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kathierif_ficTitle: The Third Wheel (sometimes it’s necessary)
Author: kathierif_fic
Title: Third Wheel (Sometimes, Three Is Better)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kathierif_fic, for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
thebigbangjob
Beta(s):mer5 and ginny305 <3 <3 <3
Disclaimer This is a transformative fanwork and no money has been made of it.
Characters/Pairings: Hardison/Eliot, Eliot/Hardison/Parker
Rating: FRAO/NC-17
Warnings/spoilers: graphic sex; very vague spoilers for season 4, in the way that it references particularly The Lonely Hearts Job and The Carnival Job.
Word Count: 14,240
Summary: It doesn’t matter what they try to get some time alone, they always get interrupted. Hardison starts to feel suspicious – not even Parker can be so oblivious as to what they are trying to do, or can she?
A/Ns This was written for the reverse big bang onthebigbangjob for the art made by terrorinyertub (link coming asap).
"Stop gloating." Sophie leaned close to Nate, her lips almost brushing against the shell of his ear as she whispered the words before pushing herself off the wall where the crew had come together to watch the final culmination of their latest con. They were out of the way of the cops and out of sight for their mark, now in cuffs, with the color of his face changing between deathly pale and furious red as he was unceremoniously pushed into the back of a car and taken to the nearest precinct.
"Good job, people," Nate said, his attention split between watching the squad car pulling away from the curb and Sophie walking past with an air of casual disinterest in the proceedings on the other side of the street.
"Yay," Parker added before glancing at Hardison, as if she needed it approval that she had used the expression correctly.
Hardison gave her an absent-minded smile before turning to leave as well. He still had work to do, traces to clean up, electronic files to delete, to make sure their involvement into this case would remain undiscovered and nothing could be traced back to them.
He didn't need to look over his shoulder to know that Parker, Eliot and Nate weren't lingering any longer before splitting up and disappearing, to do whatever they did when they didn't work a job. He was sure he would find Nate at McRory's later, sitting half-slumped at the bar with a glass filled with amber liquid in front of him, and he was almost certain that Parker would be busy checking out the new exhibit at one of the museums. She had mentioned something like that while she'd been busy hanging upside down against the facade of their mark's offices in dizzying heights.
Parker knew how to look out for herself, and Hardison didn't doubt for one second that she would remain undetected in her pursuits of new security systems and valuable artwork.
Sophie would take care of Nate, showing up later and gently coaxing him away from the alcohol and into his apartment, away from the dark thoughts hanging around Nate's head like thick clouds.
Hardison grinned and pushed his hands deep into his pockets, until his fingertips brushed against the cool edge of his cell phone.
He would call Eliot later, pretend that it was just a whim of his wandering mind, and would ask him to come over and watch the game. If he was smart about it, Eliot would volunteer to cook for them without more than just an occasional growl that was more for show than anything else. Maybe they would order pizza and argue about toppings during the game, and maybe Eliot would agree to make pizza himself. Hardison had to stop himself at the thought and get himself back under control. He wasn't willing to admit it, but Eliot's home-made pizza was the best he'd ever tasted, and he would take every possible opportunity to get it.
But that was for later. Now, he had to get back to headquarters and start cleaning up behind them, and as soon as that was done, he could try to figure out a way to coax Eliot into coming over. Everything else would have to wait until then.
~*+*~
The phone vibrated gently against the glass surface of the table, where Eliot had placed it as soon as he'd arrived home. He'd seen the way Hardison had looked at him, and he knew what it meant.
He'd been waiting for the call since the second they had split up.
"What?" he growled into the small contraption, certain that his tone would not deter Hardison from what he'd been planning. Hardison, Eliot had discovered, was like one of those small and annoying dogs that never let go of something they really wanted. He was stubborn, and whenever Hardison had set his sights on something, he was displaying a surprising amount of patience and craftiness to get it.
What he wanted now was Eliot to come over and watch the game with him and then cook. Eliot pushed back the smirk that threatened to break through at the thought and focused instead on the phone call.
Hardison was at home, at his desk. Eliot could hear the soft hum of computers in the background and the occasional clacking of a keystroke. His breathing was slightly elevated, but not enough to suspect anything out of the ordinary, except maybe the fact that Hardison liked his computers a little too much. Nothing in his voice or the background noise that filtered through the connection indicated that this was anything but the forced casual invitation for Eliot to come and watch the game with Hardison.
He grunted an answer that could have been a yes just as much as a no before hanging up and shaking his head. It wasn't the first time Hardison had asked him to come over, and Eliot was perfectly aware of the growing attraction between them. Hardison's breathing pattern changed subtly, but distinctively, every time Eliot was close to him, he had started to get as twitchy and nervous around Eliot as he had been in the beginning, when they hadn't known each other yet and he hadn't been sure how far he could go before Eliot would snap and beat him with his own limbs or something.
Back then, Hardison had been almost afraid of Eliot and his abilities. Now, it was something different.
Eliot allowed himself a grin as he grabbed his wallet, his phone and his keys. He would stop by the store on his way over and pick up something to cook, and then, he would sit back and see where the evening would be going, how far Hardison would allow it to go before he shied away again, certain that he'd misread the signals Eliot had been sending out, signals so distinctive that even someone as obtuse and focused on his computers as Hardison couldn't misunderstand, no matter how hard he tried.
~*+*~
The game was exciting, the meal Eliot had tossed together with nothing more than a handful of pasta, some vegetables and some chicken had been delicious, and now they were sprawled out across Hardison's comfortable couch, their knees almost touching.
Hardison couldn't focus on the action on his TV. Eliot was radiating heat, and there was something about the way he was holding his beer bottle, tipping it back whenever he took a sip, his throat moving, his tongue briefly appearing to touch the rim, that made heat pool low in his stomach.
He was sure Eliot didn't do it on purpose, and if he did, it was just to tease Hardison about his little crush, a little crush he was sure Eliot knew all about.
Eliot probably could hear the sound of Hardison’s heartbeat, rabbitting away like a panicked animal caught behind his ribs just because Eliot’s leg rubbed against his. He was sure there had to be a logical explanation why Eliot was sitting so close to him and not on the other side of the couch, which, a small part of his brain pointed out, was big enough for both of them and then some.
He probably should move away from Eliot, as well, but something kept him glued to his spot, eyes on the TV and hyperaware of Eliot’s body right next to him.
Eliot shifted and took a sip of his beer.
Hardison’s mouth went dry.
Eliot’s shoulder brushed against his arm.
This, he decided, definitely was on purpose. No man was sitting as close to another man as Eliot was doing to him right now without conscious decision, and if Eliot had consciously decided to sit so close to him, he had to have a reason, and that reason was either because he wanted to mock Hardison mercilessly, or...
“Dammit, Hardison!” The familiar growl interrupted the tight circle his thoughts were caught in, and he was yanked even closer, until he was sprawled across Eliot’s hard chest, their legs tangled. He barely managed to catch himself with his palms braced on the cushions before Eliot’s lips were on his, slick and warm and surprisingly soft.
Hardison opened his mouth - to yelp, to protest, he didn’t know and he didn’t care, because suddenly, Eliot’s tongue pressed into his mouth, past his teeth and against his own tongue, slick and agile and quick and all he could do was to close his eyes and kiss back.
After that, he was only vaguely aware of what was happening, like a live stream that was choppy, or snapshots making up a mosaic of reality. Eventually, he found himself stretched out on top of Eliot’s shorter, more compact body, his fingers tangled in Eliot’s hair, and Eliot’s hands were pushing up his t-shirt, fingertips dipping teasingly under the waistband of his jeans before swiping up his spine again, tugging again at the cotton of his shirt until it was tangled under his arms.
It wasn’t easy to get his fingers on Eliot’s shirt, but eventually, he managed to tug at the red fabric enough to get skin contact, hot and perfect and not enough.
Hardison panted and pressed his mouth to the tiny spot under Eliot’s ear he’d discovered, the one that made the blood rise into Eliot’s face and his hips arch up and rub against him uncontrollably.
“Shirt. Off,” he managed to press out and pulled back slightly. He missed the friction of Eliot’s body against his own immediately, and his fingers fumbled on the hem of his own shirt as he yanked at it.
The cool draft of hair against his overheated skin was the only warning he got before Parker walked in, a bowl of popcorn in her hands and a grin on her face.
Hardison flinched away from Eliot as if Eliot had hit him. He almost tumbled off the couch in the process, got tangled in his own shirt, and by the time his body hit the other end of the couch, he felt as if his heart was trying to stop in his chest.
Eliot, he realized when he dared to glance over, didn’t look much better than him. He was still blushing, his hair sticking up where Hardison’s fingers had been wrapped in it, and he hadn’t managed to put his clothes quite back in order, with just a tiny stripe of pale skin visible over the waistband of his pants.
He had to force himself to look away and focus on Parker, and the fact that she had just walked in when he’d been making out with Eliot, to stop his brain from going completely offline. He needed to focus on Parker, or he would do something stupid, like leaning over and licking that little patch of exposed skin right here, while Parker was watching.
It took him a little while to transform the high-pitched noises that escaped from his mouth into words that humans could actually understand, and Parker had taken advantage of his moment of distraction to sit down in the middle of the couch, where moments ago Eliot and he had been wrapped up in each other, happily munching on her popcorn while stealing the remote from Hardison and changing the channel before either of them could protest.
They spent the rest of the evening watching cartoons, eating popcorn and teasing each other. It was nice, but, Hardison thought later, when he sat down in front of his computer again after both Parker and Eliot had left, it was not what he had hoped for; not after Eliot had kissed him.
No, after that, he had hoped for something with a little less clothes, and less Parker and no popcorn.
He sighed softly and started World of Warcraft. This had been his one chance to get his hands on Eliot, and Parker had interrupted it. Who knew if Eliot would want to try this again.
~*+*~
“Hey man...” Hardison trailed off when he caught his first good look at Eliot’s face and the blood smeared across his lip and nose, the redness and the swelling around his eye. “You look...”
The words didn’t want to come. He couldn’t express how he felt about seeing Eliot like this, beaten up but not beaten. Hardison didn’t know how Eliot did it, how he managed to get the job done even when brought to his knees, and, having listened to every fight Eliot had been in since they all had teamed up all these years ago, he had a firm opinion about things that sounded worse than they looked.
Eliot was looking at him now, squinting at him, but his shoulders seemed to be relaxed and Hardison took it as a sign that Eliot wasn’t angry at him or anything.
“I have ice,” he finished lamely and waved one hand toward the stairs leading up to his apartment. “I mean, if you want some, you know, for your face.” He licked his lip nervously. “You should at least wash up before the cops arrest you for looking like...” He waved his hand again, a graceless arc in the air that included everything and nothing at the same time.
Eliot’s face softened somewhat without him moving a single muscle. “Fine,” he growled.
He sounded just like always, the same deep rasp in his voice that made Hardison’s knees go weak and conjured up images of them in between high-count sheets.
“Cool,” he murmured weakly and started to climb the stairs, Eliot just a step behind him. He didn’t move slowly, or carefully, Hardison noted, the way he did when he was certain that he’d broken a rib or two, or something else was fundamentally wrong with him.
The fight had, once again, sounded worse over their comms than it had been. Hardison shook his head and grimly decided that one day, he would manage to build a filter into Eliot’s ear bud that would make a clear distinction between the hits Eliot took and gave.
Until then, the only thing he could do was to move through the kitchen and get the ice pack from the freezer. He didn’t know when he’d started to store it in between frozen dinners and ice cream, but he didn’t hesitate as he grabbed it and wrapped it into a towel, the way Nana had done it when he’d been a kid with a scraped knee.
He started to turn back around, but Eliot had managed to sneak up on him and was much closer than he’d been just moments ago, his body crowding Hardison against the fridge’s door and his hands hot through the thin cotton of his t-shirt.
They didn’t talk. There was no need for words, and even if they had wanted to talk, Hardison wasn’t sure he’d ever be capable of finding the right words for what they were doing, what was going on. Instead, there was the coppery tang of Eliot’s blood, smeared and dried on his pale skin, the slick heat of his tongue pressing insistently against Hardison’s mouth, and the sound of his breathing, the feeling of his body strong and solid against him, muscles and bones and sinews under Hardison’s fingers where they rubbed Eliot’s shoulders and tugged in an attempt to get Eliot closer.
It wasn’t a gentle kiss. It was hard and urgent and filled with blood and fear and triumph and stubborn refusal to back down. Eliot’s teeth were sharp where they cut into Hardison’s tongue and lip, aggressive and dangerous, and Hardison knew he couldn’t just step back and stop now.
He needed more.
He needed Eliot, needed him so much his entire body ached with the sudden desire. He wanted to keep his eyes open during the kiss to see Eliot, see the flush starting to spread over his face, over the tip of his ears and down his chest until he looked so thoroughly debauched that no question remained as to what he’d been doing. He wanted more of Eliot’s taste, that spicy mix of flavors Hardison had started to get addicted to. It would take more than just a little blood and the sharp tug of teeth to stop him now.
“What are you doing?”
The confused question made them yank apart sharply, but there was no way they could hide what they’d been doing. Both of them were flushed and breathing harder and Hardison could swear his lips had swollen in reaction to the kissing.
“Parker,” he managed to say, but before he could add anything else, he had to take a few deep breaths. Eliot seemed to feel the same. He was staring at Parker, his arms crossed over his chest and his hair tangled wildly, and Hardison wasn’t sure if Eliot could keep himself under control or if he was planning on charging toward Parker and make sure she knew exactly what she’s interrupted.
“Is his mouth injured, too?” Parker asked and looked at him with huge eyes. She was, Hardison thought, not at fault for who she was, and he was certain she didn’t have the faintest idea what she’d interrupted.
Almost interrupted.
It wasn’t her fault, but it didn’t stop Hardison from wanting to slam his head into his kitchen cupboards until he didn’t remember what he was trying to do here.
Why Eliot’s taste was still on his tongue, the smell of his sweat and his laundry detergent was still in his nostrils.
Why he still could feel his body heat where Eliot’s hands had been.
Eliot growled something under his breath, grabbed the ice pack and stalked away, leaving Hardison to explain to Parker what was going on, or find a good excuse.
He had to think quickly to come up with something a little more subtle than you interrupted while I was trying to make out with Eliot. He didn’t want to hurt her and her feelings; feelings he was sure she had somewhere hidden away.
Feelings he’d tried to coax to the surface for months before turning his attention toward Eliot.
He still cared for her, and he probably would care for her for the rest of his natural life, even if she managed to get him arrested and thrown into jail somehow. He knew that she would realize what a mistake that would be and would get him out of prison as soon as she realized what she’d done.
He believed in her.
Sighing, he leaned his head back against the cupboard behind him and rubbed the bridge of his nose with two fingers.
“We have to teach you about a little thing called privacy, girl,” he told her.
“Privacy?” Parker repeated and hopped up on the counter. “What for?”
Hardison busied himself with getting the sugar cereal out and handing it to her while he tried to think.
“You know you’re always welcome to visit,” he finally said. “But sometimes, Eliot and I...we need to do guy things. Like...fishing. Yeah. Fishing.” He nodded. “And when we’re fishing, you should probably at least knock before you come in. Or call before you do.”
Her frown told him that she had no clue what he was talking about, but she accepted the bowl of cereal from him and nodded while wearing an expectant expression on her face, as if she hoped that she was doing the right thing.
“Just call before you come over, okay?” Hardison said and left her to her snack before going to find out where Eliot had disappeared to.
He didn’t need to look for long. Eliot was sprawled out on the couch, the same place where they had kissed and made out for the first time. Had it really been just a week ago? To Hardison, it felt as if it had been years ago, and at the same time, he remembered every detail as if it had been burned into the back of his eyelids: from the solid weight of Eliot’s weight on top of him to the taste of his mouth and the calloused hands running down his back and chest.
He also remembered the guilty look Eliot had given him when Parker had interrupted them and he had almost flinched back from Hardison as if he’d been bitten, or as if he was ashamed of being seen with him.
Hardison shook his head sharply, to dislodge that particular thought. If Eliot was ashamed of making out with him, he would never have started it in the first place, he was sure of that. He remembered all too well the first rocky days and weeks of working together, the contempt he had been able to read in every gesture and look from their hitter.
With time, Eliot had realized how valuable a member Hardison was, or at least that was what Hardison hoped. The teasing hadn’t stopped entirely, but it had shifted from something malicious to something different. Eliot still made fun of him and what he did, but as soon as someone not on the team attempted to do the same, Eliot was the first to defend Hardison. Only he was allowed to make fun of the hacker, apparently.
Hardison couldn’t say that he minded. Not anymore.
Not when Eliot made up for his jokes with pressing Hardison against the fridge and kissing him senseless, not that it had happened more than once so far. And thanks to Parker, that had led exactly nowhere.
Hardison sighed as he dropped down next to Eliot and pulled his laptop close. He had work to do, and there was nobody but him to do it. It didn’t matter how often he tried to explain it to Nate, there simply was no blueprint fairy, and their briefings didn’t prepare themselves.
Tuning out Eliot and the hockey game on the TV wasn’t easy, but Hardison managed, and not much later, he was immersed in financial statements, tax evasion and connections to the Russian Mob.
When he looked up the next time, the sun was going down, Parker was perched on the couch next to him, and Eliot was long gone. Hardison stretched his spine until it popped and put the computer down. His stomach was growling and his eyes burning, informing him of the fact that he’d spent hours staring at the screen.
“Where did Eliot go?” he asked.
Parker shrugged. “Home, probably,” she said.
Hardison rolled his shoulders. “You want to grab a bite to eat?” he asked her, not really expecting her to agree, but to his surprise, she nodded.
“Chinese?” he asked, and ten minutes later, they were on their way to a little Chinese restaurant Parker knew and liked. He managed not to think about Eliot and how it felt to have the other man press into him too much, and he was able to almost follow Parker’s conversation.
All together, it was a nice evening. He genuinely liked Parker and even was a little bit in love with her, and spending time with her was no hardship.
~+*+~
“Please.”
Eliot rose from his spot at the counter, the cup in his hands balanced carefully on its saucer, and wandered over to the couch where he handed it over to Sophie. Hardison followed him, close enough on his heels to hear the annoyed huff Eliot let out but with enough distance not to run into his back when Eliot stopped abruptly and turned around.
“Please, Eliot?” Hardison gave him the best version of his puppy dog eyes. They usually worked on Parker, and he figured it wouldn’t hurt to fall back on tried methods.
“No,” Eliot growled.
“Please? I said please. I can’t do it.”
“Can’t do what?” Sophie asked from her spot. Her eyes were turning from Hardison to Eliot and back as if she was watching a tennis match.
“Help him with his desk.” Eliot’s voice dropped into an even deeper register, and he gave Hardison a look from narrowed eyes.
“I can’t do it,” Hardison said, “I need some help, unless you want to explain to Nate why we don’t have access to Thompson’s servers...”
“What does the one have to do with the other?” Sophie interrupted. Eliot simply balled his hands into tight fists.
“It’s a desk. A computer stands on a desk. Without a desk, I can’t use my computer,” Hardison explained with an eye roll. “Without a computer, I cannot do my work, and everybody gets extremely unhappy about that.”
Eliot opened his mouth to protest, but before a single word could escape, Hardison’s attention was back on him. “I’m begging you here, seriously, man, there is no more shame in me, I need you to help me, whatever you want, you can have it.”
Eliot hesitated. He rolled his eyes, but his shoulders softened, almost invisibly, and Hardison grinned widely, until Eliot gave him one of his special glares.
After that, he tried to contain his glee. He had won this battle, and he didn’t want Eliot to drop some tool on Hardison’s toes, accidentally or not, and he knew that Eliot could be vindictive enough to make something like that happen.
“Tonight,” Eliot told him. His voice did something to Hardison’s insides that he preferred not to think about too closely, especially considering that Eliot didn’t really seem to be very happy about the situation. “You bring the beer.”
He nodded hastily. He didn’t need to go out and buy Eliot’s favorite beer since he already had some of it in his fridge, bought before the last time Eliot had stopped by for a game.
That had been the day when Parker had interrupted them, he remembered, and Eliot had gone home instead of staying over for the night.
Eliot opened his mouth as if he wanted to add another thing, but he snapped it shut without saying anything and stomped off. It wasn’t unexpected, Hardison thought. Eliot was a smart guy, but when he got annoyed or agitated, he sometimes tended to forget his words and reverted to spluttering and growling.
Maybe he would throw in some pizza on top of the beer, he decided. Or a fridge full of vegetables he wouldn’t even know the names of for Eliot to turn into a delicious, delicious meal. Or he could record a few hockey games.
He could definitely do that.
All of that.
~*+*~
Eliot put furniture together the same way he did everything else, with quick, efficient moves and without much of a fuss. He had arrived around seven, had taken in Hardison’s office with the flat-packed desk he was supposed to set up, the hockey game already on the TV, the bunch of leafy vegetables in the fridge, and he had only grunted briefly when Hardison had handed him a beer.
And then he’d set out to work, and all Hardison could think about as he watched him was how much he wanted to unbutton the checkered flannel shirt he was wearing and slide his hands under the waistband of Eliot’s jeans.
He could see the muscles move under Eliot’s shirt, and he wanted to kiss up a trail up his spine and stick his nose right against that hidden sensitive spot at the base of Eliot’s neck he’d discovered the last time…
He forced his thoughts away from that particular line of thinking and focused on the construction of his new desk. Eliot knew exactly what he was doing, and it was assembled quickly enough.
Hardison crossed his arms over his chest as he scrutinized Eliot’s work.
“What?” Eliot asked.
“I don’t know, man.” Hardison tilted his head slightly to the side. “I mean, I’m gonna put my baby on that. You think it’ll hold up to the weight?”
Eliot started to get that little line between his eyebrows that indicated him starting to get annoyed, and Hardison knew he had to talk faster to get his point across before Eliot decided he’d been pushed too far and put his fist through Hardison’s face.
“I mean, all I’m saying is that we should test it before I put my computer on it.” He waggled his eyebrows in what he hoped to be a suggestive manner.
Eliot stared at him with a mixture of disbelief and lack of understanding, and Hardison knew that the time for talking was gone and he needed to act now.
He needed to be assertive and take initiative.
Taking advantage of his bigger height, he stepped closer and crowded Eliot against the edge of the desk. Bending down a little, he put both hands on Eliot’s chest and pressed his mouth against the smaller man’s lips.
Eliot made a small sound at the back of his throat and started to kiss back, and Hardison ran his hands up to Eliot’s shoulders and slipped his fingers under the tangles of Eliot’s hair, to the soft warm skin underneath. He scratched his blunt nails gently along the skin and happily accepted Eliot’s tongue in his mouth.
Eliot’s hands grabbed fistfuls of Hardison’s bright orange shirt and yanked. Hardison was almost certain that he could hear the material creak under the stress, but he couldn’t focus on that right now, not when his front was pressed tight against Eliot’s, his dick was starting to get very interested in the things that were happening, and Eliot was making soft sounds deep in his throat, sounds he probably wasn’t even aware of. They were enough to make Hardison grow even harder in his pants, and he ground against Eliot and started to fumble with the buttons on his shirt with one hand while the other stayed at Eliot’s neck.
Eliot pulled away. His eyes were slightly glazed, his lips parted, and a flush had spread across his cheeks.
He looked gorgeous, Hardison thought while grabbing a fistful of hair and yanking Eliot back into the kiss.
Eliot bit at Hardison’s bottom lip. Stubble rasped as they shifted and moved together, kisses grew uncoordinated and sloppy, and finally, his fingers managed to open the shirt and push it halfway down Eliot’s arms.
Eliot’s skin was surprisingly soft around the scars dotting his body, warm and musky and so very inviting. Hardison sucked a line along Eliot’s throat and shoulder, biting softly at the skin he found there and inhaling Eliot’s smell until he felt almost dizzy with it.
His own shirt was tangled around his armpits by now. Hardison sucked in his stomach instinctively, but as soon as Eliot’s fingertips brushed against his navel on their way down to the waistband of his pants, he exhaled with a shudder and grazed his teeth against the juncture of Eliot’s neck and shoulder again.
“We should move this someplace else,” Eliot growled. His voice had fallen into a deeper register, his mouth was hot against Hardison’s cheek, and he was still touching every inch of Hardison’s skin he could reach. “Someplace like your couch. Or your bed.”
“Yeah,” Hardison squeaked. “Yes.”
They managed to take a step apart, and Hardison made short work of his shirt, pulled it up over his head and dropped it carelessly onto the floor. He could always pick it up later, when Eliot had left, or just leave it where it was until it was time for laundry day.
Eliot gave him a quick, disgusted look, but that didn’t stop Hardison in the slightest. He grabbed Eliot by the shirt that still clung to the crooks of his elbows and pulled him out of the home office and toward the bedroom.
“Is Eliot going to cook for you today?” a voice chirped up behind his back. Hardison flinched almost violently enough to stumble and hit his head while yanking away from Eliot with enough force to push the other man a step or two back.
Eliot, he could see, was not happy about the interruption. He was still flushed, but his eyes were narrowed dangerously, as if he wanted to charge at Parker like a bull.
“There’s all these funny-looking vegetables in your fridge. I checked for real food, but there isn’t any. Just…leafy things. You only buy this stuff when you want Eliot to cook for you,” Parker continued, seemingly oblivious to the murderous mood Eliot was in.
Something had to be done, or they would quickly be down one very talented thief. Nate would be annoyed if they broke Parker. Hardison had to do something really quickly, before Eliot did something to Parker they all would regret later, no matter how annoyed about her interruption he really was and no matter how much he wished that she hadn’t shown up and had left him and Eliot to get somewhere.
Biting his lip, he took a deep breath and slowly released it while compiling the html code to a basic website in his head. It had a better effect at calming him down than counting to ten ever had, and that was exactly what he needed now.
“Parker,” he said with as much patience as he could muster. “What are you doing here?”
She shrugged and easily hopped up onto the counter. Her heels beat a happy rhythm against the cupboard doors, and she gave him an easy and wide grin. “I was hungry. I thought Eliot was cooking for you.”
“Dammit, Parker,” Eliot growled before Hardison could even open his mouth, and then he added something that was almost unintelligible but sounded suspiciously like, “Stop cockblocking us!”
Parker’s smile disappeared and made room for a confused frown. “What?”
“There’s something wrong with you,” Eliot pointed out, slowly and the words drawn out as if he was talking to an idiot. He sounded marginally calmer; calm enough for Hardison to dare putting his open palm against his shoulder in the futile attempt to stop Eliot should he choose to attack Parker, or at least slow him down enough for Parker to jump out of the window or something.
“Does that mean you’re not cooking?” she asked. She still sounded bright, but a hint of disappointment was creeping into her voice and her shoulders started to slump. She was, Hardison noted absent-mindedly, wearing climbing gear, so she probably had come in through the window and could disappear the same way really quickly if Eliot decided that he’d had enough and that he needed to strangle her immediately or something equally as drastic.
Eliot’s shoulders slumped, and he groaned loudly. “Seriously?” he complained as he stomped over to the fridge, where Hardison had made some room besides bottles of orange soda, and glanced at the vegetables Hardison had bought.
“What?” Hardison asked defensively. “What’s wrong with that stuff?”
“Do you even know what you bought there?” Eliot asked with a resigned shake of his head. He reached up, smoothed his hair back from his face, and pulled it into a ponytail before piling ingredients on the counter next to where Parker was still sitting.
“Not a clue,” Hardison admitted before pulling his laptop out and placing it on the table, so that he could work while watching Eliot work.
For a while, companionable silence fell between them, only interrupted by the beat of Parker’s soles against the cupboards, the sounds of a sharp knife cutting through vegetables, and the keystrokes from Hardison’s computer. Eliot handed Parker a knife and some potatoes to peel, and she attacked them with an enthusiasm that was both scary and adorable while Eliot prepared the rest of the food.
“What did you mean when you said that, cockblocking you?” Parker’s voice cut through the silence like the knife in Eliot’s hands slid through carrots, and maybe, Hardison thought, it was a good thing that he wasn’t holding anything with a sharp edge, or he probably would have sliced his thumb clean off.
What he did was flail uncontrollably, which earned him a flat and disapproving stare from Eliot and a frown from Parker.
He took it as a good sign that he managed to stay on his stool and not fall flat on his ass.
Eliot shook his head and went back to chopping, and although he refused to answer Parker’s cockblocking question, he managed to turn a pile of leafy vegetables that Hardison really didn’t know the name of into a great meal the three of them shared.
~*+*~
Nate walked into what he still considered his living room but what was really their headquarters with crisp, quick steps that were evenly measured. There was no barely audible shuffling in his step, his hair was not sticking up wildly and his shirt was actually tucked into his pants.
New case, then, Eliot thought as he relaxed back into the cushions of the couch, and not a drunk bender due to any unforeseen circumstances or dead bodies buried somewhere in Nate’s psyche.
A quick glance revealed Parker perched on the couch next to him, her knees pulled up to her chest but her shoulders relaxed. She’d arrived at the same conclusion as he had, then, and there was no need to coax her out of the ceiling beams again. Eliot had done that once, when Nate had been too drunk to see where he was going and had scared her, and he had sworn never to do that again.
Nowadays, he glared and poked at Hardison until the hacker went and talked Parker out of whatever hiding place she’d holed up in. It was an arrangement that worked for all of them, or at least he’d thought so, until Parker apparently had come to the conclusion that she could interrupt Hardison at any time and in any activity, up and including those that involved Eliot.
He had to get Hardison to talk to her again, apparently, but not right now.
Not when Nate had that manic gleam in his eyes that told Eliot they had a new case, something crazy and outrageous that had Nate’s brain fire on all cylinders, coming up with plans and more plans.
Not when Sophie had that interested tilt to her chin and shoulders, leaning slightly over, all her attention focused on Nate – more than professional interest in him, Eliot noted. The shift of her hips was very distinctive. That, he thought while taking a casual sip of his drink, was interesting.
Hardison’s fingers were already flying over the keys of his computer, finding information about their case even before Nate had time to open his mouth to tell them what the case even was, in the first place. He’d listened in on Nate’s conversation with the client, obviously, and had already started to look through all the data available to him to find the exact right angle Nate could use to start an attack.
“Our client’s name is Roger Vanderpoes,” Nate said. A picture appeared on the screen on the wall, showing a picture of a young, pale man with a confident smirk and curly blond hair.
Sophie made an excited sound at the back of her throat that told not just Eliot that their client was probably rich enough to tempt her interest away from Nate, even if it was just temporarily.
So much, he thought with a mixture of amusement and a faint feeling of dread, for helping the helpless. Whatever had happened to Mister Vanderpoes, it had to be something huge; something so gigantic that his fortune had not been able to make his problems go away.
Those were the kind of clients that put a spring into Nate’s step, nowadays. Eliot knew that this could not end well, that sooner or later, Nate’s plans would fail and they would all find themselves in trouble, and Eliot liked to think that he was prepared for that day.
“Mister Vanderpoes claims that his wife, who he met at a charity auction, was murdered due to her falling in love with him, whereas his lawyer and best friend Marc Starston, swears he saw her weeks after her apparent murder,” Nate explained while in quick succession, photos of the wife and the lawyer flashed up on the screen. Hardison was in his element as he compiled information while Nate’s voice washed over him and he put it together into the kind of presentation he was so proud of.
“So what?” Parker asked. She’d wrinkled her nose in confusion as she stared at the pictures on the screen. “She tried to steal his money and got caught?”
“No.” Nate smiled briefly. “She has enough money of her own. She bought him at that auction, and Marc Starston claims he saw her at another of these auctions.”
“What does he want us to do, then?” Sophie asked.
Nate shrugged slightly. “He wants us to find his wife for him.”
Hardison looked up from his computer. “That’s it?” he asked, incredulously. “He just wants us to find his girl?”
Nate nodded. “She is the most important person in his life. Let’s go steal a wife.”
~*+*~
“These bachelor auctions are always hosted by the same charitable society,” Hardison reported while a map and several red dots appeared on the screen once he pushed a button. “The profits are always used to support the charity of choice. They do change things up every time they have an event. Today it’s a bachelor auction, tomorrow it’s scrubbing stones at the beach for publicity, to protest against oil spills and environmental pollution. They’re quite active, actually, and there is no sign of them being on the dark side, if you know what I mean.”
Nate made a thoughtful noise. “What’s their next planned event?” he asked.
“Bachelor auction, again. It’s one of their most successful events, you know. Everyone wants a rich husband or wife, especially if they already are rich.” Hardison shook his head. “So what now?”
“Now, we find an in.” Nate gave him a slight nod.
It was enough. Hardison knew exactly what he needed to do, and the smirk on his face told everybody who knew him and cared to look that Hardison had a plan of his own already set in motion.
Sophie straightened. “You know what that means,” she said with a wide, excited smile. Parker tried to shrink in on herself and hide in plain sight, but she didn’t stand a chance against Sophie’s enthusiasm.
“We’re going shopping!”
~*+*~
“I still don’t understand why I need a new dress for…”
Hardison pulled the ear bud out and dropped it onto the table before he gave Eliot what he considered his most seductive smile.
“So…” he said, “Sophie and Parker are out shopping for the most expensive dress they can get their hands on…Nate is busy doing whatever…”
Eliot rolled his eyes, and it was enough to interrupt Hardison’s flow and to make him stutter.
He hated when that happened.
“And it’s just you and me,” he finished, his shoulders slumping slightly.
Eliot crossed his arms over his chest. “So?” he said, and Hardison rolled his eyes at his obtuseness.
“So,” he said with forced patience. “Parker is with Sophie, and you know Sophie and shopping. There’s no way she lets her out of her clutches for the foreseeable future. And Nate is busy, too, and I have a perfectly fine apartment next door. And nobody will come knocking and demand that you cook them dinner or something.”
A slow grin started to creep over Eliot’s face as he caught on to what Hardison was trying to say.
“Should we go, then?” he asked, with the air of someone whose idea the whole thing had been from the beginning.
“Yes.” There was no room for doubt or hesitation in Hardison. He even went so far to grab Eliot’s hand and pulled him after himself, at least until Eliot stepped on his heel and almost made him fall.
It had been on purpose, he was sure of that, but he had no evidence and when he turned around to complain, Eliot was there, his body strong and firm and pressing Hardison back into the wall and holding him there, and before Hardison could voice his complaints, Eliot’s mouth was on his, warm and soft and tasting like tea and toothpaste.
Hardison could feel himself melt into Eliot, the only thing keeping him upright the points where Eliot’s hands were burning through the cotton of his shirt, where his hips were pinning him to the wall, and where their chests brushed when they both breathed in.
The kiss turned desperate quickly, the pent-up frustration and lust between them bubbling up and bursting through the seams of their control, and before long, Hardison was clawing at Eliot’s shirt while rubbing himself against the thigh Eliot had pushed between his legs. Eliot’s tongue still muffled every word he was trying to say until only sounds and whimpers escaped.
“Bed,” Eliot growled against his lips. His hair was disheveled and his face had turned a darker shade, a flush that spread down to his throat and probably further, and that he couldn’t wait to explore more thoroughly. He whimpered his consent and rubbed his lip against the edge of Eliot’s jaw, enjoying the rasp and burn of stubble against his own skin while stumbling blindly into the direction of his bedroom.
Through the haze of arousal and Eliot, he vaguely heard a beeping sound that was familiar. It wasn’t important, he thought; nothing was except Eliot and the muscles he could feel under his hands, separated from his touch only by the shirt he hadn’t quite wrestled off of Eliot yet.
It was his cell phone.
Someone, he thought vaguely while tugging on the hem of Eliot’s shirt, had sent him a text message.
They managed three more stumbling steps in the direction of his bed when suddenly, there was a different beeping sound. It wasn’t anything Hardison was familiar with, but Eliot growled a curse. His hand moved away from where it had been resting against the curve of Hardison’s spine and reached into the front pocket of his jeans, to pull out the familiar rectangular shape of a phone.
“Seriously, man?” Hardison asked and let himself fall backwards, onto the mattress of his bed.
“Could be important,” Eliot pointed out with a shrug and swiped his thumb across the screen. “But then, it could be just Parker.” He sighed and shook his head, but suddenly, his eyes widened a fraction and the blush that had started to disappear returned full-force.
“What?” Hardison asked impatiently. “What is it?” He reached for his own phone, remembering the text message he’d received. He was willing to swear every oath and take every bet that Parker had sent him the same message as the one that had Eliot acting so strange.
“Parker,” Eliot growled and tossed his phone onto the bedside table. “Twenty pound of crazy in a five pound bag, that’s what she is.”
If he thought his words would be enough to satisfy Hardison’s curiosity, he was sadly mistaken. Hardison glanced away from Eliot and down to the screen of his phone, to pull up the text message Parker had sent him, and he almost swallowed his tongue as he realized what he was looking at.
The photo was slightly blurry, but there still was no doubt about what he was looking at.
“Breasts,” he said, feeling dazed. “Parker sent me a picture of…” He frowned and focused on the details visible in the shot, the pale skin and the sheer, black bra that left very little to the imagination, the blonde hair spilling over thin shoulders and curled teasingly against the fabric of the bra, the position the person in the photo was in.
“…of her breasts.” Hardison shook his head in confusion. “What is she doing?”
“Bra shopping,” Eliot said with a hint of something Hardison couldn’t quite figure out in his voice. “Don’t look at that, man. Look at me.”
Hardison made a sound of agreement, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not turn his gaze away from the picture and the swell of breasts that looked as if they would fit perfectly in his hands and the contrast they formed to the black lace.
It was completely unfair: Parker wasn’t here, but she still managed to cockblock him.
“I don’t know, man,” he managed to say around a dry throat, “that looks…good. Yeah, good.”
Eliot was silent.
Hardison flinched slightly. He fully expected the other man to punch him in the face any moment now, and he knew that he deserved it. He knew how not to be an ass on a date, and he knew that looking at someone else while he was supposed to be with Eliot was bad manners and he would punch himself for it if he could. His Nana had raised him better than this.
And then, Eliot shifted next to him and buried his face in the crook of Hardison’s neck. He huffed a moist breath against his skin, and his shoulders relaxed slightly.
“She really does,” he agreed, his voice soft and kind of rough. “She’s something else, that’s for sure.”
“She is.” Hardison finally managed to put the phone away and buried his hands in Eliot’s hair, to coax him to lean up for another kiss that was softer and gentler than any other kiss they had shared so far.
Hardison allowed himself to get carried away by the unexpected gentleness for a long moment, but as soon as Eliot stopped kissing him, his brain came back online and he could start to think about Eliot’s words, and, if he was honest with himself, pretty much immediately start worrying about what they meant.
“So…” he started and bit his lip until it stung.
This was Eliot. The guy was smart, but he was not smart enough that he could read Hardison’s every thought from a single word like so, but apparently, he was, because all he did was brush his lips against Hardison’s collarbone in an obvious caress and said, “Yeah, I know, man. Just shut up now and let me…”
And then, he did something with his thumbs, thumbs that Hardison hadn’t even realized were resting so close to the waistband of his pants, and his thoughts focused back on Eliot and Eliot’s fingers and Eliot’s mouth and nothing else.
They made out for a while, Eliot’s hand broad and warm and resting against his hip, fingers pushed under the waistband of Hardison’s pants and teasing against the edge of his underwear, not doing much, just being there and dragging Hardison’s attention to the fact that he was hard, hard and aching and constricted by his underwear, and that Eliot was apparently taking things slow and wouldn’t be rushed by wordless pleas and muffled whimpers.
It didn’t matter how much Hardison arched his back and pressed himself into Eliot’s hand, Eliot didn’t make a single move to unbutton his pants, and his own fingers were too shaky and uncoordinated to do much more than yank at Eliot’s belt buckle.
Five minutes later, when the door banged open and loud steps hurried toward his bedroom door, which wasn’t quite closed, Hardison was incredibly thankful that they both were still dressed.
Eliot’s body tensed over him, and with a quick move, he’d changed his position and had flipped Hardison over to his front. Before he knew what was happening, Eliot had caught his wrist in a tight grip and yanked it up between his shoulder blades.
“What is going on here?” Nate sounded suspicious, but he still pushed the door open without hesitation.
“Nothing, man.” Eliot shifted slightly. “Just showing Hardison here how to defend himself. Can’t be there all the time.” He shook his hair out of his face. “Parker’s a better student than him.”
Nate frowned, not quite believing him, and Hardison managed to twist his head around to look at him. He couldn’t blame Nate for being suspicious – they were both shirtless, they were on Hardison’s bed, and Eliot, at least, was flushed, his hair tangled wildly. The whole thing looked everything but innocent, even without any visible evidence of their arousal – Hardison was on his front, pressing his still half-hard dick into the mattress, and Eliot seemed, at least as far as Hardison could tell, completely unaffected.
Unaroused.
He looked a lot as if he was annoyed, his flush a sign of his growing anger and scorn for Hardison. Somehow, he had managed to look the same way he always did when dealing with other people; people he didn’t want to deal with.
Hardison decided to do his part to convince Nate that they really hadn’t done anything but practice self-defense. He had to be careful, he thought as he shifted slightly, as if he was trying to break free of Eliot’s hold. He knew he tended to oversell his grifts, and Nate was one of the best, if not the best at realizing when someone was trying to bullshit him.
“Get him off me,” he said as whinily as he could. He knew how much Eliot hated that tone, and Nate knew it too. “Eliot, if you’re breaking my arm, I swear, I’m gonna…”
“Gonna what?” Eliot leaned more of his weight on his caught wrist, and yeah, that really hurt. “What are you gonna do, huh? Send spam to my email? That all you can do?”
“Let go!” He squirmed, giving up on trying to find an adequate threat.
Nate sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Eliot, let Hardison go,” he ordered warily. “We need him to get us an invite to the party tonight.” He lowered his hand. “And I need you to follow Marc Starston, the lawyer. Make sure that he knows he’s being followed, but doesn’t see your face.”
Eliot simply nodded and abruptly let go of Hardison’s wrist as he stood and bent down to pick up his shirt. Hardison whimpered and rubbed his shoulder until Nate had left the apartment, then he relaxed back into his pillows with a frustrated groan. “If this goes on, I’m never getting laid,” he complained.
Eliot, who was busy buttoning up his shirt, simply growled.
~*+*~
jump to part 2!
Author: kathierif_fic
Title: Third Wheel (Sometimes, Three Is Better)
Author:
kathierif_fic, for thebigbangjobBeta(s):
mer5 and ginny305 <3 <3 <3Disclaimer This is a transformative fanwork and no money has been made of it.
Characters/Pairings: Hardison/Eliot, Eliot/Hardison/Parker
Rating: FRAO/NC-17
Warnings/spoilers: graphic sex; very vague spoilers for season 4, in the way that it references particularly The Lonely Hearts Job and The Carnival Job.
Word Count: 14,240
Summary: It doesn’t matter what they try to get some time alone, they always get interrupted. Hardison starts to feel suspicious – not even Parker can be so oblivious as to what they are trying to do, or can she?
A/Ns This was written for the reverse big bang on
thebigbangjob for the art made by terrorinyertub (link coming asap). "Stop gloating." Sophie leaned close to Nate, her lips almost brushing against the shell of his ear as she whispered the words before pushing herself off the wall where the crew had come together to watch the final culmination of their latest con. They were out of the way of the cops and out of sight for their mark, now in cuffs, with the color of his face changing between deathly pale and furious red as he was unceremoniously pushed into the back of a car and taken to the nearest precinct.
"Good job, people," Nate said, his attention split between watching the squad car pulling away from the curb and Sophie walking past with an air of casual disinterest in the proceedings on the other side of the street.
"Yay," Parker added before glancing at Hardison, as if she needed it approval that she had used the expression correctly.
Hardison gave her an absent-minded smile before turning to leave as well. He still had work to do, traces to clean up, electronic files to delete, to make sure their involvement into this case would remain undiscovered and nothing could be traced back to them.
He didn't need to look over his shoulder to know that Parker, Eliot and Nate weren't lingering any longer before splitting up and disappearing, to do whatever they did when they didn't work a job. He was sure he would find Nate at McRory's later, sitting half-slumped at the bar with a glass filled with amber liquid in front of him, and he was almost certain that Parker would be busy checking out the new exhibit at one of the museums. She had mentioned something like that while she'd been busy hanging upside down against the facade of their mark's offices in dizzying heights.
Parker knew how to look out for herself, and Hardison didn't doubt for one second that she would remain undetected in her pursuits of new security systems and valuable artwork.
Sophie would take care of Nate, showing up later and gently coaxing him away from the alcohol and into his apartment, away from the dark thoughts hanging around Nate's head like thick clouds.
Hardison grinned and pushed his hands deep into his pockets, until his fingertips brushed against the cool edge of his cell phone.
He would call Eliot later, pretend that it was just a whim of his wandering mind, and would ask him to come over and watch the game. If he was smart about it, Eliot would volunteer to cook for them without more than just an occasional growl that was more for show than anything else. Maybe they would order pizza and argue about toppings during the game, and maybe Eliot would agree to make pizza himself. Hardison had to stop himself at the thought and get himself back under control. He wasn't willing to admit it, but Eliot's home-made pizza was the best he'd ever tasted, and he would take every possible opportunity to get it.
But that was for later. Now, he had to get back to headquarters and start cleaning up behind them, and as soon as that was done, he could try to figure out a way to coax Eliot into coming over. Everything else would have to wait until then.
~*+*~
The phone vibrated gently against the glass surface of the table, where Eliot had placed it as soon as he'd arrived home. He'd seen the way Hardison had looked at him, and he knew what it meant.
He'd been waiting for the call since the second they had split up.
"What?" he growled into the small contraption, certain that his tone would not deter Hardison from what he'd been planning. Hardison, Eliot had discovered, was like one of those small and annoying dogs that never let go of something they really wanted. He was stubborn, and whenever Hardison had set his sights on something, he was displaying a surprising amount of patience and craftiness to get it.
What he wanted now was Eliot to come over and watch the game with him and then cook. Eliot pushed back the smirk that threatened to break through at the thought and focused instead on the phone call.
Hardison was at home, at his desk. Eliot could hear the soft hum of computers in the background and the occasional clacking of a keystroke. His breathing was slightly elevated, but not enough to suspect anything out of the ordinary, except maybe the fact that Hardison liked his computers a little too much. Nothing in his voice or the background noise that filtered through the connection indicated that this was anything but the forced casual invitation for Eliot to come and watch the game with Hardison.
He grunted an answer that could have been a yes just as much as a no before hanging up and shaking his head. It wasn't the first time Hardison had asked him to come over, and Eliot was perfectly aware of the growing attraction between them. Hardison's breathing pattern changed subtly, but distinctively, every time Eliot was close to him, he had started to get as twitchy and nervous around Eliot as he had been in the beginning, when they hadn't known each other yet and he hadn't been sure how far he could go before Eliot would snap and beat him with his own limbs or something.
Back then, Hardison had been almost afraid of Eliot and his abilities. Now, it was something different.
Eliot allowed himself a grin as he grabbed his wallet, his phone and his keys. He would stop by the store on his way over and pick up something to cook, and then, he would sit back and see where the evening would be going, how far Hardison would allow it to go before he shied away again, certain that he'd misread the signals Eliot had been sending out, signals so distinctive that even someone as obtuse and focused on his computers as Hardison couldn't misunderstand, no matter how hard he tried.
~*+*~
The game was exciting, the meal Eliot had tossed together with nothing more than a handful of pasta, some vegetables and some chicken had been delicious, and now they were sprawled out across Hardison's comfortable couch, their knees almost touching.
Hardison couldn't focus on the action on his TV. Eliot was radiating heat, and there was something about the way he was holding his beer bottle, tipping it back whenever he took a sip, his throat moving, his tongue briefly appearing to touch the rim, that made heat pool low in his stomach.
He was sure Eliot didn't do it on purpose, and if he did, it was just to tease Hardison about his little crush, a little crush he was sure Eliot knew all about.
Eliot probably could hear the sound of Hardison’s heartbeat, rabbitting away like a panicked animal caught behind his ribs just because Eliot’s leg rubbed against his. He was sure there had to be a logical explanation why Eliot was sitting so close to him and not on the other side of the couch, which, a small part of his brain pointed out, was big enough for both of them and then some.
He probably should move away from Eliot, as well, but something kept him glued to his spot, eyes on the TV and hyperaware of Eliot’s body right next to him.
Eliot shifted and took a sip of his beer.
Hardison’s mouth went dry.
Eliot’s shoulder brushed against his arm.
This, he decided, definitely was on purpose. No man was sitting as close to another man as Eliot was doing to him right now without conscious decision, and if Eliot had consciously decided to sit so close to him, he had to have a reason, and that reason was either because he wanted to mock Hardison mercilessly, or...
“Dammit, Hardison!” The familiar growl interrupted the tight circle his thoughts were caught in, and he was yanked even closer, until he was sprawled across Eliot’s hard chest, their legs tangled. He barely managed to catch himself with his palms braced on the cushions before Eliot’s lips were on his, slick and warm and surprisingly soft.
Hardison opened his mouth - to yelp, to protest, he didn’t know and he didn’t care, because suddenly, Eliot’s tongue pressed into his mouth, past his teeth and against his own tongue, slick and agile and quick and all he could do was to close his eyes and kiss back.
After that, he was only vaguely aware of what was happening, like a live stream that was choppy, or snapshots making up a mosaic of reality. Eventually, he found himself stretched out on top of Eliot’s shorter, more compact body, his fingers tangled in Eliot’s hair, and Eliot’s hands were pushing up his t-shirt, fingertips dipping teasingly under the waistband of his jeans before swiping up his spine again, tugging again at the cotton of his shirt until it was tangled under his arms.
It wasn’t easy to get his fingers on Eliot’s shirt, but eventually, he managed to tug at the red fabric enough to get skin contact, hot and perfect and not enough.
Hardison panted and pressed his mouth to the tiny spot under Eliot’s ear he’d discovered, the one that made the blood rise into Eliot’s face and his hips arch up and rub against him uncontrollably.
“Shirt. Off,” he managed to press out and pulled back slightly. He missed the friction of Eliot’s body against his own immediately, and his fingers fumbled on the hem of his own shirt as he yanked at it.
The cool draft of hair against his overheated skin was the only warning he got before Parker walked in, a bowl of popcorn in her hands and a grin on her face.
Hardison flinched away from Eliot as if Eliot had hit him. He almost tumbled off the couch in the process, got tangled in his own shirt, and by the time his body hit the other end of the couch, he felt as if his heart was trying to stop in his chest.
Eliot, he realized when he dared to glance over, didn’t look much better than him. He was still blushing, his hair sticking up where Hardison’s fingers had been wrapped in it, and he hadn’t managed to put his clothes quite back in order, with just a tiny stripe of pale skin visible over the waistband of his pants.
He had to force himself to look away and focus on Parker, and the fact that she had just walked in when he’d been making out with Eliot, to stop his brain from going completely offline. He needed to focus on Parker, or he would do something stupid, like leaning over and licking that little patch of exposed skin right here, while Parker was watching.
It took him a little while to transform the high-pitched noises that escaped from his mouth into words that humans could actually understand, and Parker had taken advantage of his moment of distraction to sit down in the middle of the couch, where moments ago Eliot and he had been wrapped up in each other, happily munching on her popcorn while stealing the remote from Hardison and changing the channel before either of them could protest.
They spent the rest of the evening watching cartoons, eating popcorn and teasing each other. It was nice, but, Hardison thought later, when he sat down in front of his computer again after both Parker and Eliot had left, it was not what he had hoped for; not after Eliot had kissed him.
No, after that, he had hoped for something with a little less clothes, and less Parker and no popcorn.
He sighed softly and started World of Warcraft. This had been his one chance to get his hands on Eliot, and Parker had interrupted it. Who knew if Eliot would want to try this again.
~*+*~
“Hey man...” Hardison trailed off when he caught his first good look at Eliot’s face and the blood smeared across his lip and nose, the redness and the swelling around his eye. “You look...”
The words didn’t want to come. He couldn’t express how he felt about seeing Eliot like this, beaten up but not beaten. Hardison didn’t know how Eliot did it, how he managed to get the job done even when brought to his knees, and, having listened to every fight Eliot had been in since they all had teamed up all these years ago, he had a firm opinion about things that sounded worse than they looked.
Eliot was looking at him now, squinting at him, but his shoulders seemed to be relaxed and Hardison took it as a sign that Eliot wasn’t angry at him or anything.
“I have ice,” he finished lamely and waved one hand toward the stairs leading up to his apartment. “I mean, if you want some, you know, for your face.” He licked his lip nervously. “You should at least wash up before the cops arrest you for looking like...” He waved his hand again, a graceless arc in the air that included everything and nothing at the same time.
Eliot’s face softened somewhat without him moving a single muscle. “Fine,” he growled.
He sounded just like always, the same deep rasp in his voice that made Hardison’s knees go weak and conjured up images of them in between high-count sheets.
“Cool,” he murmured weakly and started to climb the stairs, Eliot just a step behind him. He didn’t move slowly, or carefully, Hardison noted, the way he did when he was certain that he’d broken a rib or two, or something else was fundamentally wrong with him.
The fight had, once again, sounded worse over their comms than it had been. Hardison shook his head and grimly decided that one day, he would manage to build a filter into Eliot’s ear bud that would make a clear distinction between the hits Eliot took and gave.
Until then, the only thing he could do was to move through the kitchen and get the ice pack from the freezer. He didn’t know when he’d started to store it in between frozen dinners and ice cream, but he didn’t hesitate as he grabbed it and wrapped it into a towel, the way Nana had done it when he’d been a kid with a scraped knee.
He started to turn back around, but Eliot had managed to sneak up on him and was much closer than he’d been just moments ago, his body crowding Hardison against the fridge’s door and his hands hot through the thin cotton of his t-shirt.
They didn’t talk. There was no need for words, and even if they had wanted to talk, Hardison wasn’t sure he’d ever be capable of finding the right words for what they were doing, what was going on. Instead, there was the coppery tang of Eliot’s blood, smeared and dried on his pale skin, the slick heat of his tongue pressing insistently against Hardison’s mouth, and the sound of his breathing, the feeling of his body strong and solid against him, muscles and bones and sinews under Hardison’s fingers where they rubbed Eliot’s shoulders and tugged in an attempt to get Eliot closer.
It wasn’t a gentle kiss. It was hard and urgent and filled with blood and fear and triumph and stubborn refusal to back down. Eliot’s teeth were sharp where they cut into Hardison’s tongue and lip, aggressive and dangerous, and Hardison knew he couldn’t just step back and stop now.
He needed more.
He needed Eliot, needed him so much his entire body ached with the sudden desire. He wanted to keep his eyes open during the kiss to see Eliot, see the flush starting to spread over his face, over the tip of his ears and down his chest until he looked so thoroughly debauched that no question remained as to what he’d been doing. He wanted more of Eliot’s taste, that spicy mix of flavors Hardison had started to get addicted to. It would take more than just a little blood and the sharp tug of teeth to stop him now.
“What are you doing?”
The confused question made them yank apart sharply, but there was no way they could hide what they’d been doing. Both of them were flushed and breathing harder and Hardison could swear his lips had swollen in reaction to the kissing.
“Parker,” he managed to say, but before he could add anything else, he had to take a few deep breaths. Eliot seemed to feel the same. He was staring at Parker, his arms crossed over his chest and his hair tangled wildly, and Hardison wasn’t sure if Eliot could keep himself under control or if he was planning on charging toward Parker and make sure she knew exactly what she’s interrupted.
“Is his mouth injured, too?” Parker asked and looked at him with huge eyes. She was, Hardison thought, not at fault for who she was, and he was certain she didn’t have the faintest idea what she’d interrupted.
Almost interrupted.
It wasn’t her fault, but it didn’t stop Hardison from wanting to slam his head into his kitchen cupboards until he didn’t remember what he was trying to do here.
Why Eliot’s taste was still on his tongue, the smell of his sweat and his laundry detergent was still in his nostrils.
Why he still could feel his body heat where Eliot’s hands had been.
Eliot growled something under his breath, grabbed the ice pack and stalked away, leaving Hardison to explain to Parker what was going on, or find a good excuse.
He had to think quickly to come up with something a little more subtle than you interrupted while I was trying to make out with Eliot. He didn’t want to hurt her and her feelings; feelings he was sure she had somewhere hidden away.
Feelings he’d tried to coax to the surface for months before turning his attention toward Eliot.
He still cared for her, and he probably would care for her for the rest of his natural life, even if she managed to get him arrested and thrown into jail somehow. He knew that she would realize what a mistake that would be and would get him out of prison as soon as she realized what she’d done.
He believed in her.
Sighing, he leaned his head back against the cupboard behind him and rubbed the bridge of his nose with two fingers.
“We have to teach you about a little thing called privacy, girl,” he told her.
“Privacy?” Parker repeated and hopped up on the counter. “What for?”
Hardison busied himself with getting the sugar cereal out and handing it to her while he tried to think.
“You know you’re always welcome to visit,” he finally said. “But sometimes, Eliot and I...we need to do guy things. Like...fishing. Yeah. Fishing.” He nodded. “And when we’re fishing, you should probably at least knock before you come in. Or call before you do.”
Her frown told him that she had no clue what he was talking about, but she accepted the bowl of cereal from him and nodded while wearing an expectant expression on her face, as if she hoped that she was doing the right thing.
“Just call before you come over, okay?” Hardison said and left her to her snack before going to find out where Eliot had disappeared to.
He didn’t need to look for long. Eliot was sprawled out on the couch, the same place where they had kissed and made out for the first time. Had it really been just a week ago? To Hardison, it felt as if it had been years ago, and at the same time, he remembered every detail as if it had been burned into the back of his eyelids: from the solid weight of Eliot’s weight on top of him to the taste of his mouth and the calloused hands running down his back and chest.
He also remembered the guilty look Eliot had given him when Parker had interrupted them and he had almost flinched back from Hardison as if he’d been bitten, or as if he was ashamed of being seen with him.
Hardison shook his head sharply, to dislodge that particular thought. If Eliot was ashamed of making out with him, he would never have started it in the first place, he was sure of that. He remembered all too well the first rocky days and weeks of working together, the contempt he had been able to read in every gesture and look from their hitter.
With time, Eliot had realized how valuable a member Hardison was, or at least that was what Hardison hoped. The teasing hadn’t stopped entirely, but it had shifted from something malicious to something different. Eliot still made fun of him and what he did, but as soon as someone not on the team attempted to do the same, Eliot was the first to defend Hardison. Only he was allowed to make fun of the hacker, apparently.
Hardison couldn’t say that he minded. Not anymore.
Not when Eliot made up for his jokes with pressing Hardison against the fridge and kissing him senseless, not that it had happened more than once so far. And thanks to Parker, that had led exactly nowhere.
Hardison sighed as he dropped down next to Eliot and pulled his laptop close. He had work to do, and there was nobody but him to do it. It didn’t matter how often he tried to explain it to Nate, there simply was no blueprint fairy, and their briefings didn’t prepare themselves.
Tuning out Eliot and the hockey game on the TV wasn’t easy, but Hardison managed, and not much later, he was immersed in financial statements, tax evasion and connections to the Russian Mob.
When he looked up the next time, the sun was going down, Parker was perched on the couch next to him, and Eliot was long gone. Hardison stretched his spine until it popped and put the computer down. His stomach was growling and his eyes burning, informing him of the fact that he’d spent hours staring at the screen.
“Where did Eliot go?” he asked.
Parker shrugged. “Home, probably,” she said.
Hardison rolled his shoulders. “You want to grab a bite to eat?” he asked her, not really expecting her to agree, but to his surprise, she nodded.
“Chinese?” he asked, and ten minutes later, they were on their way to a little Chinese restaurant Parker knew and liked. He managed not to think about Eliot and how it felt to have the other man press into him too much, and he was able to almost follow Parker’s conversation.
All together, it was a nice evening. He genuinely liked Parker and even was a little bit in love with her, and spending time with her was no hardship.
~+*+~
“Please.”
Eliot rose from his spot at the counter, the cup in his hands balanced carefully on its saucer, and wandered over to the couch where he handed it over to Sophie. Hardison followed him, close enough on his heels to hear the annoyed huff Eliot let out but with enough distance not to run into his back when Eliot stopped abruptly and turned around.
“Please, Eliot?” Hardison gave him the best version of his puppy dog eyes. They usually worked on Parker, and he figured it wouldn’t hurt to fall back on tried methods.
“No,” Eliot growled.
“Please? I said please. I can’t do it.”
“Can’t do what?” Sophie asked from her spot. Her eyes were turning from Hardison to Eliot and back as if she was watching a tennis match.
“Help him with his desk.” Eliot’s voice dropped into an even deeper register, and he gave Hardison a look from narrowed eyes.
“I can’t do it,” Hardison said, “I need some help, unless you want to explain to Nate why we don’t have access to Thompson’s servers...”
“What does the one have to do with the other?” Sophie interrupted. Eliot simply balled his hands into tight fists.
“It’s a desk. A computer stands on a desk. Without a desk, I can’t use my computer,” Hardison explained with an eye roll. “Without a computer, I cannot do my work, and everybody gets extremely unhappy about that.”
Eliot opened his mouth to protest, but before a single word could escape, Hardison’s attention was back on him. “I’m begging you here, seriously, man, there is no more shame in me, I need you to help me, whatever you want, you can have it.”
Eliot hesitated. He rolled his eyes, but his shoulders softened, almost invisibly, and Hardison grinned widely, until Eliot gave him one of his special glares.
After that, he tried to contain his glee. He had won this battle, and he didn’t want Eliot to drop some tool on Hardison’s toes, accidentally or not, and he knew that Eliot could be vindictive enough to make something like that happen.
“Tonight,” Eliot told him. His voice did something to Hardison’s insides that he preferred not to think about too closely, especially considering that Eliot didn’t really seem to be very happy about the situation. “You bring the beer.”
He nodded hastily. He didn’t need to go out and buy Eliot’s favorite beer since he already had some of it in his fridge, bought before the last time Eliot had stopped by for a game.
That had been the day when Parker had interrupted them, he remembered, and Eliot had gone home instead of staying over for the night.
Eliot opened his mouth as if he wanted to add another thing, but he snapped it shut without saying anything and stomped off. It wasn’t unexpected, Hardison thought. Eliot was a smart guy, but when he got annoyed or agitated, he sometimes tended to forget his words and reverted to spluttering and growling.
Maybe he would throw in some pizza on top of the beer, he decided. Or a fridge full of vegetables he wouldn’t even know the names of for Eliot to turn into a delicious, delicious meal. Or he could record a few hockey games.
He could definitely do that.
All of that.
~*+*~
Eliot put furniture together the same way he did everything else, with quick, efficient moves and without much of a fuss. He had arrived around seven, had taken in Hardison’s office with the flat-packed desk he was supposed to set up, the hockey game already on the TV, the bunch of leafy vegetables in the fridge, and he had only grunted briefly when Hardison had handed him a beer.
And then he’d set out to work, and all Hardison could think about as he watched him was how much he wanted to unbutton the checkered flannel shirt he was wearing and slide his hands under the waistband of Eliot’s jeans.
He could see the muscles move under Eliot’s shirt, and he wanted to kiss up a trail up his spine and stick his nose right against that hidden sensitive spot at the base of Eliot’s neck he’d discovered the last time…
He forced his thoughts away from that particular line of thinking and focused on the construction of his new desk. Eliot knew exactly what he was doing, and it was assembled quickly enough.
Hardison crossed his arms over his chest as he scrutinized Eliot’s work.
“What?” Eliot asked.
“I don’t know, man.” Hardison tilted his head slightly to the side. “I mean, I’m gonna put my baby on that. You think it’ll hold up to the weight?”
Eliot started to get that little line between his eyebrows that indicated him starting to get annoyed, and Hardison knew he had to talk faster to get his point across before Eliot decided he’d been pushed too far and put his fist through Hardison’s face.
“I mean, all I’m saying is that we should test it before I put my computer on it.” He waggled his eyebrows in what he hoped to be a suggestive manner.
Eliot stared at him with a mixture of disbelief and lack of understanding, and Hardison knew that the time for talking was gone and he needed to act now.
He needed to be assertive and take initiative.
Taking advantage of his bigger height, he stepped closer and crowded Eliot against the edge of the desk. Bending down a little, he put both hands on Eliot’s chest and pressed his mouth against the smaller man’s lips.
Eliot made a small sound at the back of his throat and started to kiss back, and Hardison ran his hands up to Eliot’s shoulders and slipped his fingers under the tangles of Eliot’s hair, to the soft warm skin underneath. He scratched his blunt nails gently along the skin and happily accepted Eliot’s tongue in his mouth.
Eliot’s hands grabbed fistfuls of Hardison’s bright orange shirt and yanked. Hardison was almost certain that he could hear the material creak under the stress, but he couldn’t focus on that right now, not when his front was pressed tight against Eliot’s, his dick was starting to get very interested in the things that were happening, and Eliot was making soft sounds deep in his throat, sounds he probably wasn’t even aware of. They were enough to make Hardison grow even harder in his pants, and he ground against Eliot and started to fumble with the buttons on his shirt with one hand while the other stayed at Eliot’s neck.
Eliot pulled away. His eyes were slightly glazed, his lips parted, and a flush had spread across his cheeks.
He looked gorgeous, Hardison thought while grabbing a fistful of hair and yanking Eliot back into the kiss.
Eliot bit at Hardison’s bottom lip. Stubble rasped as they shifted and moved together, kisses grew uncoordinated and sloppy, and finally, his fingers managed to open the shirt and push it halfway down Eliot’s arms.
Eliot’s skin was surprisingly soft around the scars dotting his body, warm and musky and so very inviting. Hardison sucked a line along Eliot’s throat and shoulder, biting softly at the skin he found there and inhaling Eliot’s smell until he felt almost dizzy with it.
His own shirt was tangled around his armpits by now. Hardison sucked in his stomach instinctively, but as soon as Eliot’s fingertips brushed against his navel on their way down to the waistband of his pants, he exhaled with a shudder and grazed his teeth against the juncture of Eliot’s neck and shoulder again.
“We should move this someplace else,” Eliot growled. His voice had fallen into a deeper register, his mouth was hot against Hardison’s cheek, and he was still touching every inch of Hardison’s skin he could reach. “Someplace like your couch. Or your bed.”
“Yeah,” Hardison squeaked. “Yes.”
They managed to take a step apart, and Hardison made short work of his shirt, pulled it up over his head and dropped it carelessly onto the floor. He could always pick it up later, when Eliot had left, or just leave it where it was until it was time for laundry day.
Eliot gave him a quick, disgusted look, but that didn’t stop Hardison in the slightest. He grabbed Eliot by the shirt that still clung to the crooks of his elbows and pulled him out of the home office and toward the bedroom.
“Is Eliot going to cook for you today?” a voice chirped up behind his back. Hardison flinched almost violently enough to stumble and hit his head while yanking away from Eliot with enough force to push the other man a step or two back.
Eliot, he could see, was not happy about the interruption. He was still flushed, but his eyes were narrowed dangerously, as if he wanted to charge at Parker like a bull.
“There’s all these funny-looking vegetables in your fridge. I checked for real food, but there isn’t any. Just…leafy things. You only buy this stuff when you want Eliot to cook for you,” Parker continued, seemingly oblivious to the murderous mood Eliot was in.
Something had to be done, or they would quickly be down one very talented thief. Nate would be annoyed if they broke Parker. Hardison had to do something really quickly, before Eliot did something to Parker they all would regret later, no matter how annoyed about her interruption he really was and no matter how much he wished that she hadn’t shown up and had left him and Eliot to get somewhere.
Biting his lip, he took a deep breath and slowly released it while compiling the html code to a basic website in his head. It had a better effect at calming him down than counting to ten ever had, and that was exactly what he needed now.
“Parker,” he said with as much patience as he could muster. “What are you doing here?”
She shrugged and easily hopped up onto the counter. Her heels beat a happy rhythm against the cupboard doors, and she gave him an easy and wide grin. “I was hungry. I thought Eliot was cooking for you.”
“Dammit, Parker,” Eliot growled before Hardison could even open his mouth, and then he added something that was almost unintelligible but sounded suspiciously like, “Stop cockblocking us!”
Parker’s smile disappeared and made room for a confused frown. “What?”
“There’s something wrong with you,” Eliot pointed out, slowly and the words drawn out as if he was talking to an idiot. He sounded marginally calmer; calm enough for Hardison to dare putting his open palm against his shoulder in the futile attempt to stop Eliot should he choose to attack Parker, or at least slow him down enough for Parker to jump out of the window or something.
“Does that mean you’re not cooking?” she asked. She still sounded bright, but a hint of disappointment was creeping into her voice and her shoulders started to slump. She was, Hardison noted absent-mindedly, wearing climbing gear, so she probably had come in through the window and could disappear the same way really quickly if Eliot decided that he’d had enough and that he needed to strangle her immediately or something equally as drastic.
Eliot’s shoulders slumped, and he groaned loudly. “Seriously?” he complained as he stomped over to the fridge, where Hardison had made some room besides bottles of orange soda, and glanced at the vegetables Hardison had bought.
“What?” Hardison asked defensively. “What’s wrong with that stuff?”
“Do you even know what you bought there?” Eliot asked with a resigned shake of his head. He reached up, smoothed his hair back from his face, and pulled it into a ponytail before piling ingredients on the counter next to where Parker was still sitting.
“Not a clue,” Hardison admitted before pulling his laptop out and placing it on the table, so that he could work while watching Eliot work.
For a while, companionable silence fell between them, only interrupted by the beat of Parker’s soles against the cupboards, the sounds of a sharp knife cutting through vegetables, and the keystrokes from Hardison’s computer. Eliot handed Parker a knife and some potatoes to peel, and she attacked them with an enthusiasm that was both scary and adorable while Eliot prepared the rest of the food.
“What did you mean when you said that, cockblocking you?” Parker’s voice cut through the silence like the knife in Eliot’s hands slid through carrots, and maybe, Hardison thought, it was a good thing that he wasn’t holding anything with a sharp edge, or he probably would have sliced his thumb clean off.
What he did was flail uncontrollably, which earned him a flat and disapproving stare from Eliot and a frown from Parker.
He took it as a good sign that he managed to stay on his stool and not fall flat on his ass.
Eliot shook his head and went back to chopping, and although he refused to answer Parker’s cockblocking question, he managed to turn a pile of leafy vegetables that Hardison really didn’t know the name of into a great meal the three of them shared.
~*+*~
Nate walked into what he still considered his living room but what was really their headquarters with crisp, quick steps that were evenly measured. There was no barely audible shuffling in his step, his hair was not sticking up wildly and his shirt was actually tucked into his pants.
New case, then, Eliot thought as he relaxed back into the cushions of the couch, and not a drunk bender due to any unforeseen circumstances or dead bodies buried somewhere in Nate’s psyche.
A quick glance revealed Parker perched on the couch next to him, her knees pulled up to her chest but her shoulders relaxed. She’d arrived at the same conclusion as he had, then, and there was no need to coax her out of the ceiling beams again. Eliot had done that once, when Nate had been too drunk to see where he was going and had scared her, and he had sworn never to do that again.
Nowadays, he glared and poked at Hardison until the hacker went and talked Parker out of whatever hiding place she’d holed up in. It was an arrangement that worked for all of them, or at least he’d thought so, until Parker apparently had come to the conclusion that she could interrupt Hardison at any time and in any activity, up and including those that involved Eliot.
He had to get Hardison to talk to her again, apparently, but not right now.
Not when Nate had that manic gleam in his eyes that told Eliot they had a new case, something crazy and outrageous that had Nate’s brain fire on all cylinders, coming up with plans and more plans.
Not when Sophie had that interested tilt to her chin and shoulders, leaning slightly over, all her attention focused on Nate – more than professional interest in him, Eliot noted. The shift of her hips was very distinctive. That, he thought while taking a casual sip of his drink, was interesting.
Hardison’s fingers were already flying over the keys of his computer, finding information about their case even before Nate had time to open his mouth to tell them what the case even was, in the first place. He’d listened in on Nate’s conversation with the client, obviously, and had already started to look through all the data available to him to find the exact right angle Nate could use to start an attack.
“Our client’s name is Roger Vanderpoes,” Nate said. A picture appeared on the screen on the wall, showing a picture of a young, pale man with a confident smirk and curly blond hair.
Sophie made an excited sound at the back of her throat that told not just Eliot that their client was probably rich enough to tempt her interest away from Nate, even if it was just temporarily.
So much, he thought with a mixture of amusement and a faint feeling of dread, for helping the helpless. Whatever had happened to Mister Vanderpoes, it had to be something huge; something so gigantic that his fortune had not been able to make his problems go away.
Those were the kind of clients that put a spring into Nate’s step, nowadays. Eliot knew that this could not end well, that sooner or later, Nate’s plans would fail and they would all find themselves in trouble, and Eliot liked to think that he was prepared for that day.
“Mister Vanderpoes claims that his wife, who he met at a charity auction, was murdered due to her falling in love with him, whereas his lawyer and best friend Marc Starston, swears he saw her weeks after her apparent murder,” Nate explained while in quick succession, photos of the wife and the lawyer flashed up on the screen. Hardison was in his element as he compiled information while Nate’s voice washed over him and he put it together into the kind of presentation he was so proud of.
“So what?” Parker asked. She’d wrinkled her nose in confusion as she stared at the pictures on the screen. “She tried to steal his money and got caught?”
“No.” Nate smiled briefly. “She has enough money of her own. She bought him at that auction, and Marc Starston claims he saw her at another of these auctions.”
“What does he want us to do, then?” Sophie asked.
Nate shrugged slightly. “He wants us to find his wife for him.”
Hardison looked up from his computer. “That’s it?” he asked, incredulously. “He just wants us to find his girl?”
Nate nodded. “She is the most important person in his life. Let’s go steal a wife.”
~*+*~
“These bachelor auctions are always hosted by the same charitable society,” Hardison reported while a map and several red dots appeared on the screen once he pushed a button. “The profits are always used to support the charity of choice. They do change things up every time they have an event. Today it’s a bachelor auction, tomorrow it’s scrubbing stones at the beach for publicity, to protest against oil spills and environmental pollution. They’re quite active, actually, and there is no sign of them being on the dark side, if you know what I mean.”
Nate made a thoughtful noise. “What’s their next planned event?” he asked.
“Bachelor auction, again. It’s one of their most successful events, you know. Everyone wants a rich husband or wife, especially if they already are rich.” Hardison shook his head. “So what now?”
“Now, we find an in.” Nate gave him a slight nod.
It was enough. Hardison knew exactly what he needed to do, and the smirk on his face told everybody who knew him and cared to look that Hardison had a plan of his own already set in motion.
Sophie straightened. “You know what that means,” she said with a wide, excited smile. Parker tried to shrink in on herself and hide in plain sight, but she didn’t stand a chance against Sophie’s enthusiasm.
“We’re going shopping!”
~*+*~
“I still don’t understand why I need a new dress for…”
Hardison pulled the ear bud out and dropped it onto the table before he gave Eliot what he considered his most seductive smile.
“So…” he said, “Sophie and Parker are out shopping for the most expensive dress they can get their hands on…Nate is busy doing whatever…”
Eliot rolled his eyes, and it was enough to interrupt Hardison’s flow and to make him stutter.
He hated when that happened.
“And it’s just you and me,” he finished, his shoulders slumping slightly.
Eliot crossed his arms over his chest. “So?” he said, and Hardison rolled his eyes at his obtuseness.
“So,” he said with forced patience. “Parker is with Sophie, and you know Sophie and shopping. There’s no way she lets her out of her clutches for the foreseeable future. And Nate is busy, too, and I have a perfectly fine apartment next door. And nobody will come knocking and demand that you cook them dinner or something.”
A slow grin started to creep over Eliot’s face as he caught on to what Hardison was trying to say.
“Should we go, then?” he asked, with the air of someone whose idea the whole thing had been from the beginning.
“Yes.” There was no room for doubt or hesitation in Hardison. He even went so far to grab Eliot’s hand and pulled him after himself, at least until Eliot stepped on his heel and almost made him fall.
It had been on purpose, he was sure of that, but he had no evidence and when he turned around to complain, Eliot was there, his body strong and firm and pressing Hardison back into the wall and holding him there, and before Hardison could voice his complaints, Eliot’s mouth was on his, warm and soft and tasting like tea and toothpaste.
Hardison could feel himself melt into Eliot, the only thing keeping him upright the points where Eliot’s hands were burning through the cotton of his shirt, where his hips were pinning him to the wall, and where their chests brushed when they both breathed in.
The kiss turned desperate quickly, the pent-up frustration and lust between them bubbling up and bursting through the seams of their control, and before long, Hardison was clawing at Eliot’s shirt while rubbing himself against the thigh Eliot had pushed between his legs. Eliot’s tongue still muffled every word he was trying to say until only sounds and whimpers escaped.
“Bed,” Eliot growled against his lips. His hair was disheveled and his face had turned a darker shade, a flush that spread down to his throat and probably further, and that he couldn’t wait to explore more thoroughly. He whimpered his consent and rubbed his lip against the edge of Eliot’s jaw, enjoying the rasp and burn of stubble against his own skin while stumbling blindly into the direction of his bedroom.
Through the haze of arousal and Eliot, he vaguely heard a beeping sound that was familiar. It wasn’t important, he thought; nothing was except Eliot and the muscles he could feel under his hands, separated from his touch only by the shirt he hadn’t quite wrestled off of Eliot yet.
It was his cell phone.
Someone, he thought vaguely while tugging on the hem of Eliot’s shirt, had sent him a text message.
They managed three more stumbling steps in the direction of his bed when suddenly, there was a different beeping sound. It wasn’t anything Hardison was familiar with, but Eliot growled a curse. His hand moved away from where it had been resting against the curve of Hardison’s spine and reached into the front pocket of his jeans, to pull out the familiar rectangular shape of a phone.
“Seriously, man?” Hardison asked and let himself fall backwards, onto the mattress of his bed.
“Could be important,” Eliot pointed out with a shrug and swiped his thumb across the screen. “But then, it could be just Parker.” He sighed and shook his head, but suddenly, his eyes widened a fraction and the blush that had started to disappear returned full-force.
“What?” Hardison asked impatiently. “What is it?” He reached for his own phone, remembering the text message he’d received. He was willing to swear every oath and take every bet that Parker had sent him the same message as the one that had Eliot acting so strange.
“Parker,” Eliot growled and tossed his phone onto the bedside table. “Twenty pound of crazy in a five pound bag, that’s what she is.”
If he thought his words would be enough to satisfy Hardison’s curiosity, he was sadly mistaken. Hardison glanced away from Eliot and down to the screen of his phone, to pull up the text message Parker had sent him, and he almost swallowed his tongue as he realized what he was looking at.
The photo was slightly blurry, but there still was no doubt about what he was looking at.
“Breasts,” he said, feeling dazed. “Parker sent me a picture of…” He frowned and focused on the details visible in the shot, the pale skin and the sheer, black bra that left very little to the imagination, the blonde hair spilling over thin shoulders and curled teasingly against the fabric of the bra, the position the person in the photo was in.
“…of her breasts.” Hardison shook his head in confusion. “What is she doing?”
“Bra shopping,” Eliot said with a hint of something Hardison couldn’t quite figure out in his voice. “Don’t look at that, man. Look at me.”
Hardison made a sound of agreement, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not turn his gaze away from the picture and the swell of breasts that looked as if they would fit perfectly in his hands and the contrast they formed to the black lace.
It was completely unfair: Parker wasn’t here, but she still managed to cockblock him.
“I don’t know, man,” he managed to say around a dry throat, “that looks…good. Yeah, good.”
Eliot was silent.
Hardison flinched slightly. He fully expected the other man to punch him in the face any moment now, and he knew that he deserved it. He knew how not to be an ass on a date, and he knew that looking at someone else while he was supposed to be with Eliot was bad manners and he would punch himself for it if he could. His Nana had raised him better than this.
And then, Eliot shifted next to him and buried his face in the crook of Hardison’s neck. He huffed a moist breath against his skin, and his shoulders relaxed slightly.
“She really does,” he agreed, his voice soft and kind of rough. “She’s something else, that’s for sure.”
“She is.” Hardison finally managed to put the phone away and buried his hands in Eliot’s hair, to coax him to lean up for another kiss that was softer and gentler than any other kiss they had shared so far.
Hardison allowed himself to get carried away by the unexpected gentleness for a long moment, but as soon as Eliot stopped kissing him, his brain came back online and he could start to think about Eliot’s words, and, if he was honest with himself, pretty much immediately start worrying about what they meant.
“So…” he started and bit his lip until it stung.
This was Eliot. The guy was smart, but he was not smart enough that he could read Hardison’s every thought from a single word like so, but apparently, he was, because all he did was brush his lips against Hardison’s collarbone in an obvious caress and said, “Yeah, I know, man. Just shut up now and let me…”
And then, he did something with his thumbs, thumbs that Hardison hadn’t even realized were resting so close to the waistband of his pants, and his thoughts focused back on Eliot and Eliot’s fingers and Eliot’s mouth and nothing else.
They made out for a while, Eliot’s hand broad and warm and resting against his hip, fingers pushed under the waistband of Hardison’s pants and teasing against the edge of his underwear, not doing much, just being there and dragging Hardison’s attention to the fact that he was hard, hard and aching and constricted by his underwear, and that Eliot was apparently taking things slow and wouldn’t be rushed by wordless pleas and muffled whimpers.
It didn’t matter how much Hardison arched his back and pressed himself into Eliot’s hand, Eliot didn’t make a single move to unbutton his pants, and his own fingers were too shaky and uncoordinated to do much more than yank at Eliot’s belt buckle.
Five minutes later, when the door banged open and loud steps hurried toward his bedroom door, which wasn’t quite closed, Hardison was incredibly thankful that they both were still dressed.
Eliot’s body tensed over him, and with a quick move, he’d changed his position and had flipped Hardison over to his front. Before he knew what was happening, Eliot had caught his wrist in a tight grip and yanked it up between his shoulder blades.
“What is going on here?” Nate sounded suspicious, but he still pushed the door open without hesitation.
“Nothing, man.” Eliot shifted slightly. “Just showing Hardison here how to defend himself. Can’t be there all the time.” He shook his hair out of his face. “Parker’s a better student than him.”
Nate frowned, not quite believing him, and Hardison managed to twist his head around to look at him. He couldn’t blame Nate for being suspicious – they were both shirtless, they were on Hardison’s bed, and Eliot, at least, was flushed, his hair tangled wildly. The whole thing looked everything but innocent, even without any visible evidence of their arousal – Hardison was on his front, pressing his still half-hard dick into the mattress, and Eliot seemed, at least as far as Hardison could tell, completely unaffected.
Unaroused.
He looked a lot as if he was annoyed, his flush a sign of his growing anger and scorn for Hardison. Somehow, he had managed to look the same way he always did when dealing with other people; people he didn’t want to deal with.
Hardison decided to do his part to convince Nate that they really hadn’t done anything but practice self-defense. He had to be careful, he thought as he shifted slightly, as if he was trying to break free of Eliot’s hold. He knew he tended to oversell his grifts, and Nate was one of the best, if not the best at realizing when someone was trying to bullshit him.
“Get him off me,” he said as whinily as he could. He knew how much Eliot hated that tone, and Nate knew it too. “Eliot, if you’re breaking my arm, I swear, I’m gonna…”
“Gonna what?” Eliot leaned more of his weight on his caught wrist, and yeah, that really hurt. “What are you gonna do, huh? Send spam to my email? That all you can do?”
“Let go!” He squirmed, giving up on trying to find an adequate threat.
Nate sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Eliot, let Hardison go,” he ordered warily. “We need him to get us an invite to the party tonight.” He lowered his hand. “And I need you to follow Marc Starston, the lawyer. Make sure that he knows he’s being followed, but doesn’t see your face.”
Eliot simply nodded and abruptly let go of Hardison’s wrist as he stood and bent down to pick up his shirt. Hardison whimpered and rubbed his shoulder until Nate had left the apartment, then he relaxed back into his pillows with a frustrated groan. “If this goes on, I’m never getting laid,” he complained.
Eliot, who was busy buttoning up his shirt, simply growled.
~*+*~
jump to part 2!
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Date: 2012-03-20 06:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-03-22 04:52 am (UTC)