Fanfiction || London Bridge Is Falling Down || Parker/Sophie || Part One
Title: London Bridge Is Falling Down
Author: Sapphire Smoke cuzimastripper
Fandom: Leverage
Rating: NC-17 (to be on the safe side, anyway. Not sure yet)
Pairing: Parker/Sophie (some Nate/Sophie too, and Parker/OC)
Prompt: Sophie/Parker - burning bridges
Length Thus Far: 10,375 words
AU: Set two years into the future (from the end of season one). Nate and Sophie have been dating for awhile, and now live together, and team has moved back to LA
Summary: When everything seems to be going wrong, Sophie finds a little bit of right somewhere unexpected.
A/N: There's hella angst, be forewarned. Don't worry too much though, I tend to have this sickness with happy endings...
CHAPTER ONE
Manhandling
“Why do you always do this?!”
“Because I care about you!… You... You bloody fucking… tosser!” came the response, having trouble even falling from Sophie’s lips. Chest heaving, wet trails down her cheeks, and her chest was squeezing so hard she could barely breathe. Her heart was racing, terrified at the result of yet another fight between her and the man she loves, but yet at the same time it seemed to routine that even contemplating the ending of the relationship due to that would probably seem a bit mad anyway.
She didn’t understand why he never realized that she got on to him because she cares; she worries for Christ’s sake. He has no idea what it’s like to lie in bed at night and worry if he’s even going to come home, or end up with his car smashed into a tree because he was too hammered to see straight. All she can do is tell him, cry, hope that for once he might actually understand what this is doing to her, how much it bloody hurts inside, and maybe just for once push down the urge to go to another sleezy run down bar and pick up a drink.
Why can’t he just be happy here, with her? What’s so wrong with here?
“Don’t you see how much this kills me, Nathan?!” Sophie screamed at him, trying so desperately for him to just see. But he shook his head and took off his coat, hanging it on the rack before kicking off his shoes.
“Oh, stop being so dramatic, Sophie,” he slurred a bit, and waved his hand like he was dismissing her emotions on the subject. He held out his hand to her, “Just come to bed.”
“No!” Sophie exclaimed, backing away from his outstretched hand. She wiped furiously at her tears and repeated, “No, I won’t just come to bed with you like nothing’s wrong!” She paused, looking at him infuriated. “In fact, you’re not coming to bed at all! You’re sleeping on the bloody couch tonight!”
Then she turned, retreating into their bedroom and slamming the door so hard she’s sure she heard it splinter… again. A few more of those and the damned thing might fall off its hinges. But it didn’t matter. None of it ever really mattered, did it? She sat down heavily on the bed and laid down, grabbing his pillow and burying her face in it to silence her sobs.
But there was a click as the door opened, and Sophie let out a frustrated half scream into the pillow before throwing it across the room and sitting up to look at Nate, who had invaded the room. “Did you not hear what I said?!” she yelled at him, looking at him like he’s clearly suicidal to walk in there.
“It’s my room,” Nate tells her, anger on his face now from being presumably kicked out.
“It’s mine too!” Sophie screamed, just wanting him to leave. She needed to be alone. “And I want you out!”
“It was mine first, so if you’re so content on not sleeping with me tonight, then you can find somewhere else to sleep then,” Nate told her and started undressing to get into his nightclothes. Sophie just looked at him like she couldn’t believe he just said that to her.
“So what, then? You move me in, ‘what’s yours in mine’, that’s what you said, isn’t it? And now what? It’s all rubbish?!” Sophie screeched, probably a few decibels louder than what was relatively safe for human hearing.
Nate just shrugged, like that was that. Sophie screamed again, and started picking up the pillows from off the bed and throwing them at him. The first hit him in the head and he turned in surprise before putting up his arms to shield himself from the others. “You wanker!” Sophie yelled at him before picking up the alarm clock, the very big and solid alarm clock, and throwing it at him. Nate ducked just in time before it smashed against the wall, denting the plaster a bit. “Is that all you think of me, then?! Just some whore in your bed that you can kick out whenever you feel like it?!”
“You said it,” Nate said under his breath, but Sophie heard him and screamed again before taking off her heels and throwing those at him too.
“Stop throwing shit at me, damnit woman!” Nate yelled finally, getting sick of all the blunt objects being thrown in his general vicinity, some with amazing accuracy.
“I hate you!” she screamed, before picking up the lamp. But Nate rushed over and held her hands; making her drop the lamp and having it shatter against the wood floor. “Let me go!” Sophie yelled at him, struggling against him. She tried to pound her fists against his chest but didn’t have the leverage to be able to have enough force for it to hurt. “Let me go, Nathan!”
“Calm down!” he yelled at her, but she didn’t. She was just so bloody sick of all of this, it was one day after another, the same shit to the same tune. All she wanted was for him to get it, to love her and appreciate her but all he did was treat her like she was nothing more than a criminal that he took in under the goodness of his heart, like she owed him something.
“Get off of me!” she yelled, still trying to hit him. Make him feel something at least, but she didn’t get the chance. He wrapped her in a bear hug, stilling her arms to her side as she tried to thrash out of his grasp, calling him every name in the book and then some as he picked her up. “PUT ME DOWN RIGHT NOW!”
“So you can hit me?” he asked with an angry laugh. “I don’t think so.” Then he started carrying her to the door, and as he got to the threshold she used her weight to plant her feet on the ground and slam him into it, making his groan in pain, but he didn’t let go of her. “Fuck, Sophie! Goddamnit!”
Then she was out of his grasp, thrown to the floor in the living room before he slammed the bedroom door behind him. Angrily she got to her feet and tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge, he was standing in front of it. She banged on it with her fists, furious. “Let me in, Nathan!”
“No, you need to calm the fuck down,” came the reply on the other side of the door. “Just sleep on the damn couch.”
“I am not your whore, you bloody prick! Now let me in!” Sophie screamed at him, refusing to be treated like this wasn’t her home too. It was. She bloody lived here, she slept in that damn bed, and she was not… she was not going to be thrown out here like this is all her fault!
“No!”
Sophie screamed again, beat on the door until her fists were red and raw, cursing up a storm until she finally collapsed from exhaustion onto the floor, and just cried. “I hate you, “ she whispered through her tears, barely audible. She knew he couldn’t hear her, but like it even mattered. Never did, anyway.
She couldn’t stay here; she didn’t want to do what he wanted her to. Sleep on the couch like nothing better than a bitch. She got to her feet finally and grabbed her purse, tears still flowing, and tried to find her shoes. But she remembered she threw them at him in there, and all of her others were in the bedroom as well. “Bloody brilliant,” she scolded herself, but not having shoes wasn’t going to stop her from leaving. She didn’t need them to walk, after all.
Sophie slammed the door as hard as she could as she left the house, and just started walking down the street. She didn’t want to take the car, she knew Nate had Hardison put GPS trackers in all of them, and she didn’t want him to find her. Wanted him to worry for once, though she knew he never would.
Six blocks. Her feet were starting to hurt. The tiny pebbled in the street would dig into her feet and she knew she was going to have to figure out somewhere to go… but nowhere was close. No Eliot, no Hardison, no Parker, and not even any hotels. She finally just collapsed on the side of the road, sitting on the curb and just cried. There was nothing left else to do.
Headlights blinded her as a car pulled around the corner, and Sophie shielded her eyes from the brightness. But instead of going on, the car slowed down and stopped where she sat. She got up, trying to see who it was, but the windows were tinted. It rolled down slowly and a man stuck his head out, “Need a ride, miss?”
“What?” Sophie asked, not even seeming to comprehend the question. She looked at him; he was an older gentleman, maybe in his fifties. He looked nice enough, but Sophie suddenly had a bad feeling run down to the base of her spine. She knew better than to get in a car with just anyone, anyway.
“No, thank you,” she tells him, wrapping her arms around herself, backing up a few steps.
“Come on, it’s freezing. Where are your shoes?” he asked her, looking at her feet.
“I just… lost them, is all,” she tells him, backing up a few more steps, before turning to walk away. But then he opens his car door, and steps out.
“A pretty thing like you shouldn’t be walking alone out here, not at this time of night,” he says with a smile that Sophie finds in no way comforting, and comes closer to her. She started to get terrified, and grasped at her purse… only to only realize that she had left her gun at the house. That was her one protection, and she stupidly left it at the house.
“I’m fine, thank you,” is all Sophie says before briskly walking away, hoping to every God there is that he would just let her go. That he really was a nice man, just seemed a bit creepy with the nature of the meeting. But then he grabbed her arm.
“Come on, get in,” he tells her, a bit more forcefully, pulling her a bit.
“Get off of me!” she yells, trying to jerk her arm away, but can’t because of the grasp he has on it. “Let me go!” She couldn’t deal with this now, not after everything that had happened. This just couldn’t be happening to her right now.
She was so fucking scared.
“I said come on,” he tells her, louder now, the nice tone out of his voice. His grip tightens and she winces; it hurts.
“Stop!” she screams, but then suddenly is thrown back against the pavement as someone comes out of bloody nowhere and elbows him in the back of the head. She lay there on the ground, stunned as she looked up to see her rescuer.
“Parker?”
But Parker doesn’t answer, she’s too busy kicking the shit out of the man from the car. Sophie blinks, not even finding the scene before her real. Where the hell did Parker come from? She doesn’t even live around here!
But with a knee to the gut the man finally falls to the ground, slumping over and groaning in pain. She knelt down next to him and clocked him one of the back of the head, knocking him out. “Dick,” she said to him as she rose to her feet and then looked down at Sophie, who was trying to get herself off the ground.
Parker held out her hand and pulled her up, only to look at her and exclaim, “Man, you look like shit.”
CHAPTER TWO
Fairytales
Sophie doesn’t care that Parker just told her she looks like shit. She doesn’t even care where she came from, or why she was even around this area in the first place. All she cares about is the fact that Parker just saved her from god knows what; a kidnapper? A rapist? A murderer? And so her emotions get the better of her because of all the horrible stuff that had happened to her today, and she starts crying and basically throws herself on Parker, wrapping her arms around her, thanking to whoever is listening that Parker has the uncanny ability to just pop in out of nowhere.
“Whoa,” Parker said, blinking and retaining her footing so they don’t both fall over. “Um…” she starts, obviously feeling uncomfortable from the way Sophie just basically pelted herself at her. She wrapped her arms around the other woman and patted her on the back awkwardly, attempting to comfort the weeping mess that was her co-worker at the moment. “There, there?” she says, clearly not sure if that’s what she’s supposed to be saying. “Stop crying, please.”
“God, Parker,” is all Sophie gets out through her tears, squeezing the other woman half to death, which makes Parker utter out a ‘umphh’ sound from the sudden lack of oxygen. She starts patting Sophie on the back harder, trying to let her know she can’t breathe.
“Oh, sorry,” Sophie says through her tears as she loosens her grip, and Parker sucks in some air. She’s still crying, lying her head on Parker’s shoulder, not wanting to let her go just because she’s something familiar, something safe at the moment.
She could have been killed.
“Sophie?” Parker asks, really uncomfortable from the sudden touchy-feelyness that Sophie had started. “The bad guy is not going to hurt you now, can you maybe get off of me?” She paused to add, “Please,” because after all, Sophie was crying and it might be completely insensitive to not, and she was trying to do better with that.
Sophie didn’t want to let go of her, she really didn’t, but she knew Parker was never big on personal contact. She lets go, stepping back a few steps before continuing her crying into her hands. She just couldn’t stop it; she was still so scared, still so upset. It was all Nate’s fault, if he didn’t… if he didn’t… she could be dead.
“Where are your shoes?” Parker asks her then, looking at Sophie’s bare feet. Sophie just waves her hand and starts saying something inaudible due to how much she was crying, and Parker looks confused. She’s standing there, not knowing what to do with this woman in front of her, because after all, Sophie had always been so strong. So she bends down and takes off her sneakers before holding them out to the grifter.
Sophie bawls harder at the gesture.
“I think they’ll fit,” Parker tells her, thinking that may be why Sophie started crying more. But Sophie keeps crying, looking at her in a way that Parker doesn’t understand, so she tries again, gesturing more with the shoes at her. “They’re comfortable and… blue. If I had another color I’d give them to you if you don’t like blue, but I don’t, so this is all I have. It’s my favorite pair, so… take them?” She just wanted Sophie to stop crying.
Sophie seems to even cry more at that, but takes the shoes, saying something that was still inaudible to Parker. She bends down and puts them on, but as she stands back up she looks at Parker and just basically jumps on her again, wrapping her arms around her.
“Oof,” Parker exclaims at the contact, and almost falls this time. “Sophie?” she asks again, and Sophie knows she has no idea what’s going on, and she knows she probably looks wretched, but she just can’t stop crying. “Do you need a ride home?”
Sophie shakes her head and holds on to Parker tighter. “Okay…” Parker starts, not knowing what to do. She pets her hair a bit like a child would pet a cat and is silent for a moment before asking, “Do you need to sleep over my house?”
Sophie nods, and lets out this strangled sob that Parker is sure kind of sounds like a dying animal, but she carefully untangles the brunette from her before grabbing a hold of her hand, just so Sophie is still holding on to her since she seemed like she needed to. Parker tries to give her a small comforting smile, but it still doesn’t seem to help so she sighs a bit and starts leading her to her car.
When they get to Parker’s apartment, Sophie’s mostly calmed down. She’s silent though, and just kind of is led by Parker up the stairs and through the door in a trance like state. Parker kind of places her on her couch, guiding her down a bit with her hand since Sophie didn’t seem to moving the right way, or at all. When Sophie sits she just stares at the wall, silent tears still falling from her eyes.
She kept thinking about what could have happened if Parker hadn’t have been there. Horrible pictures invaded her mind; being locked in some room, beaten, raped, murdered. That might have been what finally stopped her crying: the heart clenching fear had struck her completely silent.
Parker sat next to her on the couch, and just looked at her like she didn’t know what to do. Sophie didn’t seem to be moving, or really even blinking. She waved her hand in front of her face, “Are you broken?”
Sophie blinked at the sudden intrusion to her vision and scoffed slightly, like it was amusing but at the same time completely not and replied in a horse voice, “I think so.” She still stared at the wall, not wanting to look at Parker. She didn’t want to have to explain.
“How do I fix you?” Parker asked, and kind of poked at her like she was a wind up toy that just wouldn’t wind up anymore, and needed to prod at it. Sophie flinched a bit, and Parker took away her hand like she had burned it. “Did I hurt you?” she asks, feeling bad.
“No,” Sophie says automatically, but then snaps out of her daze and looks at Parker and says a bit softer, with a little more life in her voice but not much. “No… you just, surprised me, is all.”
“From a poke?” Parker asks, and Sophie just brings her legs up on the couch, knees to chin and wraps her arms around herself. The touching thing apparently wasn’t working for her right now either. Not with all those images in her head.
But Sophie doesn’t want to offend Parker, if that was even possible. She looks at her, and finally says the audible words, though her voice still broke a bit, “Thank you…”
“For what?” Parker asks, not understanding in the least what she did for Sophie. Someone was hurting her and she stopped him, it’s just what you’re supposed to do. It wasn’t a choice.
“For saving me,” Sophie whispers, and her hand clenched onto her pant leg and she leaned her head against her knees, looking at Parker, small tears still falling from her eyes. Leave it to be Parker, out of everyone, to save her. Nate… she closed her eyes, she didn’t even want to think about him right now.
“He was hurting you,” is all Parker says, looking at her like that isn’t a reason for Sophie to show gratitude. “Anyone would save you.”
Sophie let out a bitter laugh, and shook her head. “No,” she says. “Not everyone would, Parker. Most people like to not get involved with… anything.” She was speaking generally, because usually when people hear a scream outside of their house they make a point not to get involved so they don’t end up being a casualty, but she still couldn’t help thinking about Nate when she said it.
“Yes they would,” Parker tells her, like she’s being absurd. “You’re a pretty girl like in the fairytales. The daises, or whatever.”
“Damsels,” Sophie corrects automatically, then blinks and looks back at Parker. Did she just refer her to a princess in a fairytale?
“Yeah, those,” Parker says, nodding a bit. “When they cry out for help, everyone comes.”
“Oh, Parker…” Sophie says and sniffs as she wipes away a tear and looks at her sadly. “Fairytales aren’t real.”
Parker smiles at her, like she’s the one that’s being silly and replies, “If they aren’t, then why did I come in my white car, which is kind of like a horse only it has wheels instead of legs, and it also doesn’t eat that much hay… or any in fact.” She stops and looks confused for a minute at her own rambling, but then says. “And then I made the bad guy stop hurting you.” There was a pause before she continued, “Fairytales are real, but they make the story for us. They come into real life and fix things.”
Parker smiles at her before getting up to go over to the closet. Sophie can do nothing else but just stare at her, wondering if she’s shocked because of how naïve Parker is, or how sweet she is. Whatever it was, Parker didn’t give her much of a chance to think, just took out some blankets and a pillow and handed them to her.
“The blanket is green, since you seemed to cry at blue,” she tells her.
“Thank you,” Sophie whispers, and takes them. She holds them close to her chest and looks up at Parker, and can’t help but think that maybe if fairytales are real, then maybe she’s her fairy godmother. They always seemed a bit crazy anyway, but in a good way.
Parker stands there for a minute, looking like she doesn’t know what to do. Then she bends down in a way like she shouldn’t know if she should even do what she’s about to do, stopping herself half way through before she continues, and kisses the top of Sophie’s head. “Don’t cry anymore, please. The bad stuff is done now.”
Sophie closes her eyes from the gesture, but when she opens them, Parker’s gone. Sophie takes a deep breath and rises to her feet to turn off the light, and before she goes to bed, she wipes away the last of her tears and wishes that Parker was right, that all the bad stuff was done now… but she knew it never would be.
CHAPTER THREE
Secrets
When Sophie woke, at first she couldn’t remember where she was. She looked around in her half asleep state confused, before all the memories of yesterday came flashing back to her, and she almost choked on her own breath because she took such a sharp inhale. She coughed a bit, then closed her eyes and willed herself to calm down. It was over now, that was yesterday. This is today. Nothing happened.
But something did happen, even if it wasn’t the worst thing that could have possibly happen. First the love of her life treats her like she’s nothing better than a tramp, and then that man… and then Parker.
Parker.
Sophie sat up on the couch, pushing back the hair from her face, and turned her head to look at Parker’s door. Where had Parker come from? Why was she even over in that area? It wasn’t the best neighborhood in the world, and while Sophie and Nate resided in the good part of town, there only seemed to be a block where it switched from good... to really bad. There was no medium in that area. It was kind of like some weird alternate universe line that you cross once you passed 42nd street.
Sophie chewed on her bottom lip a bite before shivering, picking up the green blanket Parker had given her and wrapping it around herself. It was Los Angeles, but even December in Los Angeles wasn’t exactly warm. She rose to her feet, then realized she still had Parker’s shoes on from last night; she had fallen asleep with them on. She sat back down and carefully took them off, placing them by the side of the couch before getting up again and bringing herself over to Parker’s door. She knocked, but didn’t hear and answer so she turned the door handle and opened the door slowly.
Parker was sprawled out on her bed in a star shape, dressed in only her undergarments, head to the side, snoring lightly. Sophie leaned against the threshold of the door and couldn’t help the smirk that played at her lips. The way Parker slept was so… Parker. Random, unorthodox, and yet at the same time… almost like a child. Parker moaned a bit in her sleep, then mumbled something Sophie couldn’t make out before rolling over… and off of the bed.
Sophie put her hand over her mouth in shock as Parker hit the floor, awakening her rudely. Sophie snorted a bit behind her hand, trying not to laugh. Parker swore loudly and sleepily picked herself up, before turning around and looking at Sophie, who was still trying so hard not to keep replaying that over and over in her head. That was almost priceless.
“Morning,” Parker replied a bit grumpily before crawling back into her own bed and under the covers. She didn’t say anything about Sophie seeing her do that, didn’t even seem embarrassed either. She also apparently didn’t want it to be morning, since she climbed back into bed.
“Has that…” Sophie started to say, then giggled a bit. “Sorry, but does that… happen a lot?” She had to ask, the way Parker didn’t even seem surprised by it.
“Every morning,” Parker replies, then yawns big before snuggling under her covers. She blinks a bit, looking at Sophie still standing there, blanket around her. “It’s cold,” she tells her, like it’s supposed to mean something other than exactly what she said.
“It’s December,” Sophie replies, and pulls the blanket around her tighter. “Least it doesn’t snow.” A pause as she looks at her, “Why don’t you have the heat on?”
“I don’t like paying for it,” Parker tells her.
“But you have millions of dollars,” Sophie says, like she can’t believe Parker can be frugal when she’s rich. It just doesn’t compute in Sophie’s brain.
“It’s cold,” Parker repeats, and this time holds the covers out for Sophie, not commenting on the money. Sophie realizes that’s what she was implying the first time she said that, and walked over to the bed and crawled in it.
“Thanks.”
“Yeah,” Parker says, then shivers a bit. “I don’t like winter. Everything’s dark.”
Sophie pulled the covers up around her chin and looked over at the blonde. “Are you afraid of the dark?” she asks her, with a bit of a teasing grin.
“No,” Parker says, and brings one of her hands up to her mouth to chew on a fingernail. “It’s just sad; the grass gets icky, the trees are naked.”
“Don’t bite your nails, Parker,” Sophie tells her, and swats at Parker’s hand. Parker looks disgruntled, but relents and puts her hand down. She rolls over to face Sophie and squishes her face to the side a bit, as if thinking. “Why were you walking last night?” Parker finally asks.
Sophie looks down, and starts picking at the blanket a bit. She really didn’t want to talk about it. As far as the whole team knew, Nate and Sophie’s relationship was picture perfect. The white picket fence kind, minus the actually fence, and usually the kids that come along with it. While they publicly had their differences in the beginning, now they hid them behind closed doors. “Just a bad night,” she replies.
“Oh,” Parker says, and leaves it. She knew Sophie didn’t want her to pry.
“Why were you out there anyway?” Sophie asks, finally needing to know. It was an odd place for her to be.
“Someone I know lives over there,” Parker tells her, and Sophie’s eyes widened. Parker had a friend, really? Not that it wasn’t possible, but… well, no, it really wasn’t all that possible. Parker’s always been a loner, and the Leverage Team was the closest she had to any kind of real relationship with other people… or so she thought, anyway.
“Who?”
“Just some guy,” Parker says, and shrugs. But Sophie isn’t just about to let that go. A guy? Parker knows a guy? Parker went over a guys house?
Sophie props herself up on one elbow, looking down at the thief with a bit of a smile playing at her lips. “A guy?” she asks, clearly interested. “A guy friend or boyfriend?”
Parker shrugs again, “Just a guy.”
“Oh come on, Parker,” Sophie prods, and nudges her a bit. Parker rolled her eyes but smirked a bit, her tongue to her teeth.
“Someone I have sex with, okay?” she answers finally, but doesn’t seem too mad for Sophie sticking her nose in where it really didn’t belong. Though they had all worked together for three years now, they still weren’t exactly the tightest of friends.
“Thought you didn’t want to date anymore after Hardison,” Sophie asks, surprised that she is again. Parker was absolutely devastated last year when that didn’t work out as well as she expected it to, and made a very public vow of, ‘men are mean, I’m becoming a lesbian’ after that. Hardison and her have then since made up, and are actually very close friends now, finding that their relationship was better that way.
“I didn’t say I didn’t want to date anymore,” Parker says, looking at her confused. Maybe she didn’t remember. “And me and Patrick aren’t dating, we’re fucking. There’s a difference.” She paused, and looked confused for a minute. “I think.”
“Don’t use that word,” Sophie scolds her. She never liked that word for what’s supposed to be an act of love. Though in this case, it didn’t seem like Parker liked this guy for more than just the sum of his body mass and how well he could use it, apparently. “And I thought you were a lesbian now.”
Parker giggles. “For a little while,” she tells her, then shrugs. “He was pretty,” is all she offers to her, like that explained her rapidly changing sexuality.
“I bet he is,” Sophie says, and smirks before sitting up a little in bed. “Come on, let’s have breakfast.”
Parker makes this sound like she disapproves of anything other then bed, but reluctantly sits up. “It’s cold,” she says again.
“Then we’re going to turn on the heat,” Sophie tells her, and gets out of bed. Parker makes another noise like she’s not happy with that plan either, but doesn’t tell her no. Sophie is a guest after all, and it’s rude to just let your guests have frozen toes. Different when you’re alone.
When Parker reluctantly goes over to the thermostat, Sophie sighs a bit and picks at her fingernails. Hearing about Parker and her new almost-boyfriend was making her feel a bit sad about what her and Nate are going through at the moment. She missed when it was good… when Nate was sober. He was sober for six months, and Sophie was so proud of him. But then it started back all over again, though it was more secret this time. He was never drinking at work, never around the others, so Sophie was apparently the only one who was let in on his private hell… and now hers. It seemed like everything with her and Nate now was just one big lie, one big secret after another.
When they both go into the kitchen, Sophie sits down at her dining room table as Parker rummages through her fridge. “Leftover Chinese,” is all she offers her. Sophie blinks.
“Are you serious?”
“I don’t cook,” Parker tells her, and looks over her shoulder. “Got fortune cookies if you want. Hardison told me that for breakfast, if you put them in milk, they’re much more acceptable, but I still don’t get it.”
Sophie let out a breath and then chuckled a bit as she got up. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?” Parker asks her.
“To get some real food,” Sophie tells her with a smile and grabs her coat, then looks down at her feet, remembering something. “Oh,” she says, a bit embarrassed. “Can I borrow some shoes?”
CHAPTER FOUR
Concealed Pains Of Domestic Life
After breakfast, Parker dropped Sophie back off at her house. It was the last place Sophie wanted to be right now, but she didn’t want Parker to know that. She had already screwed up by telling Parker she didn’t want to go home last night, and she was so determined to have everyone think that absolutely nothing was wrong with her life that she was willing to take the forthcoming abuse just to convey a false image.
She looked back as Parker drove off, waving a bit and forcing a smile. Then she took a shaky breath and looked at her house, already having a bad feeling about going back in there. But she took one hesitant step forward, and then another, before she was finally at the door. Turing the handle, she entered into the back hall, through the kitchen, to finally see Nate in the living room.
Nate looked up, drink already in hand, Sophie just sighed heavily and threw her purse on the end table before crossing her arms over her chest and looking at him. “What’s this, then?”
Nate took another sip and said in a raspy voice, “I didn’t know where you were.”
Sophie scoffed and looked at him like he was mad for even suggesting he cared, and responded, “Don’t blame your addiction on me, Nate.”
Nate didn’t say anything, just raised his eyebrows and took another sip that seemed over dramatisized for Sophie. Sophie just shook her head and held on to herself tighter, not believing what was in front of her. After all she went through yesterday, she had to come home to this? Already?
“You almost never saw me again,” she told him finally, her voice breaking a bit. She wanted him to care, to comfort her. But yet at the same time she didn’t even want to tell him either, because then she would have to relive it.
“You would have come back,” Nate says simply, like that’s what she was meaning. “You always do.”
“No!” Sophie exclaimed, frustrated. “That’s not… that’s not…” but she could get it out, she was starting to feel like she was going to cry again and that was the last thing she wanted to do right now. All she did yesterday was cry. It’s a wonder she didn’t shrink two dress sizes from losing most of her water weight.
“It’s too early for the drama, Sophie. Just sit down,” Nate says, and grabs the remote for the television. But Sophie smacks it out of his hand, making him look up at her annoyed. “What the hell could possibly be wrong now?”
“Will you just bloody listen to me for once!” Sophie cried, her breath shuddering a bit as she inhaled. “Please!” Her bottom lip starts to tremble, and she bites on it to keep it from doing so. She really didn’t want to cry, especially not even in front of him right now. She just wanted him to listen, sweep her into his arms and tell her everything’s going to be okay.
But that wasn’t going to happen.
“What?” Nate said, exasperated, putting down his drink of the coffee table and looking at her like this better be important for interrupting him. Sophie just stared at him like she couldn’t believe how he was acting, but it would have really been more foolish for her to expect anything else.
“S-Someone… they…” she starts, shaking a bit and holding on to herself tighter. She couldn’t even bring herself to say it.
“What? Stole the car or something? I’ll buy you a new one,” Nate says and turns back to get the remote, like that was that. Dismissing her. Buying her stuff just so she’d shut up.
“I could have almost gotten raped last night, you bloody bastard!” Sophie cries out finally, slapping the remote out of his hand again and screeching a bit. Nate blinks and looks at her for a moment, almost like he’s in shock from the revelation, but then he just shakes his head.
“Sophie, you don’t have to make stuff up to try to con me into paying attention to you. I’m paying attention now, aren’t I? Jesus. I already know you’d shoot anyone who’d be stupid enough to try.”
Sophie started crying then, not even knowing what to do. Of course Nate didn’t believe her, of course. She put her hand over her face as the tears started flowing, and Nate just rolled her eyes at her display, thinking she’s lying about the whole thing. She started to get angry again, just infuriated because that was one of the scariest times of her life and she was trying to confide in him… and he thought she was lying.
“I didn’t have my fucking gun!” Sophie yells and grabs her purse off the end table to turn it over and dump the contents all over him. Nate let out a sound of protest before she threw her purse across the room. “If Parker hasn’t of been there I would have died! And you… and your just going to sit there? Are you bloody kidding me?!”
Nate sighed heavily and looked at her. “Just stop, okay? I get it. I’m paying attention.”
“Fuck you!” Sophie screamed. “Are you telling me that my own man won’t even protect me?! That I had to run to Parker when things go bad now, is that it?”
“Parker’s a lesbian now, sure she wouldn’t mind,” Nate said with a bit of an amused laugh, like Parker’s sexuality was a joke, and that Parker wanting Sophie would be an even more amusing joke on her behalf. That this entire thing was just one big joke.
Sophie slapped him then, right across the face so hard that the sound seemed to echo across the room. But before she knew what was happening, he was up, retaliating, grabbing her by the throat automatically before throwing her heavily into the far wall. Sophie coughed and put her hand to her neck as her knees gave out underneath her and she slumped to the ground.
“Don’t put your hands on me,” Nate told her dangerously, and Sophie just lay for a moment, staring at him like she didn’t even know who he was anymore. It wasn’t the first time, so she was hardly surprised by it, but it was usually when he was far too trashed to even see straight, and from the looks of it he had only just started drinking.
She rubbed her throat in silence for a little bit, it feeling like his hand was still on it. She coughed again and got to her feet before rubbing her temple, where her face had slammed into the wall. She was so sick of this, she was so sick of all of this. Nate didn’t have any right to treat her this way! The bastard acts like she’s good for nothing… and she was just sick of it.
So she opened the end table drawer, took out her gun, and pointed it at him.
Nate’s eyes went wide. “Sophie…” he warned gently, putting up his hands.
“You fucking bastard,” she told him, a dangerous look in her own eyes now. “I think its you that shouldn’t put your hands on me anymore.”
“Sophie, calm down…”
Sophie cocked the gun, making Nate look terrified for a second. Sophie smiled a bit inwardly. Good, it was his turn to be scared for a minute. Not like she would ever really shoot him, but it emphasized her point very well, and made him listen at least.
“I had the worst night of my life last night,” she told him with a low voice, too angry to even yell anymore. It was that sort of calm anger, the ones children always fear with their mother because it means she’s really, really angry. “I had some guy try to drag me into his car, I had you treat me like a whore, I cried all over Parker. And now you think you’re going to hit me? Is that it, Nate?”
“No,” he said automatically, his voice softer. “Come on, Sophie. I’m sorry. It was just a reaction, I didn’t mean to hurt you…”
“Liar,” she told him, and straightened her arms a bit more, aiming at his chest. Nate was starting to get desperate, and Sophie could see him start to sweat a bit.
“Sophie, baby… I love you. Okay? I’m sorry. I’ll have Hardison find this guy if you want, and then we can make him pay for trying to do that to you. Will that make you feel better?” Nate still had his hands up, but was trying to slowly coax his way over to Sophie.
Sophie didn’t care about that guy, not anymore anyway. He wasn’t what mattered right now, but when Nate said the words ‘I love you’, that he hadn’t said to her in so long, her fact softened a bit and her arms slacked only a tad, but she still had it pointed at him.
“Are you okay? I’ll kill him for hurting you, I promise,” Nate said, and Sophie’s bottom lip trembled, her arms slacking a bit more. That’s all she wanted to hear, that Nate cared and that he wanted to do something about it. “I love you, Sophie. I won’t let him hurt you again.”
Sophie put down the gun then and started to cry. Nate wrapped his arms around her, and slowly coaxed the gun out of her hand to lay it back on top of the end table. Sophie threw her arms around him and just bawled, her hands holding onto his shirt like she knew that this moment wouldn’t last, and that it would just be hell again tomorrow… because it would.
“Shh…” Nate hushed her and ran his fingers through her hair. “Hey, it’ll be okay, alright? I love you.”
It was always like this though, wasn’t it? After every time that he hits her and she takes drastic measures to retaliate, he’s always sorry. He always loves her then. The only time it lasted longer than a day was that time she stabbed him in the leg with a butter knife and he walked with a limp for a week. He told the team a dog bit him. Eliot made fun of him for awhile after that.
She doesn’t know how she got stuck in this lifestyle, especially with Nate. She loves him so much, but all she can do is really hope that one day he’ll realize what he has and loves her back just as much, and then maybe for once they can be finally happy together.
CHAPTER FIVE
Torn In Half
Just another day at the office.
Hardison was fooling around on his computer, playing some game when he was supposed to be finding clients, only pulling the screen back up when Nate wasn’t around to see it. Eliot was trying to explain to Parker the different kind of fighting styles with knives, only she was more interested in actually playing with the knives than learning techniques, and when she throws one at the wall to lodge it in there and it almost hits Nate instead, Nate blows up and tells them that knives are now on the list of things that are banned in the office.
Along with bubble gum and toothpicks. You really don’t want to know.
Sophie sighed heavily and walked into the bathroom so she could be alone for a minute. When she closed the door, her hand clutched her ribs, grimacing in pain. The wall probably fractured one this time, though it shouldn’t be a surprise. It always tended to be that side that she ended up getting hurt on, no wonder it finally cracked.
She took a deep breath and tried to control the pain, only be able to do so in here. She didn’t want the rest of the team to know. She looked in the mirror and let out a breath as she saw some of her makeup had rubbed off a bit on her neck. The bruise wasn’t that noticeable, but she should probably fix it anyway. She took out her compact and started dabbing it against her olive skin, hoping that this time it would be the last.
When the compact was back in her bag the door opened, making Sophie turn around in surprise. “Don’t you knock? I could have been on the loo!” Sophie exclaims as she looks at Parker, who doesn’t blink, doesn’t say anything, just comes in and closes the door behind her.
“Parker?” Sophie asks, wondering why she isn’t saying anything. But finally she opens her mouth, looking at her like she knows more than she’s asking.
“What happened?”
“What?” Sophie asked, trying to feign confusement. She grabs her purse and tries to move towards the door, but Parker blocks it.
Parker doesn’t say anything; she just lifts a finger and puts it to Sophie’s neck, sliding it down to wipe off the makeup. Sophie grimaced in pain and put her hand on her neck as Parker holds up her makeup-covered finger like she just proved a point.
“God, you didn’t have to press that hard,” Sophie says as she cups the offending area. She was bruised after all.
“Sophie,” Parker says, like she knows more than Sophie’s saying.
“I just fell, okay?” Sophie says and digs through her purse again to try to find her compact again. She had to recover it now.
“On your neck?” Parker asked her, like it was a stupid thing to say to try to cover the lie. “You could have at least said you walked into a shelf or something, it would have been more believable.”
“Look, I don’t know what you’re on about,” Sophie said as she covered the spot yet again. “I just fell.”
“Right,” Parker says and gives her this look that Sophie wishes she didn’t see in her eyes. Like she knows. Sophie averted her eyes from her and just looked at herself in the mirror.
There was silence for a minute before Parker pulls out something that looks like a cigarette from her bra, along with a lighter, and sparks it up. “I had a really fucked up childhood,” she tells her, like that explains something as she exhales a lot of smoke out of her mouth.
“Parker!” Sophie exclaims as she grabs the cigarette looking thing from her, throwing it automatically in the toilet. There was a loud protest of ‘Hey!’ from Parker before Sophie looked at what she just threw in there. “What is that?!” she asks, knowing full well but looking back at Parker like she was insane.
“It was a joint,” Parker says with an annoyed look on her face.
“Since when have you…?! Parker! Why are you doing drugs?!” Sophie exclaims, knowing that Parker had always made it clear that she never liked drugs. So seeing something like that was far from ordinary.
“It’s a plant, Sophie. Not drugs. Stop changing the subject.”
“What subject? We’re talking about this now! Why are you smoking that?!”
“It calms me down. Makes my brain stop,” she made erratic hand gestures with her fingers, pointing in all different directions and swirling them around, “Doing that.”
Sophie just blinks at her. “Where did you get it?”
“From Patrick. Look,” she says, like what they’re talking about in that moment isn’t important, and they needed to steer the conversation somewhere else, “Why are you covering up what Nate is doing to you?” Parker asks her.
“What Nate is doing to me? Look at what this Patrick guy is doing to you!” Sophie tells her, pointing at the offending drug in the toilet. Granted, maybe what Nate was doing to her is far worse, but she didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want Parker to know, and steering the conversation to her problems seemed to be a better thing to do.
“It’s a joint, not crack,” Parker says and folds her arms over her chest. “You have finger shaped bruises on your throat.”
But Sophie ignores what she’s saying about her, and goes on. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised about this Patrick, he does live in the bad part of town. What’s next? Shooting heroin?”
“He doesn’t sell that,” Parker says, and Sophie’s eyes go wide.
“You’re dating a drug dealer?!” she practically screeches, and Parker puts her hands over her ears.
“Sophie!” she exclaims, wincing from the decibel of it. “He’s a nice guy, now will you just shut up?” Sophie blinks at her, annoyed that Parker just told her to shut up. She was dating a drug dealer for shits sake, how is that not more important?!
“What is going on?” Parker asks her, her voice softer this time. She’s look at Sophie like she pities her, and Sophie hates that.
“Nothing, I told you I fell. Stop assuming something horrible is going on, it’s not. Me and Nate… we’re really happy, alright?” She tried with everything she could to sound convincing, but Parker still didn’t believe her.
“He’s abusing you.”
“No, Parker,” Sophie says and grabs her arm, trying desperately to make her understand. “He’s not, I promise. Things just… get out of control sometimes.”
Parker scoffs, “Yeah that’s what my foster father used to say to justify himself to his wife when she finally noticed bruises all over me.”
“Parker…” Sophie says softly, looking at her with a mixture of sadness, because she had never known she went through that, and yet at the same time desperation, because she didn’t want Parker to say anything to anyone. “Please…”
“You’re an idiot,” is all Parker says to her, and Sophie doesn’t argue. Parker has a really effective weapon against her now: knowledge.
“I know,” is all she says, jus agreeing with her so she won’t have any reason to march out in the office right now and announce her theories. “Please,” she pleaded, more desperately this time. “Please don’t say anything. I’ll do anything you want, okay?”
That was a probably a bad thing to offer.
“Have sex with me,” is what’s out of Parker’s mouth the moment after Sophie offered. Sophie gapes at her and starts stuttering.
“W-What…? Parker… I… you…?”
Parker rolls her eyes and lets out a bit of a laugh, “It was a joke, Sophie. Don’t have an aneurism.”
“You… joke now?” Sophie asks, like it’s something foreign. Parker can’t joke, and used to never try.
“I’ve gotten better,” she defends. She smirked, “That was funny to me, at least. You’re face was so-”
“Parker,” Sophie says, forgetting the attempted joke to get serious again. “Promise me, please.” She took her hands in hers and held them, looking her in the eyes and trying to convey with her actions just how much pleading she’s willing to do to have this not become a public thing.
Parker just stares at her for a moment, chewing on her bottom lip as she thought about what she should do. After a moment she sighed and said, “You owe me, like… huge owe me. Cause this…” she takes her hand a delicately touches Sophie’s neck, her face contorting into anger. “This isn’t supposed to happen to you.”
“I’m a damsel in distress,” Sophie says quietly, smiling a bit as if she’s joking… but she’s not.
“But you don’t want anyone to save you,” Parker says as she steps back from her and just looks at her like she knows more than what she’s seeing in front of her. Like she was almost seeing herself, just a very long time ago.
“I can take care of myself,” Sophie tells her gently.
“Sure,” Parker says and shrugs before putting her hand on the door handle, but she looked back at her before opening it. “I’ll be sure to remind you of that when you show up at my house, needing somewhere safe to sleep.”
“Parker!” Sophie calls out after her, but she’s gone. Out the door, closing it behind her. Sophie closed her eyes and sighed as she sat heavily on the toilet, putting her hands in her hair. This wasn’t supposed to happen. No one was supposed to know. “Bollocks,” she cursed.
Her so-called picture perfect life had just been torn in half.
CHAPTER SIX
Bonding Activities
Parker couldn’t believe that Sophie was just taking something like that, what is wrong with her? She had seen the suspicious marks before, but Nate and Sophie had always seemed so happy that she never really thought about it. But after seeing Sophie looking like hell warmed over the other night, and not wanting to go back to her house… and now this? Parker knew. It was obvious. She used to live it.
Unfortunately because she lived it she also knew why Sophie wasn’t doing anything about it. She got stuck in the lifestyle. It was hell, but it was familiar. Familiar always tended to win over anything else, because it’s all you know anymore.
She really didn’t want to know how long this had been going on. They’ve been dating for almost two years.
Parker just wanted to stop thinking, so instead of going home, she stopped over Patrick’s house. She knocked on the door, and when he opened it she didn’t greet him, just said, “I need some weed.”
Patrick just smirked and let her in, closing the door behind her. “You alright, Sarah?” he asked as he sat down next to her on the couch.
Parker never told him her real name; it would have been too risky. Plus, she wasn’t in a relationship or anything; she just had sex with him. And for sex you don’t need real names.
“Fine, just want to get stoned,” she tells him and leans on him a bit. He wraps one arm around her, this large muscular arm that Parker loves, and starts rolling a joint one handed.
“How was work?” he asked her, though he thought she was a secretary at a cooperate office building.
“Shitty,” she answers, kicking her shoes off on to the floor. She didn’t want to think about work right now. Didn’t want to think about Sophie and Nate right now.
“Here,” Patrick says, handing her the rolled up problem-disapearer. Parker lit it up and inhaled deeply, before closing her eyes and leaning her head back against the couch as she exhaled.
Patrick laughed a bit, “That bad?”
“Yeah,” Parker says as she opens her eyes to look at him before placing it between her lips again and taking another drag. The smoke came out of her mouth as she continued, “My boss is an asshole.”
“Everyone’s boss is an asshole,” Patrick tells her. “Why I work for myself.”
“I used to,” Parker tells him, then shrugs as she takes another drag before holding it out to pass it to him, but he waves it off.
“Got my own stuff,” he says. “Enjoy that.”
Parker smiled, and watched him take out a container. She snuggled into him a little bit as she put the joint between her teeth. As she exhaled she looked at what he was getting out and got this incredible feeling like disappointment flow through her body. She had watched that destroy so many people, but she wasn’t going to say anything. He wasn’t her boyfriend, it wasn’t her problem.
Patrick started loading his pipe and Parker moved a bit away from him as he did. He looked at her questioningly, but all she told him was, “I don’t want to smell that.”
“Oh,” he says, and instead gets up and moves to the other side of the room with the loaded pipe, trying to be courteous. But Parker wasn’t sure how anyone could be courteous while smoking meth.
“That’s not good for you,” Parker tells him finally, not able to keep it in her as well as she thought she would. Patrick just laughed a bit and held the lighter up underneath the glass until it started smoking a bit, coming out the little hole in the top.
“Neither is what you’re holding,” he says before the puts his lips to the pipe and rotates it slowly, carefully.
“It makes people do things,” Parker tells him, as she watches, hoping he’ll just put it down. “Hurt people.”
When Patrick exhaled he looked at her pointedly, “I’m not going to hurt you, Sarah.”
“That’s what everyone says,” she tells him before sticking the joint back in her mouth and inhaling. Patrick looked at her before putting the pipe down on the table.
“Sorry, I won’t do it in front of you then,” he said, and Parker realized he genuinely felt bad for doing something she didn’t like, so she smiled at him a bit in thanks. He holds his hand out for the joint instead and she gives it to him before he sits back down on the couch next to her.
“You get cable yet?” she asks him, looking at the television. He shakes his head.
“Nah, thinking about stealing one of Billy’s black boxes, the dick ripped me off yesterday,” he says as he blows out a long line of smoke.
“You want to?” Parker asks him, perking up at once. Stealing, see, that was funner than television.
Patrick looked at Parker in amusement, but also a little surprise. “You want to steal it?” he asked her, like he couldn’t believe she said that. “Now?”
“Why not?” she said and got up before snatching the joint out of his mouth and taking a long drag before handing it back. “It’ll be fun.”
“Fun?” he asks again, amusement and shock coloring his voice. “Didn’t know you were so the wrong side of the law, it’s kind of hot.”
Parker smirks and puts back on her shoes, but Patrick says, “It’s still light out, let’s wait till it gets dark.”
“Why?” Parker asks, “Then it’ll be too easy.” She paused as she tied her laces. “Already is too easy.”
“Breaking into someone’s house in broad daylight is easy?” he asks, looking at her like he has no idea who stood in front of her, and he didn’t. “Who are you?” he asked with a laugh.
“Maybe one day you’ll find out,” she says with a teasing smirk before heading towards the door. “Come on.”
But when they get there, Parker doesn’t let Patrick out of the car. He obviously wasn’t too slick in the way of getting things, since he didn’t even want to do this in daylight. “Stay here,” she tells him. He tries to protest.
“Sarah, we shouldn’t do this now. His car is here.”
“Good,” Parker said. She always loved stealing things right from underneath people’s noses, it was amusing. She opened the car door, but Patrick put a hand on her shoulder to stop her.
“Sarah,” he says again. “You’re going to get caught.”
“I never get caught,” she tells him, before she slips out of his grip and is now running towards the side of the house. She hears Patrick curse before she stops and looks up, noticing an air vent on the side of the house. She would have to go in through that way, since the guy was home. She looks around and finds a trash barrel before pulling it over to where she was at, climbing on top of it. Pulling a lock pick from her bra, she loosens the screws on the air vent, letting it hang there by only one, and climbs inside.
It was dusty, moldy. The man probably never got them cleaned the entire time he lived there, so she put a hand over her nose and mouth to not breathe the offending air. She crawled a little ways on her stomach before she got to the first vent in the house. She looked out it and noticed the fat slob sitting on his couch, beer in hand, laughing at a cartoon where a baby with a big head was talking. She rolled her eyes and continued on.
When she found the second one she carefully opened it, making sure to not make any noise, then dropped to the floor. She was in his bedroom. Now all that was left was to find them.
But it was too easy, just like she thought it would be. In his closet, under a bunch of dirty clothes. She crinkles her nose at the underwear, then picks up one of the boxes before climbing on the bed and slipping it inside the vent. She jumped them, holding onto the edge as she pulled herself up with her strength, getting back inside.
When she came to the car with it, Patrick’s mouth was open. “Drive,” she says simply, and he does.
She’s giggling now, the marijuana not being able to stop it. But Patrick looked so shocked . She puts the box in the back seat and Patrick finally speaks, looking at her like she’s a new person.
“You… are the hottest woman I have ever met,” he tells her before leaning over and kissing her on the lips. She smiles against them and kisses him back, enjoying the feeling.
When they broke she had a smirk adorning her features and she replied, “If that’s what I get for a cable box, what can I get for some diamonds?”
Patrick slammed on the brakes accidentally due to his shock, and Parker collapsed into a fit of giggles.
POST TOO BIG.
PART TWO IS HERE.
Author: Sapphire Smoke cuzimastripper
Fandom: Leverage
Rating: NC-17 (to be on the safe side, anyway. Not sure yet)
Pairing: Parker/Sophie (some Nate/Sophie too, and Parker/OC)
Prompt: Sophie/Parker - burning bridges
Length Thus Far: 10,375 words
AU: Set two years into the future (from the end of season one). Nate and Sophie have been dating for awhile, and now live together, and team has moved back to LA
Summary: When everything seems to be going wrong, Sophie finds a little bit of right somewhere unexpected.
A/N: There's hella angst, be forewarned. Don't worry too much though, I tend to have this sickness with happy endings...
CHAPTER ONE
Manhandling
“Why do you always do this?!”
“Because I care about you!… You... You bloody fucking… tosser!” came the response, having trouble even falling from Sophie’s lips. Chest heaving, wet trails down her cheeks, and her chest was squeezing so hard she could barely breathe. Her heart was racing, terrified at the result of yet another fight between her and the man she loves, but yet at the same time it seemed to routine that even contemplating the ending of the relationship due to that would probably seem a bit mad anyway.
She didn’t understand why he never realized that she got on to him because she cares; she worries for Christ’s sake. He has no idea what it’s like to lie in bed at night and worry if he’s even going to come home, or end up with his car smashed into a tree because he was too hammered to see straight. All she can do is tell him, cry, hope that for once he might actually understand what this is doing to her, how much it bloody hurts inside, and maybe just for once push down the urge to go to another sleezy run down bar and pick up a drink.
Why can’t he just be happy here, with her? What’s so wrong with here?
“Don’t you see how much this kills me, Nathan?!” Sophie screamed at him, trying so desperately for him to just see. But he shook his head and took off his coat, hanging it on the rack before kicking off his shoes.
“Oh, stop being so dramatic, Sophie,” he slurred a bit, and waved his hand like he was dismissing her emotions on the subject. He held out his hand to her, “Just come to bed.”
“No!” Sophie exclaimed, backing away from his outstretched hand. She wiped furiously at her tears and repeated, “No, I won’t just come to bed with you like nothing’s wrong!” She paused, looking at him infuriated. “In fact, you’re not coming to bed at all! You’re sleeping on the bloody couch tonight!”
Then she turned, retreating into their bedroom and slamming the door so hard she’s sure she heard it splinter… again. A few more of those and the damned thing might fall off its hinges. But it didn’t matter. None of it ever really mattered, did it? She sat down heavily on the bed and laid down, grabbing his pillow and burying her face in it to silence her sobs.
But there was a click as the door opened, and Sophie let out a frustrated half scream into the pillow before throwing it across the room and sitting up to look at Nate, who had invaded the room. “Did you not hear what I said?!” she yelled at him, looking at him like he’s clearly suicidal to walk in there.
“It’s my room,” Nate tells her, anger on his face now from being presumably kicked out.
“It’s mine too!” Sophie screamed, just wanting him to leave. She needed to be alone. “And I want you out!”
“It was mine first, so if you’re so content on not sleeping with me tonight, then you can find somewhere else to sleep then,” Nate told her and started undressing to get into his nightclothes. Sophie just looked at him like she couldn’t believe he just said that to her.
“So what, then? You move me in, ‘what’s yours in mine’, that’s what you said, isn’t it? And now what? It’s all rubbish?!” Sophie screeched, probably a few decibels louder than what was relatively safe for human hearing.
Nate just shrugged, like that was that. Sophie screamed again, and started picking up the pillows from off the bed and throwing them at him. The first hit him in the head and he turned in surprise before putting up his arms to shield himself from the others. “You wanker!” Sophie yelled at him before picking up the alarm clock, the very big and solid alarm clock, and throwing it at him. Nate ducked just in time before it smashed against the wall, denting the plaster a bit. “Is that all you think of me, then?! Just some whore in your bed that you can kick out whenever you feel like it?!”
“You said it,” Nate said under his breath, but Sophie heard him and screamed again before taking off her heels and throwing those at him too.
“Stop throwing shit at me, damnit woman!” Nate yelled finally, getting sick of all the blunt objects being thrown in his general vicinity, some with amazing accuracy.
“I hate you!” she screamed, before picking up the lamp. But Nate rushed over and held her hands; making her drop the lamp and having it shatter against the wood floor. “Let me go!” Sophie yelled at him, struggling against him. She tried to pound her fists against his chest but didn’t have the leverage to be able to have enough force for it to hurt. “Let me go, Nathan!”
“Calm down!” he yelled at her, but she didn’t. She was just so bloody sick of all of this, it was one day after another, the same shit to the same tune. All she wanted was for him to get it, to love her and appreciate her but all he did was treat her like she was nothing more than a criminal that he took in under the goodness of his heart, like she owed him something.
“Get off of me!” she yelled, still trying to hit him. Make him feel something at least, but she didn’t get the chance. He wrapped her in a bear hug, stilling her arms to her side as she tried to thrash out of his grasp, calling him every name in the book and then some as he picked her up. “PUT ME DOWN RIGHT NOW!”
“So you can hit me?” he asked with an angry laugh. “I don’t think so.” Then he started carrying her to the door, and as he got to the threshold she used her weight to plant her feet on the ground and slam him into it, making his groan in pain, but he didn’t let go of her. “Fuck, Sophie! Goddamnit!”
Then she was out of his grasp, thrown to the floor in the living room before he slammed the bedroom door behind him. Angrily she got to her feet and tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge, he was standing in front of it. She banged on it with her fists, furious. “Let me in, Nathan!”
“No, you need to calm the fuck down,” came the reply on the other side of the door. “Just sleep on the damn couch.”
“I am not your whore, you bloody prick! Now let me in!” Sophie screamed at him, refusing to be treated like this wasn’t her home too. It was. She bloody lived here, she slept in that damn bed, and she was not… she was not going to be thrown out here like this is all her fault!
“No!”
Sophie screamed again, beat on the door until her fists were red and raw, cursing up a storm until she finally collapsed from exhaustion onto the floor, and just cried. “I hate you, “ she whispered through her tears, barely audible. She knew he couldn’t hear her, but like it even mattered. Never did, anyway.
She couldn’t stay here; she didn’t want to do what he wanted her to. Sleep on the couch like nothing better than a bitch. She got to her feet finally and grabbed her purse, tears still flowing, and tried to find her shoes. But she remembered she threw them at him in there, and all of her others were in the bedroom as well. “Bloody brilliant,” she scolded herself, but not having shoes wasn’t going to stop her from leaving. She didn’t need them to walk, after all.
Sophie slammed the door as hard as she could as she left the house, and just started walking down the street. She didn’t want to take the car, she knew Nate had Hardison put GPS trackers in all of them, and she didn’t want him to find her. Wanted him to worry for once, though she knew he never would.
Six blocks. Her feet were starting to hurt. The tiny pebbled in the street would dig into her feet and she knew she was going to have to figure out somewhere to go… but nowhere was close. No Eliot, no Hardison, no Parker, and not even any hotels. She finally just collapsed on the side of the road, sitting on the curb and just cried. There was nothing left else to do.
Headlights blinded her as a car pulled around the corner, and Sophie shielded her eyes from the brightness. But instead of going on, the car slowed down and stopped where she sat. She got up, trying to see who it was, but the windows were tinted. It rolled down slowly and a man stuck his head out, “Need a ride, miss?”
“What?” Sophie asked, not even seeming to comprehend the question. She looked at him; he was an older gentleman, maybe in his fifties. He looked nice enough, but Sophie suddenly had a bad feeling run down to the base of her spine. She knew better than to get in a car with just anyone, anyway.
“No, thank you,” she tells him, wrapping her arms around herself, backing up a few steps.
“Come on, it’s freezing. Where are your shoes?” he asked her, looking at her feet.
“I just… lost them, is all,” she tells him, backing up a few more steps, before turning to walk away. But then he opens his car door, and steps out.
“A pretty thing like you shouldn’t be walking alone out here, not at this time of night,” he says with a smile that Sophie finds in no way comforting, and comes closer to her. She started to get terrified, and grasped at her purse… only to only realize that she had left her gun at the house. That was her one protection, and she stupidly left it at the house.
“I’m fine, thank you,” is all Sophie says before briskly walking away, hoping to every God there is that he would just let her go. That he really was a nice man, just seemed a bit creepy with the nature of the meeting. But then he grabbed her arm.
“Come on, get in,” he tells her, a bit more forcefully, pulling her a bit.
“Get off of me!” she yells, trying to jerk her arm away, but can’t because of the grasp he has on it. “Let me go!” She couldn’t deal with this now, not after everything that had happened. This just couldn’t be happening to her right now.
She was so fucking scared.
“I said come on,” he tells her, louder now, the nice tone out of his voice. His grip tightens and she winces; it hurts.
“Stop!” she screams, but then suddenly is thrown back against the pavement as someone comes out of bloody nowhere and elbows him in the back of the head. She lay there on the ground, stunned as she looked up to see her rescuer.
“Parker?”
But Parker doesn’t answer, she’s too busy kicking the shit out of the man from the car. Sophie blinks, not even finding the scene before her real. Where the hell did Parker come from? She doesn’t even live around here!
But with a knee to the gut the man finally falls to the ground, slumping over and groaning in pain. She knelt down next to him and clocked him one of the back of the head, knocking him out. “Dick,” she said to him as she rose to her feet and then looked down at Sophie, who was trying to get herself off the ground.
Parker held out her hand and pulled her up, only to look at her and exclaim, “Man, you look like shit.”
CHAPTER TWO
Fairytales
Sophie doesn’t care that Parker just told her she looks like shit. She doesn’t even care where she came from, or why she was even around this area in the first place. All she cares about is the fact that Parker just saved her from god knows what; a kidnapper? A rapist? A murderer? And so her emotions get the better of her because of all the horrible stuff that had happened to her today, and she starts crying and basically throws herself on Parker, wrapping her arms around her, thanking to whoever is listening that Parker has the uncanny ability to just pop in out of nowhere.
“Whoa,” Parker said, blinking and retaining her footing so they don’t both fall over. “Um…” she starts, obviously feeling uncomfortable from the way Sophie just basically pelted herself at her. She wrapped her arms around the other woman and patted her on the back awkwardly, attempting to comfort the weeping mess that was her co-worker at the moment. “There, there?” she says, clearly not sure if that’s what she’s supposed to be saying. “Stop crying, please.”
“God, Parker,” is all Sophie gets out through her tears, squeezing the other woman half to death, which makes Parker utter out a ‘umphh’ sound from the sudden lack of oxygen. She starts patting Sophie on the back harder, trying to let her know she can’t breathe.
“Oh, sorry,” Sophie says through her tears as she loosens her grip, and Parker sucks in some air. She’s still crying, lying her head on Parker’s shoulder, not wanting to let her go just because she’s something familiar, something safe at the moment.
She could have been killed.
“Sophie?” Parker asks, really uncomfortable from the sudden touchy-feelyness that Sophie had started. “The bad guy is not going to hurt you now, can you maybe get off of me?” She paused to add, “Please,” because after all, Sophie was crying and it might be completely insensitive to not, and she was trying to do better with that.
Sophie didn’t want to let go of her, she really didn’t, but she knew Parker was never big on personal contact. She lets go, stepping back a few steps before continuing her crying into her hands. She just couldn’t stop it; she was still so scared, still so upset. It was all Nate’s fault, if he didn’t… if he didn’t… she could be dead.
“Where are your shoes?” Parker asks her then, looking at Sophie’s bare feet. Sophie just waves her hand and starts saying something inaudible due to how much she was crying, and Parker looks confused. She’s standing there, not knowing what to do with this woman in front of her, because after all, Sophie had always been so strong. So she bends down and takes off her sneakers before holding them out to the grifter.
Sophie bawls harder at the gesture.
“I think they’ll fit,” Parker tells her, thinking that may be why Sophie started crying more. But Sophie keeps crying, looking at her in a way that Parker doesn’t understand, so she tries again, gesturing more with the shoes at her. “They’re comfortable and… blue. If I had another color I’d give them to you if you don’t like blue, but I don’t, so this is all I have. It’s my favorite pair, so… take them?” She just wanted Sophie to stop crying.
Sophie seems to even cry more at that, but takes the shoes, saying something that was still inaudible to Parker. She bends down and puts them on, but as she stands back up she looks at Parker and just basically jumps on her again, wrapping her arms around her.
“Oof,” Parker exclaims at the contact, and almost falls this time. “Sophie?” she asks again, and Sophie knows she has no idea what’s going on, and she knows she probably looks wretched, but she just can’t stop crying. “Do you need a ride home?”
Sophie shakes her head and holds on to Parker tighter. “Okay…” Parker starts, not knowing what to do. She pets her hair a bit like a child would pet a cat and is silent for a moment before asking, “Do you need to sleep over my house?”
Sophie nods, and lets out this strangled sob that Parker is sure kind of sounds like a dying animal, but she carefully untangles the brunette from her before grabbing a hold of her hand, just so Sophie is still holding on to her since she seemed like she needed to. Parker tries to give her a small comforting smile, but it still doesn’t seem to help so she sighs a bit and starts leading her to her car.
When they get to Parker’s apartment, Sophie’s mostly calmed down. She’s silent though, and just kind of is led by Parker up the stairs and through the door in a trance like state. Parker kind of places her on her couch, guiding her down a bit with her hand since Sophie didn’t seem to moving the right way, or at all. When Sophie sits she just stares at the wall, silent tears still falling from her eyes.
She kept thinking about what could have happened if Parker hadn’t have been there. Horrible pictures invaded her mind; being locked in some room, beaten, raped, murdered. That might have been what finally stopped her crying: the heart clenching fear had struck her completely silent.
Parker sat next to her on the couch, and just looked at her like she didn’t know what to do. Sophie didn’t seem to be moving, or really even blinking. She waved her hand in front of her face, “Are you broken?”
Sophie blinked at the sudden intrusion to her vision and scoffed slightly, like it was amusing but at the same time completely not and replied in a horse voice, “I think so.” She still stared at the wall, not wanting to look at Parker. She didn’t want to have to explain.
“How do I fix you?” Parker asked, and kind of poked at her like she was a wind up toy that just wouldn’t wind up anymore, and needed to prod at it. Sophie flinched a bit, and Parker took away her hand like she had burned it. “Did I hurt you?” she asks, feeling bad.
“No,” Sophie says automatically, but then snaps out of her daze and looks at Parker and says a bit softer, with a little more life in her voice but not much. “No… you just, surprised me, is all.”
“From a poke?” Parker asks, and Sophie just brings her legs up on the couch, knees to chin and wraps her arms around herself. The touching thing apparently wasn’t working for her right now either. Not with all those images in her head.
But Sophie doesn’t want to offend Parker, if that was even possible. She looks at her, and finally says the audible words, though her voice still broke a bit, “Thank you…”
“For what?” Parker asks, not understanding in the least what she did for Sophie. Someone was hurting her and she stopped him, it’s just what you’re supposed to do. It wasn’t a choice.
“For saving me,” Sophie whispers, and her hand clenched onto her pant leg and she leaned her head against her knees, looking at Parker, small tears still falling from her eyes. Leave it to be Parker, out of everyone, to save her. Nate… she closed her eyes, she didn’t even want to think about him right now.
“He was hurting you,” is all Parker says, looking at her like that isn’t a reason for Sophie to show gratitude. “Anyone would save you.”
Sophie let out a bitter laugh, and shook her head. “No,” she says. “Not everyone would, Parker. Most people like to not get involved with… anything.” She was speaking generally, because usually when people hear a scream outside of their house they make a point not to get involved so they don’t end up being a casualty, but she still couldn’t help thinking about Nate when she said it.
“Yes they would,” Parker tells her, like she’s being absurd. “You’re a pretty girl like in the fairytales. The daises, or whatever.”
“Damsels,” Sophie corrects automatically, then blinks and looks back at Parker. Did she just refer her to a princess in a fairytale?
“Yeah, those,” Parker says, nodding a bit. “When they cry out for help, everyone comes.”
“Oh, Parker…” Sophie says and sniffs as she wipes away a tear and looks at her sadly. “Fairytales aren’t real.”
Parker smiles at her, like she’s the one that’s being silly and replies, “If they aren’t, then why did I come in my white car, which is kind of like a horse only it has wheels instead of legs, and it also doesn’t eat that much hay… or any in fact.” She stops and looks confused for a minute at her own rambling, but then says. “And then I made the bad guy stop hurting you.” There was a pause before she continued, “Fairytales are real, but they make the story for us. They come into real life and fix things.”
Parker smiles at her before getting up to go over to the closet. Sophie can do nothing else but just stare at her, wondering if she’s shocked because of how naïve Parker is, or how sweet she is. Whatever it was, Parker didn’t give her much of a chance to think, just took out some blankets and a pillow and handed them to her.
“The blanket is green, since you seemed to cry at blue,” she tells her.
“Thank you,” Sophie whispers, and takes them. She holds them close to her chest and looks up at Parker, and can’t help but think that maybe if fairytales are real, then maybe she’s her fairy godmother. They always seemed a bit crazy anyway, but in a good way.
Parker stands there for a minute, looking like she doesn’t know what to do. Then she bends down in a way like she shouldn’t know if she should even do what she’s about to do, stopping herself half way through before she continues, and kisses the top of Sophie’s head. “Don’t cry anymore, please. The bad stuff is done now.”
Sophie closes her eyes from the gesture, but when she opens them, Parker’s gone. Sophie takes a deep breath and rises to her feet to turn off the light, and before she goes to bed, she wipes away the last of her tears and wishes that Parker was right, that all the bad stuff was done now… but she knew it never would be.
CHAPTER THREE
Secrets
When Sophie woke, at first she couldn’t remember where she was. She looked around in her half asleep state confused, before all the memories of yesterday came flashing back to her, and she almost choked on her own breath because she took such a sharp inhale. She coughed a bit, then closed her eyes and willed herself to calm down. It was over now, that was yesterday. This is today. Nothing happened.
But something did happen, even if it wasn’t the worst thing that could have possibly happen. First the love of her life treats her like she’s nothing better than a tramp, and then that man… and then Parker.
Parker.
Sophie sat up on the couch, pushing back the hair from her face, and turned her head to look at Parker’s door. Where had Parker come from? Why was she even over in that area? It wasn’t the best neighborhood in the world, and while Sophie and Nate resided in the good part of town, there only seemed to be a block where it switched from good... to really bad. There was no medium in that area. It was kind of like some weird alternate universe line that you cross once you passed 42nd street.
Sophie chewed on her bottom lip a bite before shivering, picking up the green blanket Parker had given her and wrapping it around herself. It was Los Angeles, but even December in Los Angeles wasn’t exactly warm. She rose to her feet, then realized she still had Parker’s shoes on from last night; she had fallen asleep with them on. She sat back down and carefully took them off, placing them by the side of the couch before getting up again and bringing herself over to Parker’s door. She knocked, but didn’t hear and answer so she turned the door handle and opened the door slowly.
Parker was sprawled out on her bed in a star shape, dressed in only her undergarments, head to the side, snoring lightly. Sophie leaned against the threshold of the door and couldn’t help the smirk that played at her lips. The way Parker slept was so… Parker. Random, unorthodox, and yet at the same time… almost like a child. Parker moaned a bit in her sleep, then mumbled something Sophie couldn’t make out before rolling over… and off of the bed.
Sophie put her hand over her mouth in shock as Parker hit the floor, awakening her rudely. Sophie snorted a bit behind her hand, trying not to laugh. Parker swore loudly and sleepily picked herself up, before turning around and looking at Sophie, who was still trying so hard not to keep replaying that over and over in her head. That was almost priceless.
“Morning,” Parker replied a bit grumpily before crawling back into her own bed and under the covers. She didn’t say anything about Sophie seeing her do that, didn’t even seem embarrassed either. She also apparently didn’t want it to be morning, since she climbed back into bed.
“Has that…” Sophie started to say, then giggled a bit. “Sorry, but does that… happen a lot?” She had to ask, the way Parker didn’t even seem surprised by it.
“Every morning,” Parker replies, then yawns big before snuggling under her covers. She blinks a bit, looking at Sophie still standing there, blanket around her. “It’s cold,” she tells her, like it’s supposed to mean something other than exactly what she said.
“It’s December,” Sophie replies, and pulls the blanket around her tighter. “Least it doesn’t snow.” A pause as she looks at her, “Why don’t you have the heat on?”
“I don’t like paying for it,” Parker tells her.
“But you have millions of dollars,” Sophie says, like she can’t believe Parker can be frugal when she’s rich. It just doesn’t compute in Sophie’s brain.
“It’s cold,” Parker repeats, and this time holds the covers out for Sophie, not commenting on the money. Sophie realizes that’s what she was implying the first time she said that, and walked over to the bed and crawled in it.
“Thanks.”
“Yeah,” Parker says, then shivers a bit. “I don’t like winter. Everything’s dark.”
Sophie pulled the covers up around her chin and looked over at the blonde. “Are you afraid of the dark?” she asks her, with a bit of a teasing grin.
“No,” Parker says, and brings one of her hands up to her mouth to chew on a fingernail. “It’s just sad; the grass gets icky, the trees are naked.”
“Don’t bite your nails, Parker,” Sophie tells her, and swats at Parker’s hand. Parker looks disgruntled, but relents and puts her hand down. She rolls over to face Sophie and squishes her face to the side a bit, as if thinking. “Why were you walking last night?” Parker finally asks.
Sophie looks down, and starts picking at the blanket a bit. She really didn’t want to talk about it. As far as the whole team knew, Nate and Sophie’s relationship was picture perfect. The white picket fence kind, minus the actually fence, and usually the kids that come along with it. While they publicly had their differences in the beginning, now they hid them behind closed doors. “Just a bad night,” she replies.
“Oh,” Parker says, and leaves it. She knew Sophie didn’t want her to pry.
“Why were you out there anyway?” Sophie asks, finally needing to know. It was an odd place for her to be.
“Someone I know lives over there,” Parker tells her, and Sophie’s eyes widened. Parker had a friend, really? Not that it wasn’t possible, but… well, no, it really wasn’t all that possible. Parker’s always been a loner, and the Leverage Team was the closest she had to any kind of real relationship with other people… or so she thought, anyway.
“Who?”
“Just some guy,” Parker says, and shrugs. But Sophie isn’t just about to let that go. A guy? Parker knows a guy? Parker went over a guys house?
Sophie props herself up on one elbow, looking down at the thief with a bit of a smile playing at her lips. “A guy?” she asks, clearly interested. “A guy friend or boyfriend?”
Parker shrugs again, “Just a guy.”
“Oh come on, Parker,” Sophie prods, and nudges her a bit. Parker rolled her eyes but smirked a bit, her tongue to her teeth.
“Someone I have sex with, okay?” she answers finally, but doesn’t seem too mad for Sophie sticking her nose in where it really didn’t belong. Though they had all worked together for three years now, they still weren’t exactly the tightest of friends.
“Thought you didn’t want to date anymore after Hardison,” Sophie asks, surprised that she is again. Parker was absolutely devastated last year when that didn’t work out as well as she expected it to, and made a very public vow of, ‘men are mean, I’m becoming a lesbian’ after that. Hardison and her have then since made up, and are actually very close friends now, finding that their relationship was better that way.
“I didn’t say I didn’t want to date anymore,” Parker says, looking at her confused. Maybe she didn’t remember. “And me and Patrick aren’t dating, we’re fucking. There’s a difference.” She paused, and looked confused for a minute. “I think.”
“Don’t use that word,” Sophie scolds her. She never liked that word for what’s supposed to be an act of love. Though in this case, it didn’t seem like Parker liked this guy for more than just the sum of his body mass and how well he could use it, apparently. “And I thought you were a lesbian now.”
Parker giggles. “For a little while,” she tells her, then shrugs. “He was pretty,” is all she offers to her, like that explained her rapidly changing sexuality.
“I bet he is,” Sophie says, and smirks before sitting up a little in bed. “Come on, let’s have breakfast.”
Parker makes this sound like she disapproves of anything other then bed, but reluctantly sits up. “It’s cold,” she says again.
“Then we’re going to turn on the heat,” Sophie tells her, and gets out of bed. Parker makes another noise like she’s not happy with that plan either, but doesn’t tell her no. Sophie is a guest after all, and it’s rude to just let your guests have frozen toes. Different when you’re alone.
When Parker reluctantly goes over to the thermostat, Sophie sighs a bit and picks at her fingernails. Hearing about Parker and her new almost-boyfriend was making her feel a bit sad about what her and Nate are going through at the moment. She missed when it was good… when Nate was sober. He was sober for six months, and Sophie was so proud of him. But then it started back all over again, though it was more secret this time. He was never drinking at work, never around the others, so Sophie was apparently the only one who was let in on his private hell… and now hers. It seemed like everything with her and Nate now was just one big lie, one big secret after another.
When they both go into the kitchen, Sophie sits down at her dining room table as Parker rummages through her fridge. “Leftover Chinese,” is all she offers her. Sophie blinks.
“Are you serious?”
“I don’t cook,” Parker tells her, and looks over her shoulder. “Got fortune cookies if you want. Hardison told me that for breakfast, if you put them in milk, they’re much more acceptable, but I still don’t get it.”
Sophie let out a breath and then chuckled a bit as she got up. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?” Parker asks her.
“To get some real food,” Sophie tells her with a smile and grabs her coat, then looks down at her feet, remembering something. “Oh,” she says, a bit embarrassed. “Can I borrow some shoes?”
CHAPTER FOUR
Concealed Pains Of Domestic Life
After breakfast, Parker dropped Sophie back off at her house. It was the last place Sophie wanted to be right now, but she didn’t want Parker to know that. She had already screwed up by telling Parker she didn’t want to go home last night, and she was so determined to have everyone think that absolutely nothing was wrong with her life that she was willing to take the forthcoming abuse just to convey a false image.
She looked back as Parker drove off, waving a bit and forcing a smile. Then she took a shaky breath and looked at her house, already having a bad feeling about going back in there. But she took one hesitant step forward, and then another, before she was finally at the door. Turing the handle, she entered into the back hall, through the kitchen, to finally see Nate in the living room.
Nate looked up, drink already in hand, Sophie just sighed heavily and threw her purse on the end table before crossing her arms over her chest and looking at him. “What’s this, then?”
Nate took another sip and said in a raspy voice, “I didn’t know where you were.”
Sophie scoffed and looked at him like he was mad for even suggesting he cared, and responded, “Don’t blame your addiction on me, Nate.”
Nate didn’t say anything, just raised his eyebrows and took another sip that seemed over dramatisized for Sophie. Sophie just shook her head and held on to herself tighter, not believing what was in front of her. After all she went through yesterday, she had to come home to this? Already?
“You almost never saw me again,” she told him finally, her voice breaking a bit. She wanted him to care, to comfort her. But yet at the same time she didn’t even want to tell him either, because then she would have to relive it.
“You would have come back,” Nate says simply, like that’s what she was meaning. “You always do.”
“No!” Sophie exclaimed, frustrated. “That’s not… that’s not…” but she could get it out, she was starting to feel like she was going to cry again and that was the last thing she wanted to do right now. All she did yesterday was cry. It’s a wonder she didn’t shrink two dress sizes from losing most of her water weight.
“It’s too early for the drama, Sophie. Just sit down,” Nate says, and grabs the remote for the television. But Sophie smacks it out of his hand, making him look up at her annoyed. “What the hell could possibly be wrong now?”
“Will you just bloody listen to me for once!” Sophie cried, her breath shuddering a bit as she inhaled. “Please!” Her bottom lip starts to tremble, and she bites on it to keep it from doing so. She really didn’t want to cry, especially not even in front of him right now. She just wanted him to listen, sweep her into his arms and tell her everything’s going to be okay.
But that wasn’t going to happen.
“What?” Nate said, exasperated, putting down his drink of the coffee table and looking at her like this better be important for interrupting him. Sophie just stared at him like she couldn’t believe how he was acting, but it would have really been more foolish for her to expect anything else.
“S-Someone… they…” she starts, shaking a bit and holding on to herself tighter. She couldn’t even bring herself to say it.
“What? Stole the car or something? I’ll buy you a new one,” Nate says and turns back to get the remote, like that was that. Dismissing her. Buying her stuff just so she’d shut up.
“I could have almost gotten raped last night, you bloody bastard!” Sophie cries out finally, slapping the remote out of his hand again and screeching a bit. Nate blinks and looks at her for a moment, almost like he’s in shock from the revelation, but then he just shakes his head.
“Sophie, you don’t have to make stuff up to try to con me into paying attention to you. I’m paying attention now, aren’t I? Jesus. I already know you’d shoot anyone who’d be stupid enough to try.”
Sophie started crying then, not even knowing what to do. Of course Nate didn’t believe her, of course. She put her hand over her face as the tears started flowing, and Nate just rolled her eyes at her display, thinking she’s lying about the whole thing. She started to get angry again, just infuriated because that was one of the scariest times of her life and she was trying to confide in him… and he thought she was lying.
“I didn’t have my fucking gun!” Sophie yells and grabs her purse off the end table to turn it over and dump the contents all over him. Nate let out a sound of protest before she threw her purse across the room. “If Parker hasn’t of been there I would have died! And you… and your just going to sit there? Are you bloody kidding me?!”
Nate sighed heavily and looked at her. “Just stop, okay? I get it. I’m paying attention.”
“Fuck you!” Sophie screamed. “Are you telling me that my own man won’t even protect me?! That I had to run to Parker when things go bad now, is that it?”
“Parker’s a lesbian now, sure she wouldn’t mind,” Nate said with a bit of an amused laugh, like Parker’s sexuality was a joke, and that Parker wanting Sophie would be an even more amusing joke on her behalf. That this entire thing was just one big joke.
Sophie slapped him then, right across the face so hard that the sound seemed to echo across the room. But before she knew what was happening, he was up, retaliating, grabbing her by the throat automatically before throwing her heavily into the far wall. Sophie coughed and put her hand to her neck as her knees gave out underneath her and she slumped to the ground.
“Don’t put your hands on me,” Nate told her dangerously, and Sophie just lay for a moment, staring at him like she didn’t even know who he was anymore. It wasn’t the first time, so she was hardly surprised by it, but it was usually when he was far too trashed to even see straight, and from the looks of it he had only just started drinking.
She rubbed her throat in silence for a little bit, it feeling like his hand was still on it. She coughed again and got to her feet before rubbing her temple, where her face had slammed into the wall. She was so sick of this, she was so sick of all of this. Nate didn’t have any right to treat her this way! The bastard acts like she’s good for nothing… and she was just sick of it.
So she opened the end table drawer, took out her gun, and pointed it at him.
Nate’s eyes went wide. “Sophie…” he warned gently, putting up his hands.
“You fucking bastard,” she told him, a dangerous look in her own eyes now. “I think its you that shouldn’t put your hands on me anymore.”
“Sophie, calm down…”
Sophie cocked the gun, making Nate look terrified for a second. Sophie smiled a bit inwardly. Good, it was his turn to be scared for a minute. Not like she would ever really shoot him, but it emphasized her point very well, and made him listen at least.
“I had the worst night of my life last night,” she told him with a low voice, too angry to even yell anymore. It was that sort of calm anger, the ones children always fear with their mother because it means she’s really, really angry. “I had some guy try to drag me into his car, I had you treat me like a whore, I cried all over Parker. And now you think you’re going to hit me? Is that it, Nate?”
“No,” he said automatically, his voice softer. “Come on, Sophie. I’m sorry. It was just a reaction, I didn’t mean to hurt you…”
“Liar,” she told him, and straightened her arms a bit more, aiming at his chest. Nate was starting to get desperate, and Sophie could see him start to sweat a bit.
“Sophie, baby… I love you. Okay? I’m sorry. I’ll have Hardison find this guy if you want, and then we can make him pay for trying to do that to you. Will that make you feel better?” Nate still had his hands up, but was trying to slowly coax his way over to Sophie.
Sophie didn’t care about that guy, not anymore anyway. He wasn’t what mattered right now, but when Nate said the words ‘I love you’, that he hadn’t said to her in so long, her fact softened a bit and her arms slacked only a tad, but she still had it pointed at him.
“Are you okay? I’ll kill him for hurting you, I promise,” Nate said, and Sophie’s bottom lip trembled, her arms slacking a bit more. That’s all she wanted to hear, that Nate cared and that he wanted to do something about it. “I love you, Sophie. I won’t let him hurt you again.”
Sophie put down the gun then and started to cry. Nate wrapped his arms around her, and slowly coaxed the gun out of her hand to lay it back on top of the end table. Sophie threw her arms around him and just bawled, her hands holding onto his shirt like she knew that this moment wouldn’t last, and that it would just be hell again tomorrow… because it would.
“Shh…” Nate hushed her and ran his fingers through her hair. “Hey, it’ll be okay, alright? I love you.”
It was always like this though, wasn’t it? After every time that he hits her and she takes drastic measures to retaliate, he’s always sorry. He always loves her then. The only time it lasted longer than a day was that time she stabbed him in the leg with a butter knife and he walked with a limp for a week. He told the team a dog bit him. Eliot made fun of him for awhile after that.
She doesn’t know how she got stuck in this lifestyle, especially with Nate. She loves him so much, but all she can do is really hope that one day he’ll realize what he has and loves her back just as much, and then maybe for once they can be finally happy together.
CHAPTER FIVE
Torn In Half
Just another day at the office.
Hardison was fooling around on his computer, playing some game when he was supposed to be finding clients, only pulling the screen back up when Nate wasn’t around to see it. Eliot was trying to explain to Parker the different kind of fighting styles with knives, only she was more interested in actually playing with the knives than learning techniques, and when she throws one at the wall to lodge it in there and it almost hits Nate instead, Nate blows up and tells them that knives are now on the list of things that are banned in the office.
Along with bubble gum and toothpicks. You really don’t want to know.
Sophie sighed heavily and walked into the bathroom so she could be alone for a minute. When she closed the door, her hand clutched her ribs, grimacing in pain. The wall probably fractured one this time, though it shouldn’t be a surprise. It always tended to be that side that she ended up getting hurt on, no wonder it finally cracked.
She took a deep breath and tried to control the pain, only be able to do so in here. She didn’t want the rest of the team to know. She looked in the mirror and let out a breath as she saw some of her makeup had rubbed off a bit on her neck. The bruise wasn’t that noticeable, but she should probably fix it anyway. She took out her compact and started dabbing it against her olive skin, hoping that this time it would be the last.
When the compact was back in her bag the door opened, making Sophie turn around in surprise. “Don’t you knock? I could have been on the loo!” Sophie exclaims as she looks at Parker, who doesn’t blink, doesn’t say anything, just comes in and closes the door behind her.
“Parker?” Sophie asks, wondering why she isn’t saying anything. But finally she opens her mouth, looking at her like she knows more than she’s asking.
“What happened?”
“What?” Sophie asked, trying to feign confusement. She grabs her purse and tries to move towards the door, but Parker blocks it.
Parker doesn’t say anything; she just lifts a finger and puts it to Sophie’s neck, sliding it down to wipe off the makeup. Sophie grimaced in pain and put her hand on her neck as Parker holds up her makeup-covered finger like she just proved a point.
“God, you didn’t have to press that hard,” Sophie says as she cups the offending area. She was bruised after all.
“Sophie,” Parker says, like she knows more than Sophie’s saying.
“I just fell, okay?” Sophie says and digs through her purse again to try to find her compact again. She had to recover it now.
“On your neck?” Parker asked her, like it was a stupid thing to say to try to cover the lie. “You could have at least said you walked into a shelf or something, it would have been more believable.”
“Look, I don’t know what you’re on about,” Sophie said as she covered the spot yet again. “I just fell.”
“Right,” Parker says and gives her this look that Sophie wishes she didn’t see in her eyes. Like she knows. Sophie averted her eyes from her and just looked at herself in the mirror.
There was silence for a minute before Parker pulls out something that looks like a cigarette from her bra, along with a lighter, and sparks it up. “I had a really fucked up childhood,” she tells her, like that explains something as she exhales a lot of smoke out of her mouth.
“Parker!” Sophie exclaims as she grabs the cigarette looking thing from her, throwing it automatically in the toilet. There was a loud protest of ‘Hey!’ from Parker before Sophie looked at what she just threw in there. “What is that?!” she asks, knowing full well but looking back at Parker like she was insane.
“It was a joint,” Parker says with an annoyed look on her face.
“Since when have you…?! Parker! Why are you doing drugs?!” Sophie exclaims, knowing that Parker had always made it clear that she never liked drugs. So seeing something like that was far from ordinary.
“It’s a plant, Sophie. Not drugs. Stop changing the subject.”
“What subject? We’re talking about this now! Why are you smoking that?!”
“It calms me down. Makes my brain stop,” she made erratic hand gestures with her fingers, pointing in all different directions and swirling them around, “Doing that.”
Sophie just blinks at her. “Where did you get it?”
“From Patrick. Look,” she says, like what they’re talking about in that moment isn’t important, and they needed to steer the conversation somewhere else, “Why are you covering up what Nate is doing to you?” Parker asks her.
“What Nate is doing to me? Look at what this Patrick guy is doing to you!” Sophie tells her, pointing at the offending drug in the toilet. Granted, maybe what Nate was doing to her is far worse, but she didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want Parker to know, and steering the conversation to her problems seemed to be a better thing to do.
“It’s a joint, not crack,” Parker says and folds her arms over her chest. “You have finger shaped bruises on your throat.”
But Sophie ignores what she’s saying about her, and goes on. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised about this Patrick, he does live in the bad part of town. What’s next? Shooting heroin?”
“He doesn’t sell that,” Parker says, and Sophie’s eyes go wide.
“You’re dating a drug dealer?!” she practically screeches, and Parker puts her hands over her ears.
“Sophie!” she exclaims, wincing from the decibel of it. “He’s a nice guy, now will you just shut up?” Sophie blinks at her, annoyed that Parker just told her to shut up. She was dating a drug dealer for shits sake, how is that not more important?!
“What is going on?” Parker asks her, her voice softer this time. She’s look at Sophie like she pities her, and Sophie hates that.
“Nothing, I told you I fell. Stop assuming something horrible is going on, it’s not. Me and Nate… we’re really happy, alright?” She tried with everything she could to sound convincing, but Parker still didn’t believe her.
“He’s abusing you.”
“No, Parker,” Sophie says and grabs her arm, trying desperately to make her understand. “He’s not, I promise. Things just… get out of control sometimes.”
Parker scoffs, “Yeah that’s what my foster father used to say to justify himself to his wife when she finally noticed bruises all over me.”
“Parker…” Sophie says softly, looking at her with a mixture of sadness, because she had never known she went through that, and yet at the same time desperation, because she didn’t want Parker to say anything to anyone. “Please…”
“You’re an idiot,” is all Parker says to her, and Sophie doesn’t argue. Parker has a really effective weapon against her now: knowledge.
“I know,” is all she says, jus agreeing with her so she won’t have any reason to march out in the office right now and announce her theories. “Please,” she pleaded, more desperately this time. “Please don’t say anything. I’ll do anything you want, okay?”
That was a probably a bad thing to offer.
“Have sex with me,” is what’s out of Parker’s mouth the moment after Sophie offered. Sophie gapes at her and starts stuttering.
“W-What…? Parker… I… you…?”
Parker rolls her eyes and lets out a bit of a laugh, “It was a joke, Sophie. Don’t have an aneurism.”
“You… joke now?” Sophie asks, like it’s something foreign. Parker can’t joke, and used to never try.
“I’ve gotten better,” she defends. She smirked, “That was funny to me, at least. You’re face was so-”
“Parker,” Sophie says, forgetting the attempted joke to get serious again. “Promise me, please.” She took her hands in hers and held them, looking her in the eyes and trying to convey with her actions just how much pleading she’s willing to do to have this not become a public thing.
Parker just stares at her for a moment, chewing on her bottom lip as she thought about what she should do. After a moment she sighed and said, “You owe me, like… huge owe me. Cause this…” she takes her hand a delicately touches Sophie’s neck, her face contorting into anger. “This isn’t supposed to happen to you.”
“I’m a damsel in distress,” Sophie says quietly, smiling a bit as if she’s joking… but she’s not.
“But you don’t want anyone to save you,” Parker says as she steps back from her and just looks at her like she knows more than what she’s seeing in front of her. Like she was almost seeing herself, just a very long time ago.
“I can take care of myself,” Sophie tells her gently.
“Sure,” Parker says and shrugs before putting her hand on the door handle, but she looked back at her before opening it. “I’ll be sure to remind you of that when you show up at my house, needing somewhere safe to sleep.”
“Parker!” Sophie calls out after her, but she’s gone. Out the door, closing it behind her. Sophie closed her eyes and sighed as she sat heavily on the toilet, putting her hands in her hair. This wasn’t supposed to happen. No one was supposed to know. “Bollocks,” she cursed.
Her so-called picture perfect life had just been torn in half.
CHAPTER SIX
Bonding Activities
Parker couldn’t believe that Sophie was just taking something like that, what is wrong with her? She had seen the suspicious marks before, but Nate and Sophie had always seemed so happy that she never really thought about it. But after seeing Sophie looking like hell warmed over the other night, and not wanting to go back to her house… and now this? Parker knew. It was obvious. She used to live it.
Unfortunately because she lived it she also knew why Sophie wasn’t doing anything about it. She got stuck in the lifestyle. It was hell, but it was familiar. Familiar always tended to win over anything else, because it’s all you know anymore.
She really didn’t want to know how long this had been going on. They’ve been dating for almost two years.
Parker just wanted to stop thinking, so instead of going home, she stopped over Patrick’s house. She knocked on the door, and when he opened it she didn’t greet him, just said, “I need some weed.”
Patrick just smirked and let her in, closing the door behind her. “You alright, Sarah?” he asked as he sat down next to her on the couch.
Parker never told him her real name; it would have been too risky. Plus, she wasn’t in a relationship or anything; she just had sex with him. And for sex you don’t need real names.
“Fine, just want to get stoned,” she tells him and leans on him a bit. He wraps one arm around her, this large muscular arm that Parker loves, and starts rolling a joint one handed.
“How was work?” he asked her, though he thought she was a secretary at a cooperate office building.
“Shitty,” she answers, kicking her shoes off on to the floor. She didn’t want to think about work right now. Didn’t want to think about Sophie and Nate right now.
“Here,” Patrick says, handing her the rolled up problem-disapearer. Parker lit it up and inhaled deeply, before closing her eyes and leaning her head back against the couch as she exhaled.
Patrick laughed a bit, “That bad?”
“Yeah,” Parker says as she opens her eyes to look at him before placing it between her lips again and taking another drag. The smoke came out of her mouth as she continued, “My boss is an asshole.”
“Everyone’s boss is an asshole,” Patrick tells her. “Why I work for myself.”
“I used to,” Parker tells him, then shrugs as she takes another drag before holding it out to pass it to him, but he waves it off.
“Got my own stuff,” he says. “Enjoy that.”
Parker smiled, and watched him take out a container. She snuggled into him a little bit as she put the joint between her teeth. As she exhaled she looked at what he was getting out and got this incredible feeling like disappointment flow through her body. She had watched that destroy so many people, but she wasn’t going to say anything. He wasn’t her boyfriend, it wasn’t her problem.
Patrick started loading his pipe and Parker moved a bit away from him as he did. He looked at her questioningly, but all she told him was, “I don’t want to smell that.”
“Oh,” he says, and instead gets up and moves to the other side of the room with the loaded pipe, trying to be courteous. But Parker wasn’t sure how anyone could be courteous while smoking meth.
“That’s not good for you,” Parker tells him finally, not able to keep it in her as well as she thought she would. Patrick just laughed a bit and held the lighter up underneath the glass until it started smoking a bit, coming out the little hole in the top.
“Neither is what you’re holding,” he says before the puts his lips to the pipe and rotates it slowly, carefully.
“It makes people do things,” Parker tells him, as she watches, hoping he’ll just put it down. “Hurt people.”
When Patrick exhaled he looked at her pointedly, “I’m not going to hurt you, Sarah.”
“That’s what everyone says,” she tells him before sticking the joint back in her mouth and inhaling. Patrick looked at her before putting the pipe down on the table.
“Sorry, I won’t do it in front of you then,” he said, and Parker realized he genuinely felt bad for doing something she didn’t like, so she smiled at him a bit in thanks. He holds his hand out for the joint instead and she gives it to him before he sits back down on the couch next to her.
“You get cable yet?” she asks him, looking at the television. He shakes his head.
“Nah, thinking about stealing one of Billy’s black boxes, the dick ripped me off yesterday,” he says as he blows out a long line of smoke.
“You want to?” Parker asks him, perking up at once. Stealing, see, that was funner than television.
Patrick looked at Parker in amusement, but also a little surprise. “You want to steal it?” he asked her, like he couldn’t believe she said that. “Now?”
“Why not?” she said and got up before snatching the joint out of his mouth and taking a long drag before handing it back. “It’ll be fun.”
“Fun?” he asks again, amusement and shock coloring his voice. “Didn’t know you were so the wrong side of the law, it’s kind of hot.”
Parker smirks and puts back on her shoes, but Patrick says, “It’s still light out, let’s wait till it gets dark.”
“Why?” Parker asks, “Then it’ll be too easy.” She paused as she tied her laces. “Already is too easy.”
“Breaking into someone’s house in broad daylight is easy?” he asks, looking at her like he has no idea who stood in front of her, and he didn’t. “Who are you?” he asked with a laugh.
“Maybe one day you’ll find out,” she says with a teasing smirk before heading towards the door. “Come on.”
But when they get there, Parker doesn’t let Patrick out of the car. He obviously wasn’t too slick in the way of getting things, since he didn’t even want to do this in daylight. “Stay here,” she tells him. He tries to protest.
“Sarah, we shouldn’t do this now. His car is here.”
“Good,” Parker said. She always loved stealing things right from underneath people’s noses, it was amusing. She opened the car door, but Patrick put a hand on her shoulder to stop her.
“Sarah,” he says again. “You’re going to get caught.”
“I never get caught,” she tells him, before she slips out of his grip and is now running towards the side of the house. She hears Patrick curse before she stops and looks up, noticing an air vent on the side of the house. She would have to go in through that way, since the guy was home. She looks around and finds a trash barrel before pulling it over to where she was at, climbing on top of it. Pulling a lock pick from her bra, she loosens the screws on the air vent, letting it hang there by only one, and climbs inside.
It was dusty, moldy. The man probably never got them cleaned the entire time he lived there, so she put a hand over her nose and mouth to not breathe the offending air. She crawled a little ways on her stomach before she got to the first vent in the house. She looked out it and noticed the fat slob sitting on his couch, beer in hand, laughing at a cartoon where a baby with a big head was talking. She rolled her eyes and continued on.
When she found the second one she carefully opened it, making sure to not make any noise, then dropped to the floor. She was in his bedroom. Now all that was left was to find them.
But it was too easy, just like she thought it would be. In his closet, under a bunch of dirty clothes. She crinkles her nose at the underwear, then picks up one of the boxes before climbing on the bed and slipping it inside the vent. She jumped them, holding onto the edge as she pulled herself up with her strength, getting back inside.
When she came to the car with it, Patrick’s mouth was open. “Drive,” she says simply, and he does.
She’s giggling now, the marijuana not being able to stop it. But Patrick looked so shocked . She puts the box in the back seat and Patrick finally speaks, looking at her like she’s a new person.
“You… are the hottest woman I have ever met,” he tells her before leaning over and kissing her on the lips. She smiles against them and kisses him back, enjoying the feeling.
When they broke she had a smirk adorning her features and she replied, “If that’s what I get for a cable box, what can I get for some diamonds?”
Patrick slammed on the brakes accidentally due to his shock, and Parker collapsed into a fit of giggles.
POST TOO BIG.
PART TWO IS HERE.