Chapter Text
Life in general is kind of quiet at the moment.
Parker doesn’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. There can’t be excitement all the time, especially not the type of exciting things they get up to. As good as she is at cracking safes under pressure and sneaking through buildings, as good as Hardison is at breaking through security systems and gathering intel, and as good as Eliot is at busting heads and getting them all in and out of jobs in one piece, it’s still stressful. And that’s all they’ve been doing for the past few weeks. At least the job was local and they were able to come home every night to their own beds (or often just the one), but it took a lot out of them. They need a little time off before the next one, and she’s glad to let things be quiet for a bit.
At least it’s not quiet, quiet. Living with Hardison and Eliot never can be. At the current moment, she’s sitting on one of the couches in their living room, listening to Hardison steadily chatting away into the microphone on his videogame headset. She has no idea what he’s playing, only that it’s some online multiplayer game that he’s been really into for a while now. It’s a good thing they have this time off, actually, because for the past couple weeks he’s only been able to talk about playing it instead of actually playing it, and he did want to talk about it. A lot. Which is fine; she listened even though whatever battle system he described in depth for half an hour sounded really complicated. He, at least, thinks it’s fun. She doesn’t have to get it, and really wouldn’t mind watching him play sometime.
Not right now, though, because she has to concentrate on the movement of her fingers as they weave in and out through Eliot’s hair as she braids it. His back is pressed against the loveseat that she’s perched on the back of, sitting in silence as she starts the methodical process of weaving the strands of hair over and under and through for the fifth time. Mostly in silence, at least. Every once in a while, he lets out a little grumbly noise when she pulls at a strand. Not too hard, of course, but just hard enough to make him make that noise, the one that sounds like a purr instead of a growl. Eliot likes having his hair messed with, this they all know, and she likes messing with it just as much. It’s not a thing he asks for (generally, at least; there are definitely contexts in which he will), but she’s gotten good at knowing when he needs it. So, after watching him from across the room run his hand through it for the seventh time in the span of fifteen minutes while he poured over his latest brewpub menus, she went to the bathroom, grabbed a bunch of hair ties and a hairbrush, and wordlessly sat on the back of the couch. He looked down at the little collection she’d placed beside him, and then slid on over.
Quiet can be good. Quiet gives her this: time to just enjoy being around Hardison and Eliot. No downside to that at all. It feels like they haven’t had this kind of time in a while. They should probably capitalize on it while they can, do stuff they don’t normally get to do. Stuff that people who are together would do. Stuff like…
“We should date.”
She says it sort of quietly, so the fact that there’s no response from Eliot doesn’t really surprise her. She gives two short tugs to the braid she just tied off, and with a small start, he tips his head back to look at her.
“Hmm?”
“We should date,” she repeats.
“Uh.” Looking somewhat confused, he raises an eyebrow, which looks kind of funny upside down. “Are we not?”
“Well, yeah, I just meant we should, you know, go out on actual dates or something.”
“Oh,” he replies with a small yawn, which chases away the lost look he was wearing.
She cocks her head to the side. “Did you fall asleep?”
“For a minute there,” he confesses with a sheepish smile, “or five. Don’t even,” he continues when she giggles. “It’s your fault.”
It’s hard not to “even”; sleepy Eliot’s cute. “I know,” she says as she lets go of his hair to wiggle her fingers in the air, “I’ve got magic thief hands.”
“Can’t argue that,” he says, and his mouth twitches into a tiny half-smile as his gaze slides away before coming back to look her in the eye again. “So,” he continues as if he’s awkwardly changing the subject, “you wanna go out?”
She nods. “Like real people do.”
“We’re real people, Parker.”
The distinction isn’t all that important and not the point at all. “Like people who aren’t hitters and hackers and thieves,” she replies with a huff. “People who like each other and make time to go places and show it. It sounds fun, right?”
Eliot is silent as he stares up at her, searching her face. She thinks, after a moment, that he isn’t into the idea at all, but he gives her that little twitch of a smile again and then moves to sit up straight. He grabs one of the hair ties beside him, stretches it between his two pointer fingers, and aims it in Hardison’s direction before sending it flying.
“Guy thinks he can come up in here and steal my shit and he won’t get blasted by a face-full of all my best spells, he’s got another thing—hey, what was…”. Hardison looks down at where the accessory hit his shoulder and then over at the two of them. Eliot gives him a nod and he removes his headset from one ear. “Rude,” he says, facing the TV again as he hits a couple of buttons
Eliot doesn’t acknowledge the comment. “Parker wants to date,” he says instead.
“Oh.” He stops mashing buttons and turns away from the screen. “Parker wants to date who?” he asks in a way that sounds like he might be going for nonchalant despite the mild panic in his voice.
“Us, dummy.”
Parker gives him a little wave and smiles as Hardison stops looking like he’s going through the five stages of grief as he processes the words. His face lights up into a huge grin, the one that always makes her feel safe and her heart flutter, and he puts his headset back on.
“Ay, so I’mma sit this one out real quick,” he says to whoever is on the other end. “Dreams are coming true over here.”
And with that, the familiar blue of the home screen appears with a quick press of a couple of buttons as Hardison tosses the headset aside.
“Y’all wanna date me?” he asks teasingly.
Parker can practically hear Eliot’s eyeroll as he sticks a thumb in her direction and stands up. “She wants to date you,” he says, shuffling away.
“Came from your mouth, though. Y’all wanna date me,” he repeats, grinning again. “It’s alright to admit, E. I’m cute as hell and don’t blame you at all.”
Parker raises her hand. “I want to date you.”
“Love the sound of that, baby,” Hardison replies as he stands up from the couch and comes toward theirs. “I’ll date you so good.”
“We already are, y’all realize,” Eliot grumbles.
“Sorry some of us like a little romance sometimes,” Hardison says with a shrug.
“Hey,” he growls as he rounds on him. “I like romance.” He moves to stare challengingly up at him. “I’ll romance the pants off of you.”
“If that’s how the night ends, baby, that’s how it ends,” Hardison replies with a wink.
Eliot either splutters or scoffs, it’s kind of hard to tell, but Parker decides to interrupt anyway, not so much to save him but more so to keep this from escalating into a fight of who can do romance better. She’d be on the losing side of that battle anyway, probably. “What are we gonna do?” she asks.
“Oh,” Hardison says, “no plan in mind?”
“No,” she says, feeling a little inadequate about it suddenly. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”
“Well, that ain’t a problem,” Eliot tells her. “We can think on it.”
“Better yet,” Hardison says, “we can each think of something to do, and whoever comes up with an idea first, that’s what we’ll do.”
“I think he already has one in mind,” Eliot stage whispers at her. “Nerd.” She giggles.
“Not my fault I’m always thinking of how bad I want to take y’all out,” Hardison says as he goes to sit back down, grabbing his controller. “But, yeah, I do.”
“Well, what is it?” Eliot asks with some suspicion.
“Not telling you,” he replies, singsong, as the screen goes to the loading page of the game. “But you’ll see, it’ll be fun. Trust me.”