Fanfiction || London Bridge Is Falling Down || Parker/Sophie || Part Two
Title: London Bridge Is Falling Down
Author: Sapphire Smoke cuzimastripper
Fandom: Leverage
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Parker/Sophie (some Nate/Sophie too, and Parker/OC)
Prompt: Sophie/Parker - burning bridges
Length Thus Far: 21,110 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. Probably should mention abuse. But there's also happy fluff, and I have a sickness with happy endings so don't worry too much... lol.
Other Parts: PART ONE
CHAPTER SEVEN
Bah Humbug
It was exactly three weeks after Parker and Sophie had that conversation that what Parker had predicted had come true. She came to her door once she heard the bell ring, putting down her Christmas decorations she was trying to hang up at the moment. Lights, holly, mistletoe, wreaths. She didn’t know why she was even doing it, but it was Christmas, and she was told by Eliot after she asked that that’s just when people do. Putting down the last string of lights, she walked to the door and when she opened it Sophie stood there, mascara smeared from crying so much, looking a disaster… with a bloody lip.
“Shit,” Parker swore, and took her hand, leading her inside. She couldn’t very well just leave Sophie looking like that. Sophie cried and wrapped her arms around Parker, burying her face in her shoulder, uttering incoherent things that Parker only caught the gist of, like the words ‘wanker’, ‘drinking’, and ‘bloody Christmas.’
Sophie didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to go to Parker’s just because of what Parker had said to her, but she had no where else to go. If she went to a hotel she would just end up thinking somehow that it was all her fault and she’d come crawling back to him, like she always does, but even more so because of the Holiday. It’s sick, really, the way he had warped her brain.
Parker tilted Sophie’s chin up with her finger before wiping a bit of blood off of Sophie’s lip with her thumb, before putting it in her mouth. “Damnit,” she said, looking her over, touching the bruise on her chin delicately.
“Don’t… blood…” Sophie tried to get out, trying to tell her she shouldn’t randomly lick other people’s blood like that, but she couldn’t even get out the words though her tears.
“You got any diseases?” Parker asked her, though it was probably a question too late. Sophie shook her head, so Parker replied, “Then don’t worry about it. Lay down.” She guided Sophie into her bedroom and put her on her bed, and Sophie curled herself into a ball as Parker put the covers over her. She sat next to her, and looked at her like she didn’t know what to do.
She knew what she wanted to do. She wanted to go over to Sophie’s house and kick Nate’s ass so bad his scrotum would bleed out of his mouth, but she knew Sophie didn’t want her to. And that was stopping her… so far.
She looked at the woman curled into her bed, and creased her brow in upset before putting her hand down on top of Sophie’s, not knowing what else to do. She patted it kind of awkwardly, not good with the whole comforting thing, and waited for her to talk. Because if she came over here instead of going somewhere else, than she wanted to talk about it.
Sophie curled her hand around Parker’s to hold it as she cried for a bit, and Parker waited as patiently as she could, but it wasn’t one of her strong suits. “Why?” she asked suddenly into the silence of the room other than the sound of Sophie’s distress.
“Egg nog… the bloody fucking tree…. kept falling over… pissed off…” Sophie tried to get out through her tears, and Parker shushed her. It wasn’t going to help if she can’t tell the whole story. So she decided to try to be patient again and laid down next to Sophie. Sophie sniffed and laid her head on Parker’s breast, and Parker looked down at her with this odd look, eyes wide, that meant that probably wasn’t the best place in the world for her to lay on her, but Sophie was upset so she needed to be okay with it. She put an arm around Sophie and just waited until she calmed down.
Sophie hugged Parker tighter, feeling safer now. Ever since that night, she knew that as bloody fucked up as it really is, Parker is her knight in shining armor. She’s the one that will protect her. She knew she was all over her, which she also knew Parker wasn’t very fond of, but she just needed it, and the way Parker didn’t protest made Sophie think that she knew that she did.
Why did this have to happen on Christmas Eve, of all nights?
When Sophie could finally breathe and calmed down a bit. She looked up at Parker, wiping her eyes, before looking back down and noticing something. “Oh, sorry… I seem to have gotten blood all over your blouse.”
Parker looked down, and seeing a couple blood spots from where Sophie’s lip was she just sat up, making Sophie sit up too for a minute before pulling it off over her head and discarding it to the floor, leaving her there in just her bra. She laid back down without saying a word.
“Do you want me to wash it for you?” Sophie asked, trying to be polite.
“I want you to tell me what happened,” Parker said seriously, and Sophie looked down before sniffing again and deciding to curl back on top of Parker, head on her breast again, though this time it was only on her bra. She thought she could feel Parker take a sharp inhale of breath, but then she was relaxed and Sophie was sure she just imagined it. She rested her hand on top of Parker’s stomach, enjoying the softness of it.
“We were trying to put up the tree,” she explains softly. “Nate was drinking eggnog… a lot. The kind with rum in it, you know? And he couldn’t get up the tree, and it was funny to see him struggle so I laughed a bit, you know? And he got mad, started calling me a ‘good for nothing bitch’ saying I’m not even trying to help and he was trying to do this for me anyway because he doesn’t bloody like the Holidays….” She paused and started tracing little circles on Parker’s stomach trying to distract herself. “I got mad, he kept calling me names… so I threw my glass at him. I didn’t expect it to hit him, but it did. So he…” she coughed, not wanting to say it out loud. “I pushed the tree on him and then left,” she finished.
“You pushed the tree on top of him?” Parker asked, surprised, but yet at the same time seemed almost amused at the mental picture in her head, and she smiled. “Good.” Another pause, “So you’re not just… taking it then.”
“Of course not,” Sophie said, looking at her like she was a bit mad for even suggesting it. “It’s not like I’m one of those women that just lays there and takes it. I’ve stabbed him in the leg, pointed a gun at his chest, and once I even took a can of hairspray and a lighter. He backed up quickly from that one.” She sighed heavily. “I defend myself, I do… but sometimes I can’t help but think that I’m the one that always bloody starts it. He never hits me unless I hit him first.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Parker told her. “Look what he does to you, I barely ever see a scratch on him. Except the singed forearm hair… and the leg… was that the dog thing?”
Sophie didn’t answer for a moment, just closed her eyes and stayed silent. “I don’t want to go back,” Sophie admits quietly, finally, and stops tracing circles on her stomach to look up at her.
“Then don’t,” Parker tells her. “Get a hotel room or something.”
“But I can’t…” Sophie says, sighing a bit. The circles started up again. She pursed her lips, then winced at the pain and went on, “I can’t just leave… you know? He’d be a wreck without me.”
“He’s a wreck with you now, obviously,” Parker says, still feeling very awkward from Sophie being all over her like she was, but not knowing the significance of it, if it even had one. She knew Sophie felt safe with her, but there was no reason to be making imaginary pictures on her stomach with her finger. “He started drinking again, then,” she finishes, but it wasn’t a question. Just a disappointed repeat.
Sophie just sighed and looked down at her fingers, concentrating on making an imaginary picture of a world where all this shit just didn’t happen anymore. “Where’s Patrick?” Sophie asks finally, “Thought you’d be with him.”
“We broke up,” Parker tells her, and Sophie looks up at her.
“What? When?”
Parker shrugs, “A week ago? He was trying to get all ‘let’s call Parker my girlfriend though I only know her as Sarah’ and it was just… weird. I don’t know.” A pause. “He was nice… but he had a drug problem that I just…” she just shrugs, finishing. She looks down at Sophie and pushes a piece of hair out of her face, since it seemed to be sticking to her lip a little. Parker didn’t like seeing Sophie all beat up, just as much as she didn’t like the fact that she was bleeding on her either. “Here, sit up for a minute,” she tells her, and when she does she gets off the bed to go get something.
When she comes back she has a wet face cloth, and she sits back down on the bed in front of Sophie and starts dabbing the wound gently. Would hopefully stop the bleeding all over herself… and Parker. Sophie sniffed and looked down as Parker cleaned her up, and as Parker put her hand down after she was done, Sophie held it, stilling her. Parker looked confused before Sophie leaned in and kissed her softly on the cheek, making Parker’s eyes flutter closed for a moment.
“You’re my knight,” she tells her in a whisper, then a small smile.
“Yeah well… I have the white car. Probably should get a horse after this, but they poop everywhere,” Parker says with a smirk, then looks down and shakes her head, angry with Nate. “I want to hurt him, Sophie.”
“Please, just… let it go for now, okay?” Sophie pleaded, and squeezed Parker’s hand that she was holding, making Parker drop the facecloth on her sheets. Sophie laced their fingers together and repeated, “Please… for me?”
“Do you want to owe me your life or something?” Parker asks her, wondering why she keeps doing this.
Sophie shrugged and says with a little smile, “Might be better if I did. You seem to make me happier, anyway.”
Parker smiled a little, and squeezed Sophie’s hand back a bit more. “Come on, I’ll feed you. I ordered pizza this time, Christmas and all.” She goes to get up but Sophie stops her, not letting go of her hand, and Parker is pulled back on the bed.
“Parker…” she starts, then stops, not even really knowing what she wanted to say. Instead she pulls her into a hug, burying her face in her neck, thinking briefly how nice Parker’s hair smelt. They stayed there for a bit, until Sophie pulled away really slowly. They both looked at each other, face only and inch away, and Sophie could feel the breath catching in her throat.
“Food,” Parker spits out automatically, looking uncomfortable, effectively breaking the spell. Sophie shakes her head and then nods, moving away from Parker.
“Right.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Mistletoe
What Sophie needed more than anything was to just forget it all and be happy for a moment. It was Christmas, after all. Almost anyway, another hour. And that’s what Parker did. They ate their pizza and turned on the television, watching ‘A Christmas Carol’, that Sophie was shocked that Parker had never seen. She asked her why it had a bondage ghost, and Sophie spit out her soda she had laughed so hard.
After the movie had ended they turned off the TV and Parker turned on her Christmas lights, turning out all the rest so it was just illuminated by the rainbow dots all over the room. Sophie had to giggle at how she decorated; hanging strings from the ceiling in patterns that made no sense, but looking up at them they almost seemed like brightly colored stars.
Parker lay on the couch with one leg propped up, and Sophie positioned herself between them as she laid her head against her chest. Parker still didn’t put on a shirt, due only to the fact that she apparently had absolutely nothing else to wear since she hadn’t done laundry in forever, which made Sophie tell her that she’d help her with it tomorrow.
They lay there for a bit in silence, just looking up at the lights on the ceiling. Parker started playing with Sophie’s hair, getting used to Sophie’s need for touchy feelyness. She stopped minding it so much, it wasn’t really that bad, after all. She didn’t understand why Sophie always wanted to be touching her though, usually women would only do that when they wanted to have sex with you, but Parker was pretty sure that wasn’t it. Sophie was just sad. Lonely maybe. Cause Nate was a dickhead.
“What’s that?” Sophie asked, pointing to the ceiling at a dark spot that she couldn’t make out that was right above them.
“Mistletoe,” Parker says, like the object was ridiculous. She shrugged, “I don’t get why people kiss under it. It’s not like it orders you to or anything, there’s no sign. It’s just a plant.”
“It’s a sign of fertility and fortune. Used to be used in weddings in ancient Rome,” Sophie tells her, looking up at it. “It contains the female sex hormone, you know.” She looked up at her and smirked.
“So it’s a horny female plant then?” Parker asks, giggling. She didn’t even ask how Sophie knew… Sophie just knew everything. Sophie giggled too and shrugged. Then she smiled a bit like she was getting a devious idea and turned a bit more to look at Parker, leaning a bit against her shoulder so she was face to face with her, but yet still laying down.
“Come on,” she says, a bit of a smirk pulling at her lips. “One for the holidays?”
“What?” Parker asked, not understanding what she’s talking about. Then her eyes widen and she goes, “Ohhh…” then another pause, eyes narrowed, confused. “You want me to kiss you under the mistletoe? Isn’t that kind of… lame?”
“Oh come on, Parker. Please? It’ll be festive.”
“You really want to make out with me under a plant for the sake of a holiday?” Parker asks, still confused by the idea. Sophie didn’t like women, least she didn’t think so. She definitely didn’t like Parker, although was starting to like her as a friend a whole lot more under the unfortunate circumstances. She didn’t see how it would be fun for Sophie. It’d be fun for Parker, cause well, she did like women… and Sophie was pretty. But it was because of that that she didn’t really want to do it. She might like it a bit too much.
“I didn’t say ‘make out’, I said kiss. Under a mistletoe, because it’s Christmas,” Sophie tells her, like she should understand what she means, but Parker still doesn’t. All she gets is that Sophie wants to stick her tongue down her throat because a plant told her to.
“Don’t grab me or anything,” Parker tells her, because then it might end up a bit more than kissing. Sophie rolls her eyes.
“I’ll try not to, promise,” she says, though it’s dripping with sarcasm as she smirks.
Sophie shifted a bit then, got more on top of Parker, almost laying on her. Parker’s heart started beating faster, and all of a sudden she was nervous. She’s going to be kissing Sophie in a minute. Sophie. That wasn’t just a normal festive kiss, was it? It wasn’t like it was some random girl in a bar that was drunk and thought it would be fun to make out under a plant… this is Sophie. Sophie wanted to kiss her... why again?
Sophie took a deep breath and looked at Parker, trying to give her a small smile because the poor girl looked like she might have a heart attack from Sophie being on top of her. She knew Parker was very into women, and maybe this wasn’t very fair to her, because it’s not like Sophie was interested in her in that way. Least not really. Parker made her happy though, about the only thing that did make her happy these days, and so if she was to share a festive maybe-lesbian kiss with someone, then Parker seemed to be the right one to do it with.
She just wanted to feel something nice again, and if Parker could do that without kissing her, than she wanted to know if she could do it better if she did.
It sounded a lot less lesbian in her head. Really.
Parker didn’t seem to get any less nervous though, so Sophie just giggled softly at her demeanor before whispering, “Relax, it’s just a kiss.”
“Sure,” Parker said in a low voice, letting out the breath she seemed to have been holding. Sophie smiled again before leaning forward slowly, and pressing her lips gently against Parker’s.
It hurt a bit, with her lip being cut the way it was, but it wasn’t anything that she couldn’t manage. She closed her eyes and parted her lips, allowing Parker to do the same. She could feel Parker let out a tiny breath as Sophie slipped her tongue into her mouth. She wasn’t expecting to, she really only wanted to do an open mouth kiss, but her tongue seemed to have other plans. Sophie could feel Parker’s hand move a bit to grip the couch hard, probably trying to control herself, but for some reason that just made Sophie want to kiss her more.
She let out a soft moan against Parkers lips and placed her hand on her cheek as she kissed her deeper, just enjoying how well Parker could kiss. The thief was incredibly skilled with her tongue, and it made a shiver run down to the base of her spine. They broke for only a second, just to take a breath before Sophie’s lips were on hers again, kissing her lightly once more before looking down, resting her forehead against Parker’s. Neither of them spoke for a moment.
“Thanks,” Sophie said softly. “Needed that, I guess.”
“Right,” Parker said, her breathing noticeably different. “You’re welcome… I guess.”
The awkward moment was a bit overwhelming, so Sophie got off of her, sitting up on the other end of the couch. “Sorry about the… tongue. That wasn’t in the original plan.”
“I liked it,” Parker says automatically, then looked like she was mentally kicking herself for saying it. Sophie smiles a bit, then looks at Parker… and starts giggling.
Parker looks confused, “What?” Sophie just points to her bra, which was unpadded, and Parker looks down. “Shit,” she says, noticing her nipples were incredibly alert to the situation at hand. She didn’t cover them though, there was no point. “Well you started it,” she defended.
“Sorry,” Sophie says, her hand over her mouth, still giggling at Parker’s obvious unintentional arousal.
“I bet,” Parker says, annoyance in her voice, but it was light. She rolled her eyes before smiling. “Come on, I want to show you something,” she said before she gets up from off the couch.
“Really?” Sophie asks, surprised at the way Parker said it. Like it was almost a surprise. She got up and followed Parker into her bedroom. Parker opened her closet, which was filled to the brim with dirty clothes, and started rummaging through boxes. Sophie just sat on the bed and watched her, waiting. Then there was a, “Aha!” from inside the dark closet and Parker reemerged… with a present.
“What’s that?” Sophie asked, like it wasn’t obvious. But at that moment, it wasn’t for her.
“It’s your Christmas present. Duh,” Parker replied and tossed it to her. Sophie looked surprised but caught it. She looked at the disastrously wrapped box that Parker obviously decorated herself like she didn’t think it was real in front of her.
“You… you bought me a present?” Sophie asked, looking up at her. She couldn’t believe Parker did that.
“Don’t think you’re special or anything, I bought one for everyone. But I think I might burn Nate’s now,” she said as she sat on the bed next to Sophie and bounced up and down a bit in the excitement. “Come on, open it!”
So Parker was almost sweet for a minute there… almost. Sophie just rolls her eyes at her and tears apart the wrapping paper, revealing a shoebox. “Oh my god, you didn’t…” she says in an awed whisper before she opens it and squeals in that high pitched way that she always does. Parker puts her hands over her ears.
“Ohh Parker, they’re GORGEOUS!” she exclaims, pulling out a pair of boots that were so the height of fashion right now. “I love them!”
“I know you like shoes,” Parker says with a shrug. “So I went to the store and told the guy I wanted the prettiest most expensive pair he had.”
Sophie squealed again before putting them down on the bed and basically jumping on top of her, squeezing her so much Parker thought her lungs might bust from the force. “I love them! Thank you so much!” she says and kisses her on the lips automatically, which makes Parker’s eyes go wide, but Sophie doesn’t even seem to notice.
She’s off of her then, putting on the boots so she could see how they looked on her. Parkers still sitting on the bed, half in shock from Sophie just kissing her like that. She touched her lips automatically, then shook her head to clear it as she sat up and looked at Sophie strut around, and she did mean strut, in front of the mirror.
“They’re perfect,” Sophie gushes, then she turns and gives her a smile. “You’re perfect.”
Parker doesn't know what to say to that.
CHAPTER NINE
One Foot Out The Door
After the holidays, the team assembled back into the office. Nate looked positively shocked that Sophie walked in with Parker, but played his part in the lie, and smiled and kissed Sophie on the lips, acting like the perfect couple in front of the whole team, but Parker knew better. She tried not to glare at him, tried hard to pretend she knew nothing, but it was hard. It was also hard when Eliot took one look at Nate and asked, “What happened to you?” Which made Nate grumble a reply about how he got attacked by a tree… which in turn, made Parker laugh loud and obnoxiously, glad he did.
Nate just ignored her, used to Parker laughing at everything like that.
“Alright,” Hardison said, coming into the room with an empty box in his hands, waving it around at them. “Who ate all the HotPockets?”
“Um…” Parker started to say, looking guilty, so Hardison threw the empty box at her. She squealed and ducked, giggling.
“You know they were my favorite, Parker!” he exclaims, annoyed at her. “You’re buying me more,” he tells her, pointing at her to further enhance his demand.
“Don’t be a damn pansy about it, it’s just food,” Eliot told him and rolled his eyes a bit.
“I’m not… did you… did you just call me a pansy?” Hardison asked, with mock shock as he put his hand to his chest like it had offended him. “They are not just food! They are like… if the freezer was a religion, HotPockets would be it’s God.”
“You’re fucking weird,” is all Eliot says.
Parker’s too involved in the interaction between Hardison and Eliot to notice Sophie get dragged by her elbow very discreetly into the other room. “Ow, you’re hurting me,” she says in a low voice, moving her arm out of his grasp.
“What did you tell her?” he demanded, pinning her up against a wall so she couldn’t move.
“What? Nothing, Nate. Jesus,” she says, and tries to push away from him, but he pins her there.
“She didn’t ask about your lip? Come on,” he says, like he knows better. She just looks at him, narrowing her eyes. They shouldn’t be doing this here in the office.
“Nate, really? Now?” she asks in a whisper, but he gives her a look like she needs to tell him right now. She narrows her eyes and says, “I told her we had issues getting up the tree, that it fell on us and then landed on the switchboard, leaving us with no electricity. Why I needed to stay over. Told her you needed to visit your parents anyway. Okay? Now let me go.”
He let her go, but then his face softened and he touched Sophie’s face, where the bruise would be except for the makeup that covered it. “I’m sorry, you know I love you, Sophie,” he says, and all she can do is nod.
“Yeah, Nate. I know. You’re sorry and you love me. Right,” and then she just turns on her heel without another word and comes back into the briefing room, still not sure where she stood with Nate anymore. She loved him, she did. She loved him so much it hurt… unfortunately very literally on that matter. Part of her just wanted to stay with Parker, not as a replacement for Nate or anything, but just because she was so happy there that it was hard for her to know that she had to go home with Nate tonight.
Not that Parker wanted her to, she told her that if she sees Sophie like that one more time then she’s not going to stop herself from hurting something bigger than a present this time. Which of course Sophie didn’t want her to do either, but she couldn’t figure out a way to stay there without making Nate… mad.
That was always it wasn’t it? How to not make Nate mad. Lord. Like walking on broken glass.
“Yoshi is not a green dog, Parker! He’s a DINOSAUR!” Hardison explains exasperatedly as he points to a poster he had put up on the wall (much to everyone else’s dismay) of old school Mario characters. “See, does that look like a dog to you?”
“Yes,” is all Parker says, which makes Eliot laugh and Hardison do a face palm.
“Uh, Hardison,” Nate says, looking him pointedly. Hardison looks at him. “Aren’t you supposed to be finding us clients?”
“It’s the day after Christmas, Scrooge. I don’t know why you even have us here in the first place,” Hardison says, hands folding across his chest.
“I second that,” Eliot says. “Could be getting laid now.”
“Oh please,” Sophie says, rolling her eyes.
“Me too,” Parker says, and everyone looks at her.
“With who?” Eliot and Sophie ask at the same time that Hardison asks, “I thought you broke up with Patrick,” which make’s Nate ask, “Who’s Patrick?”
Parker looks overwhelmed with all the questions being thrown in her general vicinity. She holds up her hands in surrender, “I was just saying, this girl came on to me the other day, maybe her. Jeez.”
Sophie has a fleeting slightly ego-swelling moment that she thinks she’s talking about her, though isn’t really sure why, but then a terrifying moment that Nate might know that, but when Hardison asks, “Who?” Parker replies some girl she met at the Museum she was trying to check out, which made Nate glare at her and tell her absolutely no freelancing.
Sophie can breathe a bit better, knowing Parker didn’t take her festive kiss the wrong way. Because she didn’t mean it like that, even though it was really nice. She kind of wanted to keep kissing Parker, but obviously in a non-lesbian manner. Just because it was… nice. New. Fun, even. Girl friends kiss sometimes, right? She couldn’t remember anyone else she ever kissed that was her friend just for the hell of it except for one girl she knew back in high school. Sophie thinks she heard she’s a lesbian now though.
Parker just glared at him and told him to, “Eat it.” Which made Nate look surprised at the exclamation, but passed it off because it was Parker.
“Can we go home, please?” Hardison asks again, slightly whining.
“Seriously,” Eliot says, “This is pointless. We shouldn’t have to work until after New Years.”
“Guys, people need our help, even during the holidays!” Nate exclaimed, furious with them all for being so selfish, even though that might be most hypocritical thing he has ever done in his life.
“Come on, Nate, let’s just go home,” Sophie says, and puts her arm through his, lacing them together. Putting on a show, like always. She smiles at him in the sickingly sweet way that for once is almost making her sick and he sighs in defeat.
“Fine… but if all of you are not here on the second I’m cutting of YOUR Internet connection,” he points to Hardison, who gasps. “YOUR phone,” as he points to Eliot, who glares because that means he can’t call any women. “And YOUR…” he points at Parker, then stops. “I don’t know what yet, but I’ll do something you don’t like either.”
“You already are,” she says to him in a way that meant more than she said before she got up, walking over to her bag that she brought. Before she let anyone go she announced, her sour look turning so rapidly into a smile, “Presents!”
Hardison and Eliot bounded over to Parker like two kids, and Sophie couldn’t help but laugh. She reluctantly when to go get her own that she got for the group, and after Hardison and Eliot opened theirs and exchanged high fives, they went and go theirs for everyone as well. During the gift exchange, which Nate mumbled something incoherent about how they’re all at the house and he’ll bring them later, Parker looked at Nate and said, “Your present burned in a freak stove accident,” she told him, looking at him blankly. “Sorry,” she says, but she doesn’t sound it. Nate doesn’t even care.
After everyone had gotten their gifts, Parker’s gaze flickered over at Sophie and Nate briefly, her gaze more than just lingering on Sophie in particular, before she left with her arms full of presents. Hardison had gotten her the latest video game system, probably trying to corrupt her, no doubt.
Sophie didn’t want her to leave. She didn’t feel safe anymore, even with Eliot still in the room, who could kick ten times the ass Parker could. But then Eliot leaves, and then Hardison… and her and Nate are alone.
“Nice boots,” he says, looking at them, but didn’t say it in a tone that indicated he thought they were anything close to the word nice. “Where did they come from?”
“Parker bought me them for Christmas, she gave them to be yesterday,” she told him, with a pointed look like she still has yet to receive his present.
“It’s in the car,” he answers her unasked question. “Didn’t get time to wrap it though… but it’s there.”
Sophie just crosses her arms across her chest and stares at him. If it was in the car unwrapped it meant it was a last minute gift, only bought for the purpose of yet another ‘I’m sorry I got drunk and hit you again.’ AGAIN. She doubted the rest of the teams presents were even bought yet.
“This isn’t working, Nathan,” she told him finally getting up the courage to just voice is out loud, sighing a bit, because she wished more than anything that it could work.
“Sophie, I said I was sorry,” Nate says.
“You always say you’re sorry! That doesn’t stop it though, does it?” Sophie exclaimed, looking at him like she wished it did. Like sorry made everything be good again, make all the bad go away.
“Don’t do this, you know I love you. I’ll clean myself up, I swear,” Nate says and takes her hands in his, holding them. “I love you, Sophie.”
“But that’s just not enough anymore,” Sophie tells him, taking her hands out of his. She looked down, trying not to cry. She always bloody cried, didn’t she? “I mean you don’t even get me a Christmas present until last minute, what does that even say? Even Parker-”
“What is it with you and Parker now anyway?” Nate said, and Sophie could hear the jealousy seep through his voice. “You’re always with her lately.”
“Nothing, we’re just friends, Nate,” Sophie tells him, looking at him like he’s being absurd for even asking.
“Does she know that?”
“Of course she does,” Sophie said with a scoff. Nate really was being a ponce.
“Because apparently she’s this big lesbian slut now, I don’t want her thinking that she can-”
“Don’t call her that!” Sophie exclaims, angry. “She’s not a slut! Jesus, Nate! Can you just leave it? We’re just friends, not like it’s any of your business anyway!”
“You’re my woman, Sophie, of course it’s my business.”
“Not anymore,” Sophie told him before turning, trying to walk out the door, but Nate grabbed her. She turned to face him, angry that he wouldn’t let her go.
“Sophie… please,” he said, his voice softer. “I love you, you’re my everything.” She just sighed and he started to kiss her neck, making her close her eyes at the feeling of his lips. It was such a rarity now that she forgot how much she missed it. “I love you with everything I have, I’d be nothing without you.” He kissed up her neck and she sighed heavily, feeling herself give in again. “I’ll do right by you, I swear,” he whispers against her lips now… and then she breaks.
She kisses him, not knowing what else to do. She wants to be with him, but she wants to be with the good Nate, the one that doesn’t treat her like a whore. She liked this Nate in front of her, the one that kissed her sweetly and told her she was beautiful, who made her feel good inside.
She might never really have the strength to walk out that door because of that.
CHAPTER TEN
Playing Dress Up
It had been a month since then, and Nate had kept true to his word. He didn’t lay a hand on her, and he even stopped drinking cold turkey. Sophie could see it was hard for him, but he was trying, and that was all she could really ask for. Things were getting better, even though there were still angry arguments from sober Nate now, just frustrated because he can’t go have a drink.
Her and Parker had become closer though, and Sophie found they were hanging out about every other day at least. She was still the first person that Sophie thought of when she needed to feel safe, and even though Nate was doing significantly better since Christmas, the arguments still continued to escalate.
“Oh god, do we have to?” came Parker’s worried response to Sophie’s request. The last thing she needed right now was to enhance the already too girly behavior between the two of them.
“Of course!” Sophie said like she was ridiculous for even contemplating otherwise, and turned her to face the wall mirror as she sat her down on a chair and stood behind her. “You want to look beautiful for her, don’t you?”
Parker made a face but sat diligently into the chair designated for her. She puffed out her cheeks as she let out a breath in defeat. “I’m not pretty enough now?” she asked her, looking at herself in the mirror. She thought she was pretty, at least. Mariah did say yes to the date when she was looking like this anyway, so why change it?
“Parker, you’re gorgeous, I mean that,” Sophie said, looking her in the eyes seriously so to pick up what she thought was Parker’s dropping self esteem, though in fact it was only her confusement. “But everyone likes to look a little extra special while trying to impress someone of romantic interest.”
“But I just want to have sex, not have romance,” Parker tells her honestly, which makes Sophie roll her eyes and swat her a bit with the comb she had in her hand before starting to run in through her hair. Parker winced as she pulled on a knot.
“Well then this will help you get her into bed then, yeah?” Sophie said, trying to be serious but still sounding like overt sarcasm. Didn’t Parker realize that some women needed a touch of romance?
“If you say so,” is all Parker replies, then lets out an “Ow!” as Sophie pulls at her hair again. She slaps her hand over the offending area and glares at Sophie in the mirror.
Sophie let’s out a patient sigh, “Well if you took better care of your hair that wouldn’t have happened.”
“My hair is fine,” Parker replies and tries to get up, but is pushed with one hand on the shoulder back into the chair by Sophie. She huffs.
“Now tell me about this girl,” Sophie requests as she starts working on her hair again.
Parker shrugs, “She’s just a girl. Has nice boobs.”
“Parker!” Sophie exclaims, and thwacks her on the head with the comb, which makes Parker cover her head again and exclaim annoyance on the matter. “You need to stop talking about women that way Eliot does.”
“But she does have nice boobs!” Parker protests, clearly not understanding what was so wrong with saying that. She rubs her head a bit then puts her hand down. “I don’t know, what do you want to know?”
“Why do you like her?” Sophie asks as she puts down the comb and starts picking up a few bobby pins, putting them in her mouth as she gets to work on her project.
“Because she’s hot. Do we have to have girl time right now?” she asks, never enjoying these conversations much because she never felt like how a girl is supposed to be most of the time during these.
“Yes,” Sophie tells her. A pause, “Anything else? Or are you simply just trying to get up her skirt?”
“The skirt thing.”
Sophie sighs as she twists Parker’s hair up, holding it in place with the bobby pins. “Are you ever interested in anything other than sex with another person?”
“I was with Hardison,” Parker says, then makes a face. “It didn’t end happy though so I don’t see the point anymore.”
“You can’t write off all relationships because of that,” Sophie told her softly, pausing to look at her in the mirror. She put her hands on Parker’s shoulders and then ran them down her arms, squeezing them a bit. “You’ll find someone else, I promise.”
“Who?” Parker scoffs, rolling her eyes. “Everyone thinks I’m insane, all I’m good for is sex.”
“That is not true!” Sophie exclaimed and came around the other side of the chair to face Parker, kneeling down in front of her so she could get at eye level with the thief. She tucked a piece of blonde hair behind her ear and rested her hand on her cheek, looking at her seriously. “You are so amazing Parker. You’re incredibly sweet most of the time, you’re protective and brave, you’re talented… you have so much to offer someone. Please believe me about that.” She leaned in and kissed Parker, just a press of the lips that lingered probably a bit longer than it should have. When they broke she gave her a small smile and Parker licked her lips nervously and just nodded, not knowing what else to say.
It was like that with them now though: Sophie kissing Parker all the time. Parker didn’t understand why, because it was never anything that she could interpret as solely sexual because they were always during times like this, or sometimes just kisses hello or goodbye. Sophie always seemed to want to kiss Parker, but it was never like the one under the mistletoe. There wasn’t any tongue, it wasn’t meant for anything else other than what exactly it was: a kiss. Or at least, Parker thought. But she did notice Sophie seemed to keep doing it a lot more often than not recently, and each kiss seemed to last a bit longer than the last.
When Sophie went back to her place behind the chair she continued to fix Parker’s hair, and she laughed a bit as she admitted, “You know, it’s funny. Sometimes I think that if it wasn’t for Nate I’d try to make a play for you, even though you’re a woman.”
Parker just blinked at her, “What?”
Sophie didn’t seem to understand the significance of what she just said to Parker, so she kept on. “Yeah, you know, I feel safe with you. Happier. I guess even though I’m not into women specifically, it might just feel so right with you that it wouldn’t matter.” She giggled a bit then shrugged as she put in the last bobby pin in her hair. “But no use talking about something like that.” Parker was about to ask why not, when Sophie exclaimed, “There, done!”
Parker looked at herself in the mirror, her eyes wide at how it looks, though her mind was still trying to process what Sophie had just admitted to her. But she doesn’t get much of a chance because Sophie’s pulling her up now, over to her closet. “Now for clothes,” she tells her, and starts looking through it.
Parker just stares at her, not knowing exactly how she was supposed to feel about what Sophie said. If she was to be honest with herself, she felt a little happy at the revelation, though that surprised her and yet at the same time worried her for the same reasons.
It also made her not want to go on the date she had tonight. She wanted to stay with Sophie, which was also a really bad thing to want.
“Oh Parker, you should just throw this wretched thing out,” Sophie says, holding up a sweatshirt that was beyond wear and tear. Parker snapped out of her thoughts to snatch the offending object out of Sophie’s hands and hold it close to her.
“No, it’s my favorite!”
Sophie just rolled her eyes a bit before pulling out a little black cocktail dress. “Ah, see this… this is perfect,” she says as she hands it to Parker. “Try it on.”
“But I already know it fits, its mine,” Parker tells her.
Sophie just let out a patient sigh but responds, “I know that, but I want to see my work it it’s entirety, now strip.”
Parker blinks again at Sophie’s order of ‘strip’, just because that could be taken so many ways. But she does what she says and takes off her shirt, pulling it off over her head and discarding it to the floor before pulling off her pants. Sophie looked at her in her underwear, and then at the dress, and observed, “I think you’re going to have to lose the bra. The dress is padded anyway.”
For the first time in Parker’s life, she was hesitant about taking her clothes off in front of someone. She had this funny feeling in the pit of her stomach that she didn’t know how to explain, and she just thought it might be a bad idea, though she wasn’t sure why.
“Oh come on, Parker, we’re both girls,” Sophie says with an eye roll. “You’ve never been shy before. Just take it off so you can put on the dress.” And then she just stands there, staring at her.
Parker does what she says though, silently reaching up behind her to unclasp her bra before shrugging it off of her shoulders, letting it fall to the ground probably more slowly than she should have allowed it to. Sophie blinks a minute, staring at her chest like she wasn’t expecting to do it so obviously. But Parker noticed it.
“The dress...” Sophie says finally, her voice a bit lower then normal, trying to tell Parker to please put back on her clothes, that maybe her own idea wasn’t the best after all.
“Right,” Parker says, and shakes herself out of it before sliding the dress on. Sophie goes behind her and zips it up for her slowly, before placing her hands delicately on the other woman’s shoulders before turning her around to face her.
“God,” Sophie breathed as she looks her over. “You look stunning.”
Parker chewed on her bottom lip a bit before looking up at Sophie, deciding to do the one thing Sophie always did to her. She leaned in and pressed her lips to hers, closing her eyes as she felt the grip Sophie had to her shoulder tighten a bit. When they broke she whispered, “Thank you…”
She knew a thank you kiss wasn’t out of line.
Sophie looks down, biting her tongue lightly for a minute as if to stop herself from saying something. Then she was out of the trance, and smiled at her before giving her a little affectionate pat on the butt, which made Parker jump a bit. “Come on, shoes now. You’re going to have everyone falling all over you.”
Unfortunately, that’s what Parker found herself hoping for, but it wasn’t about Mariah.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Just Friends
It was one month, two women of Parker’s, and many ‘platonic’ kisses later that Nate broke his promise and started drinking again. The day that Sophie came over with a black eye was the day Parker retaliated, not being able to take it anymore.
So she was hardly surprised when Sophie burst though her apartment door the next day, now having a key, slamming it against the wall as she looked at Parker accusingly, “His car?”
“Yup,” is all Parker says as she pops a piece of popcorn into her mouth.
“You set his car on fire!?” Sophie exclaims as she walks towards her and started making erratic hand gestures that in no way made any sense to Parker.
“Yup,” she says again, putting the bowl back on the table and looking at her finally.
“Parker, that was a two thousand eight Ferrari Telsa Roadster for shits sake!” Sophie cries, and then slumps down next to her on the couch, with her head in her hands. Parker blinks and looks over at her, Sophie looks absolutely distraught over the loss of the vehicle.
“Are you mourning the car?” she asks her, tilting her head to look at her curiously. “Why? Look what he did to you.”
“It was pretty though…” Sophie mumbles into her hands. “And I already shot him in the foot for it, did you really have to murder something so…” she sighed and took her head out of her hands and instead decided to collapse against Parker heavily. “It was so pretty,” she repeated in a sad voice.
“You’re relationship with him is really fucked up,” Parker tells her finally. Because it was. They were happy for two months, then he goes back to hitting her, but it’s okay because Sophie shot him in the foot for it? How did that even make sense?
“The car…” is all Sophie sighs and bangs her forehead against Parker’s shoulder a bit.
“Ow,” Parker says and shrugs her off of her. Sophie looks disgruntled at being shoved off of Parker in that way, and looks at her. But Parker looks a bit angry.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“You’re welcome,” is all Parker says before folding her arms into herself in a huff and stares at the far wall. Jeez, go through all the trouble to hurt someone because of what they did to someone she care about, and this is the thanks she gets? She singed part of her hair doing that.
“No, Parker… I didn’t mean to make you think I…” Sophie started, looking at the thief. She put her hand on her leg. “I am glad you stuck up for me, Parker. But I just wish you didn’t have to involve that beautiful car…”
Parker made a face but looked over at her, feeling her heart sink at the sight of her eye. She touched her face gently, before putting down her hand heavy against the couch. “You’re dumb, you could have someone who would treat you so much better.”
“Like who?” Sophie asks with a scoff. “I’m a grifter, it’s not safe for anyone to know who I really am outside of you guys.”
Parker doesn’t answer, but that wasn’t because she didn’t know who.
The problem was, throughout the past month she came to the very bad realization that she liked Sophie. A lot, actually. Like more than what she was supposed to. Even more than just sex. And that was bad for one of three reasons. One, Sophie was stuck in an abusive relationship with Nate. Two, Parker was afraid that the same thing that happened with Hardison would happen with her. And three, she was pretty sure Sophie wasn’t interested in her like that.
So all she says is, “Someone who will protect you.”
Sophie smiles a bit and responds, “But I have you for that.” Parker looks at her pointedly, but Sophie still doesn’t get it, so Parker just sighs and leans her head back against the couch, feeling stupid. She hated that she liked Sophie, it was so bad.
“What’s wrong?” Sophie asks, and prods her gently with her finger in her rib, making Parker giggle because it tickles.
“Nothing!” she exclaims, swatting at Sophie’s hand.
“You’re ticklish?” Sophie asks, with a devious surprised grin. Parker doesn’t like that look, and she shouldn’t, because the next minute Sophie’s hands are all over her, and not in a way she would usually like them to be.
“Stop!” Parker cries, giggling helplessly. She swatted at the other woman in vain, just trying to get her off of her. But Sophie’s laughing too now, getting on top of her and tickling her with no mercy. “Sophie! Stop!!” Parker tries again, and finally grabs both of her wrists, holding them out to the side so Sophie drops on top of her chest heavily.
But then suddenly both of them are very aware of the position they’re in, and while they’re usually all over each other, it’s different this time with both of them being so close to each other, and so completely out of breath. Sophie looks at Parker; with an expression that Parker isn’t sure she can read. Sophie nervously licks her bottom lip, and Parker’s chest is starting to rise and all more rapidly, even though the tickling had stopped.
“Sophie…” she starts in a whisper, not thinking before she spoke. “I want to…” but then she thinks about it, and stops herself.
“Want to what?” she asks her in a soft voice. Her hand falls to rest on Parker’s, and Parker holds it automatically.
“Nothing,” she says, looking away.
“Tell me, Parker…. please,” Sophie pleads gently, knowing exactly what Parker wanted, because she wanted it to, she just didn’t know why she did at that moment. She moved her face a bit closer to her, brushing her lips across Parker’s lightly before closing her eyes.
“I want to kiss you,” Parker admits in a quiet voice, her own eyes fluttering shut at the feel of Sophie’s lips against hers. She takes a deep breath, still terrified of Sophie’s answer even though Sophie was clearly thinking along the same lines as her.
“As friends?” Sophie asks her, barely above a whisper as she brushes her lips against Parker’s again, just needing to feel them. She couldn’t do it any other way besides friends, even if she had an asshole as a man, she was still with him.
“…As friends,” Parker breathes out, her grips on Sophie’s hand tightening. She didn’t want it to be as friends, but she wanted to kiss her so bad that nothing else mattered.
“Okay…” Sophie finally says softly, and Parker presses her lips to the other woman, parting them to let Sophie slip her tongue in. Parker moans softly at the contact, and wraps her other arm around Sophie’s neck, bringing her in closer. Sophie kisses her back tentatively, scared of all the feelings that are coming to surface, but loving every moment of it.
With each passing minute the kiss slowly becomes to turn more passionate, and now Sophie was squeezing Parkers hand as tight as she could as she gasps into her mouth, moving her hips against her slightly. Parker tangled her fingers through her dark tresses and sucked in her bottom lip lightly before kissing her chin, back to her lips, her cheek, down to her neck before sucking on it softly.
“God,” Sophie breathes out as her other hand grasps at Parker’s shirt and she tilts her neck to the side to give Parker more room. She had forgotten how good it felt to be with Parker in this way, even if she only experienced it for a fleeting moment during Christmas.
Parker’s lips area now at the base of her ear, and her short hot bursts of breath into it before her tongue claims her earlobe is driving Sophie insane. She turns her head and crashes her lips back to Parker’s, moaning hard into the other woman’s mouth as she lifts up her shirt and rakes her nails against Parker’s skin, making her arch her back and gasp hard.
Then it was Sophie’s turn to have her lips on Parker’s neck, and Parker cried out softly as Sophie bit her in just the right way, and she writhed underneath her. She wasn’t expecting it to go this far, but wasn’t surprised that it did either. Sophie was always touching her, always kissing her, and now that she thought about it, it was stupid to assume that didn’t mean anything.
“Sophie…”she breathes out as the hand that held her hair tightened its grip, pulling her more towards her neck. She didn’t know how long she had been waiting for something like this until it really happened.
But then Sophie’s phone rang, making both of them jump off each other like they had just been caught doing something wrong. They both stared at each other for a moment before Sophie coughed out of the awkwardness of it and turned towards her phone, picking it up.
“Hello?” A pause, “I’m with Parker right now.” Another pause then a scoff from something, “Doing friends stuff, Nate, God. I’ll be home for dinner since you can’t get off the damn couch, stop freaking out.” Sophie gets a disgruntled look on her face before she hangs up the phone; Nate probably didn’t even say goodbye.
They both looked at each other before Sophie looked down, pursing her lips together. Parker didn’t like that look.
But Sophie doesn’t say anything she’s expecting, instead she just shyly leans in and kisses her softly on the lips. “I gotta go…” she says, like she regrets it.
Parker just nods, knowing. She looks up at Sophie before kissing her again, much more longer and much more passionate than how Sophie did, but Sophie reciprocates. “Come over tomorrow?” she asks her in a whisper after they break.
“Of course,” Sophie says with a little smile. “You’re my best friend…”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Formalities
When Sophie came home to Nate, all she could do was think about Parker. She knew they had to be just friends under the current circumstances, but for some reason in Sophie’s brain that didn’t compute to mean that she shouldn’t be having hot and heavy makeout sessions with the girl on her couch. For some reason, in her mind, Parker and her friendship was just like that. Maybe it was a little different, maybe other people wouldn’t see it that way, but Parker was her happy place so it didn’t really matter what anyone else thought.
Of course, she tended to go from one happy place one minute, to hell the next.
“Sophie!” Nate screamed, bound to the couch due to his foot injury. He did have crutches, but he seemed to like to make Sophie do things for him, based largely on the fact that she shot him in the foot and it was her fault after all.
But if you ask Sophie, it’s Nate’s fault because he hit her first.
“What?” Sophie yells back as she throws her purse on the dining room table before stalking into the living room where he lay.
“I’m hungry,” he tells her.
“Well hold one moment while I pull that out of my ass for you,” Sophie says, her hands on her hips. “I have to cook it first, Nathan.”
“Can’t you just order something? You’re cooking can sometimes be a little… dry.”
Sophie scoffed loudly, insulted. “If you wanted to order something, you should have called yourself! You have your bloody phone!”
“Well you bitch at me every time I order the wrong thing for you!” Nate exclaims, throwing his hands into the air. “Just call for pizza or something.”
“God!” Sophie exclaims before stomping back into the dining room and just flopping down in the chair. She heard the TV turn back on in the other room and she sighs before going through her purse. After ordering the pizza she still sits there, phone in hand.
She started flipping through her contacts until she found Parker, and pressing the text message button she writes, “I miss you already.”
There was a moment of silence before her phone chimes, signaling a message back. When she flips it open she reads, “Then come back.”
She sighed, but smiled a little. She wished she could. “I can’t,” she writes, then presses send. God, how she wishes she could.
After dinner, Sophie helped Nate into bed. She went to her closet and starts stripping off her clothes, getting ready to sleep. But when she comes back over to the bed in only her undergarments, Nate asks, “What is that?”
“What?” Sophie asked, and looked down, not knowing what he was referring to.
“On you neck!” he yelled, pointing at it. Sophie’s hand automatically clapped over her neck. She knew what side it was on; the side Parker was on earlier. “Is that a fucking hickey?!”
Sophie decides going near the bed right now might be a bad idea, so she backs up a few steps. She tries to play it cool. “Are you serious? Do you know how retarded you sound right now, you haven’t kissed me in weeks.”
“I KNOW!” Nate yells, and tries to get up but his foot prevents him from doing so. “If that stupid slut has been doing something to you I’m going to-”
“Nate!” Sophie yelled, hating that recently all he’s been doing is calling Parker a slut. “It has nothing to do with Parker! It’s probably a bruise from all the bloody marks you leave on me, you damn wanker!”
“That’s a hickey, I’m not fucking stupid, Sophie!” Nate exclaims. He looks furious. Both with the hickey, and the fact that he can’t get up and do anything about it.
“Well obviously you are since it’s not!” Sophie screeched.
“You’ve been cheating on me! Damnit, you whore! After all I’ve done for you?!”
“I’m not having sex with her!” Sophie screamed, but yet doesn’t deny the other things. She just didn’t care anymore. She doesn’t even care about him calling her a whore; it’s so repetitive now.
“Wait till I can fucking walk…” Nate warns, and gives her a look that Sophie in no way feels safe with. She backs up a couple more steps.
“What are you going to do? Kill me now because you think I’m sleeping with Parker?” Sophie asks, her heart dropping to her stomach. She was afraid at the way Nate was looking at her, and really didn’t want any of this to be happening right now.
“If I’m not going to have you, then no one else is! Especially not some crazy bitch!” Nate yells and tries to get up another time, but once his foot reaches the floor and he puts some weight on it, he cries out in pain.
Sophie just looked at him like everything just shattered before her eyes. She shook her head at him, and started to walk away, but a softer cry of “Sophie!” filled her ears, she turned around.
“What?” she asked, the tears in her eyes threatening to spill over, Nate just basically threatened to murder her. She felt so… empty. She’s sure she’s supposed to feel scared or even angry… but she didn’t.
“Look, I’m sorry,” he says, softer this time, calming himself down. “I just…” he sighed. “Just tell me you’re not sleeping with her and I’ll believe you.”
She looked at him seriously and said with ever ounce of honesty, because it was true, “I’m not sleeping with her, Nate. Or anyone else.”
“I’m sorry,” he says again, picking himself back up to lie on the bed. “I just don’t want to lose you, Sophie. You’re everything to me.”
“Nate…” she said softly, looking at the man in front of her that a minute ago looked homicidal but now looked so vulnerable. “You’re not going to lose me.”
A part of her hated herself for saying that, but she knew it was true. She didn’t know why she couldn’t just leave. She wanted to all the time. But without her, what would Nate become? At least he gets his share of pain from the shit he dishes out on her; it makes it almost even in a way, as bloody screwed up as that logic is.
But isn’t that how most abusive relationships work?
“Does she want you?” he asked her quietly, almost like he would cry at the thought. It tugged at Sophie’s heart a little, but she lied to him.
“No,” she says as she comes over and sits down on the end of the bed now, taking his hand in hers. “We’re just friends, Nate. That’s it.”
“I just see the way she looks at you sometimes…” he says, looking up at her. He looked so sad, and for a fleeting moment Sophie has a thought that he could possibly be psychotically bipolar, but then it’s gone and she doesn’t know where that came from.
“She likes women, Nate. I’m… fairly attractive, I guess. It’s just a look, she doesn’t act on it.”
Lies. All the lies.
“Do you swear?” he asks, and she gives him a small smile and leans down and kisses him on the forehead.
“I swear.”
All the dirty, dirty lies.
He smiles at her, believing it all. She finally climbs into bed next to him, resting her head on his chest. They stayed there in silence for awhile until Nate ran his fingers through her hair and says, “I’m sorry I hit you, Sophie.”
“I’m sorry I shot you,” she says back.
But neither of them mean it, it’s more of a formality now more than anything else.
So when Nate rolled on top of her to kiss her, it was more of a formality action to reciprocate on Sophie’s part. When he kissed her neck, when his lips fell down to her breasts to wrap around one of her nipples, it was more of a formality to moan in response. When he rolled her on top of him and he slid inside of her, it was more of a formality to cry out in pleasure to make him push forwards. And when he came, it was also more of a formality to fake her own… the entire time thinking about Parker, and how badly she wished that she was the one inside of her.
STORY TOO LONG!
PART THREE IS HERE.
Author: Sapphire Smoke cuzimastripper
Fandom: Leverage
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Parker/Sophie (some Nate/Sophie too, and Parker/OC)
Prompt: Sophie/Parker - burning bridges
Length Thus Far: 21,110 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. Probably should mention abuse. But there's also happy fluff, and I have a sickness with happy endings so don't worry too much... lol.
Other Parts: PART ONE
CHAPTER SEVEN
Bah Humbug
It was exactly three weeks after Parker and Sophie had that conversation that what Parker had predicted had come true. She came to her door once she heard the bell ring, putting down her Christmas decorations she was trying to hang up at the moment. Lights, holly, mistletoe, wreaths. She didn’t know why she was even doing it, but it was Christmas, and she was told by Eliot after she asked that that’s just when people do. Putting down the last string of lights, she walked to the door and when she opened it Sophie stood there, mascara smeared from crying so much, looking a disaster… with a bloody lip.
“Shit,” Parker swore, and took her hand, leading her inside. She couldn’t very well just leave Sophie looking like that. Sophie cried and wrapped her arms around Parker, burying her face in her shoulder, uttering incoherent things that Parker only caught the gist of, like the words ‘wanker’, ‘drinking’, and ‘bloody Christmas.’
Sophie didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to go to Parker’s just because of what Parker had said to her, but she had no where else to go. If she went to a hotel she would just end up thinking somehow that it was all her fault and she’d come crawling back to him, like she always does, but even more so because of the Holiday. It’s sick, really, the way he had warped her brain.
Parker tilted Sophie’s chin up with her finger before wiping a bit of blood off of Sophie’s lip with her thumb, before putting it in her mouth. “Damnit,” she said, looking her over, touching the bruise on her chin delicately.
“Don’t… blood…” Sophie tried to get out, trying to tell her she shouldn’t randomly lick other people’s blood like that, but she couldn’t even get out the words though her tears.
“You got any diseases?” Parker asked her, though it was probably a question too late. Sophie shook her head, so Parker replied, “Then don’t worry about it. Lay down.” She guided Sophie into her bedroom and put her on her bed, and Sophie curled herself into a ball as Parker put the covers over her. She sat next to her, and looked at her like she didn’t know what to do.
She knew what she wanted to do. She wanted to go over to Sophie’s house and kick Nate’s ass so bad his scrotum would bleed out of his mouth, but she knew Sophie didn’t want her to. And that was stopping her… so far.
She looked at the woman curled into her bed, and creased her brow in upset before putting her hand down on top of Sophie’s, not knowing what else to do. She patted it kind of awkwardly, not good with the whole comforting thing, and waited for her to talk. Because if she came over here instead of going somewhere else, than she wanted to talk about it.
Sophie curled her hand around Parker’s to hold it as she cried for a bit, and Parker waited as patiently as she could, but it wasn’t one of her strong suits. “Why?” she asked suddenly into the silence of the room other than the sound of Sophie’s distress.
“Egg nog… the bloody fucking tree…. kept falling over… pissed off…” Sophie tried to get out through her tears, and Parker shushed her. It wasn’t going to help if she can’t tell the whole story. So she decided to try to be patient again and laid down next to Sophie. Sophie sniffed and laid her head on Parker’s breast, and Parker looked down at her with this odd look, eyes wide, that meant that probably wasn’t the best place in the world for her to lay on her, but Sophie was upset so she needed to be okay with it. She put an arm around Sophie and just waited until she calmed down.
Sophie hugged Parker tighter, feeling safer now. Ever since that night, she knew that as bloody fucked up as it really is, Parker is her knight in shining armor. She’s the one that will protect her. She knew she was all over her, which she also knew Parker wasn’t very fond of, but she just needed it, and the way Parker didn’t protest made Sophie think that she knew that she did.
Why did this have to happen on Christmas Eve, of all nights?
When Sophie could finally breathe and calmed down a bit. She looked up at Parker, wiping her eyes, before looking back down and noticing something. “Oh, sorry… I seem to have gotten blood all over your blouse.”
Parker looked down, and seeing a couple blood spots from where Sophie’s lip was she just sat up, making Sophie sit up too for a minute before pulling it off over her head and discarding it to the floor, leaving her there in just her bra. She laid back down without saying a word.
“Do you want me to wash it for you?” Sophie asked, trying to be polite.
“I want you to tell me what happened,” Parker said seriously, and Sophie looked down before sniffing again and deciding to curl back on top of Parker, head on her breast again, though this time it was only on her bra. She thought she could feel Parker take a sharp inhale of breath, but then she was relaxed and Sophie was sure she just imagined it. She rested her hand on top of Parker’s stomach, enjoying the softness of it.
“We were trying to put up the tree,” she explains softly. “Nate was drinking eggnog… a lot. The kind with rum in it, you know? And he couldn’t get up the tree, and it was funny to see him struggle so I laughed a bit, you know? And he got mad, started calling me a ‘good for nothing bitch’ saying I’m not even trying to help and he was trying to do this for me anyway because he doesn’t bloody like the Holidays….” She paused and started tracing little circles on Parker’s stomach trying to distract herself. “I got mad, he kept calling me names… so I threw my glass at him. I didn’t expect it to hit him, but it did. So he…” she coughed, not wanting to say it out loud. “I pushed the tree on him and then left,” she finished.
“You pushed the tree on top of him?” Parker asked, surprised, but yet at the same time seemed almost amused at the mental picture in her head, and she smiled. “Good.” Another pause, “So you’re not just… taking it then.”
“Of course not,” Sophie said, looking at her like she was a bit mad for even suggesting it. “It’s not like I’m one of those women that just lays there and takes it. I’ve stabbed him in the leg, pointed a gun at his chest, and once I even took a can of hairspray and a lighter. He backed up quickly from that one.” She sighed heavily. “I defend myself, I do… but sometimes I can’t help but think that I’m the one that always bloody starts it. He never hits me unless I hit him first.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Parker told her. “Look what he does to you, I barely ever see a scratch on him. Except the singed forearm hair… and the leg… was that the dog thing?”
Sophie didn’t answer for a moment, just closed her eyes and stayed silent. “I don’t want to go back,” Sophie admits quietly, finally, and stops tracing circles on her stomach to look up at her.
“Then don’t,” Parker tells her. “Get a hotel room or something.”
“But I can’t…” Sophie says, sighing a bit. The circles started up again. She pursed her lips, then winced at the pain and went on, “I can’t just leave… you know? He’d be a wreck without me.”
“He’s a wreck with you now, obviously,” Parker says, still feeling very awkward from Sophie being all over her like she was, but not knowing the significance of it, if it even had one. She knew Sophie felt safe with her, but there was no reason to be making imaginary pictures on her stomach with her finger. “He started drinking again, then,” she finishes, but it wasn’t a question. Just a disappointed repeat.
Sophie just sighed and looked down at her fingers, concentrating on making an imaginary picture of a world where all this shit just didn’t happen anymore. “Where’s Patrick?” Sophie asks finally, “Thought you’d be with him.”
“We broke up,” Parker tells her, and Sophie looks up at her.
“What? When?”
Parker shrugs, “A week ago? He was trying to get all ‘let’s call Parker my girlfriend though I only know her as Sarah’ and it was just… weird. I don’t know.” A pause. “He was nice… but he had a drug problem that I just…” she just shrugs, finishing. She looks down at Sophie and pushes a piece of hair out of her face, since it seemed to be sticking to her lip a little. Parker didn’t like seeing Sophie all beat up, just as much as she didn’t like the fact that she was bleeding on her either. “Here, sit up for a minute,” she tells her, and when she does she gets off the bed to go get something.
When she comes back she has a wet face cloth, and she sits back down on the bed in front of Sophie and starts dabbing the wound gently. Would hopefully stop the bleeding all over herself… and Parker. Sophie sniffed and looked down as Parker cleaned her up, and as Parker put her hand down after she was done, Sophie held it, stilling her. Parker looked confused before Sophie leaned in and kissed her softly on the cheek, making Parker’s eyes flutter closed for a moment.
“You’re my knight,” she tells her in a whisper, then a small smile.
“Yeah well… I have the white car. Probably should get a horse after this, but they poop everywhere,” Parker says with a smirk, then looks down and shakes her head, angry with Nate. “I want to hurt him, Sophie.”
“Please, just… let it go for now, okay?” Sophie pleaded, and squeezed Parker’s hand that she was holding, making Parker drop the facecloth on her sheets. Sophie laced their fingers together and repeated, “Please… for me?”
“Do you want to owe me your life or something?” Parker asks her, wondering why she keeps doing this.
Sophie shrugged and says with a little smile, “Might be better if I did. You seem to make me happier, anyway.”
Parker smiled a little, and squeezed Sophie’s hand back a bit more. “Come on, I’ll feed you. I ordered pizza this time, Christmas and all.” She goes to get up but Sophie stops her, not letting go of her hand, and Parker is pulled back on the bed.
“Parker…” she starts, then stops, not even really knowing what she wanted to say. Instead she pulls her into a hug, burying her face in her neck, thinking briefly how nice Parker’s hair smelt. They stayed there for a bit, until Sophie pulled away really slowly. They both looked at each other, face only and inch away, and Sophie could feel the breath catching in her throat.
“Food,” Parker spits out automatically, looking uncomfortable, effectively breaking the spell. Sophie shakes her head and then nods, moving away from Parker.
“Right.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Mistletoe
What Sophie needed more than anything was to just forget it all and be happy for a moment. It was Christmas, after all. Almost anyway, another hour. And that’s what Parker did. They ate their pizza and turned on the television, watching ‘A Christmas Carol’, that Sophie was shocked that Parker had never seen. She asked her why it had a bondage ghost, and Sophie spit out her soda she had laughed so hard.
After the movie had ended they turned off the TV and Parker turned on her Christmas lights, turning out all the rest so it was just illuminated by the rainbow dots all over the room. Sophie had to giggle at how she decorated; hanging strings from the ceiling in patterns that made no sense, but looking up at them they almost seemed like brightly colored stars.
Parker lay on the couch with one leg propped up, and Sophie positioned herself between them as she laid her head against her chest. Parker still didn’t put on a shirt, due only to the fact that she apparently had absolutely nothing else to wear since she hadn’t done laundry in forever, which made Sophie tell her that she’d help her with it tomorrow.
They lay there for a bit in silence, just looking up at the lights on the ceiling. Parker started playing with Sophie’s hair, getting used to Sophie’s need for touchy feelyness. She stopped minding it so much, it wasn’t really that bad, after all. She didn’t understand why Sophie always wanted to be touching her though, usually women would only do that when they wanted to have sex with you, but Parker was pretty sure that wasn’t it. Sophie was just sad. Lonely maybe. Cause Nate was a dickhead.
“What’s that?” Sophie asked, pointing to the ceiling at a dark spot that she couldn’t make out that was right above them.
“Mistletoe,” Parker says, like the object was ridiculous. She shrugged, “I don’t get why people kiss under it. It’s not like it orders you to or anything, there’s no sign. It’s just a plant.”
“It’s a sign of fertility and fortune. Used to be used in weddings in ancient Rome,” Sophie tells her, looking up at it. “It contains the female sex hormone, you know.” She looked up at her and smirked.
“So it’s a horny female plant then?” Parker asks, giggling. She didn’t even ask how Sophie knew… Sophie just knew everything. Sophie giggled too and shrugged. Then she smiled a bit like she was getting a devious idea and turned a bit more to look at Parker, leaning a bit against her shoulder so she was face to face with her, but yet still laying down.
“Come on,” she says, a bit of a smirk pulling at her lips. “One for the holidays?”
“What?” Parker asked, not understanding what she’s talking about. Then her eyes widen and she goes, “Ohhh…” then another pause, eyes narrowed, confused. “You want me to kiss you under the mistletoe? Isn’t that kind of… lame?”
“Oh come on, Parker. Please? It’ll be festive.”
“You really want to make out with me under a plant for the sake of a holiday?” Parker asks, still confused by the idea. Sophie didn’t like women, least she didn’t think so. She definitely didn’t like Parker, although was starting to like her as a friend a whole lot more under the unfortunate circumstances. She didn’t see how it would be fun for Sophie. It’d be fun for Parker, cause well, she did like women… and Sophie was pretty. But it was because of that that she didn’t really want to do it. She might like it a bit too much.
“I didn’t say ‘make out’, I said kiss. Under a mistletoe, because it’s Christmas,” Sophie tells her, like she should understand what she means, but Parker still doesn’t. All she gets is that Sophie wants to stick her tongue down her throat because a plant told her to.
“Don’t grab me or anything,” Parker tells her, because then it might end up a bit more than kissing. Sophie rolls her eyes.
“I’ll try not to, promise,” she says, though it’s dripping with sarcasm as she smirks.
Sophie shifted a bit then, got more on top of Parker, almost laying on her. Parker’s heart started beating faster, and all of a sudden she was nervous. She’s going to be kissing Sophie in a minute. Sophie. That wasn’t just a normal festive kiss, was it? It wasn’t like it was some random girl in a bar that was drunk and thought it would be fun to make out under a plant… this is Sophie. Sophie wanted to kiss her... why again?
Sophie took a deep breath and looked at Parker, trying to give her a small smile because the poor girl looked like she might have a heart attack from Sophie being on top of her. She knew Parker was very into women, and maybe this wasn’t very fair to her, because it’s not like Sophie was interested in her in that way. Least not really. Parker made her happy though, about the only thing that did make her happy these days, and so if she was to share a festive maybe-lesbian kiss with someone, then Parker seemed to be the right one to do it with.
She just wanted to feel something nice again, and if Parker could do that without kissing her, than she wanted to know if she could do it better if she did.
It sounded a lot less lesbian in her head. Really.
Parker didn’t seem to get any less nervous though, so Sophie just giggled softly at her demeanor before whispering, “Relax, it’s just a kiss.”
“Sure,” Parker said in a low voice, letting out the breath she seemed to have been holding. Sophie smiled again before leaning forward slowly, and pressing her lips gently against Parker’s.
It hurt a bit, with her lip being cut the way it was, but it wasn’t anything that she couldn’t manage. She closed her eyes and parted her lips, allowing Parker to do the same. She could feel Parker let out a tiny breath as Sophie slipped her tongue into her mouth. She wasn’t expecting to, she really only wanted to do an open mouth kiss, but her tongue seemed to have other plans. Sophie could feel Parker’s hand move a bit to grip the couch hard, probably trying to control herself, but for some reason that just made Sophie want to kiss her more.
She let out a soft moan against Parkers lips and placed her hand on her cheek as she kissed her deeper, just enjoying how well Parker could kiss. The thief was incredibly skilled with her tongue, and it made a shiver run down to the base of her spine. They broke for only a second, just to take a breath before Sophie’s lips were on hers again, kissing her lightly once more before looking down, resting her forehead against Parker’s. Neither of them spoke for a moment.
“Thanks,” Sophie said softly. “Needed that, I guess.”
“Right,” Parker said, her breathing noticeably different. “You’re welcome… I guess.”
The awkward moment was a bit overwhelming, so Sophie got off of her, sitting up on the other end of the couch. “Sorry about the… tongue. That wasn’t in the original plan.”
“I liked it,” Parker says automatically, then looked like she was mentally kicking herself for saying it. Sophie smiles a bit, then looks at Parker… and starts giggling.
Parker looks confused, “What?” Sophie just points to her bra, which was unpadded, and Parker looks down. “Shit,” she says, noticing her nipples were incredibly alert to the situation at hand. She didn’t cover them though, there was no point. “Well you started it,” she defended.
“Sorry,” Sophie says, her hand over her mouth, still giggling at Parker’s obvious unintentional arousal.
“I bet,” Parker says, annoyance in her voice, but it was light. She rolled her eyes before smiling. “Come on, I want to show you something,” she said before she gets up from off the couch.
“Really?” Sophie asks, surprised at the way Parker said it. Like it was almost a surprise. She got up and followed Parker into her bedroom. Parker opened her closet, which was filled to the brim with dirty clothes, and started rummaging through boxes. Sophie just sat on the bed and watched her, waiting. Then there was a, “Aha!” from inside the dark closet and Parker reemerged… with a present.
“What’s that?” Sophie asked, like it wasn’t obvious. But at that moment, it wasn’t for her.
“It’s your Christmas present. Duh,” Parker replied and tossed it to her. Sophie looked surprised but caught it. She looked at the disastrously wrapped box that Parker obviously decorated herself like she didn’t think it was real in front of her.
“You… you bought me a present?” Sophie asked, looking up at her. She couldn’t believe Parker did that.
“Don’t think you’re special or anything, I bought one for everyone. But I think I might burn Nate’s now,” she said as she sat on the bed next to Sophie and bounced up and down a bit in the excitement. “Come on, open it!”
So Parker was almost sweet for a minute there… almost. Sophie just rolls her eyes at her and tears apart the wrapping paper, revealing a shoebox. “Oh my god, you didn’t…” she says in an awed whisper before she opens it and squeals in that high pitched way that she always does. Parker puts her hands over her ears.
“Ohh Parker, they’re GORGEOUS!” she exclaims, pulling out a pair of boots that were so the height of fashion right now. “I love them!”
“I know you like shoes,” Parker says with a shrug. “So I went to the store and told the guy I wanted the prettiest most expensive pair he had.”
Sophie squealed again before putting them down on the bed and basically jumping on top of her, squeezing her so much Parker thought her lungs might bust from the force. “I love them! Thank you so much!” she says and kisses her on the lips automatically, which makes Parker’s eyes go wide, but Sophie doesn’t even seem to notice.
She’s off of her then, putting on the boots so she could see how they looked on her. Parkers still sitting on the bed, half in shock from Sophie just kissing her like that. She touched her lips automatically, then shook her head to clear it as she sat up and looked at Sophie strut around, and she did mean strut, in front of the mirror.
“They’re perfect,” Sophie gushes, then she turns and gives her a smile. “You’re perfect.”
Parker doesn't know what to say to that.
CHAPTER NINE
One Foot Out The Door
After the holidays, the team assembled back into the office. Nate looked positively shocked that Sophie walked in with Parker, but played his part in the lie, and smiled and kissed Sophie on the lips, acting like the perfect couple in front of the whole team, but Parker knew better. She tried not to glare at him, tried hard to pretend she knew nothing, but it was hard. It was also hard when Eliot took one look at Nate and asked, “What happened to you?” Which made Nate grumble a reply about how he got attacked by a tree… which in turn, made Parker laugh loud and obnoxiously, glad he did.
Nate just ignored her, used to Parker laughing at everything like that.
“Alright,” Hardison said, coming into the room with an empty box in his hands, waving it around at them. “Who ate all the HotPockets?”
“Um…” Parker started to say, looking guilty, so Hardison threw the empty box at her. She squealed and ducked, giggling.
“You know they were my favorite, Parker!” he exclaims, annoyed at her. “You’re buying me more,” he tells her, pointing at her to further enhance his demand.
“Don’t be a damn pansy about it, it’s just food,” Eliot told him and rolled his eyes a bit.
“I’m not… did you… did you just call me a pansy?” Hardison asked, with mock shock as he put his hand to his chest like it had offended him. “They are not just food! They are like… if the freezer was a religion, HotPockets would be it’s God.”
“You’re fucking weird,” is all Eliot says.
Parker’s too involved in the interaction between Hardison and Eliot to notice Sophie get dragged by her elbow very discreetly into the other room. “Ow, you’re hurting me,” she says in a low voice, moving her arm out of his grasp.
“What did you tell her?” he demanded, pinning her up against a wall so she couldn’t move.
“What? Nothing, Nate. Jesus,” she says, and tries to push away from him, but he pins her there.
“She didn’t ask about your lip? Come on,” he says, like he knows better. She just looks at him, narrowing her eyes. They shouldn’t be doing this here in the office.
“Nate, really? Now?” she asks in a whisper, but he gives her a look like she needs to tell him right now. She narrows her eyes and says, “I told her we had issues getting up the tree, that it fell on us and then landed on the switchboard, leaving us with no electricity. Why I needed to stay over. Told her you needed to visit your parents anyway. Okay? Now let me go.”
He let her go, but then his face softened and he touched Sophie’s face, where the bruise would be except for the makeup that covered it. “I’m sorry, you know I love you, Sophie,” he says, and all she can do is nod.
“Yeah, Nate. I know. You’re sorry and you love me. Right,” and then she just turns on her heel without another word and comes back into the briefing room, still not sure where she stood with Nate anymore. She loved him, she did. She loved him so much it hurt… unfortunately very literally on that matter. Part of her just wanted to stay with Parker, not as a replacement for Nate or anything, but just because she was so happy there that it was hard for her to know that she had to go home with Nate tonight.
Not that Parker wanted her to, she told her that if she sees Sophie like that one more time then she’s not going to stop herself from hurting something bigger than a present this time. Which of course Sophie didn’t want her to do either, but she couldn’t figure out a way to stay there without making Nate… mad.
That was always it wasn’t it? How to not make Nate mad. Lord. Like walking on broken glass.
“Yoshi is not a green dog, Parker! He’s a DINOSAUR!” Hardison explains exasperatedly as he points to a poster he had put up on the wall (much to everyone else’s dismay) of old school Mario characters. “See, does that look like a dog to you?”
“Yes,” is all Parker says, which makes Eliot laugh and Hardison do a face palm.
“Uh, Hardison,” Nate says, looking him pointedly. Hardison looks at him. “Aren’t you supposed to be finding us clients?”
“It’s the day after Christmas, Scrooge. I don’t know why you even have us here in the first place,” Hardison says, hands folding across his chest.
“I second that,” Eliot says. “Could be getting laid now.”
“Oh please,” Sophie says, rolling her eyes.
“Me too,” Parker says, and everyone looks at her.
“With who?” Eliot and Sophie ask at the same time that Hardison asks, “I thought you broke up with Patrick,” which make’s Nate ask, “Who’s Patrick?”
Parker looks overwhelmed with all the questions being thrown in her general vicinity. She holds up her hands in surrender, “I was just saying, this girl came on to me the other day, maybe her. Jeez.”
Sophie has a fleeting slightly ego-swelling moment that she thinks she’s talking about her, though isn’t really sure why, but then a terrifying moment that Nate might know that, but when Hardison asks, “Who?” Parker replies some girl she met at the Museum she was trying to check out, which made Nate glare at her and tell her absolutely no freelancing.
Sophie can breathe a bit better, knowing Parker didn’t take her festive kiss the wrong way. Because she didn’t mean it like that, even though it was really nice. She kind of wanted to keep kissing Parker, but obviously in a non-lesbian manner. Just because it was… nice. New. Fun, even. Girl friends kiss sometimes, right? She couldn’t remember anyone else she ever kissed that was her friend just for the hell of it except for one girl she knew back in high school. Sophie thinks she heard she’s a lesbian now though.
Parker just glared at him and told him to, “Eat it.” Which made Nate look surprised at the exclamation, but passed it off because it was Parker.
“Can we go home, please?” Hardison asks again, slightly whining.
“Seriously,” Eliot says, “This is pointless. We shouldn’t have to work until after New Years.”
“Guys, people need our help, even during the holidays!” Nate exclaimed, furious with them all for being so selfish, even though that might be most hypocritical thing he has ever done in his life.
“Come on, Nate, let’s just go home,” Sophie says, and puts her arm through his, lacing them together. Putting on a show, like always. She smiles at him in the sickingly sweet way that for once is almost making her sick and he sighs in defeat.
“Fine… but if all of you are not here on the second I’m cutting of YOUR Internet connection,” he points to Hardison, who gasps. “YOUR phone,” as he points to Eliot, who glares because that means he can’t call any women. “And YOUR…” he points at Parker, then stops. “I don’t know what yet, but I’ll do something you don’t like either.”
“You already are,” she says to him in a way that meant more than she said before she got up, walking over to her bag that she brought. Before she let anyone go she announced, her sour look turning so rapidly into a smile, “Presents!”
Hardison and Eliot bounded over to Parker like two kids, and Sophie couldn’t help but laugh. She reluctantly when to go get her own that she got for the group, and after Hardison and Eliot opened theirs and exchanged high fives, they went and go theirs for everyone as well. During the gift exchange, which Nate mumbled something incoherent about how they’re all at the house and he’ll bring them later, Parker looked at Nate and said, “Your present burned in a freak stove accident,” she told him, looking at him blankly. “Sorry,” she says, but she doesn’t sound it. Nate doesn’t even care.
After everyone had gotten their gifts, Parker’s gaze flickered over at Sophie and Nate briefly, her gaze more than just lingering on Sophie in particular, before she left with her arms full of presents. Hardison had gotten her the latest video game system, probably trying to corrupt her, no doubt.
Sophie didn’t want her to leave. She didn’t feel safe anymore, even with Eliot still in the room, who could kick ten times the ass Parker could. But then Eliot leaves, and then Hardison… and her and Nate are alone.
“Nice boots,” he says, looking at them, but didn’t say it in a tone that indicated he thought they were anything close to the word nice. “Where did they come from?”
“Parker bought me them for Christmas, she gave them to be yesterday,” she told him, with a pointed look like she still has yet to receive his present.
“It’s in the car,” he answers her unasked question. “Didn’t get time to wrap it though… but it’s there.”
Sophie just crosses her arms across her chest and stares at him. If it was in the car unwrapped it meant it was a last minute gift, only bought for the purpose of yet another ‘I’m sorry I got drunk and hit you again.’ AGAIN. She doubted the rest of the teams presents were even bought yet.
“This isn’t working, Nathan,” she told him finally getting up the courage to just voice is out loud, sighing a bit, because she wished more than anything that it could work.
“Sophie, I said I was sorry,” Nate says.
“You always say you’re sorry! That doesn’t stop it though, does it?” Sophie exclaimed, looking at him like she wished it did. Like sorry made everything be good again, make all the bad go away.
“Don’t do this, you know I love you. I’ll clean myself up, I swear,” Nate says and takes her hands in his, holding them. “I love you, Sophie.”
“But that’s just not enough anymore,” Sophie tells him, taking her hands out of his. She looked down, trying not to cry. She always bloody cried, didn’t she? “I mean you don’t even get me a Christmas present until last minute, what does that even say? Even Parker-”
“What is it with you and Parker now anyway?” Nate said, and Sophie could hear the jealousy seep through his voice. “You’re always with her lately.”
“Nothing, we’re just friends, Nate,” Sophie tells him, looking at him like he’s being absurd for even asking.
“Does she know that?”
“Of course she does,” Sophie said with a scoff. Nate really was being a ponce.
“Because apparently she’s this big lesbian slut now, I don’t want her thinking that she can-”
“Don’t call her that!” Sophie exclaims, angry. “She’s not a slut! Jesus, Nate! Can you just leave it? We’re just friends, not like it’s any of your business anyway!”
“You’re my woman, Sophie, of course it’s my business.”
“Not anymore,” Sophie told him before turning, trying to walk out the door, but Nate grabbed her. She turned to face him, angry that he wouldn’t let her go.
“Sophie… please,” he said, his voice softer. “I love you, you’re my everything.” She just sighed and he started to kiss her neck, making her close her eyes at the feeling of his lips. It was such a rarity now that she forgot how much she missed it. “I love you with everything I have, I’d be nothing without you.” He kissed up her neck and she sighed heavily, feeling herself give in again. “I’ll do right by you, I swear,” he whispers against her lips now… and then she breaks.
She kisses him, not knowing what else to do. She wants to be with him, but she wants to be with the good Nate, the one that doesn’t treat her like a whore. She liked this Nate in front of her, the one that kissed her sweetly and told her she was beautiful, who made her feel good inside.
She might never really have the strength to walk out that door because of that.
CHAPTER TEN
Playing Dress Up
It had been a month since then, and Nate had kept true to his word. He didn’t lay a hand on her, and he even stopped drinking cold turkey. Sophie could see it was hard for him, but he was trying, and that was all she could really ask for. Things were getting better, even though there were still angry arguments from sober Nate now, just frustrated because he can’t go have a drink.
Her and Parker had become closer though, and Sophie found they were hanging out about every other day at least. She was still the first person that Sophie thought of when she needed to feel safe, and even though Nate was doing significantly better since Christmas, the arguments still continued to escalate.
“Oh god, do we have to?” came Parker’s worried response to Sophie’s request. The last thing she needed right now was to enhance the already too girly behavior between the two of them.
“Of course!” Sophie said like she was ridiculous for even contemplating otherwise, and turned her to face the wall mirror as she sat her down on a chair and stood behind her. “You want to look beautiful for her, don’t you?”
Parker made a face but sat diligently into the chair designated for her. She puffed out her cheeks as she let out a breath in defeat. “I’m not pretty enough now?” she asked her, looking at herself in the mirror. She thought she was pretty, at least. Mariah did say yes to the date when she was looking like this anyway, so why change it?
“Parker, you’re gorgeous, I mean that,” Sophie said, looking her in the eyes seriously so to pick up what she thought was Parker’s dropping self esteem, though in fact it was only her confusement. “But everyone likes to look a little extra special while trying to impress someone of romantic interest.”
“But I just want to have sex, not have romance,” Parker tells her honestly, which makes Sophie roll her eyes and swat her a bit with the comb she had in her hand before starting to run in through her hair. Parker winced as she pulled on a knot.
“Well then this will help you get her into bed then, yeah?” Sophie said, trying to be serious but still sounding like overt sarcasm. Didn’t Parker realize that some women needed a touch of romance?
“If you say so,” is all Parker replies, then lets out an “Ow!” as Sophie pulls at her hair again. She slaps her hand over the offending area and glares at Sophie in the mirror.
Sophie let’s out a patient sigh, “Well if you took better care of your hair that wouldn’t have happened.”
“My hair is fine,” Parker replies and tries to get up, but is pushed with one hand on the shoulder back into the chair by Sophie. She huffs.
“Now tell me about this girl,” Sophie requests as she starts working on her hair again.
Parker shrugs, “She’s just a girl. Has nice boobs.”
“Parker!” Sophie exclaims, and thwacks her on the head with the comb, which makes Parker cover her head again and exclaim annoyance on the matter. “You need to stop talking about women that way Eliot does.”
“But she does have nice boobs!” Parker protests, clearly not understanding what was so wrong with saying that. She rubs her head a bit then puts her hand down. “I don’t know, what do you want to know?”
“Why do you like her?” Sophie asks as she puts down the comb and starts picking up a few bobby pins, putting them in her mouth as she gets to work on her project.
“Because she’s hot. Do we have to have girl time right now?” she asks, never enjoying these conversations much because she never felt like how a girl is supposed to be most of the time during these.
“Yes,” Sophie tells her. A pause, “Anything else? Or are you simply just trying to get up her skirt?”
“The skirt thing.”
Sophie sighs as she twists Parker’s hair up, holding it in place with the bobby pins. “Are you ever interested in anything other than sex with another person?”
“I was with Hardison,” Parker says, then makes a face. “It didn’t end happy though so I don’t see the point anymore.”
“You can’t write off all relationships because of that,” Sophie told her softly, pausing to look at her in the mirror. She put her hands on Parker’s shoulders and then ran them down her arms, squeezing them a bit. “You’ll find someone else, I promise.”
“Who?” Parker scoffs, rolling her eyes. “Everyone thinks I’m insane, all I’m good for is sex.”
“That is not true!” Sophie exclaimed and came around the other side of the chair to face Parker, kneeling down in front of her so she could get at eye level with the thief. She tucked a piece of blonde hair behind her ear and rested her hand on her cheek, looking at her seriously. “You are so amazing Parker. You’re incredibly sweet most of the time, you’re protective and brave, you’re talented… you have so much to offer someone. Please believe me about that.” She leaned in and kissed Parker, just a press of the lips that lingered probably a bit longer than it should have. When they broke she gave her a small smile and Parker licked her lips nervously and just nodded, not knowing what else to say.
It was like that with them now though: Sophie kissing Parker all the time. Parker didn’t understand why, because it was never anything that she could interpret as solely sexual because they were always during times like this, or sometimes just kisses hello or goodbye. Sophie always seemed to want to kiss Parker, but it was never like the one under the mistletoe. There wasn’t any tongue, it wasn’t meant for anything else other than what exactly it was: a kiss. Or at least, Parker thought. But she did notice Sophie seemed to keep doing it a lot more often than not recently, and each kiss seemed to last a bit longer than the last.
When Sophie went back to her place behind the chair she continued to fix Parker’s hair, and she laughed a bit as she admitted, “You know, it’s funny. Sometimes I think that if it wasn’t for Nate I’d try to make a play for you, even though you’re a woman.”
Parker just blinked at her, “What?”
Sophie didn’t seem to understand the significance of what she just said to Parker, so she kept on. “Yeah, you know, I feel safe with you. Happier. I guess even though I’m not into women specifically, it might just feel so right with you that it wouldn’t matter.” She giggled a bit then shrugged as she put in the last bobby pin in her hair. “But no use talking about something like that.” Parker was about to ask why not, when Sophie exclaimed, “There, done!”
Parker looked at herself in the mirror, her eyes wide at how it looks, though her mind was still trying to process what Sophie had just admitted to her. But she doesn’t get much of a chance because Sophie’s pulling her up now, over to her closet. “Now for clothes,” she tells her, and starts looking through it.
Parker just stares at her, not knowing exactly how she was supposed to feel about what Sophie said. If she was to be honest with herself, she felt a little happy at the revelation, though that surprised her and yet at the same time worried her for the same reasons.
It also made her not want to go on the date she had tonight. She wanted to stay with Sophie, which was also a really bad thing to want.
“Oh Parker, you should just throw this wretched thing out,” Sophie says, holding up a sweatshirt that was beyond wear and tear. Parker snapped out of her thoughts to snatch the offending object out of Sophie’s hands and hold it close to her.
“No, it’s my favorite!”
Sophie just rolled her eyes a bit before pulling out a little black cocktail dress. “Ah, see this… this is perfect,” she says as she hands it to Parker. “Try it on.”
“But I already know it fits, its mine,” Parker tells her.
Sophie just let out a patient sigh but responds, “I know that, but I want to see my work it it’s entirety, now strip.”
Parker blinks again at Sophie’s order of ‘strip’, just because that could be taken so many ways. But she does what she says and takes off her shirt, pulling it off over her head and discarding it to the floor before pulling off her pants. Sophie looked at her in her underwear, and then at the dress, and observed, “I think you’re going to have to lose the bra. The dress is padded anyway.”
For the first time in Parker’s life, she was hesitant about taking her clothes off in front of someone. She had this funny feeling in the pit of her stomach that she didn’t know how to explain, and she just thought it might be a bad idea, though she wasn’t sure why.
“Oh come on, Parker, we’re both girls,” Sophie says with an eye roll. “You’ve never been shy before. Just take it off so you can put on the dress.” And then she just stands there, staring at her.
Parker does what she says though, silently reaching up behind her to unclasp her bra before shrugging it off of her shoulders, letting it fall to the ground probably more slowly than she should have allowed it to. Sophie blinks a minute, staring at her chest like she wasn’t expecting to do it so obviously. But Parker noticed it.
“The dress...” Sophie says finally, her voice a bit lower then normal, trying to tell Parker to please put back on her clothes, that maybe her own idea wasn’t the best after all.
“Right,” Parker says, and shakes herself out of it before sliding the dress on. Sophie goes behind her and zips it up for her slowly, before placing her hands delicately on the other woman’s shoulders before turning her around to face her.
“God,” Sophie breathed as she looks her over. “You look stunning.”
Parker chewed on her bottom lip a bit before looking up at Sophie, deciding to do the one thing Sophie always did to her. She leaned in and pressed her lips to hers, closing her eyes as she felt the grip Sophie had to her shoulder tighten a bit. When they broke she whispered, “Thank you…”
She knew a thank you kiss wasn’t out of line.
Sophie looks down, biting her tongue lightly for a minute as if to stop herself from saying something. Then she was out of the trance, and smiled at her before giving her a little affectionate pat on the butt, which made Parker jump a bit. “Come on, shoes now. You’re going to have everyone falling all over you.”
Unfortunately, that’s what Parker found herself hoping for, but it wasn’t about Mariah.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Just Friends
It was one month, two women of Parker’s, and many ‘platonic’ kisses later that Nate broke his promise and started drinking again. The day that Sophie came over with a black eye was the day Parker retaliated, not being able to take it anymore.
So she was hardly surprised when Sophie burst though her apartment door the next day, now having a key, slamming it against the wall as she looked at Parker accusingly, “His car?”
“Yup,” is all Parker says as she pops a piece of popcorn into her mouth.
“You set his car on fire!?” Sophie exclaims as she walks towards her and started making erratic hand gestures that in no way made any sense to Parker.
“Yup,” she says again, putting the bowl back on the table and looking at her finally.
“Parker, that was a two thousand eight Ferrari Telsa Roadster for shits sake!” Sophie cries, and then slumps down next to her on the couch, with her head in her hands. Parker blinks and looks over at her, Sophie looks absolutely distraught over the loss of the vehicle.
“Are you mourning the car?” she asks her, tilting her head to look at her curiously. “Why? Look what he did to you.”
“It was pretty though…” Sophie mumbles into her hands. “And I already shot him in the foot for it, did you really have to murder something so…” she sighed and took her head out of her hands and instead decided to collapse against Parker heavily. “It was so pretty,” she repeated in a sad voice.
“You’re relationship with him is really fucked up,” Parker tells her finally. Because it was. They were happy for two months, then he goes back to hitting her, but it’s okay because Sophie shot him in the foot for it? How did that even make sense?
“The car…” is all Sophie sighs and bangs her forehead against Parker’s shoulder a bit.
“Ow,” Parker says and shrugs her off of her. Sophie looks disgruntled at being shoved off of Parker in that way, and looks at her. But Parker looks a bit angry.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“You’re welcome,” is all Parker says before folding her arms into herself in a huff and stares at the far wall. Jeez, go through all the trouble to hurt someone because of what they did to someone she care about, and this is the thanks she gets? She singed part of her hair doing that.
“No, Parker… I didn’t mean to make you think I…” Sophie started, looking at the thief. She put her hand on her leg. “I am glad you stuck up for me, Parker. But I just wish you didn’t have to involve that beautiful car…”
Parker made a face but looked over at her, feeling her heart sink at the sight of her eye. She touched her face gently, before putting down her hand heavy against the couch. “You’re dumb, you could have someone who would treat you so much better.”
“Like who?” Sophie asks with a scoff. “I’m a grifter, it’s not safe for anyone to know who I really am outside of you guys.”
Parker doesn’t answer, but that wasn’t because she didn’t know who.
The problem was, throughout the past month she came to the very bad realization that she liked Sophie. A lot, actually. Like more than what she was supposed to. Even more than just sex. And that was bad for one of three reasons. One, Sophie was stuck in an abusive relationship with Nate. Two, Parker was afraid that the same thing that happened with Hardison would happen with her. And three, she was pretty sure Sophie wasn’t interested in her like that.
So all she says is, “Someone who will protect you.”
Sophie smiles a bit and responds, “But I have you for that.” Parker looks at her pointedly, but Sophie still doesn’t get it, so Parker just sighs and leans her head back against the couch, feeling stupid. She hated that she liked Sophie, it was so bad.
“What’s wrong?” Sophie asks, and prods her gently with her finger in her rib, making Parker giggle because it tickles.
“Nothing!” she exclaims, swatting at Sophie’s hand.
“You’re ticklish?” Sophie asks, with a devious surprised grin. Parker doesn’t like that look, and she shouldn’t, because the next minute Sophie’s hands are all over her, and not in a way she would usually like them to be.
“Stop!” Parker cries, giggling helplessly. She swatted at the other woman in vain, just trying to get her off of her. But Sophie’s laughing too now, getting on top of her and tickling her with no mercy. “Sophie! Stop!!” Parker tries again, and finally grabs both of her wrists, holding them out to the side so Sophie drops on top of her chest heavily.
But then suddenly both of them are very aware of the position they’re in, and while they’re usually all over each other, it’s different this time with both of them being so close to each other, and so completely out of breath. Sophie looks at Parker; with an expression that Parker isn’t sure she can read. Sophie nervously licks her bottom lip, and Parker’s chest is starting to rise and all more rapidly, even though the tickling had stopped.
“Sophie…” she starts in a whisper, not thinking before she spoke. “I want to…” but then she thinks about it, and stops herself.
“Want to what?” she asks her in a soft voice. Her hand falls to rest on Parker’s, and Parker holds it automatically.
“Nothing,” she says, looking away.
“Tell me, Parker…. please,” Sophie pleads gently, knowing exactly what Parker wanted, because she wanted it to, she just didn’t know why she did at that moment. She moved her face a bit closer to her, brushing her lips across Parker’s lightly before closing her eyes.
“I want to kiss you,” Parker admits in a quiet voice, her own eyes fluttering shut at the feel of Sophie’s lips against hers. She takes a deep breath, still terrified of Sophie’s answer even though Sophie was clearly thinking along the same lines as her.
“As friends?” Sophie asks her, barely above a whisper as she brushes her lips against Parker’s again, just needing to feel them. She couldn’t do it any other way besides friends, even if she had an asshole as a man, she was still with him.
“…As friends,” Parker breathes out, her grips on Sophie’s hand tightening. She didn’t want it to be as friends, but she wanted to kiss her so bad that nothing else mattered.
“Okay…” Sophie finally says softly, and Parker presses her lips to the other woman, parting them to let Sophie slip her tongue in. Parker moans softly at the contact, and wraps her other arm around Sophie’s neck, bringing her in closer. Sophie kisses her back tentatively, scared of all the feelings that are coming to surface, but loving every moment of it.
With each passing minute the kiss slowly becomes to turn more passionate, and now Sophie was squeezing Parkers hand as tight as she could as she gasps into her mouth, moving her hips against her slightly. Parker tangled her fingers through her dark tresses and sucked in her bottom lip lightly before kissing her chin, back to her lips, her cheek, down to her neck before sucking on it softly.
“God,” Sophie breathes out as her other hand grasps at Parker’s shirt and she tilts her neck to the side to give Parker more room. She had forgotten how good it felt to be with Parker in this way, even if she only experienced it for a fleeting moment during Christmas.
Parker’s lips area now at the base of her ear, and her short hot bursts of breath into it before her tongue claims her earlobe is driving Sophie insane. She turns her head and crashes her lips back to Parker’s, moaning hard into the other woman’s mouth as she lifts up her shirt and rakes her nails against Parker’s skin, making her arch her back and gasp hard.
Then it was Sophie’s turn to have her lips on Parker’s neck, and Parker cried out softly as Sophie bit her in just the right way, and she writhed underneath her. She wasn’t expecting it to go this far, but wasn’t surprised that it did either. Sophie was always touching her, always kissing her, and now that she thought about it, it was stupid to assume that didn’t mean anything.
“Sophie…”she breathes out as the hand that held her hair tightened its grip, pulling her more towards her neck. She didn’t know how long she had been waiting for something like this until it really happened.
But then Sophie’s phone rang, making both of them jump off each other like they had just been caught doing something wrong. They both stared at each other for a moment before Sophie coughed out of the awkwardness of it and turned towards her phone, picking it up.
“Hello?” A pause, “I’m with Parker right now.” Another pause then a scoff from something, “Doing friends stuff, Nate, God. I’ll be home for dinner since you can’t get off the damn couch, stop freaking out.” Sophie gets a disgruntled look on her face before she hangs up the phone; Nate probably didn’t even say goodbye.
They both looked at each other before Sophie looked down, pursing her lips together. Parker didn’t like that look.
But Sophie doesn’t say anything she’s expecting, instead she just shyly leans in and kisses her softly on the lips. “I gotta go…” she says, like she regrets it.
Parker just nods, knowing. She looks up at Sophie before kissing her again, much more longer and much more passionate than how Sophie did, but Sophie reciprocates. “Come over tomorrow?” she asks her in a whisper after they break.
“Of course,” Sophie says with a little smile. “You’re my best friend…”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Formalities
When Sophie came home to Nate, all she could do was think about Parker. She knew they had to be just friends under the current circumstances, but for some reason in Sophie’s brain that didn’t compute to mean that she shouldn’t be having hot and heavy makeout sessions with the girl on her couch. For some reason, in her mind, Parker and her friendship was just like that. Maybe it was a little different, maybe other people wouldn’t see it that way, but Parker was her happy place so it didn’t really matter what anyone else thought.
Of course, she tended to go from one happy place one minute, to hell the next.
“Sophie!” Nate screamed, bound to the couch due to his foot injury. He did have crutches, but he seemed to like to make Sophie do things for him, based largely on the fact that she shot him in the foot and it was her fault after all.
But if you ask Sophie, it’s Nate’s fault because he hit her first.
“What?” Sophie yells back as she throws her purse on the dining room table before stalking into the living room where he lay.
“I’m hungry,” he tells her.
“Well hold one moment while I pull that out of my ass for you,” Sophie says, her hands on her hips. “I have to cook it first, Nathan.”
“Can’t you just order something? You’re cooking can sometimes be a little… dry.”
Sophie scoffed loudly, insulted. “If you wanted to order something, you should have called yourself! You have your bloody phone!”
“Well you bitch at me every time I order the wrong thing for you!” Nate exclaims, throwing his hands into the air. “Just call for pizza or something.”
“God!” Sophie exclaims before stomping back into the dining room and just flopping down in the chair. She heard the TV turn back on in the other room and she sighs before going through her purse. After ordering the pizza she still sits there, phone in hand.
She started flipping through her contacts until she found Parker, and pressing the text message button she writes, “I miss you already.”
There was a moment of silence before her phone chimes, signaling a message back. When she flips it open she reads, “Then come back.”
She sighed, but smiled a little. She wished she could. “I can’t,” she writes, then presses send. God, how she wishes she could.
After dinner, Sophie helped Nate into bed. She went to her closet and starts stripping off her clothes, getting ready to sleep. But when she comes back over to the bed in only her undergarments, Nate asks, “What is that?”
“What?” Sophie asked, and looked down, not knowing what he was referring to.
“On you neck!” he yelled, pointing at it. Sophie’s hand automatically clapped over her neck. She knew what side it was on; the side Parker was on earlier. “Is that a fucking hickey?!”
Sophie decides going near the bed right now might be a bad idea, so she backs up a few steps. She tries to play it cool. “Are you serious? Do you know how retarded you sound right now, you haven’t kissed me in weeks.”
“I KNOW!” Nate yells, and tries to get up but his foot prevents him from doing so. “If that stupid slut has been doing something to you I’m going to-”
“Nate!” Sophie yelled, hating that recently all he’s been doing is calling Parker a slut. “It has nothing to do with Parker! It’s probably a bruise from all the bloody marks you leave on me, you damn wanker!”
“That’s a hickey, I’m not fucking stupid, Sophie!” Nate exclaims. He looks furious. Both with the hickey, and the fact that he can’t get up and do anything about it.
“Well obviously you are since it’s not!” Sophie screeched.
“You’ve been cheating on me! Damnit, you whore! After all I’ve done for you?!”
“I’m not having sex with her!” Sophie screamed, but yet doesn’t deny the other things. She just didn’t care anymore. She doesn’t even care about him calling her a whore; it’s so repetitive now.
“Wait till I can fucking walk…” Nate warns, and gives her a look that Sophie in no way feels safe with. She backs up a couple more steps.
“What are you going to do? Kill me now because you think I’m sleeping with Parker?” Sophie asks, her heart dropping to her stomach. She was afraid at the way Nate was looking at her, and really didn’t want any of this to be happening right now.
“If I’m not going to have you, then no one else is! Especially not some crazy bitch!” Nate yells and tries to get up another time, but once his foot reaches the floor and he puts some weight on it, he cries out in pain.
Sophie just looked at him like everything just shattered before her eyes. She shook her head at him, and started to walk away, but a softer cry of “Sophie!” filled her ears, she turned around.
“What?” she asked, the tears in her eyes threatening to spill over, Nate just basically threatened to murder her. She felt so… empty. She’s sure she’s supposed to feel scared or even angry… but she didn’t.
“Look, I’m sorry,” he says, softer this time, calming himself down. “I just…” he sighed. “Just tell me you’re not sleeping with her and I’ll believe you.”
She looked at him seriously and said with ever ounce of honesty, because it was true, “I’m not sleeping with her, Nate. Or anyone else.”
“I’m sorry,” he says again, picking himself back up to lie on the bed. “I just don’t want to lose you, Sophie. You’re everything to me.”
“Nate…” she said softly, looking at the man in front of her that a minute ago looked homicidal but now looked so vulnerable. “You’re not going to lose me.”
A part of her hated herself for saying that, but she knew it was true. She didn’t know why she couldn’t just leave. She wanted to all the time. But without her, what would Nate become? At least he gets his share of pain from the shit he dishes out on her; it makes it almost even in a way, as bloody screwed up as that logic is.
But isn’t that how most abusive relationships work?
“Does she want you?” he asked her quietly, almost like he would cry at the thought. It tugged at Sophie’s heart a little, but she lied to him.
“No,” she says as she comes over and sits down on the end of the bed now, taking his hand in hers. “We’re just friends, Nate. That’s it.”
“I just see the way she looks at you sometimes…” he says, looking up at her. He looked so sad, and for a fleeting moment Sophie has a thought that he could possibly be psychotically bipolar, but then it’s gone and she doesn’t know where that came from.
“She likes women, Nate. I’m… fairly attractive, I guess. It’s just a look, she doesn’t act on it.”
Lies. All the lies.
“Do you swear?” he asks, and she gives him a small smile and leans down and kisses him on the forehead.
“I swear.”
All the dirty, dirty lies.
He smiles at her, believing it all. She finally climbs into bed next to him, resting her head on his chest. They stayed there in silence for awhile until Nate ran his fingers through her hair and says, “I’m sorry I hit you, Sophie.”
“I’m sorry I shot you,” she says back.
But neither of them mean it, it’s more of a formality now more than anything else.
So when Nate rolled on top of her to kiss her, it was more of a formality action to reciprocate on Sophie’s part. When he kissed her neck, when his lips fell down to her breasts to wrap around one of her nipples, it was more of a formality to moan in response. When he rolled her on top of him and he slid inside of her, it was more of a formality to cry out in pleasure to make him push forwards. And when he came, it was also more of a formality to fake her own… the entire time thinking about Parker, and how badly she wished that she was the one inside of her.
STORY TOO LONG!
PART THREE IS HERE.