Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Eliot, man, look at me. You don’t have to do this.”

“Shut up, Hardison.”

“We’ll find another way.”

“We’ve been in this tiny fucking town for weeks, dude. I want to go home.”

“I know, but-”

“Do you want to?”

Hardison blinked. “What?”

“Are you okay with this?”

“Am I- yeah, Eliot, I’m okay with this.”

“Okay, then. Just do it.”

Hardison took a slow step forward. Eliot’s whole body was braced like he was about to take a punch; he wouldn’t meet Hardison’s eyes.

Hardison reached up slowly and put his hand on the side of Eliot’s face, sliding up into his hair and over to his ear. He plucked Eliot’s comm out, and then his own, and put them both into his pocket. 

“It’s just us, man. Just us and the mark.”

The man who was watching them from the bushes wasn’t near enough to hear them if they spoke at this volume. All they had to do was look the part. 

Hardison’s hand landed on Eliot’s cheek and stayed there. 

“What’s wrong?” Hardison whispered. He had been so sure that Eliot wanted this as much as he and Parker did. 

Eliot didn’t say anything.

“El.”

“I didn’t want it to be like this.”

Hardison’s breath caught in his throat. “What do you mean?”

“This is wrong,” Eliot’s voice didn’t crack, but another man’s would have, “The characters… Hardison, I’m using you.”

Hardison smiled. “Hey, look at me.”

Eliot met his eyes.

Hardison cupped Eliot’s face in his hands and gently kissed the tip of his nose. Then he kissed his cheek, and the corner of his mouth. Finally, gently, he pressed his lips to Eliot’s own. He broke away and pressed their foreheads together.

“I don’t see it that way.”

A tear rolled down Eliot’s cheek. “Damnit, Hardison.”

Then Eliot grabbed the collar of Hardison’s shirt and pushed him backwards til he hit the wall, hard, and kissed him like it was his dying day. 

**

It started with a fake-dating job. Because of course it did.

The bad guy was blackmailing gay men in a conservative town. No one knew who he was. They needed to draw him out of the shadows with a target he wouldn’t be able to resist. 

So they ousted a preacher, stole a pulpit, and put Eliot up as the new pastor, with Parker as his adoring and clueless wife. Hardison played the handsome stranger that Eliot would meet when the time was right.

“You think it’s big enough?” Nate worried, forever running the numbers in his head. 

Hardison snorted. “Do I think the all-American Little League World Champion turned pastor moonlighting with a black, Jewish man is big enough? Yeah, Nate, I think that’s big enough for Idaho.” 

“I still don’t get the Little League thing,” Parker’s voice crackled through the coms, “Baseball is boring.”

“Parker’s right,” Eliot’s voice agreed, “I played football.” 

“Well then next time, you hack the national databases, and I’ll punch the 65-year-old pastor.”

“He hit me first,” Eliot growled.

“Play nice, children,” Sophie lilted through the coms. She was playing the church secretary, gathering gossip from the housewives at brunches and shopping trips. This town was a walking cliche; it made Hardison’s skin crawl. Nothing good ever came from this many white people in the same place.

Nate and Hardison watched through security cameras as Eliot and Parker made the rounds at the Christmas party they were hosting in the catering hall. Nate was practically counting cards, watching the WASPs buzz, his furrowed brow keeping track of every step, every tell, every word. Hardison’s eyes didn’t leave Eliot and Parker.

**

Down on the floor, Eliot had his arm around Parker’s waist, and they leaned into him as if it was the most natural thing in the world. He absolutely was not dizzy with the smell of their shampoo and their warmth all up the side of his body. And he definitely wasn’t obsessing over exactly what would sell his affair with Hardison when they got to that part of the con. Nope, definitely not thinking about Hardison’s hands running through his hair, or the way Eliot would have to stand on his toes to kiss him, or- nope.

Eliot wasn’t thinking about that at all, because that would be objectifying, and he wasn’t objectifying his two best friends. He wasn’t going to fantasize about two people he loved without their consent, because that would be creepy and wrong . And Eliot had done a lot of wrong in his life, but not to them. Never to them. So all Eliot was thinking about right now was whatever the woman standing in front of them was saying about the bake sale. 

Parker was nodding along, doing their best Sophie impression. Eliot cased the room, seeing four easy exit points, two people who could probably fight (in a room of more than a hundred- the suburbs were pathetic), and about 50 sleaze bags creeping on the teenage waitresses. Sophie was over by the wall, talking to three different women named Caroline.

“Hardison,” Eliot growled, “Make something happen here.”

“What d’you mean?”

“I’m fucking bored, man. Pull a fire alarm or something.” 

Hardison snorted. “Nuh-uh, you know the plan. You guys gotta play along, get yourselves welcomed into the community.”

“The community sucks,” Parker pouted, “Why are trying to keep people from getting shunned? Leaving this place is the best thing that could happen to a gay man. Or any man. Or any person.”

“Some people like the suburbs,” Nate chimed in, “It makes them feel safe.”

Eliot growled. “If I don’t get to punch someone soon…”

Parker elbowed him in the side and drew him back to the conversation they were having with the bake sale woman long enough to laugh good-naturedly and tell her they would see her at church on Sunday. 

“I hate this place,” Parker said as they walked away.

“Tell me about it.”

Parker leaned their head on his shoulder and sighed. “I want to go home.”

Eliot leaned his head down against theirs. He couldn’t help it; he loved them so goddamn much. Eliot hadn’t bothered lying to himself about the way he felt for Parker and Hardison for a while now. A battle can’t be fought by denying that the enemy exists, after all. Eliot knew that the only way battles like this were fought, was with constant vigilance. He was hyper-aware of his movements and expressions when he was around the two of them. This wasn’t their problem, and there was no reason to burden them with it. So Eliot just made it a point to keep his hands- and eyes- to himself. 

He only really ran into problems when one of them initiated. Hardison’s stupid secret handshake was bad enough with the way it made affection curl in Eliot’s belly, but Parker just had no concept of personal space. They were always climbing the people they felt comfortable with, literally. Eliot had learned to stay still and let them move around his body by their own accord. He didn’t let a single finger indulge in the feeling of their skin against his, no matter how much it tortured him to keep them from curling into a gentle, loving caress when Parker’s hand was on his. 

They don’t know what touching them would be for you , he would remind himself. If they don’t understand where you’re coming from, they can’t consent . That thought was enough to steal himself whenever he needed it. No matter how much he wanted Parker, he would always love them more. He would never mistreat them. He would never step a toe out of line, even when they were lighting him on fire from the inside out. 

Nate’s voice crackled through the comms. “Eliot, you got your wish. One of our suspects is suspiciously absent from your little party here. Get home, check your perimeter.”

“Gladly.”

It was a good call. The mark wasn’t nearby their cute little bungalow that made Eliot want to barf, but there were clear signs that someone had been there while they were gone. Parker snorted at how badly the stalker’s tracks had been covered up. 

“They’re onto us already,” Sophie worried, “Have Eliot and Parker been too obvious?”

“How are we being obvious?” Eliot grumbled. As far as he was concerned, the fact that the guy was already showing his hand was a good thing; he didn’t want to stay in this stuffy small town role any longer than absolutely necessary. He didn’t want to subject Parker to this forced proximity to himself any longer than necessary, either. 

“They should be fine,” Nate said.

Hardison laughed. “Y’all suck at playing cishet.”

“Shut up."

“Does this mean we can leave soon?” Parker whined. “I miss Hardison”

“I miss you, too, baby.”

Eliot felt a stab of jealousy. Not at Parker’s longing for Hardison- because he missed Hardison, too- but for their ability to say it out loud. 

“Yeah, yeah, you two are fucking adorable,” Eliot growled, “Can I go to bed now?”

“Yeah, change of plans on that,” Hardison said, “We want to draw the mark out, so the more we give him, the better. We’re gonna need you two to share the master bedroom.”

Eliot’s heart leapt into his throat. He beat it back down with a metaphorical internal crowbar and looked over at Parker, who shrugged. “Cool. Dibs on the first shower!”

Eliot almost let out a groan. It was going to be a long night. 

Chapter Text

Parker’s breath was on his lips. It would be so easy, so unfairly easy for him to just close the gap between them and kiss her. But he would never, ever do that to her, he reminded himself. Thank God he could blame the anguish that he knew was showing in his body language on the character he was playing.

They had confirmation that the mark was watching them through the window. Sophie had had the idea for him and Parker to get into a huge fight to pique the stalker’s interest. Parker was getting really into it.

“And another thing!” she screamed in his face, “You never tell me that I’m pretty! Do you even think I’m beautiful? Are you even attracted to me anymore?”

“They watched a lot of soap operas when their ACL was torn,” Hardison informed the team over the comms. And then, to Parker, “You tell him, babe!”

If Eliot still believed in God, he would swear She was out to get him. He felt like a monster, screaming at Parker, getting in her face, using his size to intimidate her, the unspoken threat of physical violence. The rational part of him knew that they were just playing a game, and she knew it was fake, but the cruelty of his character still ate him up inside.

The worst part, though, was the things she said to him. It was all bullshit that had nothing to do with their real lives, and, again, Eliot knew that, but it still felt like knives to his heart. She was acting like she was furious, accusing him of being checked-out, uninterested in her, distant, cold. Considering how much effort Eliot put into keeping a careful, respectful space between himself and Parker and Hardison, it felt as if he was being condemned for it. It felt like he couldn’t win, and like everything he did, anything he could do, was hurting her.

Equally terrible was Hardison’s involvement. Eliot’s best friend- the man who had shown him that he was still capable of love after all these years; the man who kept him up past 3am some nights just making him laugh; the tall, handsome genius with a soul made of sunshine- was cheering Parker on. 

“Eliot, say ‘Not as much as I’m attracted to your sister’,” said Sophie. 

The team Ohhhh -ed in the comms. Eliot rolled his eyes inwardly. Children; this team was made up of children.

Eliot felt sick, but he did it anyway.

“Not as much as I’m attracted to your sister!”

Parker gasped, big and dramatic. “How. Dare . You, Charles Patrick Hedgeworth The Third!”

“Oh, we’re doing full names? You want to use full names, Margaret Penelope ?”

“You mother-”

“Alright, I blocked his connection, you guys are in the clear,” Hardison said.

“-fucking piece of shit!”

Eliot raised his eyebrows.

“Sorry,” Parker said, “I was on a roll.”

“Hell yeah, you were.” Hardison said.

“Fuck off, Hardison.”

Hardison laughed through the comms. 

“Okay, you ready for phase two, Eliot?” Nate asked, all business as usual.

Eliot sighed. “Yeah. Just give me a minute.”

Phase two was that ‘Charles’ would storm out and drive around town, getting drunk and running red lights until he found himself, one way or another, tangled up with a career-ruining bartender in the backseat of his brand new Corvette. 

There were so many things about this plan that disgusted Eliot. The first was the obvious implication that any connection with Hardison’s very existence was scandalous and embarrassing for someone in Eliot’s fake position. The second was the way that fake Eliot was treating fake Hardison. What gave him the right to take advantage of the man, just because he was upset? What made fake Eliot king of the world, who could just go around and sleep with whomever he wanted with no regard for his wife or, for that matter, the feelings of the person he was sleeping with? Fake Eliot didn’t tell fake Hardison that he was married. What if fake Hardison wanted something more? What if he thought they had a connection? What kind of person would deceive someone like that?

Okay, so Eliot might be a little too close to this. Whatever. No one treated Parker and Hardison like that, not on his watch. 

Except for fake him, apparently. Which fucking sucked.

Eliot fumed about this on his entire fake bender, until he finally pulled up to the bar where Hardison was ‘working’. He took a deep breath, and tried to remember that all of this was fake. Hardison was just his friend, and Parker wasn’t his wife, and they had all planned every step of this together. No one was being betrayed or taken advantage of. They would all be back home together in a little while, laughing about the whole thing and losing to Hardison at video games. 

Eliot sidled up to the bar and ordered a beer, slurring his words because he had supposedly drunk an entire bottle of vodka on the way here. 

Hardison flashed him an easy smile and fell easily into the role of the flirtatious stranger. He was completely playing into the archetypes that would sell the scandal; he was being overtly feminine, speaking in AAVE, and wearing a bright orange yarmulke that Eliot hadn’t even known he owned. Despite being an offensively exaggerated caricature, the ruse was based just enough in Hardison’s real personality for Eliot to be drawn in, in spite of himself. 

The bar closed and Eliot stumbled back to his car with Hardison in tow.

“You wanna- hic - go back to your place?” Hardison slurred, now playing drunker than Eliot.

“You know, I don’t think I want to wait that long,” Eliot said, word-for-word off the script they had sketched out for this part of the con (whenever a plan involved violence or intimacy between members of the team, they always wrote it out first to make sure no one was uncomfortable). He was doing this by the book. He wasn’t going to go off-script and risk taking advantage. He knew exactly what Hardison had agreed to, and that was what he was going to do. All business. In and out, fake people in a fake situation, fake emotions and fake decisions. Nothing else to it.

The script said that Eliot would open the door to the car and push Hardison down into the back seat, but Eliot was so on edge that his battle instincts were kicking in and the only thing he wanted to do was make sure Hardison was safe. So instead of the rough, controlling shove, Eliot turned them around and slid into the seat first, gently pulling Hardison in behind him.

Damnit, Eliot. The script. Stick to the script. 

Eliot’s back hit the interior of the door and Hardison crowded into the space between his legs. His heart was beating faster and harder than he had ever felt it beat before in his life. 

Don’t touch him, Eliot. This isn’t real for him. He didn’t consent to ‘real’.

Eliot gulped as Hardison’s hand ran up his arm and across his chest. He gently wrapped his arms around Hardison’s neck, like they had discussed, and he didn’t move a muscle. He wouldn’t. No matter how badly he wanted to, no matter how strong the urge to reach out and stroke Hardison’s face was, no matter how soft his lips looked under the streetlamps in the parking lot, Eliot didn’t move. 

Hardison pulled Eliot’s shirt over his head. They had talked about this, the minimum that it would take for a photo to be undeniably damning. They figured that only one of them had to be shirtless, and they didn’t even have to kiss, really. 

Hardison buried his forehead in Eliot’s bare shoulder; from far away, it would look intimate enough to sell. Eliot had goosebumps all over that had absolutely nothing to do with the chill that was in the air. He could feel Hardison’s body heat rolling over him, and he said a silent thank you to the universe that his trans ass couldn’t get a boner. 

For an eternity that was far too short, Hardison stayed where he was, laying in Eliot’s lap, breathing into the nape of his neck, slowly, gently running his hands over Eliot’s chest and waist, while Eliot just tried to remember how to breathe. The pads of Hardison’s fingers were soft; they pattered across his skin like he was playing the piano. He touched Eliot like Eliot was a precious gem- not necessarily like he was delicate, but like he was deserving of reverence. He held Eliot like he loved him.

Eliot had had no idea that Hardison was such a good actor.

Either finally, or far too soon, they got the all-clear. Hardison backed off, Eliot grabbed his shirt, and just like that, it was over. Hardison reached out his hand, and Eliot took it,  and they were themselves again. They were best friends again- just friends.

Chapter Text

Eliot walked through the door quietly, not knowing if Parker was awake or not. He toed off his shoes and headed to the couch before remembering that he was supposed to sleep in bed with her. He was too tired to beat himself up over how the hairs on the back of his neck stood up at that. 

He slipped into bed beside Parker, who was sleeping on her stomach with all her limbs spread out at wide, awkward angles. Of course she slept like an octopus, Eliot figured; she was Parker. He settled down on the edge of the bed and pulled the blankets up, feeling how warm they already were from Parker’s body heat. He let go of his rigidity just a little bit. She had consented to sleep in bed with him, so it followed that she knew he would be sharing her warmth. It wasn’t a crime to enjoy it, Eliot reasoned. He fell asleep quickly, and slept soundly.

They were in the back of the corvette again. Hardison was crowding into the space between his legs, and Eliot could feel warmth pooling low, low in his gut. He gasped as Hardison kissed his neck.

“I want you so bad, Eliot,” Hardison whispered, “I want you to be with me forever.”

A hand ran through his hair. They were on a bed now, and Eliot’s head was resting in Parker’s lap as Hardison kissed him passionately. And now they were all lying side by side, and he was enveloped in their arms and all he could feel was their skin against his, and all three of them were naked but they weren’t having sex, they were just- together. They just were . Parker kissed him on the mouth and whispered, “I love you.” Hardison held his hand. He must have been drunk, or high, because he was completely weightless but it didn’t feel scary, it didn’t feel like falling; it felt like spinning; it felt like dancing …

Eliot woke up at exactly 7 o’clock, like he always did, with or without an alarm. He caught his breath from the familiar dream. It hurt worse this morning than it usually did. Nothing he had ever felt was as painful as the inches of space and volume of the silence that separated his hand from Parker’s in the bed beside him.

Eliot tore himself out of bed, and it felt like he was walking through a field of thorns as he dragged himself into the bathroom to take an ice cold shower, in the ever-futile hope that it would calm him down.

After he gave up on that working, he trudged downstairs to make breakfast. Without thinking, he started to mix the batter for the chocolate chip pancakes that Parker likes. At least she would get to benefit from his guilty conscience.

Hardison turned on the comms around 8. Parker still wasn’t up yet, and Nate and Sophie were busy, so the two of them had some time to themselves. It was the perfect setting for Hardison to break the bad news. 

“What do you mean, ‘more evidence’? They have pictures of me making out with a man!” Eliot growled. He didn’t know if he would survive another photo shoot, let alone a more intimate one. 

“The angle was bad, or some bullshit like that, apparently,” Hardison said. It put a rock in Eliot’s gut that Hardison was pissed off, too. Was he uncomfortable with his role in all this? Did he feel violated? Humiliated? The thought made Eliot nauseous. This was all his own damn fault, Hardison shouldn’t have had to do this ever again, and if Eliot had just been able to focus like a goddamn professional then-

“-tomorrow night. We have to step up our game a little bit, though. Are you cool with that, man?”

Eliot swallowed and willed his hands not to shake. “Yeah,” he said gruffly, “Yeah, whatever it takes. I just want to get out of here.”

“Whatever what takes?” Parker asked, padding barefoot into the kitchen and stealing a pancake right out of the frying pan. She picked up her comm and put it in so she could hear Hardison’s response.

“Eliot and I have to do a do-over.”

Parker wrinkled her nose. “This blackmail guy sucks at his job.”

“Maybe it’s just Eliot and I who suck at this job,” Hardison said gloomily. 

Parker’s eyes lit up. “Do you need some help?”

“Help?” Hardison and Eliot chorused back at her.

“Yeah! Maybe you’re just not selling it. Eliot, c’mere. Show me what you did with Hardison.”

“I am not showing you anything,” Eliot said, his customary grumpiness masking genuine panic.

“Come on,” Parker complained, “You guys are getting to have all the fun on this one! I haven’t done anything but smile and giggle like an idiot since we got here. I’m bored, let me help! Pleaaase?”

“Fine,” Eliot said after a beat, “Fine, if it’ll make this whole thing go faster, fucking, fine.”

“Good!” Parker said brightly, “Now, show me how you and Hardison were in the car.”

Eliot, hating everything about his life and the existence of the world in general, laid back on the couch to simulate the way he was sitting in the car last night.

“Okay, and Hardison was…?”

“Sort of- sort of on top of me. Like, kneeling in front of me, but not- not like- not like he was- I just mean, he was sort of laying between- between my legs. But at eye-level with me.”

“So, like this?” Parker said, plopping down next to his hip and moving to straddle his waist. Eliot took a slow breath, shut his eyes, and nodded. He could do this. For the two of them, he could do this. 

“My hands were in his hair,” added Hardison, who was not helping .

Parker carded her fingers through Eliot’s hair, gently untangling the knots that had formed while he was asleep. It didn’t hurt, but he wished that it did, so he would have something to think about that wasn’t the feel of her thighs wrapped around his waist like they belonged there. 

“Did you kiss?” she asked softly.

“No,” Hardison said, “I didn’t think we would have to, in order to sell it. I think I might have been wrong.”

Parker looked at Eliot and tilted her head. “Can I kiss you now?”

A better man would have said no. A stronger man would have stood up and walked away. But Eliot Spencer was not that man. Not today. So instead, he looked right up into her bright, brown eyes, and he whispered, “Yes.”

Parker kissed him gently, sending sparks of want coursing out underneath the surface of all of his skin. Her lips were sticky with syrup; she tasted sweet and addicting, like he had always imagined she would. His hands found her waist and he could feel the muscles in her abdomen holding her up over him, her ribcage as she breathed, the vibration when she made a small noise. It was overwhelming, all five senses taken over by Parker, with Hardison in their ears. It was-

It was not what they wanted him to feel. It couldn’t be. This was just a rehearsal, for a routine job, and Eliot needed to get a hold of himself before he crossed a boundary with one of them. And yet, he didn't pull away.

Parker pulled away. “Does that work for you, Eliot?”

Eliot couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes. He would have to tell her no. But he couldn’t move right now, and he couldn’t bring himself to want anything but more. The illusive, intoxicating, impossible more that he knew he could never deserve. 

“Parker, you have to get off of me,” Eliot managed to say, quietly.

She stood up slowly and tucked her hair behind her ears. Eliot opened his eyes, but he didn’t look at her. He didn’t know if it was for her good or for his own. 

“You think that works, El?” Hardison’s voice crackled.

“Sure,” he said, wrecked beyond any sense of self-preservation. He was sure that he was going to drown in them, and he no longer had any will left to try to swim.

“Alright, I have to get to the church, I’m running a Bible study,” Parker said brightly, like nothing had just happened at all.

“Uh, babe, do you know anything about the Bible?” Hardison asked, as Eliot leaned his head back against the couch and felt the sparks in his bloodstream start to splutter into hot, stinging coals. 

“Sure, Moses’s ark, Noah and the Red Sea, the Prodigal Samaritan.”

“...Well, I think- actually, sure, why not. Have fun.”

“Thanks! Bye Eliot!”

Eliot mumbled goodbye. 

“What about you, El, how much of this preacher stuff do you think you can actually pull off when push comes to shove?”

“I grew up in the Bible Belt, Hardison,” he snapped, “I could have pulled this off in the sixth grade.”

“Alright, alright, just asking.”

There was a beat of comfortable silence. Eliot was calming down a little, and falling into an easy, genuine banter with Hardison was definitely helping. 

He wanted to keep it going, and was curious about Hardison’s own religious background- he had just realized they had never really talked about this- but he didn’t really know anything about Judaism.

“How about you, man, you know any… uh… Hebrew?”

“A little. I can read a Haggadah. I’m better at Ladino, though, Nana used to speak it on Shabbat.”

Eliot didn’t know any of those words.

Hardison sighed. “You know, Sophie lived in Israel for a little while, we were gonna do a big thing for Hanukkah this year. Do you think you guys can wrap this up by the 21st? I don’t want to spend Hanukkah without you two.”

Eliot grumbled. Hardison probably just meant that he didn’t want to spend Hanukkah without Eliot’s cooking. Hardison was always asking Eliot to cook, or to teach him his favorite recipes, or milling around the kitchen while he was in there. It was just like when Parker brought him bouldering that one time, just the two of them, and made him stay up til midnight just to see the stars at their brightest. Eliot was pretty sure that stars didn’t even work that way. They both always just managed to be there , whenever the world around Eliot was exploding with beauty; it was starting to seem as if the whole world was in black and white when they weren’t around.  

It was really starting to seem like Eliot was, in a word, fucked.

Chapter Text

The next day when Eliot got home from ‘work’, Hardison was standing in the kitchen, stirring boxed macaroni and cheese while he talked to Parker. 

Eliot, briefly, saw pink. Then he saw red. After everything he was going through for this con, how could Hardison endanger the whole thing by just showing up here like this?

“Hardison, what the hell are you doing here?” Eliot growled angrily.

“Making mac and cheese,” Hardison answered casually.

Eliot walked up to him and grabbed him by the shoulder, turning him around to face him. 

“Are you out of your fucking mind,” Eliot shout-whispered, “What if someone sees you? You’re going to ruin this entire job.”

“Dude, chill!” Hardison said, pulling back from Eliot’s grip. Anyone else would have been frozen in terror to have Eliot Spencer yelling at them with a hand fisted in their shirt, but Hardison was just mildly annoyed. Deep down, underneath how frustrated he was with the whole situation, Eliot registered it as a very good thing that Hardison knew Eliot would never even think about hurting him, no matter how angry he was. 

“The perimeter is clear, we checked,” Parker said in Hardison’s defense.

Eliot shook his head. This was the last thing he needed, both of them in one place. He had been tearing himself apart for weeks now, balancing the insanely difficult factors of desperately trying to keep his distance while also doing his job so that they wouldn’t get hurt, and now Hardison just strolled into this house that was already a fucking torture chamber for Eliot-

“You can’t be here,” he growled at Hardison, “It’s too risky.”

Hardison had the nerve to laugh . “Since when are you Mr. Responsible with our secret identities? If I recall correctly, it’s usually you sneaking out at night to hook up with strangers when we’re undercover. I can’t come have dinner with my partner?”

“Not when being her partner ruins the entire, fucking, job, Hardison.”

Hardison rolled his eyes. 

“Eliot, you’re being unreasonable,” Parker said. “There’s no one around!”

“But there could be!” Eliot yelled, “At any second! Hardison, get out of here.”

“Why?” Hardison yelled back, frustrated now, “Who’s going to see me, Eliot? And why would it matter? We can sell that I’m a family friend!”

“A family friend I met for the first time at the bar last week?”

“We don’t know that he heard our conversation!”

“We don’t know that he didn’t!”

Parker suddenly hit the table with her fist. 

“You’re making this so much harder than it has to be, Eliot!” she yelled in frustration.

“How am I the one making it harder?”

“You won’t even hold my hand if it’s not in the script! You didn’t even kiss Hardison when you were supposed to get caught sleeping with him! And now you don’t even want him in the house!”

“What does it matter if-”

“Because we love you!” Hardison yelled over him, finally. 

Eliot’s response died in his throat. He felt like he had been punched in the gut.

Parker took a deep breath and gave Hardison a look, but his eyes hadn’t left Eliot.

“What?” Eliot whispered, unable to form any other words.

Hardison took a deep breath. 

“We love you,” Parker repeated for him, softer, “And we want to be with you.”

“If you want,” Hardison quickly qualified, “We always kind of thought you did, but then we started this job, and, well…”

Hardison trailed off. Both he and Parker were staring at Eliot now. 

Eliot couldn’t process this. This was everything he had ever wanted. He should be happy. He should be elated . And yet…

He couldn’t shake a deep feeling of dread in his gut. This couldn’t be real. He had thought that Hardison and Parker knew him, the real him, but obviously they didn’t. They couldn’t . Not if they thought… not if they felt … 

Eliot wanted to tell them how much he loved them. He wanted to kiss them both and tell them that they’re the only two people he sees, and he wanted them to know that he has loved them for as long as he has known them, and that they were everything to him. But when he opened his mouth to speak, somehow the only thing that came out was,

“I’m sorry.”

And Eliot turned around and left the house.

Chapter Text

Eliot had driven from one side of town to the other three times already, trying and failing to clear his head enough to form even one single coherent thought, when he got a call from Nate about the job. The mark had been going back to the bar that Hardison ‘worked’ at every night, presumably hoping that Eliot would return. They needed to be there tonight if they were going to catch the mark before he could hurt anyone else. 

Of course they did, Eliot thought, because the entire universe was clearly out to get him, and him specifically. 

Nate said he would call Hardison and have him meet Eliot at the bar. Eliot mumbled thanks and hung up. He drove around aimlessly for a little while longer, and then figured he was just delaying the inevitable, and headed to the bar. Hardison was standing out back when Eliot pulled up, leaning against the wall next to the dumpsters, right under a spluttering old street lamp.

Eliot walked up to Hardison and put his hand on the wall next to his head. This was how they were going to do this: all business, all scripted, nothing real. Just an interaction between their characters. Nothing more.

“Fancy seeing you here again, Max,” Eliot drawled, using Hardison’s character’s name.

But it was Hardison, not ‘Max’, who looked down at him with sad eyes.

“Eliot,” he said tenderly. 

Eliot looked away, absolutely refusing to make eye contact. Instead, he put his other hand on Hardison’s hip and moved further into his personal space.

Goddamnit, Hardison, just play your part , Eliot thought, Please.

“Man, look at me,” Hardison said softly. He put a finger under Eliot’s chin and gently nudged him to look into his eyes. “You don’t have to do this,” Hardison whispered.

Eliot held Hardison’s gaze.

“Shut up, Hardison.”

Just let me have this , he begged silently. He couldn’t be with Hardison and Parker in the long run; he couldn’t let them believe he was someone that he wasn’t. He couldn’t let them believe he was someone that was capable of being loved. But right here , right now , he and Hardison could have just this one night. Eliot was heartbroken that he would never get to be with Parker, but at least he could have one night with Hardison. One night as characters whom they had agreed to be; one night where Hardison would know that Eliot felt real electricity coming from him and it would be okay. Just one night, Hardison. Please.

“We’ll find another way,” Hardison continued, ever gentle. 

It occurred to Eliot, right then and there, that he had never actually answered Hardison and Parker. Hardison probably thought that Eliot didn’t want them. 

It broke Eliot’s heart, but… it would be easier. He knew that Hardison and Parker would insist that they knew him, and that they could love him, and he would have to push them away. Maybe it would be easier if they thought he didn’t feel the same way.

But then, Eliot thought, then they probably wouldn’t even be friends. And that would kill him.

Eliot had survived a lot in his life: war, guilt, torture, exile, and- the worst of it all- living without the two of them for his first 35 years. But the thing about a life like his was that it taught a person their limits. And Eliot had come close, a few times, but he hadn’t yet met something that could kill him.

This, though. This was it. Losing Hardison and Parker was the one thing that Eliot knew he couldn’t survive.

“We’ve been in this tiny fucking town for weeks, dude,” Eliot choked out, “I want to go home.”

“I know, but-”

“Do you want to?” he asked finally. Because, fuck this, fuck the talking , fuck the whole goddamn thing. He just needed to know, directly and undeniably, that Hardison wanted this, and then he could kiss him to shut him up.

Hardison blinked. “What?”

“Are you okay with this?” Eliot growled, impatient.

“Am I- yeah, Eliot, I’m okay with this.” Hardison said, in a yeah, duh, I just told you I love you tone that Eliot ignored.

“Okay, then. Just do it.”

Hardison took a slow step forward. Eliot’s whole body was braced like he was about to take a punch; he wouldn’t meet Hardison’s eyes.

Crossing this boundary was harder than Eliot had expected it to be, considering it had been the only thing he’d dreamt about for years.

Hardison reached up slowly and put his hand on the side of Eliot’s face, sliding up into his hair and over to his ear. He plucked Eliot’s com out, and then his own, and put them both into his pocket. 

“It’s just us, man. Just us and the mark.”

The man who was watching them from the bushes wasn’t near enough to hear them if they spoke at this volume. All they had to do was look the part. 

Hardison’s hand landed on Eliot’s cheek and stayed there. 

“What’s wrong?” Hardison whispered. Eliot knew that Hardison had been so sure that he wanted this as much as Hardison and Parker did. 

Eliot couldn’t say anything. He couldn’t get the right words out to explain.

“El.”

And goddamn , that broke him. No one else ever called him that. He had never met anyone in his life who had thought to shorten his name, never met anyone who had ever cared about him enough to make themselves a part of his identity like that. It was only Hardison who looked into his eyes and saw him, every broken and twisted little part, and wanted to make Eliot his own. 

“I didn’t want it to be like this,” he finally choked out. 

Hardison’s breath caught in his throat. 

“What do you mean?”

There were so many things he meant. 

“This is wrong,” Eliot said, close to tears, now. He had to at least try to explain. He didn’t know why, but the first thing that came to mind was the ridiculous characters that they were both playing, and the way Eliot’s was playing with Hardison’s and Parker’s for his own entertainment.

“The characters… Hardison, I’m using you.”

To Eliot’s surprise, Hardison smiled at that. 

“Hey, look at me,” Hardison said.

Eliot met his eyes, and saw that somehow, Hardison had understood. Without Eliot saying a word, he had understood.

Hardison cupped Eliot’s face in his hands and gently kissed the tip of his nose. Then he kissed his cheek, and the corner of his mouth. Finally, gently, he pressed his lips to Eliot’s own. He broke away and pressed their foreheads together.

“I don’t see it that way.”

A tear rolled down Eliot’s cheek. “Damnit, Hardison.”

It was like a dam broke in Eliot. He grabbed Hardison by the collar and pushed his shoulders roughly back against the brick, careful not to hit his head. Hardison’s hands found his face as Eliot’s lips crashed into Hardison’s and kissed him hungrily. It felt like the first breath of air after being pulled under by the waves and pinned to the sand. It felt like coming upon a bonfire in a snowy forest. Actually, it might have just felt like a bonfire in general. 

Hardison’s breath was warm where it was coming in small gasps against Eliot’s mouth. His hands lit fires on Eliot’s skin wherever they landed, on his cheeks, in his hair, down his arms, and around his waist. Eliot’s hands were steady on Hardison’s face, holding him still so that Eliot could kiss him the way he wanted, slipping his tongue between Hardison’s lips and growling possessively at the small noise he made in response.

Hardison brought his hands up to Eliot’s shoulders and gently nudged him a step back, breaking the kiss far too soon. Eliot pulled Hardison in from the wall and laced his fingers behind his neck. Hardison’s hands came down to Eliot’s waist, almost like they were slow dancing.

I love you, too, Eliot thought, out of breath as he looked up into his best friend’s eyes. It was a goddamn tragedy, Eliot thought, biting back tears. He had never wanted so badly to be someone that another person could love.

“I wish Parker was here to see this,” Hardison whispered lovingly. Eliot hummed in agreement; he wanted them here with him and Hardison, too. 

“They’d owe me five bucks,” Hardison continued quietly, gently wiping a tear from Eliot’s cheek. “We made a bet on whether or not you would cry.”

Eliot huffed out a watery laugh and kissed Hardison again, quick and soft. “Let's go get them.”

Hardison nodded, and pulled Eliot along to the car with an arm slung around his shoulders, because holding hands was just not enough contact right now. 

If the silence in the car was a little awkward, it was a giggly, anticipatory awkwardness that didn’t actually have any real bite. Hardison ran a hand through Eliot’s hair, and Eliot batted it away. Hardison leaned over to kiss him at a red light, and Eliot ran his hand so far up Hardison’s thigh that Hardison actually yelped and grabbed Eliot’s wrist. They were giggling like middle schoolers by the time they pulled up to the house.

Which is why they didn’t notice anything was wrong, at first. Eliot didn’t notice the small disruptions in the perimeter, and Hardison didn’t notice that he couldn’t hear the low hum of his security system. It was only when they opened the door and found the couch overturned, and the kitchen table broken in half, that they felt the floor drop out from under them. 

Parker was gone.

Chapter Text

Nate and Sophie were there in less than ten minutes, helping them look through the chaos for any clues as to who could have taken Parker. In the course of one agonizing hour that Eliot barely remembers, they figured out that they had been profiling the mark wrong entirely. He wasn’t a low-level peeping tom; he was very well connected to organized crime in the town and he was only blackmailing very specific people (to get rid of them, not for the money). While Nate was kicking himself for not having seen the pattern earlier, Hardison tracked down the storage facility that the syndicate was running through. Then Sophie was distracting the highest-ranking thugs while Eliot was working his way through the lowest-ranking ones, and then all four of them met in the middle when Hardison jumped out of Lucille and hacked the last door by hand. Eliot kicked it down. 

But of course, it wasn’t that easy. Nothing’s ever that easy. At least, that’s what the note on the cold metal chair seemed to say when it told them they were too late. The bloody chains said it, too, just a little more metaphorically.

For a second, the four of them stood motionless in the empty room, shocked, then frustrated, then sick to their stomachs. Then Hardison collapsed.

Eliot caught him before he hit the floor and lowered him down gently until he was sitting. Hardison put his head in his hands and sobbed. 

“It’s okay,” Eliot mumbled, holding Hardison’s head to his chest, “It’s okay. We’ll find her.”

“How?” Hardison asked, “This was us finding her.”

“We split up,” Nate said behind them. Eliot shook his hair out of his face and looked up at him. 

“C’mon, guys, get up,” Nate said, uncharacteristically soft, offering Eliot his hand. Eliot took it and pulled himself and Hardison to their feet. “We split up, we follow the clues, we do our jobs. There’s no one on the planet that could hide from us, right?”

“Damn straight,” Eliot growled. Hardison nodded shakily. 

“Okay, you two take the van, follow the physical tracks. Sophie and I will follow the logic, based on what we suspect of these guys. Call us if you find anything.”

Eliot and Hardison nodded. Eliot dragged Hardison back to Lucille on autopilot, concentrating on keeping his grip on his arm gentle. Eliot’s mind was fixed on homicide, but he didn’t want to take that out on Hardison.

It took them hours; tense, gruelling, tortured hours. Eliot threw up everything in his body. Hardison shook so hard that he couldn’t type, and he had to dictate his work to Eliot. It was the middle of the night when they finally found their way to another warehouse on the other side of town that was giving off the radio waves of a complex security system. It took them another half hour to get through the guards. As anxious as he was to find Parker, Eliot took his time on each and every one; in the end, every single man begged him through broken teeth to break their necks. Eliot took pleasure in refusing. 

The last door that Eliot kicked down led to a freezing cold room that was empty except for a small, shivering figure tied to a chair that had been knocked over. 

Hardison called her name. She shifted a little bit in the chair, like she was trying to get to them. 

Eliot and Hardison knelt down next to Parker where she lay sideways on the floor, and Eliot almost broke down. All of her fingers had been broken, her wrists were raw and bloody where she’d been shackled, and her lips were blue with cold.

“Baby, look at me,” Hardison pleaded, gently stroking her face, “Please, please wake up.”

Eliot checked her pulse, finding it slow, but there. 

“She’s just unconscious,” he said, “We have to get her warm.”

Hardison stripped off his jacket and tucked it around her while Eliot worked on the chains. They were ice cold to the touch, and he could see Parker’s skin had turned black with frostbite where they touched her. He prayed that it wasn’t too late. He didn’t know what their master thief would do without her hands. 

Eliot freed her, and Hardison picked her up and cradled her head against his chest. She looked so tiny, asleep in his arms, and Eliot felt a surge of protectiveness rise up inside of him. It was all-encompassing. It was the only thing he had, could, or would ever feel. No one was going to touch Parker or Hardison again, as long as Eliot lived, so help him God. There was no rage, no desire for vengeance left inside of him. It had all come through the fires of fear as pure, unadulterated love for the two people in front of him right now. It had resolved itself inside of him as the very meaning of life itself.

He held her tight while Hardison drove. He set her down gently on his bed and untied her shoes when they got home. Hardison filled the bathtub with warm water and tugged off Parker’s jeans, placing her gently in the water in her boxers and undershirt. Eliot cleaned the wounds on her wrists and set her fingers in hospital-grade splints so that when they healed, she wouldn’t lose any range of motion. Hardison washed and combed the dried blood out of her hair, and Eliot sang to her softly. 

It took about twenty minutes for Parker’s body to warm up enough to regain consciousness. She blinked her eyes open slowly.

“Hey Mama,” Hardison said softly, “We got you.”

“You’re back home,” Eliot added, “Safe and sound.”

Parker tried to reach for Hardison, who was sitting, facing her, on the edge of the tub, but she stopped when she saw her hands.

“Don’t you worry about that,” Eliot said right away, “You’re gonna be just fine.”

“Doctor Eliot here says you’ll make a full recovery,” Hardison smiled at her.

Parker swallowed. “Why- why am I in water?”

“You were hypothermic,” Eliot told her, “We had to warm you up.”

“Can I- can I get out now?”

Eliot’s heart broke in two. Parker didn’t sound anything like her usual self. She sounded small and scared and fractured. Not broken; never broken. But fractured. 

Hardison helped her up and wrapped her in a towel. When she started to pull her shirt over her head, Eliot turned to leave, but she reached out to him as if to grab his arm, stopped by her splints from grabbing anything. 

“Stay,” she said. “Please.”

So Eliot stayed and wrapped her up in his arms in a towel while Hardison helped her undress. She cuddled into Eliot’s chest, and he kissed her forehead. They got her dressed again in layers of clean clothes, sweatpants and sweatshirts, and Hardison carried her to bed. 

“Stay with me?” she asked.

“Not going anywhere,” Hardison said. 

“Either of us,” Eliot promised. 

They laid down on either side of her to keep her warm. Parker turned over to face Eliot.

“Something’s different,” she said, “You’re different with us.”

Eliot sighed and looked over her shoulder at Hardison.

“Good different?” he asked both of them.

“Yes,” Parker said while Hardison nodded. “Best different.”

Eliot took a deep breath. “I love you,” he admitted, a tear rolling down his cheek, “I always have, but I’m not- I’m not someone who can be loved, guys.”

“Bullshit,” Hardison said. 

“Just- just listen to me, okay? I’m not who you think I am. You guys don’t know the things I’ve done. You think you love me and I appreciate it, I do, but I’m just not that guy. I can’t- I’ve let other people love the idea of me before, and I’ve lived like it was true but I can’t- I can’t let that happen to you two. I can’t let me happen.”

“We do know you,” Hardison said.

“You don’t.”

“Then we can get to know you.”

Eliot huffed a humorless laugh. “You would regret that.”

“Let us decide,” Parker said.

Eliot squeezed the top of her arm and nuzzled his nose to hers, like he’d wanted to do for years. “I can’t do that, sweetheart. I can’t let you get hurt like that.”

“I’m already hurt,” Parker said flatly. Eliot flinched, and Hardison held her closer. “Let me decide why.”

Eliot just shook his head and pressed his forehead to hers. 

“Can we talk about this in the morning?” he said gently. 

Parker scrunched up her nose. “I don’t want to go to sleep like this.”

“Kiss him,” Hardison said. Parker twisted to look at him. “Trust me, it helps.”

Parker smirked and turned back to Eliot, raising her eyebrows in question. Eliot nodded. Parker pressed her lips to his.

Eliot kissed her back softly, holding her head in his hands, gently stroking her cheek. He didn’t know how long they kissed for, but he knew that it was far too short. When she pulled away, she tucked her head under his chin and he felt her go limp against him. Hardison’s arm was around her waist and against Eliot’s stomach, and his head was buried in the nape of her neck. 

The three of them slept more peacefully than they had any right to, given the day they’d had.

Chapter Text

Eliot woke up to Hardison’s snoring, with Parker’s legs tangled in his own. He relaxed into it for a minute, feeling safe, and complete. 

Remember the first time you ever had a slumber party with your real friends? Not the kids who happened to sit next to you in class, or your whole soccer team at once, but the couple people you had chanced upon whom you really, genuinely loved, as much as your little 12-year-old self was capable of? Yeah. That’s how Eliot felt. Underneath the longing and the self-flagellation, burrowed in the sand on the bottom of the oceans of unworthiness that flowed through his veins, Eliot was just a little boy who loved waking up next to his best friends.

But that was the issue, right there. Eliot had never gotten to be a little boy. His childhood was stolen from him with Church dresses and bikinis; he’d only ever known what it was like to wake up on the floor next to the girls’ soccer team. Eliot’s entire identity, gifted to him at birth, had been a lie, and he had gotten so used to the lying that he just never stopped- not in the Army, not in the Special Forces, and certainly not with Moreau. 

The person that Eliot was pretending to be now, with the team, was by far his favorite lie yet. He liked the things he was doing, and he liked the way he was treating people. He liked being openly trans and being respected anyway. But Eliot had been around long enough to know that he was less of a person and more of a shapeshifter: good in good environments, bad in bad environments, practical when needed, always unbreakable. More than that, though, he knew Parker and Hardison deserved better. He knew that their big, dumb, beautiful hearts thought he could actually be this character he was playing, but Eliot knew better, and he wouldn’t lie to them about it. 

The “Eliot Spencer” that the team knew was useful to them- good for them, even. But that didn’t mean that the things that “Eliot” could take were okay for the real Eliot to keep. It was the same struggle he had had all along with this preacher he was playing: Parker and Hardison had agreed to certain things with Eliot’s preacher character for this con. In the same way, they wanted certain things with the character Eliot was playing permanently for this team. But neither of those factors constituted consent in the face of the things Parker and Hardison were unaware of in the real him.

Parker stirred gently out of sleep, and Eliot pulled them closer. That, he could do. Both his character and the real him were protectors, and he would be as long as there was breath in his lungs. 

“Have you decided to let us love you yet?” Parker asked sleepily. 

He kissed their forehead. “Who wants pancakes?”

**

While Eliot made pancakes, Hardison threw together some stuff lying around from one of Parker’s rigs and made them a device they could control, to put over their finger splints so they could at least do some stuff for themself. 

“Eating, drinking, pooping- ya know, basics.”

“Can I pick locks?”

“Girl, what do I look like? Obviously you can pick locks with these bad boys.”

Parker smiled and kissed Hardison on the cheek.

Eliot sat the plate of pancakes down on the table and handed the two of them plates.

“Speaking of bad boys…” Hardison started. Eliot rolled his eyes on principle.

“Talk,” Parker ordered, waving a fork with half a pancake on it menacingly, “You love us. We love you. What’s your problem?”

Eliot sighed. “Shouldn’t you spend some time recovering before we do this?”

“You’re dodging the question.”

Eliot looked over at Hardison, expecting a quirked eyebrow or a joke or something. But something in him had suddenly changed; Hardison’s previous tone was gone. Instead, he slowly leaned over the table a bit, towards Eliot, looking more serious than Eliot had ever seen him.

“You told me that I don’t know you,” he said, voice quiet and razor-sharp. He said it like Eliot had insulted him. He said it like Eliot had said something horrific, and it was only then that Eliot started to think about what all of this must be like from Parker and Hardison’s perspectives. “I’ve seen you naked. I’ve seen you cry. I’ve seen you sing country music drunk off your ass at 2am, and, by the way, you were good. I have seen you torn apart and stitched back together again, Eliot Michael Spencer, so if I don’t know you, I’d like to know who exactly I’ve been falling in love with these past few years.”

Eliot swallowed. It hadn’t occurred to him just how often he had lost control in front of Hardison until it had been laid out like that.

“You told me my darkness can be good, because it’s like yours.” Parker said. It sounded simple to an untrained ear, but it hit Eliot just as hard as Hardison had. 

Eliot looked down at the table, unable to look either of them in the eye. 

“I’m not- I’m not your white knight.”

Hardison hit the table with his fist and Eliot jumped. “Did anything we just said sound like we think you’re King fucking Arthur, man? This is- no, you know what, Eliot?”

Eliot had never heard Hardison so mad. He had heard him frustrated, annoyed, and faux-offended, but he had never seen him so angry .

“You think that you’re the only person on this team who’s hurt people? You think that we don’t know what you’ve done?”

“You don’t-”

“Shut up, man, and let me finish my fucking sentence. If you think that when Nate put this team together I didn’t do my due fucking dilligence on each of you goddamn sociopaths than maybe you don’t know me . Regiment 549 in Kabul, Afghanistan? I know what you guys did. Team Alpha-Delta-283 in the CIA, I know. Turkmenistan. Mongolia. Venezuela. Eliot, I know what you did for Moreau. The thing you told Parker not to ask you about? I’ve known since the day I met you. And more importantly, I’ve seen you make amends for it with my own damn eyes, you fucking jackass. I don’t know who the fuck you think I am, but if you could see past your own self-pity long enough to realize that I am Alec fucking Hardison and I am very, very good at my own goddamn job, then maybe you would be able to see that I do know you, and I am a grown ass man who can decide that I love you all on my fucking own.”

Hardison stood up. “You two work out your shit. You know where to find me when you’re done being a coward, El.”

And he slammed the door behind him on his way out.

Silence settled in the room like dust after a bomb goes off. Eliot realized he hadn’t breathed in a while, and tried to take a breath. It only half worked.

He didn’t- he couldn’t wrap his head around what he had just heard. He couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that Hardison had known all about him, all along. He was starting to feel like he might have made a mistake.

Parker stood up. Eliot looked up at them, wondering if they knew him in the same way. Wondering if all of this could even be possible. Half-wondering if he was maybe still asleep.

“I’m not going to yell at you,” they said. “I love you. I don’t know all the things that Alec apparently knows, but I also don’t think they would shake me. And I’m willing to take that risk if you are.”

Eliot thought about that for a second. In a way, all relationships were risks, he reasoned. Even normal, boring people don’t know every single thing about their partners. But Eliot couldn’t shake the feeling that something about this was still different.

“Parker, the reason I don’t want you to do that is- it’s because I do want it. I want you two so fucking badly, you have no idea, and if- if I ignore this stuff, and I let something happen, and then you find out there’s stuff I haven’t told you that would have changed your mind, that’s- that’s taking advantage of you. And I would never, ever let that happen to you, with anyone, let alone with me.”

Parker frowned, like they were trying to crack a particularly complicated safe. Eventually, they sighed and sat down.

“Eliot, I think that sometimes people like us get so used to feeling wrong, that we start to be afraid to feel right,” they started, slowly, like they were picking each word out of a bag and very carefully arranging them on a shelf. “Trans people are trained to look at ourselves as deceivers. Even allies like to say we were born in the wrong bodies. Which makes sense for you, I guess, and I don’t want to invalidate that, but there’s no version of my body that could be right or wrong. It just… is. I just live here. And all the characters that I play for cons are always women, and that makes sense, but after a while it starts to feel like just looking like me is a deception in itself.” 

Parker took a deep breath.

“I think that from the day you were born, you felt like a liar. And then you did some bad stuff, and you felt even worse. And I think that even if you had never done all that bad stuff, you would still feel bad, and you would still be trying to push us away. And you’re allowed to feel that way, but you can’t make excuses for it by pretending like you know how Alec and I think better than we do. We know you, and we’re your friends, and we see you and we love you. And I’m really tired right now, and I’m in a lot of pain, and I just want to go get stoned out of my mind on painkillers and watch Doctor Who with Alec. I want you to be there, too, but first I want you to think about what both of us just said to you, because I don’t want you to be there half-assed, or feeling all tragic and star-crossed.”

Parker walked over to the door to follow Hardison. “This isn’t an order- I’m just saying how I feel. But the next time I see you, I really, really want you to have an answer for us, because I’m really sick of not knowing if I get to kiss you again or not.”

And with that, they left. 

Chapter Text

So, Eliot had had a rough 24 hours, to say the least. Maybe 48. What day was it again? He didn’t know. He also didn’t know the last time he had eaten or showered. The only thing he did know for certain was that he was an idiot.

There was still a pile of pancakes in front of him, so he idly ate some of those while he thought. He was still trying to process that Hardison had known about him all along. He was trying to understand how the man would have ever even turned his back on Eliot, knowing who he was, let alone been his best friend. Sure, Hardison had skirted around Eliot a little bit at first, but Eliot had also been in the habit of encouraging people not to get too close. But, Eliot thought back, it had only been a matter of months after the team first formed that Hardison had been sleeping on Eliot’s couch, teasing him, sparring with him... Hardison had known about Turkmenistan when he had let Eliot pin him to the floor and twist his arm behind his back in an attempt to teach him Krav Maga? It didn’t seem possible. And yet-

It was as clear as day that Hardison was neither afraid of nor repulsed by Eliot, and barely ever had been. Eliot felt a fire kindle in his belly, warm and bright, flames licking at his ribcage. 

Parker, too. Parker loved him, and thought he was good. Parker saw not into his past, but into his soul, and painted it white. Parker saw Eliot’s darkness for what it was, and matched it to their own, so that the two of them stood hand in hand. Parker intimately knew the very worst things this world had to offer, and was willing to love Eliot even if they thought they might see those things inside of him one day. Parker had decided that Eliot’s choices meant more than his circumstances.

Yeah, Eliot had been a complete and total idiot, he thought, as the flames inside of him grew into a roaring bonfire of hope. 

***

Hardison opened the door when Eliot knocked. He looked at Eliot sternly.

“Yes?”

“C’mon, man, just open the door. I’ve got something to say.”

Hardison stepped back and gestured for Eliot to enter his apartment. Parker was sitting on the couch, looking unsurprised, but still happy, to see him.

“I’m sorry,” Eliot started, sitting down on the arm of the couch, “I’ve been-”

“No, no, just tell us,” Parker interrupted, “Before you do the whole speech- are you in or out?”

“I’m in,” he told her, smiling for the first time in a while, “If you’ll have me.”

Before Eliot could process what was happening, Parker had landed in his lap and was kissing him passionately. Eliot wrapped his arms around her, feeling light-headed with joy and relief. She broke away for a second, and Hardison walked up behind Eliot, where he was sitting with his knees up on the couch, Parker straddling his lap, and his back to Hardison, and carded a hand through Eliot’s hair and pulled his head back to kiss him roughly. 

“Don’t you ever doubt how much we love you again,” Hardison said seriously. 

“I won’t,” Eliot said, “I promise.”

Eliot eventually got around to apologizing for real and explaining himself. It just took a few nights, because the three of them kept getting… distracted. But three weeks later, when Eliot was frying latkes for Hardison’s Hanukkah party, and Parker was sitting on the kitchen counter, hand-making dreidels while Hardison cleaned the menorah, they were officially in a real, bonafide relationship. And Eliot hadn’t known he could be this happy.