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"Did you know," Hardison said, "that the Imperial All-Terrain Scout Transport has a top speed of 55 miles per hour over good terrain?"
Parker stopped mid-backbend to puzzle this over. Hardison was holding something gray and vaguely chicken-like. From this angle, it was hard to say what it was, but he was poking it with a thin stick. "The what?"
"The AT-ST Walker!" Hardison gestured with both hands, making the chicken-thing rattle and flop about. "This thing that I am currently painting!"
"Oh." Parker did another few backbends and a cartwheel while she considered that. "That thing can really go 55 miles an hour?" She squinted, but just couldn't see it. The chicken-thing's legs didn't look long enough.
From the kitchen, Eliot made a snorting sound. "It's just a model, Parker."
"If Hardison built it, maybe it could," she retorted.
Hardison pointed his paintbrush at her. "Thank you, baby."
Eliot made his exasperated face that really meant he was amused, and turned back to his chopping. He had a pot of something red simmering on the stove, and something round and white in a towel-covered bowl, and something green on the chopping board. Parker redirected her tumbling line in his direction. She rounded off very neatly directly behind Eliot's back and wrapped her arms around his chest, hooked her chin over his shoulder. He popped a leaf into her mouth without missing a beat. Mmm, basil.
She gave Eliot a squeeze and then turned to look in Hardison's direction. "A model of what?"
Hardison sputtered and stared. He was so easy to mess with sometimes. "Of wha— Of what? Girl, I know you've seen Star Wars. I may never be able to forgive you for that CGI Yoda comment."
Beside her, Eliot gave a quiet huff that might have been laughter. Parker simply stared.
It took Hardison four seconds to crack. He made an exasperated noise, set the chicken-thing carefully down, and pulled out his phone. "Come on, watch this."
She went over and perched on the stool next to him, scooted close enough that it was totally natural for Hardison to put an arm around her shoulders. His phone was playing a video of some people running around a forest with laser blasters and funny armor.
"Oh! Those little furry guys are cute!"
The look Hardison gave her was patently aggrieved. From the kitchen, Eliot didn't even try to stifle his laugh.
On the screen, a bunch of the little furry guys on ropes knocked over some troopers and then beat them with rocks. "And deadly! I like them," Parker decided.
Hardison relaxed some. Apparently that was an acceptable opinion. And — oh, there were those chicken-things. They walked with a strange, bouncing gait and had blasters on their chins. Parker looked from the screen to Hardison's model and back again.
"That's pretty neat," she told him. "Does yours walk? And blast? You should give yours chin blasters."
Hardison picked up his model and turned it thoughtfully this way and that. "Well, maybe if I modified the cockpit and sourced some miniaturized lasers..."
"Hardison." That was Eliot, growling over his pot of red stuff.
"Uh." Hardison cleared his throat. "Sorry, Parker, putting blasters in the model would be a bad idea." He didn't look like he meant it, though.
"I like the way they move." Parker jumped off her stool and moved into the open space behind the couch. If she bent over almost double, hunched her shoulders and put her hands under her chin for blasters... She tried a few steps. "Rrrr-gsh. Rrrr-gsh. Pew pew! Pew pew!"
Eliot was staring, frozen with a wooden spoon halfway to his mouth. Parker shot him with her blasters. "Pew pew!"
Hardison watched her stomp around the living room, his mouth hanging open and his eyes even wider. He looked like all his birthdays had come at once. Parker filed this away for later; it could come in handy some day. She stomped up to him and rotated her cockpit to examine the little walker model that lay forgotten in Hardison's hand. "Vrrrrt! Pew pew! Target destroyed!"
Hardison set the model carefully on the counter. "Baby, don't ever change," he said fervently, and spread his arms wide.
Parker stomped closer, ducked under his defenses, and poked him with her blasters right in his ticklish spot. "Come on! You too!"
Eliot pulled a big blob of something white from the bowl with the towel, and began to shape it into a disc. "Yeah, Hardison, you too!" He sounded kind of choked.
Hardison lowered his arms. "Uh, yeah. Yeah, okay. You just —" He slid off his stool and stood uncertainly next to Parker. "How do I..."
Parker rolled her eyes and unmounted one chin blaster to prod at him until he bent over, then again until he had blasters of his own. "There!" she said. "Now you just pick you knees up like this, and reach with your toes, and —" Hardison took an experimental step or two. "Higher! Knees higher! Okay, now make the sounds!"
Hardison did.
"Better." Satisfied with his progress, Parker remounted her chin blaster joined him for a patrol around the room. The rafters echoed with the sound of twin sets of stomping feet. "Rrrr-gsh. Rrrr-gsh. Rrrr-gsh. Rrrr-gsh."
Eliot watched them with a grin on his face, tossing and catching a circle of dough that spun as it flew. Parker turned to target it, but Eliot caught the dough before she could get weapons lock. "Too late," he said, and smirked at her. "Dinner's in fifteen."
Parker and Hardison spent those fifteen minutes reenacting the Battle of Endor, with Parker playing the dual roles of the Ewoks and an Imperial Walker. Hardison got blown up, repeatedly, and somehow the couch fell over. Parker was just at the part where Chewbacca hijacked a Walker (complete with Wookiee noises) when —
"Hey!" Eliot, standing over a set and laden table. He made an explosion noise and mimed an expanding fireball with his hands. "Death Star blew up, Rebels win, time to eat!"
Hardison made a small choking noise. Parker gave up wrestling for his belly-mounted gyro system and jumped off and over to her seat. Hardison straightened and followed more slowly, rubbing at his neck.
There was a pizza on the table, steaming gently. There were also small green salads beside each plate, carefully dressed. A basket of cheesy breadsticks sat in the center of the table, and there was a bottle of orange soda at Hardison's place, even though Eliot usually tried to ban the stuff from meals he'd cooked.
Hardison whistled. "This looks really good, Eliot."
"Of course it does." Eliot scowled. "Now sit down and eat!"
Parker poked at her salad until Eliot served out slices of pizza. Eliot might look grumpy, but she remembered what he'd taught her, so she closed her eyes for that first bite and let herself just feel. Eliot made this pizza for them, made the sauce and the dough. Even the basil was home-grown, in a series of carefully-tended pots on the windowsill. She felt, she felt —
She opened her eyes to find Eliot watching her. He wasn't smiling, but he didn't look mad, either. She held his gaze for a long moment, pizza suspended halfway to her plate.
Hardison moaned in pleasure, and the moment broke. Parker grinned, and Eliot gave her a small nod. Parker took another mouthful, a huge one. This was really good pizza.
There was dessert, too: a trifle sort of thing, made of seven different kinds of chocolate. They were in layers, so Parker didn't have to worry about finding crunchy mixed in with soft, and they were easy to separate, if she wanted. There was some kind of pink goo for garnish that tasted like raspberries. Now it was Parker's turn to moan aloud, and Eliot did smile at the sound. She had two big servings, but only because she was too full for more.
Hardison leaned back in his chair and groaned. "That was great. Thanks, man."
"It was nothing," Eliot muttered. He stood and started to gather leftovers to put away. "Hardison, you wanna put a movie on?"
Hardison perked up. "You're letting me pick? Aww, yeah!"
Eliot cast his eyes to the ceiling in exasperation, and Hardison jumped to pull up a movie before he changed his mind.
Parker collected all the plates, and she and Eliot worked together to rinse them and fill the dishwasher. By the time they were done, the distinctive strains of the Star Wars theme were playing in full surround sound. Hardison was stretched out full-length on the couch, and he grinned up at them as they came into view.
"Empire Strikes Back, baby," he told them. "Battle of Hoth. Tauntauns and AT-ATs, that's right."
Eliot merely grunted, and poked at Hardison's shoulder until he moved enough that Eliot could sit down. Hardison immediately lay back again, his back pressed into Eliot's side. Eliot heaved a sigh, but it wasn't long before his arm came down to rest across Hardison's chest, fingers just brushing the edge of his shirt collar.
Parker waited until they were settled before she picked her own spot. She took a small running start and bellyflopped onto Hardison with glee. He caught her, of course. That was why she'd jumped.
"Oof! Parker, careful. Not the stomach!"
She ignored him and wriggled until she was comfortable, her head on Hardison's chest and one hand tucked under Eliot's knee. She could hear Hardison's heartbeat, steady and strong, right under her ear. Eliot stroked a hand over her hair, just once, and Hardison rested one of his hands next to her side, not quite touching. This was nice.
On the screen, some guy in a snowsuit was riding a strange horned kangaroo. It didn't really look all that fun.
"So, Eliot," Hardison said, his voice too carefully casual. "What's the occasion?"
Eliot stiffened, Parker could feel it. "What? Nothing."
"Naw, man." Hardison rolled his head back until it was lying on Eliot's shoulder and he could look up at Eliot's face. "You made us dinner, and now there's a movie. What's up?"
Eliot seemed very absorbed by the action on the screen, but Hardison didn't look away. Finally, he let out a long breath. "It's our anniversary."
Parker frowned. "What? No it's not, that's in —" Hardison poked her hard in the side. "Ow!"
Eliot was still tense, but now there was a hint of a smile around his eyes. "No, Parker? So when is our anniversary?"
"It's in February. Obviously." She pushed herself up a little, so she could see both of their faces.
Hardison was the one to frown at that. "No, it's in July."
Eliot's smile made it all the way to his mouth. "Obviously."
Parker thought about it. "Is there any reason we can't have three anniversaries?"
Hardison paused. "No, baby, there is not."
"Okay, then. This is our anniversary for Eliot, and he picked dinner and a movie. For my turn to pick, we're going hang-gliding." She relaxed back against Hardison's chest just in time to feel him groan.
"Of course we are."
Eliot flicked Hardison gently on the shoulder. "And when it's your turn, you can pick something nerdy. Okay?"
"Okay." Hardison smiled up at Eliot, and then rolled his head back toward the TV. On the screen, a man was using a laser sword to cut open a dead horned kangaroo and crawl inside.
"You know," Eliot said reflectively, "I had to do something like that once."
Hardison struggled to sit up. "What? No. You did not —" Eliot raised an eyebrow, and Hardison grudgingly subsided.
Parker considered. "Was it gross? It looks gross."
Eliot leaned over and gave her a flat stare. She gazed up at him, eyes wide, and his expression slipped and turned into something softer. "Yeah, Parker. It was gross."
She nodded, and untucked her hand from under Eliot's knee, reached for his hand and wove their fingers together. He looked surprised, a little, the way he did every time.
Hardison reached up too, found their linked hands and patted them. "Happy anniversary."
Eliot relaxed all at once, slumping back against the couch. "Happy anniversary," he echoed, and Parker joined in just a beat too late. That was okay. There would be plenty more anniversaries to practice on.
Gentle snores were rising even before the last AT-AT crossed the screen, and that was okay too. Parker closed her eyes and curled into Hardison's chest, let the familiar sounds — his heartbeat, Eliot's snoring, and the Imperial Walkers' chin blasters — ease her into sleep.