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Alec Hardison doesn’t want to die young.
He wants to live long enough to become world-famous and pull off the ultimate hack attack and teach his skills to the next generation of hackers.
But standing here, all alone in the dark with freezing water swirling around his knees, he realizes he might never get the chance.
“Hardison!”
Parker’s voice in his ear reminds him that he’s not alone, not completely.
“Y-yeah, I’m still here,” he answers, wrapping his arms around himself and absently wondering when his teeth started chattering.
“We’re fifteen minutes out. Just keep talkin’, man.” Eliot says.
Hardison huffs out a laugh. “Ain’t you always tellin’ me to shut up?”
“Yeah, well, you never listen to me anyways.” Eliot’s voice seems to catch at the end of the sentence, but it might just be the cold affecting Hardison’s hearing.
“What—what ‘m I s’posed to talk about?”
“Anything.” Parker sounds like she’s trying not to cry, and oh, how he hates that. “Just anything, Hardison.”
He feels like he should be saying something important, something meaningful, but he can’t seem to find the words. So instead, he rambles.
“S-so dark in here I couldn’t see my-my own hand if I was hit-hittin’ m’self in the face with it. A-and it’s cold, colder than that j-job in Siberia last year.”
Eliot chuckles, and it sounds strangely forced. “You were sittin’ in the nice warm hotel with your computers the whole time. Complainin’ about how cold it was while I was out there freezin’ my—”
“Hey, hey, I suffered f-for the cause of jus—justice r-right there with the rest of y’all,” Hardison fires back, although the retort lacks its usual bite. “I w-was a vital part, VI-tal, a’ight?”
You’re always a vital part, Hardison,” Parker replies.
That catches him off guard, and it takes him a few seconds too long to come up with a reply. “Nice of you to f-finally notice,” he says at last.
“Don’t let it go to your head,” Eliot answers.
Hardison smiles at that, vaguely noting that the water is halfway up his hips by now.
“Alec!” Parker shouts in his ear, and he knows she must be scared if she’s using his first name.
“W-what?” he asks, shivering even harder now.
“You went quiet. Don’t go quiet. Keep talking!”
This feels an awful lot like being trapped underground in a coffin with only a cellphone and Parker’s voice to keep him company, but Hardison tries not to think about that. “Y’all been r-real good friends, y’know that?” he says instead.
Eliot mutters something that might be a swear word or several. “You quit talkin’ like that, or I’ll punch you so hard you won’t be able to think straight for a week.”
“I mean it,” Hardison insists, suddenly gripped by the feeling that if he doesn’t say this now, he might never get to say it. “Y’all b-been my family. And I just w-wanted to say that—”
“Stop it!” Parker sounds like she’s crying for real now. “We’re going to find you first. Tell us after we find you.”
Hardison ignores her and pushes on. “I w-wanted to say—th-thanks for everything. For stickin’ around even when y-you prob’ly shoulda left. N-nobody’s ever done that before, nobody ‘cept Nana. Can—” he pauses, willing his teeth to stop chattering. “Can y-you tell her I said tha-thanks? I d-don’t think I ever t-told her proper.”
“Tell her yourself, Hardison,” Eliot growls. “Parker, how much longer?”
“Five minutes,” she replies, sniffling.
Not enough, Hardison thinks, looking down at the water creeping up his chest. Nowhere near enough.
Parker lets out a strangled noise of sheer pain, and Hardison realizes he must’ve said it aloud. “You hang on, Alec Hardison, you hear me? Hang on!” she all but screams through the earpiece.
“Hardison—” Eliot starts, and Hardison can count on one hand the number of times he’s heard his friend’s voice break like that outside of a con. He clears his throat and tries again. “You don’t get to die this easily, alright? I ain’t gonna let you.”
The water keeps coming, the cold stealing his breath and making his entire body—what little of it hasn’t already gone numb—ache with pain. He sucks in a breath and leans harder against the concrete wall behind him as the water threatens to knock him off his feet. “’M s’rry.”
“Just talk to me. Talk to me. Please, Alec,” Parker pleads.
He wishes she didn’t sound so terrified. “Thanks f-f-for…f-for everything,” he whispers. “We…we had a good run.”
And then his eyes slide closed and his knees buckle as he slips down, down, down, beneath the surface, and not even the voices screaming in his ear can bring him back.
Alec Hardison doesn’t want to die young.
He wants to live long enough to save the world a couple times over and beat Eliot at Rock Paper Scissors and grow old with Parker.
And when he wakes up in a hospital bed with Parker curled up asleep beside him and Eliot standing against the wall where he can watch the door, he realizes he might get the chance after all.