikes his leg up higher, nudging his hips in even closer to Eliot’s own, and Parker somehow manages to find one of his ankles with hers and hook their feet together.
Eliot inhales. Exhales. He’s tired. He’s comfortable. He’s home and he’s got his People. Everything’s good. Everything’s great.
Everything’s perfect.