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“Eagle Two, copy copy. Target is headed eastbound. Strategic interference required. Over.”
Eliot sighs, glaring down at the neon orange walkie-talkie in his hand, before rolling his eyes and pressing the button to speak.
“Damn it, Hardison, I told you we weren’t doing the call signs.”
There’s a long stretch of silence in which Eliot contemplates both Hardison’s ability to tell directions, and his own actions in life that have led him to this particular moment in time.
“Was that the end of your message?” the radio squacks back at Eliot. “Cuz I was under the impression that you end a message with over. Over.”
Eliot sighs again.
“I will kick you.”
Before he can say more, a chuckle comes across the channel at that, and Eliot smirks as he recognizes Tara’s husky voice.
“No threatening violence at work, boys,” she says mildly. “…at least not on an open channel.”
“I feel very threatened right now,” Hardison adds from wherever he’s hiding.
“I’ll show you threatened...” Eliot drawls, just as Parker cuts into the transmission.
“He’s headed right for the breakroom, Sophie!”
“And he’ll find nothing but a cup of tea and some of Eliot’s delectable crumb cake waiting for him.”
Eliot grins, pleased. “I added just a touch of lime zest,” he says. “Really makes the flavors pop, don’t you think?”
“I knew something was different!” Hardison’s voice reappears. “I thought it was lemon. Over.”
“Who let you have my cake?” Eliot grumbles. “That cake is for people I like.”
“Parker shared hers with me,” Hardison says back, unruffled. “Because Parker knows how to be a good friend. Over.”
“I’ve been practicing!” Parker says, followed by the muffled but distinct sounds of Mary-Janes on shingles.
“Please tell me you aren’t on the roof again,” a deeply aggrieved voice sighs. “I can’t afford the lawsuit if you break your neck.”
“Who even gave Nate a walkie?” Hardison asks around a laugh. “Over.”
“Of course not,” Parker answers Nate’s question with a lying smile obvious in her voice. “That would be wrong.”
“I do not get paid enough for this,” Nate says. “And also, the breakroom is west of you, Hardison, not east.”
Eliot snorts at the offended noises Hardison sends back.
“How do you even know where I am, creeper??”
“I see all,” Nate says, before switching off his radio and leaving the others to their literal and metaphorical devices.
“Anyway,” Tara cuts in once it goes silent again. “The package has been delivered and is awaiting retrieval. Over.”
“Roger that,” Eliot says, just to annoy Hardison. “Over and out.”
He snickers all the way down the hall to Tara’s office.
“Ms. Deveraux,” Sterling greets as he slinks into the spacious but dingy breakroom. “You’re well, I trust?”
“Right as rain,” Sophie smiles back demurely, raising her teacup to her mouth for a delicate sip. “Alright then, Mr. Sterling?”
“Of course,” Sterling says, glancing around in a way that Sophie is sure he thinks is inconspicuous. “Just checking in, you know.”
“Indeed,” Sophie says as she sets her cup down gently. “Find what you were looking for?”
Sterling twitches, barely perceptible but undeniably there, and Sophie’s lips curl up in a satisfied smirk.
“I will,” Sterling says jovially, giving her a grin as fake as the toupee on his head.
He glances around a final time, as if daring the room to shift around him, before giving Sophie a tight nod and heading out.
Alone again at the table, Sophie stifles a laugh as the furry end of the Santa hat she’s sat on drops down and brushes her calf.
That had been a little too close for her liking.
“I say we just tell him we’re throwing a Christmas party and let him get over it,” Cora, one of their newest hires, says that night as the employees head to the parking lot. “What does he have against Santa and cookies, anyway?”
“Jim Sterling lives to be a Scrooge,” Sophie explains. “And I don’t think even a visit from three ghosts could change him.”
“We could try!” Parker says excitedly. “We can get some white sheets and break into his house when he’s sleeping. You know, to teach him about the magic of Christmas!”
“I, for one, am against the white sheets,” Hardison says, dryly, grinning when even Eliot cackles a laugh.
“Oh right,” Parker says with disappointment, “racism.”
“Yeah,” Nate adds with a wry grin. “That probably wouldn’t be O-KKK.”
The group as a whole groans good naturedly.
“I honestly don’t know how I still have a job,” Tara laughs. “As far as HR goes, you people are damn near ungovernable.”
“What do you mean, you people?” Eliot huffs with faux-offense.
“What do you mean, you people?” Hardison says, rolling his eyes and cuffing Eliot on the shoulder.
“Just two more days,” Tara says as they reach their respective vehicles. “And then it will be Christmas Eve, and not even Sterling will be able to ruin our party.”
“Maybe we should just spike his coffee,” Parker suggests as she straddles her motorcycle and turns the key. “He can sleep through the party.”
“We are not drugging our boss, Parker,” Eliot says, rubbing the bride of his nose as he sighs. “Not again.”
“It was an accident!” Hardison explains to the alarmed Cora. “We were trying to solve Greg’s insomnia through trial and error.”
“Because American healthcare is a hellscape,” Tara inputs.
“Exacly,” Hardison agrees. “The hellscape. Anyway, and then Sterling thought we were drinking on the job and took a huge swig of Greg’s water bottle to prove it was alcohol.”
“Wasn’t alcohol,” Eliot says with a smirk.
Cora’s eyes go wide with an impressed sort of horror.
“At least he made it to his desk before passing out,” Parker says with a shrug. “No harm done!”
“This place is so fucking weird,” Cora says, shaking her head as she gets into her car. “I should find a new job.”
The others wave her off idly, until they’re left in a loose circle around Parker’s motorcycle.
“Poor kid,” Sophie says as they watch her go. “She’s never going to make it to next Christmas here.”
“Just like Greg,” Parker says sadly. “RIP, Greg.”
“Greg didn’t die,” Eliot reminds her. “He just moved to Bakersfield.”
Parker just shrugs.
“Same thing.”
She drives off before they can respond, engine roaring and dust flying, controlled chaos in a sparkly black helmet.
“Alec,” Sterling says the next day. “Why are you carting around a bunch of children’s construction paper?”
Hardison freezes in place, holding the pile of red and green paper close to his chest.
“Well,” he hedges. “We are a craft supply company, after all.”
Sterling levels him with a deadpan glare.
“This is the corporate office. We don’t craft here.”
“The field trip!” Hardison says suddenly and far too loudly. “Remember? The elementary school kids are learning about the uh… the industrial revolution and stuff. The paper is for their… um… souvenirs.”
“I didn’t authorize a field trip,” Sterling frowns, looking down at his phone just as it lights up with a calendar reminder for later that day, School Visit in big flashing letters.
“Maybe I did,” Sterling says, before spinning on his heels and heading away, rubbing at the back of his own neck in concern.
Hardison lets out a breath, grateful that Parker has picked up a few of his hacking skills over the years. He pulls out his phone and hits the contact for Nana. If anyone can get a handful of tweens to pretend to care about a craft company tour in less than two hours, it’s her.
“A bit small for a field trip group,” Sterling says later, watching over the group of five kids ranging from the ages of four to twelve. “Odd ages, too.”
“It’s a Montessori school,” Hardison says, as if he has any real idea what the hell that even means.
He watches with a faint smile as Nana corrals the kids as they follow Tara throughout the building. It’s been years since he’s lived under her roof, but he thinks maybe she’ll always be the voice in his head that guides him. He couldn’t ask for a better north star.
“Just don’t let them touch anything,” Sterling says, face wrinkling as he walks away. “Sticky little fingers.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Hardison says sarcastically once Sterling is too far away to hear.
“Craft time!” he tells the kids when they’ve all gathered in the breakroom after their tour. “Eliot and Parker are going to help you guys make some cool Christmas decorations, and Cora and I are going to bring you back some pizza for when you’re done!”
“Pretty sure this counts as child labor,” one of the older boys grumbles as he grabs a pair of safety scissors and gives Hardison an unimpressed look.
“Pizza is for closers,” Parker shoots back, pointing two fingers between the boy and her eyes. “Don’t let me down, Erick.”
Erick rolls his eyes but gets to work anyway, leaving Parker to give Hardison a triumphant grin as she starts on her own crafts.
Unsurprisingly, the breakroom is a glitter bombed mess by the time Hardison and Cora get back with the pizzas.
“Aww,” Cora says, cooing at the youngest two kids who are passed out in each of Eliot’s arms.
“Not a word, Hardison,” Eliot whisper-threats, before softening as one of the kids snuffles. “They were tired.”
“We really need a couch in here,” Parker says, looking up from the floor where she and the older kids have created a veritable wonderland of construction paper decorations. She grins at them, glitter streaking across both cheeks and falling into her loose hair.
Hardison secretly thinks that she’s the prettiest thing that he’s ever seen, even covered in glitter and whatever germs are on the breakroom floor. From the knowing look Eliot gives him when he happens to catch his eye, he wonders just how secret it really is after all.
Christmas Eve arrives, both cold and bright, and Jim Sterling hates the day before he’s even opened his eyes. The morning continues to be mundanely average in every way. His coffee is good but not great. The traffic is annoying but not overly egregious. Even the birds are singing sweetly but not obnoxious. The sun is shining despite the chill in the air, and there’s a general feeling of Christmas Spirit in the air. Sterling hates it all.
“Ms. Cole,” Sterling greets Tara begrudgingly as they happen to reach the office door at the same time.
“Good morning, James,” Tara says sweetly. He doesn’t trust it for a moment.
“I know you’re all planning something,” he sighs, not even bothering to scoff at Tara’s impeccable poker face.
“I can assure you,” Tara says, “as head of HR.”
“The entirety of HR, you mean,” Sterling says.
Tara nods easily.
“As the entirety of HR,” she continues. “I can assure you, I have not been made aware of any illegal or even unsavory plans by anybody previously or currently employed by Leverage, Inc.”
“I don’t believe you,” Sterling says bluntly.
Tara just laughs, so unbothered that it makes Sterling irrationally want to rage.
“I think I’ll survive,” she says.
“I’d fire you all if I could,” Sterling says, matter-of-factly.
“Oh, we know,” Tara says brightly. “I bet that 2% more of the company that Nate owns really pisses you off, huh?”
“I hate every last one of you,” Sterling says, hollowly.
“Careful,” Tara says as she opens the door and holds it for him to walk through. “Talk like that will get you sent to HR.”
Sterling just sighs.
He finds most of them later, huddled around the fireplace in the reception area, festively colored mugs in their hands.
“What do we have here?” he asks. “Because I remember specifically telling Mr. Spencer not to make his “hometown hot cocoa” for the party you are absolutely not authorized to have.”
“Coffee,” Eliot says, raising a single eyebrow as he takes a sip.
“Also coffee,” Hardison says. “little vanilla creamer in there.”
“Dirty chai,” Sophie says, raising her mug towards him in a sarcastic cheers.
“I just have water,” Cora says, shrugging.
“Nathan?” Sterling asks, taking in his rumpled appearance.
“Coffee,” Nate replies, before shrugging. “Irish.”
Sterling groans and rubs the impending migraine from his forehead.
“And you?” he asks Parker, who looks up at him with a whipped-cream mustache and a sparkling in her eyes.
“Definitely not Eliot’s hometown hot cocoa,” she says. “Not even if it’s the kind with the tiny little marshmallows that he knows I love.”
“And homemade whipped cream,” Eliot adds.
“Oh yeah!” Parker says, nodding. “Definitely not drinking that.”
“Because it would be against the rules,” Hardison says.
“And we always follow the rules,” Parker grins.
Sterling just shakes his head and walks away, thinking about stealing the stash of whisky he knows Nate keeps in second floor printer unit.
It’s nearly 2pm when Sterling gathers his things, deciding to call it a day early to try and beat the worst of the traffic back home. He’s nearly to the front door when a ring of laughter coming from the breakroom catches his attention. He ignores it at first, but another laugh shoots a bolt of irritation through his body, and his feet start moving before his brain can catch up.
He’s expecting the party, because despite what the team thinks, he’s not actually an idiot. He is not, however, expecting the sheer amount of Christmas that’s exploded around the room.
The walls are completely covered in construction paper decorations, from santa to snowflakes to trees to snowmen, all coated in sparkling glitter. Smack in the middle of the wall is a construction paper Christmas tree made up of dozens of smaller construction paper trees, clearly colored in by the children from the field trip.
There’s some sort of soulful Christmas carol playing from the ancient boombox in the corner, and the unmistakable scent of hot chocolate and spiced apple cider coming from crock pots on the counter. The counters themselves are filled with snacks and brightly decorated desserts, no doubt made by Eliot at some ungodly time of the morning.
The most impressive part, loathe as he is to admit it, is the dozens on snowflake streamers hanging from the ceiling in perfectly imperfect twists of white paper.
“Welcome to the party, bossman,” Tara says as he slips into the room. “Come have a drink.”
“What part of no Christmas parties did you all not understand?” Sterling huffs, shoulders drooping as he lets Tara hand him a warm mug of hot cocoa.
He takes a small sip and has to suppress a moan at the taste. He refuses to give Spencer the satisfaction.
“I really think this is more of a shindig,” Hardison says. “You never said no shindigs.”
“What constitutes Christmas, really?” Eliot ponders aloud. “Because you know I was raised in the church… but if you go back to the pagans…”
“Jesus Christ,” Sterling sighs.
“Well, I was getting to him,” Eliot says, coughing when Parker elbows him in the ribs.
“I’ve always had problems with the word “no”,” Parker says lightly. “It’s so…negative.”
“I’ve only been here like a month,” Cora adds. “But I had to see what happened.”
The pulsing migraine in Sterling’s head starts up again.
“You’re getting awfully flushed,” Sophie says, giving Sterling a concerned look. “Maybe you should sit down.”
“Good idea,” Nate says, appearing at Sterling’s side and unceremoniously tugging him over to an empty table.
“Sit,” he instructs, gently shoving Sterling to his seat and then sitting across from him. “Stop pretending the cocoa isn’t amazing and just enjoy it, Jimmy.”
“I hate that nickname,” Sterling says, begrudgingly taking another long sip of his drink. It’s just as amazing as the first one.
“Which is why I use it,” Nate smirks. “You make it too easy, bud.”
“Ugh,” Sterling says. “That’s even worse. We aren’t buds.”
Nate shrugs, before nodding in agreement.
“We were friends once,” he says, detached, like it’s nothing more than a line from a book.
He gives him a startlingly clear-eyed look for how much Sterling knows he’s been drinking these days.
“Things change,” Sterling says, the tie around his neck suddenly too tight as he recounts the years. “Now we’re just a couple of middle-aged losers whose wives left them to rot.”
“Ah,” Nate says quietly. “So that’s why you’ve been especially dickheaded lately. I figured she’d go back to you like she always did.”
“Not this time,” Sterling says blankly. “Divorce was final a week ago.”
“At least Maggie did it quick,” Nate muses. “She knew I was a lost cause the day they put Sam in the ground.”
“Fuck, Nate,” Sterling whispers harshly. “Can’t let anyone else have a bad day, can you?”
Nate, maybe for knowing him as long as he has, only laughs roughly.
“Never has been my style, Jimmy.”
Sterling shakes his head again, but forces his body to relax as he sips from his drink. Together, he and Nate watch the rest of the group talk and laugh.
Sophie leads Hardison clumsily through the steps of a simple waltz as the others cheer him on, wincing in unison when he steps on Sophie’s toes the first few tries. Cora piles a plate with one of every cookie Eliot provided and leans against the counter to snack and watch her new coworkers celebrate. Parker pulls Tara into a discussion about something involving rappelling, if her exaggerated hand motions are any indication. Tara nods in earnest interest, even as her eyes go wide as she listens.
Sterling watches Nate watch Hardison as he watches Parker smile, and feels a pang of sorrow for his old friend who won’t ever get to watch his own son grow up.
He’s shaken from his sad thoughts by Parker declaring it to be gifting time, looking up just as she appears in front of him with a shiny green gift bag.
“Even grinches deserve Christmas gifts,” she says, shrugging. “And I pulled your name from the Santa hat.”
Sterling takes the bag, looking around at the team and their happy faces, not a hint of the derision he’s sure he deserves.
At Parker’s prodding, he opens the bag, pulling out a soft if slightly misshapen winter hat. It’s charcoal grey and obviously handmade, thick and warm with little flaps to pull over the ears.
“Knitting was my special interest last month,” Parker says with smile. “And nobody likes having cold ears in winter.”
Sterling grips the hat in his fingers before forcing his hand loose, not wanting to crease the fabric.
“Thank you,” he says, ignoring the stinging in his eyes. “It’s, erm, it’s a very nice gift, Parker.”
“You’re welcome!” Parker says, before turning and heading back to her friends.
“An odd duckling, isn’t she?” Sterling says to Nate once they’re alone again.
Nate chuckles, but nods in agreement.
“She’s a good kid, though.”
Sterling says nothing, choosing instead to watch the group be merry again, but privately agrees.
The party wraps up an hour later, and Sterling watches in wonder as the team moves seamlessly through the room, clearing it all so efficiently it’s as if there was never a party to begin with. When all that’s left is the snowflakes on the ceiling, he can’t help but laugh as he watches Eliot hoist Parker up to sit on Hardison’s shoulders to remove them. The three of them move as one unit, Hardison gripping Parker’s shins as Eliot hovers hands behind her back, just in case.
“So, that’s how you did it,” he can’t help but say as Parker pulls down the last few streamers.
“Yup,” Parker says with a little shrug, falling back without a care in the world and laughing when Eliot predictably catches her and helps her to her feet. She looks up at the ceiling and then over to Sterling, wrapping an arm around Eliot and Hardison on either side.
“It was easy,” she says. “All we needed was a little bit of leverage.”
The End