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Sophie had found the field of psychology amusing as she watched it emerge. After so long as a grifter, the thing that still made it a challenge was the way that, as often as a person was predictable, there were moments where she was surprised. People who were given diagnostic tools loved to diagnose, though, so any odd behaviour could just as easily become a new symptom instead of a well-considered look into a person's history, thought processes, and motivations. The field was beginning to diversify, with more and more people taking an individualized approach to the human mind, but not all.
Really, wasn't trying to understand the human psyche the long way round of becoming a grifter? Starting with theory was the most boring way to do it, too. All the most interesting parts of humanity could only be experienced in practice.
She quickly flipped past the notes on Hurley and Nate, and Parker's—oh. Kleptomania had a drug treatment now. That would be...Sophie would need to keep an eye on that if she could.
She looked up at the people she was going to help, not yet entering the day room. For the job, Nate had agreed to pretend his problem was real. Perhaps...perhaps she could point out to him that his problem was real. Not to mention the con, of course.
This would be interesting.
Hardison was not enjoying his week. Setting aside the slushy incident, going to strip joints with someone he was interested in but who was not interested in him, firing a gun at a car, not getting to spend time with a completely different someone that he actual had some sparks with because they were on the con in a rehab centre—
That all paled to the fact that he was sitting in a car with a bomb in it.
"Listen to me," Eliot was saying, keeping his voice low and soothing as he blocked the way out. Trying to keep him from panicking about sitting on a bomb.
Maybe he could survive a bomb. Hardison could not.
And then the bomb was pressure sensitive and it was on a two minute timer and—
"Tell Nana I love her," he said. "And tell Breanna—"
"We're not going down like this!" Eliot snapped at him. "Now shut up and focus!"
"You—you want me to focus? You start with 'the bomb has two minutes' and you want me to—"
"There's wires running into the dashboard," Eliot reported.
Oh. Oh, computer bomb. Pressure sensor in the seat, built in. Restart the car and it would take time to read him. Probably.
Hopefully.
"W-we gotta reboot the system," he said.
"Okay," Eliot said. Then he paused. "You can reboot a car?"
Hardison bottled up a hysterical laugh for later. "I'm gonna die. Just—look." Eliot jerked back as he popped the hood, saying something under his breath that Hardison was sure would blister his ears if he could understand it. "Look under the hood and tell me if you can see how it's attached to the electrical system."
Eliot raised the hood gingerly. "Got it," he said. "Il y a beaucoup de merde ici."
And now they were language switching. Great sign. He pulled out his multi-tool, preparing to hot wire the car—at least in principle. The intention was to get the computer to restart, same way the radio would skip when you turned the key. "We got this," he told himself. "Just breathe."
"Hardison?" Eliot asked. Was...was his voice shaking? No, couldn't be.
Hardison exhaled. His own voice was about to start shaking at this rate. "What you got to do, man, you got to yank out the wires. At the same time, I’ll reboot the system and trick the bomb into not going off."
Eliot looked at him over the hood. "What's our margin for error here?"
Good question. One Hardison wished he did not know the answer to. "About half a second. You ready?"
"No."
Hardison glared at him. Eliot wasn't the one that was going to get turned into hamburger if this went wrong. "Are you ready?"
Eliot reached under the hood, shifting to the side so that the metal didn't block the view between them. "Yeah."
No time to waste. Hardison made sure his hands were steady, and— "Go!"
He touched the wires together and dove away.
After a moment, he looked up. There was no white light, no explosion. Just a quiet parking lot. "Ha," he said, disbelieving and triumphant. His legs felt like wet noodles. "Ha ha! Oh...I'm alive. Eliot. Eliot, I'm alive," he said, turning to the hitter with elation.
Eliot didn't seem to hear him. He had the bomb in his hands, studying it.
Hardison was definitely not concerned about that, nope, not at all. "You know what?" he said. "You deal with that thing. I'm gonna go and freshen up. Maybe cry a little. You know, typical celebratory 'I almost died' mortal things."
Eliot's head came up. "Wait," he said, catching his arm before he could go, nodding at the approaching car.
Hardison let his head roll back, frustrated. "Come on, man." He glanced behind himself at the sound of chirping tires. "And we got another goon squad incoming," he said.
He was not fully recovered from the whole bomb thing, he was pretty sure. Next thing he knew was that there were guns pointing at them both and Eliot had ended up directly in front of him. Then Hardison had put on a Jamaican accent and in something that felt idiotic the moment he did it, stepped in front of the guy that couldn't die. Towards the guns. He was trying to convince them to just cooperate for five seconds when he heard a sequence of beeps behind him and Eliot had pushed him back hard towards Hurley's car—hard enough to send him halfway there.
"You fellas want your money?" he asked, his voice rough. "Or do you want to walk away from this? You get one chance."
Hardison felt a shiver run up his spine.
"That's Chilean," the Korean said, eyes flicking between the bomb and Eliot.
"Never mess with Chileans," the Mexican said, almost reverent.
Three gangs, all after one guy. That was almost impressive. Almost.
"I got this on a one second delay," Eliot said, that growl in his voice. Hardison stepped closer to Hurley's SUV hurriedly. "That gives me just enough time to get underneath that truck. Now maybe I make it, maybe I don't. But one thing's for certain: you all die." He scanned their faces like the T-1000, cold as ice. "You really want today to be your last?"
They did not.
Eliot watched them go before dropping his arm, disarming the bomb. Hardison took a shaky breath. That was...damn. "Think there's room for two under there?" he joked, pointing at the truck.
Eliot looked at it, then at him. "Probably not with just one second to get there."
Hardison faltered. It had been a stupid joke, sure, but that was—
"Don't worry, man, all yours," Eliot added, which did not help, actually.
"You can—Eliot, you could survive that, right?" Hardison asked.
Eliot looked down at the bomb again.
"You could survive a bomb going off, right?"
Eliot's smile was twisted. "What do you think, Hardison?"
"Eliot—"
"Here," he said gruffly, passing him the bomb. "Souvenir. Now come on, we got a car to search."
With a bomb in his hands, Hardison stared after him, shaken.
###
Nate didn't have a problem. He didn't.
He didn't know what Sophie was playing at, saying he had withdrawal symptoms. Immortals didn't get withdrawal symptoms. It was this place, these people, getting put under a microscope and picked at by the one person who should have understood—
"We're in the middle of a con!" Sophie demanded. "What the hell were you thinking, Nate?"
"Just—" stop pushing. "Just—" understand. "Tell me about our guy. What do we know about Hurley?"
"We need to talk about this."
"No, we don't need to talk. You need to talk. I'm fine. Now read me in."
Sophie set a hand on her hip. "You want me to read you in?" she asked sweetly.
Nate hesitated, self-preservation kicking in a few moments too late. "Uh—"
"Eliot told me how much drinking it takes for an immortal to get withdrawal symptoms. You have a problem, Nate."
Yeah, he'd seen the way the knight errant had been eyeing him, lately. "Of course Eliot knows," Nate muttered. "If you like him so much—"
"Oh, shut up," Sophie snapped at him. "You know it isn't like that."
"Sure," he said with a sarcastic laugh.
"You want to know what it takes?" she asked, eyes narrowed.
"Yeah, go on. Go ahead, tell me what it takes!"
"It took the Black Death, for Eliot."
That made Nate falter a little. The Black Death had been—well, he'd never experienced it, but he'd heard about it. It would've been especially hard on Eliot, from what Nate knew of him. "Oh," he said, sombre.
"Oh," Sophie repeated pointedly. She gave a frustrated sigh. "Do you think I honestly don't understand? I warned you against trying to have a family because I've already felt that pain, Nate. But you have to find a way to work through it."
He didn't—he couldn't— "Sophie, you want to help me? You really, really want to help me? In the name of God, give me something to do. Please, just give me something to do."
She looked at him and her expression fell. "Alright," she said, disappointed.
Parker didn't like the pills at first. They were too hard to chew and made her feel sick. They still did that, but they also made her feel...weird. Good weird. She hadn't known good weird was an option. She wasn't sure how to explain the feeling. It was nothing like flying. It might have been a little bit like crawling through vents. A little part of her insisted that it wasn't real, that this place was dangerous, but she...it felt like that voice might be wrong. And it wasn't as loud.
She still stole that gun and liked it, but that was because she was a thief. There was nothing wrong with being a thief. But when Nate asked her to leave, the thought of going back to normal feeling was just— "No," she said, spitting the word out like the milk they tried to feed her here.
Nate frowned at her. "We don't have time for this," he muttered, and left.
Parker still had that good weird feeling after he left, but it was a little more...hollow, without her team.
Run.
The thought kept surfacing. She clung onto that good weird feeling like a hawk, but her talons were piercing it and the voice was leaking through and she tried to share with the others, there, but they didn't understand what it was like to rob the pyramid complex of Djoser without getting cursed, they didn't understand what it was like to break into the Taj Mahal and take a souvenir jewel, they didn't understand what it meant to dance with the wind.
They didn't understand that their lives were so short. So short and so fraught and they were just—sitting here, wasting them—
Parker missed her team. Why hadn't she gone with her team?
"Rose, are you alright?" the doctor asked. He was nice, but she didn't want a nice doctor.
"Yep!" she chirped. She didn't want more pills, either. She was tired of feeling sick when food had already become so strange to her and not being able to sleep, more so than usual.
"What's this?" he asked, pointing at her floor plan.
She was tired of people not understanding why she was drawing floor plans, too. Her magician would've loved trying to break in with her. Hardison understood stealing knowledge and doing things that no one thought could be done. "Oh," she said, trying to think of something the doctor might consider normal. "It's the...uh...."
"The Cairo Museum, right?" Sophie asked. "Circa 1902."
Parker spun around to look at her. Her grin poured out of her.
Sophie smiled back. Her team had come for her.
It took time to get out of the building, but once she was, she ran to them. This felt like flying, and even now the little voice was quieter, out of sync with the rhythms of the drugs. Eliot caught her and it felt right. Hardison returned her hug and it felt right.
"Wherever you go, go with all your heart," she murmured. "Confucius. Hardison, I get it now."
"I don't speak that one either," he said, "but I'm glad you sound happy."
Eliot gave her an odd look from her other side. "I—neither do I. Was that Mandarin or Cantonese?"
Parker laughed. "Neither, silly."
Hardison was hovering in the background while Eliot checked Parker's basic vitals. Not that he could determine much, but from what little he knew he figured she would be able to sleep it off fine on the cot in his office. Mostly she seemed tired.
"She gonna be okay?" Hardison asked as he stood.
Eliot figured the hacker wouldn't appreciate being told exactly how little he knew about modern drugs. "It's Parker," he said instead, putting a couple water bottles on the desk and making sure she was on her side, airway unobstructed. Suffocation was a bad way to go.
Hardison stared at him. "You seriously have the worst bedside manner I have ever seen."
Eliot squinted at him. "What, do you want a lollipop every time you scrape your knee?"
"I'm just saying, a little kindness goes a long way."
Eliot rolled his eyes, heading for the conference room. Hardison followed him with a groan. "Would it kill you to be sympathetic for five minutes? No, no it wouldn't. You know, you should try it some time."
Eliot sighed and kept walking, cutting towards the kitchen. He wanted a beer.
"Man, you can't keep walking away from me."
He pulled a beer out of the fridge, popping the lid off on the edge of the counter and catching it. "Watch me," he said.
"Is this because of what happened—"
Eliot took a drink of beer and nearly rolled his eyes again. He had already made a point of not talking about the bomb. If Hardison kept trying to bring it up, he'd end up regretting it.
"—At the clinic?"
He finished drinking, mulling that surprise over. Something happened at the clinic? Oh, right, Parker jumped on him. Hardison's crush was not subtle. "She'll sleep it off," he said.
Hardison hesitated. "That's...not what I meant."
Eliot shook his head, baffled.
"With the—you know what I mean, man, don't make me say it."
"I really don't." He sipped his beer.
"I didn't know how else to get us both in to see Nate. I panicked. I know you've got this 'manly man no homo' thing going on—"
Eliot nearly choked from the laughter that welled up in him. "You—what?" he sputtered.
Hardison looked so embarrassed. "I want to apologize for—uh—"
Eliot had to set down his beer to keep from spilling it. "You—you think I—?"
"Uh...."
He tried to get his imminent laughter under control, really he did, but a single glance at Hardison set him off. The entire idea was so ridiculous.
Sophie stepped into the kitchen and stopped short. "What did I miss?"
"He—he thinks I'm straight," Eliot managed, pointing at Hardison.
Sophie snorted loudly, then covered her mouth. "Hardison, I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh, it's just—"
"Right?" Eliot agreed. His cheeks ached. "Oh, I haven't laughed that hard in years."
"Straight?" Sophie said around giggles. "Really?"
"Okay, can you explain it to the dumb mortal yet or not?" Hardison asked, frustrated.
"I've been a soldier for centuries."
"Yeah, that's my point. Don't ask, don't tell, macho man stuff—"
"No, no, you don't understand," Sophie said. "That's all—that's a modern attitude. Historically, soldiers would..." she smiled coyly "...'bond.'"
Hardison blinked rapidly. "So you—you would— "
"Have sex with my comrades, yeah." Eliot took a pull of beer, thoughtful. "I gotta admit, I miss that part of it. Gender norms are annoying as hell sometimes."
"Ugh. Tell me about it," Sophie said. "It's the Christian influence, I swear—and the Puritans made it so much worse."
Eliot nodded sympathetically. Hardison stared at them, wide-eyed.
Nate walked past the door, then stopped and came back. "Uh, what's this?" he asked.
"Eliot's not straight," Hardison said faintly.
Nate scoffed. "Well of course not. Not by modern metrics. He was a soldier."
"That's what I said."
"I mean, it was very illegal," the ex-priest added. "Extremely illegal. But it also happened a lot more than the church would like to admit."
"You would know," Sophie teased him.
Nate flushed red, quickly walking away. Sophie turned back to Hardison, now stunned anew. "Good thing to keep in mind," Sophie told him. "When you get old enough, you tend to try anything at least once."
"Good to—good to know."
Sophie shot Eliot a wink and walked out with a theatrical sigh. "Excuse me while I go make sure Nate doesn't get into the liquor cabinet."
He watched her go, holding back a grimace. Aside from his opinion of the issue with Nate and how she was dealing with it, he was not about to seduce a teammate who already had a crush on someone else, and a mortal at that. That was just asking for trouble.
"Was it cause it was—me?" Hardison asked.
Eliot glanced at him. "What are you talking about?"
"You got all tense."
Yeah, Eliot had enough problems without confessing his own feelings. He needed an excuse—
Got it. It wasn't even lying, mostly. "You grabbed me, Hardison. What were you expecting?"
"What?"
"Range of motion," he explained. "If somebody came up beside us with a gun, I wouldn't have been able to get to them without going through you first. Kinda defeats the purpose of a hitter. If you wanna play boyfriend with me for a con, move slow and put one arm around my waist. Lightly. I gotta be able to move fast, man."
"...Good to know," Hardison said again.
Eliot couldn't read his tone. He took another drink of beer. "Wanna watch a game?" he asked.
Hardison ran a hand over his face. "You know what? Sure. Can you get me a beer?"
"Fridge is right there," he said, jerking a thumb at it.
Hardison was already on his phone. "Hmm?"
"Damn it, Hardison—"
"You say something?"
His own beer was half empty anyway. Eliot heaved a put-upon sigh, pulling out another two bottles and popping the lid off one of them for Hardison. "There. Happy now?"
He set a hand to his chest, playing at gratitude. "Thank you, so much. You don't know how much it means to me—"
That was it. Eliot shoved the beer into his chest, forcing him to grab it. "Cheers," he said. Then he hit the bottom of his bottle off the top of Hardison's, and it started spilling out foam immediately.
Hardison gave a panicked yelp, holding the beer as far from himself as possible as it fountained over. "Eliot—Eliot, wait—!"
He walked away with a smirk. British pub tricks came in handy sometimes.
fin