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The car had gone quiet. The con had been a gruelling one for everyone involved, but they were on their way home at last. The hire car smelled of chemicals and artificial pine and the radio crackled along happily on low volume. Nate was tapping his fingers idly on the steering wheel and Sophie’s head was tipped gently towards the window, sunglasses hiding her closed eyes from the world outside.
In the back, Eliot was sitting as still as one could when trying to keep a Hacker and a Thief in a comfortable position as they slept peacefully on his shoulders. He was deeply regretting letting the other two bully him into taking the middle seat, he spent a lot of time squished between them thinking of how to get his own back later.
He steadfastly ignored how cosy the warmth radiating off of the two made him feel, as well as the part of his brain that was preening over the comfortable way the two hypervigilant criminals had fallen asleep on him without a second thought as soon as the car started moving.
Eliot breathed deep, slipping into a partial meditative trance and he focused on relaxing his shoulders whilst flexing his hands to prevent them going to sleep. Glancing up, Eliot made eye contact with Nate in the rear view mirror, he said nothing but the mastermind's face did a bad job of concealing his amused expression.
Eliot glowered. Nate smiled properly now and wiggled his pinky in the air.
Eliot growled, low and throaty. Clearly the combination of noise and tensing muscles had partially roused Hardison. “Not grr time, shush time. Hardison sleepy time. Sleeeep means no growling, shhh shhhhh shhhhhhh,” Hardison slurred out the words, patting pathetically at Eliot’s chest as he did so.
“Man stop,” Eliot made a grab for his hand but as soon as he did, Hardison switched the grip and held their clasped hands down in Eliot’s lap, curling more towards the Hitter.
Before Eliot could make sense of this development, or remove his hand, Parker murmured something unintelligible about cereal and teddy bears and shuffled around. Before, her head had been resting on his shoulder and her body was leaning on the front of his arm. Now, she had snuffled and wriggled her way round so that his arm was firmly behind her and her face was pressed between his shoulder and neck, breath tickling his throat.
Eliot refused to admit defeat and looked back in the rear view mirror, choosing instead to close his eyes and reflect on every life choice that had led him to being pinned between a Hacker and a Thief. He also wanted to figure out when this had become a comfortable situation rather than one borne of necessity or coercion. When an arm wrapped around a woman, hand tucked by her waist felt as natural as the hand gripped gently in her boyfriend’s.
He heard Sophie laugh gently and when he blinked one eye open, she was exchanging a look with Nate across the dash. Not liking the implication behind the expressions, Eliot closed his eyes once more and soon found himself drifting off into a comfortable slumber of his own. If, as he rested, he was to rest his head upon the thief’s, or pull the hacker’s arm across his chest with their linked hands like a safety blanket, well, only a few people would ever have to know. And Sophie and Nate were well versed in keeping their secrets.