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“What kind of knives do you use?”
“I’m sorry, what?” Eliot paused in his chopping, two halves of the potato rocking on the board.
“Knives,” Hardison pointed at the one in his hand. “What kind?”
Eliot was suspicious, but he answered. “Depends what you’re doing with them. Different knives are good for different things. This one’s a santoku knife. Why you asking?”
“Santoku, is that the brand?”
“No, that’s the style. Round tip. Scallops on the blade.” He held it up to show Hardison. “Great for potatoes. Not so good for assassins, so it depends what kind of day you're expecting to have.”
“Cool, cool. And what brands are good, like, who makes the best knives?”
“Why you asking, Hardison?” He’d had started doing this lately, wandering in and asking Eliot about kitchen items: what was best, what he’d recommend. It was making him nervous.
“I own a restaurant; I gotta have a reason for being interested in kitchen stuff?”
“Never been interested before.”
“Maybe I’m growing as a person.” His smile was bright and self-satisfied and Eliot didn’t trust it one bit.
“Whatever you’re planning, it better not involve me. In any way.”
“Planning? Me? I’m hurt, man. Why you acting like I must have some kind of ulterior motive here?” He stepped closer. “Maybe I’m just trynna be interested in the stuff you’re interested in.”
“Bullshit,” said Eliot, trying to ignore how the air suddenly felt electric. Hardison’s chest was almost touching his shoulder; his mouth was less than ten inches from Eliot’s ear. Nine and a half. Eliot turned his head slowly to look directly at him, which closed the distance to eight, but he was proving a point. Keeping his face still and his posture relaxed no matter how hard his heart was hammering — that was practically in his job description. He looked Hardison dead in the eyes. “You ain’t here to flirt.”
“Sure of that, are you?” Hardison cocked his head just slightly forward, and every nerve in Eliot’s body leapt like he was about to be kissed. Settle down. Hardison wasn’t going to do it; he might be maddeningly forward these days but that was a line he didn’t ever cross. Someday, if Eliot did decide to go for it, he might wait for a moment like this, just for the satisfaction of shocking that lazy, cocky smile off his face.
...And he really should know better than to think things like that in the middle of a staredown. “Pretty sure, yeah.” He managed to get the words out clear, which was a triumph.
“And what would I be planning, that’s got you jumpier than Parker on a chocolate binge?”
Got him. Hardison either knew or he didn’t, and either way he’d win if Eliot actually said it. “I don’t know and I don’t care! I’m just saying, it better not involve me.” He flipped the potato halves to be flat-side down. “And get your hand off the counter when someone’s using a knife nearby, ain’t anyone ever taught you basic safety?”
“Now you want me learning stuff?” Hardison shook his head stagily. “You need to make up your mind, my dude.” He said it lightly, no hint of a hidden meaning, but Eliot flinched anyway. He started chopping to cover it.
“I’ve got ten pounds of potatoes to dice here. Help out or get out.”
“I said we could hire another cook while Oliver’s on leave.”
“We don’t need another cook, I just need you to let me do my job.”
“I’m just saying, it could be someone else’s job —”
The argument slid over to the safe and well-worn territory of staffing and profit margins. Hardison was always happy to take wild leaps and plan on covering any gaps out of his personal accounts; Eliot insisted that they keep the brewpub profitable on its own merits. Hardison pointed out that it was his place and he’d do however he pleased, but Eliot won the argument anyway. He liked covering the kitchen, which was the real reason both of them let him do it.
Hardison examined the knives in the block before disappearing to the back offices, and Eliot watched him suspiciously.
The problem was, Eliot’s birthday was coming up, and he couldn’t figure out whether Hardison knew it. Nobody was supposed to know. It had come up just once, years back: Sophie had asked and Eliot answered, “I’m just as happy with y’all not knowing.”
Hardison had snorted and said, “You think I can’t find out when your birthday is?”
Obviously Eliot didn’t think that. What he did think was that Hardison hadn’t ever bothered to try, which was all to the good as far as Eliot was concerned.
Eliot liked celebrating his birthday with the crew. He just liked it best when no one but him knew that’s what they were doing. He’d spend the morning somewhere outdoors and alone, then cook a big meal and have them all over to enjoy it. It was perfect: he got to do all his favorite things with his favorite people, and there wasn’t any fuss or elaborate gifts or, God forbid, singing.
He’d gotten away with it for years — he cooked dinner for them plenty of other times, so there was no reason for them to notice he just happened to do it on the same date every year. Hardison never gave so much as a wink, and since when did that man know something and not show off about it? No. He’d just never looked it up, probably forgotten all about it.
This year was different though. Of course this year was going to be different. The first time Hardison had strolled in with a question about appliances Eliot had thought it was weird. The second time it had hit him: his birthday was coming up, and Hardison-the-friend-and-teammate might not have bothered to look it up but Hardison-the-wannabe-boyfriend would. And would definitely be trying to plan something, and knowing Hardison it wasn’t gonna be small. All the smart money was on some kind of ill-conceived grand romantic gesture. Eliot could’ve told him it was a bad idea, and would tell him, if he could ever get him to admit what he was doing.
Eliot got through all the potatoes and thought he’d take a break before doing the next stage of prep for the weekend. He went back to their office — but there he saw Hardison at a table, tinkering with small electronic things, and Parker draped comfortably over his shoulders, listening while he explained.
“So I still have to set parameters for common interior objects — last time I tested it thought a ficus tree was the world’s smallest closet — but once it’s done you’ll be able to map out an ordinary building up to six rooms deep, without ever going inside.” He picked up a controller and something the size of a hockey puck rose into the air, glommed onto the wall, and began skittering up it on tiny metal legs. “I’m calling it the Blueprint Fairy.”
“Cooooool.” Parker’s eyes shone as she watched it, and she kissed Hardison’s cheek. Hardison beamed satisfaction and pride, and Eliot quietly went back to the kitchen, feeling a little sick.
The biggest problem wasn’t the birthday itself. It was that, whatever Hardison had planned, it was going to fall flat. It was clearly going to be something kitchen-related, and that was the first mistake. Eliot liked picking out his own kitchen stuff, and Hardison wasn’t even asking the right questions to get him something he might want.
The second mistake was trying to do anything at all, because Alec Hardison craved appreciation like he craved orange soda. Parker was great for that, she’d light up like a kid and squeal and hug him and leave him grinning and proud. That wasn’t ever gonna be Eliot. Gifts and big gestures mostly made him uncomfortable. Even when they were just right, like the sword Nate and Sophie got him their first Christmas together, he couldn’t muster the kind of wide-eyed excitement that Parker gave. Eliot was gonna be the one struggling to manage a lukewarm Thanks, man, and watching Hardison’s eager face fall.
Parker appeared while he was washing up and leaned, limpet-like, against his back, propping her chin on his shoulder. “Why did you come in and then walk back out?” she asked. Of course she had seen him. She saw everything, these days.
“Too much to do.” It wouldn’t fly, but it would carry the real message: don’t wanna talk about it.
She leaned on him silently until he realized he did want to talk. Not about the birthday thing, but the thing that was eating at him underneath it.
“You ever think about what’ll happen if I just — can’t do this thing?”
“You mean the thing with Hardison?”
“Yeah.”
Parker considered. “No. I don’t think much about that.”
That was exactly what he was afraid of. He’d gotten so comfortable with it — no, comfortable was the wrong word, but used to it. It was part of their rhythm now: the teasing, the flirting, Hardison’s feelings and wants right out on the surface, Eliot’s buried deep but no secret to any of them. It had become like a game, Hardison testing how far he could push and Eliot testing how far he could keep it together and not turn into a stammering mess. It was almost fun, it was definitely hot, and it had gotten so familiar that he was afraid both Hardison and Parker were taking the conclusion for granted. At some point, Eliot would stop trying to keep it together at all: at some point, he’d drop it all and say yes, let’s do this.
Eliot didn’t take it for granted. He couldn’t. For every evening he went home thinking this could actually happen and it could be so good, there was another night spent under crashing waves of anxiety and shame, his own inner voice telling him relentlessly that he was on the verge of destroying the best thing that ever happened to him.
And maybe the balance was shifting, maybe the good nights were coming more often than the bad these days, but that just made it more dangerous. The more confident they all got that they were working toward a yes, the worse it was going to be if, after all that, he ended up at no.
Parker was the only one he could even try to say any of this to. “You’re just so sure it’ll happen, and so is he. What’s it gonna do to him if it turns out — if I just can’t?”
Her arms went around his chest and squeezed tight, so tight they hurt, and he closed his eyes and breathed into it. “I’d be more worried about what it does to you.”
“It ain’t about me.”
“That’s adorable.” She kissed the back of his shoulder.
“I’m serious, Parker! Tell me it wouldn’t wreck him. Tell me it wouldn’t be the end of everything.”
Parker ducked under his arm, squeezed between him and the sink, and put her hands on either side of his head. She stared into his eyes for a long minute until he had to focus, to see how sober her face was. “It wouldn’t be the end of everything.”
Her fingers at his temples held steady as a vise. He couldn’t look away. “I can’t believe that.”
“Believe me.” She was so absolutely certain that for a second he started to feel better, but her next words ruined it. “You don’t want to say no.”
His heart seized, because while that was true, it completely missed the point, and Parker didn’t get it at all, and his world was tilting...
She gripped his face tighter, bringing him back. “You don’t want to say no, so if you ever say no and mean it, you’re a different Eliot. But we change together, so you’ll still be our Eliot.”
“Hardison won’t...” It was a struggle, finding what he was trying to say. Hardison seemed so cheerful right now, laying tiny traps, planning things. He was patient, but patience without a reward was just sad. “Hardison won’t just give up and be okay with it.”
“He will, eventually, if it’s really what you need. We change together. All of us. ”
That was just as hard to imagine, and just as painful, a Hardison who didn’t want him any more. You’re a fucking mess, Spencer. Can’t be happy with anything. Couldn’t leave well enough alone.
Parker poked him hard in the chest.
“Ow!”
She poked him again, same spot, and with her freakishly strong fingers that spot was going to bruise if she did it again.
“Stop it, Parker!”
“You stop,” she said.
“I ain’t doing anything.”
She poked him again, and he grabbed her hand, and she grinned at him.
“You people are gonna drive me out of my mind,” he grumbled, lifting her bodily and placing her to the side. She leaned back against him like she was magnetized, and he went back to washing, only slightly hampered by her being attached to his side. He was used to managing with a Parker outrigger; it was easier to just deal sometimes than try to dislodge her.
And what would change about all this, if he said yes to Hardison? He didn’t dare ask what patterns she and Hardison imagined for the three of them, if he did come around in the end. He refused to imagine anything at all; it felt like a trespass, for one, and sent him into full-blown panic, for another, and anyway Parker was the one who kept telling him to tackle one problem at a time. But something was going to change, had to, and he was suddenly desperate for assurance that it wouldn’t be this. Wouldn’t be her, relentlessly crowding him and poking him and grounding him better than he was ever gonna admit.
“The Eliot who says yes,” he said tensely. “That’s a different Eliot too.”
“I know. Still ours. And this one.” She kissed his shoulder again. “All your Eliot are belong to us.”
She’d picked that up from Hardison. Eliot had no idea what it meant and he didn’t think she did either, but she seemed to think it was hilarious. “Right out of my mind,” he grumbled again, but he breathed easier.
***
They finished playing on a fast, upward note, Eliot’s double strum sounding with Hardison’s final stroke and then falling triumphantly silent. Eliot leaned back in the chair and grinned at Hardison. This, at least, was easy between them. When they played together they both knew what they were doing and what they were trying to do together. If they misread, one or both of them could course-correct and get back in tune. And so often they didn’t misread. Like now, discovering in the moment that they’d had exactly the same idea about where and how the music should end.
After a moment like that, it seemed just silly to go through rounds of obfuscation and dodging and stress over something as trifling as a birthday present.
“This is enough,” Eliot said on impulse. Hardison, placing the fiddle in its case, looked at him in surprise. “This —” he waved at the instruments, the space in general, “this is good enough. I don’t need something bigger.”
Hardison’s eyes clouded. “Does — does that mean you don’t...” he trailed off and Eliot saw how he’d been misunderstood.
“I don’t mean like that,” he said quickly. Way too quickly, and he’d have to give that some thought later. “I mean... Parker, she likes presents and big surprises and flashy stuff. I don’t... this is what I like.” This was already feeling like a mistake. Obfuscation and dodging had their merits. He felt dangerously exposed.
Hardison’s face went all soft and bright and open, which made it ten times worse. “Well, Eliot Spencer,” he said quietly, and he didn’t look like he was playing or winning anything, he just looked happy.
Eliot felt pinned to the chair. It was too real, too much, what had he done? He couldn’t back out of it and Alec’s warm honesty was bearing down on him and he was not ready not ready not ready...
Hardison straightened up and grinned sideways. The teasing note dropped like a visor over his blinding sincerity. “Like I don’t know what you like,” he said. “Give a brother some credit.” He sauntered off, fiddle in hand.
What collided in his absence was the realization: Hardison was protecting him. All the teasing and flirting and finely-honed sass might be fun but that’s not why Hardison did it. He did it for Eliot, because he knew what Eliot could and couldn’t take.
Two hours later Eliot was still sitting there, trying to wrap his head around that.
***
Thursday was his birthday and he spent most of it on edge, telling himself it really didn’t matter what happened, and then thinking it all out anyway. What was Hardison going to do? Had he gotten the message? What could Eliot say or do to make it okay even if he showed up with some kind of elaborate, over-the-top gift that he’d spent way too much money and effort on and Eliot couldn’t even appreciate?
Maybe he had gotten the message, because Parker and Hardison arrived with nothing in hand and nothing in tow. Dinner was as matter-of-fact as he could have wished, picking up conversations from yesterday, no sign from either of them that there was anything special about the day.
By dessert time he was starting to think maybe they didn’t know after all. He went to the kitchen for the apple tart he’d made. Maybe Hardison actually hadn’t looked. Maybe every last fret of the past several weeks had been for nothing.
And if he felt a sinking feeling about that, it was all about how much mental effort he’d wasted. Wasted fretting, and feeling a little foolish, but certainly not any kind of disappointment. His inner equilibrium might be shot all to hell these days, he might have a stockpile of absurd and inconsistent reactions where Hardison was concerned, but he was not that ridiculous.
His phone rang, and it was Toby. Toby held mealtimes sacred: he would never call at dinnertime unless something was up. “Hey, I gotta get this,” he called to the others in the dining room, and picked up.
“Toby, man, what’s wrong?”
“Oh! I’m so sorry Eliot, I was too excited, I didn’t even realize the time — I can call back later.”
“No no — what is it?”
“This was you, wasn’t it? They said an anonymous donor, but I knew it had to be you. Who else would think of something like this?”
“Slow down, Toby. I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”
Toby explained, and Eliot suddenly found himself unable to move. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Hardison in the dining room, a tiny smile settling on his face. Toby’s explanation wound down and Eliot realized it was his turn to say something.
“No, honestly, it wasn’t anything to do with m— I didn’t know anything about it. But that’s great, it’s really great. It’s a good idea and I can’t think of anyone better — I’m really happy for you. And for them.” His voice was starting to rasp, and he got himself off the phone.
“This was you?” he said to Hardison, who was leaning back in his chair with a too-bland expression.
“What was who?” Parker asked, looking between them curiously.
“Parker didn’t know?”
Hardison shook his head slowly.
“Parker didn’t know what?” said Parker. Eliot couldn’t form any words at all, so Hardison turned to her.
“I think,” he said, “Eliot just heard from Toby. Something about being asked to serve as chief advisor to a new nonprofit, yeah?”
“Yeah. Providing cooking classes for — for vets with PTSD.”
“Oh!” said Parker. “That’s a good idea.”
“It’s a good idea,” repeated Eliot. “It’s —” he looked at Hardison, and he wanted to ask how, and why, and how did you know, but a flood was rising, his brow furrowed, he was actually about to cry and there wasn’t any stopping it.
He fled to the kitchen and rested his forehead against the smooth metal of the fridge. He laughed first, a sharp burst, and then he was crying and laughing, completely undone. He hadn’t expected this, not anything like this. Something big, showy, yes. Something that would make Hardison feel smart and cool. Not something that would make Eliot feel — this. Thankful, and astonished, and seen.
How had he known? Everyone knew that Eliot loved to cook and that Toby had been his teacher, but he’d only ever talked to Nate about what it had done for him. What it had meant to learn to direct his focus and precision and creativity into something that gave life. Eliot never told Hardison any of that.
And another thing he didn't talk about: how every veteran was family to him, not in the same way the crew was, but still family. He didn’t even think about it much, it was just a quiet fact of his life. They’d walked the same road, parts of it, and they carried the same unspeakable loads, and doing something for them meant worlds more to Eliot than anything for himself.
He felt cracked open, parts of him exposed that hadn’t seen daylight in years. It should be terrifying, and it sort of was, but he knew he was safe. Alec Hardison was forever doing the impossible, and he had him.
He brought the tart to the table, and if the other two noticed the shaking in his hands and the redness in his eyes, they didn’t say anything. But Hardison didn’t hide that he was gloriously pleased with himself, and Eliot let him have it. He let himself smile openly, and Parker was grinning too, and they ate apple tart like a trio of beaming fools while talking about things that were completely inconsequential.
He was ready for them to go when dessert was over. He needed time to be alone with himself and this new, shell-less, trembling thing that was waking up in him. But he let Hardison hug him tightly on his way to the door, and as he watched the tall, beautifully-shaped back walk away, he caught himself for the first time thinking not if, but when.