Chapter Text
Nate called them with another job proposal on the same day that Eliot woke up between Parker and Hardison to find the two of them grinning down at him from where they’d propped themselves up on their elbows. It was three weeks after they’d gotten home, three weeks of movie nights and Hardison taking advantage of his bed rest to make him sit through Doctor Who and Parker pulling him out of bed for exactly fifteen minutes at a time and Amy bringing in meals from the brewpub twice a day because both Hardison and Parker refused to let him near the kitchen. Three weeks of more physical affection than he’d ever felt before, than he’d ever let himself feel…
And it had been good. It had been so, so very good.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“How do you feel?” Hardison asked, a teasing lilt to his voice.
He stopped and took stock. The heavy ache and burning in his throat and chest had been getting better with every passing day, but it had still been present. He’d been tired, with headaches and body aches, and even though he’d been getting better, it’d been slow going.
But he felt… good. Fully rested for the first time in a while, with no pain to speak of anywhere.
“I’m good,” he told them, stretching a bit and starting to sit up.
“Good like when we asked you yesterday and you started coughing as soon as you said anything or good like actually good?” Parker interrogated, and Eliot rolled his eyes.
“Good. Like no more pain. No more anything.”
Hardison’s grin widened. “I called it!” he crowed, collapsing onto his back and throwing up his hands in victory. “I knew it! You didn’t cough at all last night, El!”
“How would you know? You were asleep, weren’t you?”
Hardison stilled, then chuckled nervously. “I was. Of course I was. What-- what else would I be doing?”
“Hardison didn’t want to tell you,” Parker said as she, too, fell back against the bed, “but he set up a mic connected to a program that recorded every time you coughed and traced the frequency.”
“Traitor!” Hardison declared, even as Eliot gave him an astonished look.
“Why would you-- and why wouldn’t--”
“It doesn’t matter,” Hardison declared finally.
It was then that Parker’s phone started ringing, and Eliot kind of wanted to ignore it in favor of pushing Hardison further, but Hardison jumped for it.
“Hey, Nate,” he greeted cheerfully. “Good news; Eliot’s doing great!”
________________________________________________
Sophie and Nate walked into the back room at noon that day. Nate wasn’t sure exactly what he expected to see when he walked in, but if he was honest, he’d kind of thought things would just go back to normal. Maybe there’d be a little bit more tension, maybe Eliot would be a little more prickly than normal, maybe there’d be more lingering glances and heart eyes than they were used to, but it would be mostly normal.
He wasn’t expecting… this .
Eliot was next to Hardison, looking over his shoulder at the laptop, and they were sitting close together, and Hardison was routinely taking one hand off of the keyboard to grab Eliot’s hand and bring it up to his mouth. Parker was plastered against Eliot’s back, legs wrapped around his waist, and she was alternating between poking Eliot’s chest and soothing a hand over Hardison’s shoulder. And Eliot… he was very obviously trying to be grumpy about it, but no one was being fooled. He flushed every time Hardison kissed his knuckles, and he definitely did not try and knock Parker off of his back.
Both Nate and Sophie watched for a minute. None of them seemed to even notice them walk in, which was weird, because Eliot and Parker usually always noticed.
Finally, Hardison seemed to be finished with what he was working on, because he sat back and waved for Nate and Sophie to actually come into the room instead of hovering by the door. Eliot tapped at Parker’s leg, but she refused to budge, so he just shifted around in the chair and let her stay attached to him. He glared at Sophie and Nate as if daring them to say something.
Okay, so maybe they had noticed. They just didn’t care.
“So, is this happening now?” Nate asked.
“Is what happening?” Eliot challenged.
Sophie placed a hand on Nate’s shoulder, and Nate took that as his cue to leave things as they were. “Nothing. Never mind.”
Eliot looked unsure, but nodded anyway. Parker just grinned at Nate and then detached herself from Eliot’s back, monkey climbing around him and settling on the table instead.
“Okay, Hardison. Run it.”
________________________________________________________
Two Hours Earlier
“Wait,” Hardison ordered, and Eliot and Parker both turned to look at him. He was sitting hunched over his laptop, but he’d sat up straight, fire glinting in his eyes.
The fire made Eliot nervous, but it didn’t stop him from prompting him with a muttered “What?”
“We… we said we’d finish the conversation when you were feeling better. Which you are. And I don’t-- I don’t want to put pressure on you or rush you in any way, but I was… Well, I was wondering if you’d given any more thought to… To this. Us. Being… Being an us?”
And how the fuck was he supposed to say that yes, he had, in fact, given more thought to it. He’d given a lot more thought to it. It was kind of the biggest thing that had been on his mind for weeks.
Parker, however, just looked confused. “I thought we’d agreed. Eliot loves us, and he said it, so he’s with us and that’s it?”
“Well, we never said…” Hardison had started, but Eliot gripped Parker’s words with an iron fist.
“Do we need to?” Eliot asked, sort of desperate to avoid the conversation.
“Yes. We do. I don’t want you to run because this isn’t what you really want, or to do something you don’t like and have you--”
“I won’t. I won’t ever-- Hardison, I swear. You have me, however you want me, forever.”
“This isn’t about what I want. This is about what you want.”
And god why couldn’t he put that any other way? Why did it have to--
“Do you want us, Eliot?” Parker inserted, seeming intent to clear any misunderstandings.
“I want what you want. I want you to be happy.”
“We are happy, man.” Hardison told him. “We’re happy with whatever you want to give us. You just gotta say it.”
He was quiet a while as he tried to force the words out of his throat. Eventually, all that popped out was, “I can’t.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Parker decided. “You’ve basically said it.”
“We need clear terms here, Parker!” Hardison objected, but she shook her head.
“There are clear terms. He wants us happy because he loves us, and because making us happy makes him happy. If this wasn’t what he wanted, he wouldn’t want what we wanted.”
Hardison looked confused, but Eliot kind of wanted to cry because finally, someone got it.
Instead of crying, he pulled Parker close and planted his lips on hers. She met his intensity with plenty of her own, and he refused to pull away until she did. “Yay for kissing,” she beamed, and then gave him a tiny shove over to Hardison.
Eliot hovered over him, planting his hands on his shoulders and spinning him in the chair until Eliot was face to face with him.
“Are we good?” he asked. “Do you understand?”
“I swear, Eliot, if you’re not about to kiss me, I’m gonna--” his words were cut off when Eliot’s mouth ended up on his. Again, he waited until Hardison pulled away for the kiss to break.
“I ain’t good with words,” Eliot grumbled. “I can’t-- I can’t always say what I want. But… But it’s this. It’s you and me and her, and us together, and anything that it comes with. So, Alec,” Eliot heard the other man gulp at the sound of his first name. “Are we good? Are those terms clear?”
“Crystal,” Hardison whispered.
And then Parker was plastering herself to Eliot’s back and Hardison was pulling him into the chair next to him and cuddling close to his arm for an instant before going back to his computer. And that’s how they stayed.
He could tell when Nate and Sophie walked in, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He let Parker stay where she was. He let Hardison keep grabbing his hand and kissing his knuckles. He dared them to say something, anything, because in the end it wouldn’t matter.
Even if he couldn’t say it, this? This right here? This was all he wanted.