Fic for
Porn Battle IX. Kind of one big team orgy, but technically Hardison/Parker/Eliot and Nate/Sophie. Because yes, we do need more fic taking advantage of the awesome potential of the earbud thingies.
The World a Stage, Leverage, OT5
No particular timeframe, adult-ish, 1755 words.
Parker entered the hotel suite in a hurry. Hardison looked up to see her making a beeline for the room she'd claimed for the duration of their stay. She was, he noted, coated head to foot in dust, grime, and honest to god cobwebs.
"Shower," she bit out as she passed him, he who was currently stretched out on the couch. She went in her room and the door closed.
Hardison settled back into the cushions, readjusting the laptop balanced on his stomach. He was lazily finishing up the funds transfer for their soon-to-be rich clients. No crawling through wall space for him today, just cyberspace, for which he could only be thankful. Parker had looked really cranky.
Eliot returned a few minutes after Parker, and he headed straight for the mini-fridge.
"Hey," Hardison said, receiving barely a grunt of acknowledgement in return. When he looked up again, though, a soda had appeared over the back of the couch. "Thanks man." He took it and Eliot came round to drop down into an armchair.
"Others back?"
"Parker's in there taking a shower. Nate and Sophie still on their way back from the marina."
Eliot frowned. "Taking their time. Shoulda been back twenty minutes ago."
Hardison shrugged. "Maybe they stopped to get food. I hope they stopped to get food. Think that place with the seafood delivers?"
Eliot gave him a look. Eliot was always giving him looks. Kind of took away some of the charm.
"What? You weren't waiting that stuff on a whole bunch of rich people. The clam chowder, man. It looked really good."
Eliot was now ignoring him, and digging in his shirt pocket for his earpiece, which he slipped into place. "Hey Na-" he began, then stopped abruptly. He blinked a few times, listening.
Slowly, he sat forward, picked up the TV remote from the coffee table, and threw it at Hardison, who jumped and almost fell off the couch.
"Hey, what in the actual hell is your problem?" he yelped, juggling the laptop and the soda bottle, not to mention himself.
Eliot was gesturing furiously for silence. He followed that up by tapping his ear and pointing at Hardison. He did that a few times, growing more and more annoyed with each repetition.
Finally Hardison stopped pretending to misunderstand and grabbed his own earpiece from off the coffee table. He chuckled. "What, is Parker singing in the shower or something?"
"Shhhh!" God, Hardison, Eliot mouthed at him.
But Hardison was not paying attention to Eliot any more.
He was paying attention to what exactly two of their team mates were doing right now, apparently, going by what he could now hear right in his ear. Oh god bless technology. His eyes were growing very wide as he listened. Then he caught Eliot's eye and had to stuff his fist in his mouth to stop himself from laughing really, really loudly.
At that moment Parker re-emerged from the bedroom, now wrapped in a towel with a toothbrush in her mouth. "You guys," she said, "you have to listen to this."
Both men turned to make wild shushing motions at her.
"What?"
Hardison began typing quickly and then turned the laptop around to show them, huge words on the screen declaring:
THEY FORGOT THEIR COMMS.
"Duh," said Parker, at which Hardison began miming once more for silence, and Eliot came over to the couch, grabbed the laptop off Hardison's knees and typed something of his own.
NO SHIT SHERLOCK.
Eliot grinned.
The grin faded swiftly as a throaty groan met their ears and they heard Sophie say, "Oh, I hate it when you do that."
"Liar."
Another groan.
"At least let me -"
"Yeah."
"- Take off my - oh fuck."
More sounds followed, less intelligible, slightly muffled, but plenty expressive.
One by one the three of them took out their earpieces, looking anywhere but at each other.
"We should not, in no way, be hearing that," Hardison said.
"What if we want to?" Parker was looking down at the device in her hand like she was thinking about putting it right back in.
Which she was, he realised. Damn. Girl was giving it some serious thought.
"What? Why would you want to?" Eliot demanded.
Hardison held up a hand. "No, I mean, it was humorous, I'll admit, for a while there, but then it just gets... awkward."
Parker, who had already stuck the thing back in her ear while they were talking, also came over to the couch and leaned over Eliot to type:
BECAUSE IT'S REALLY HOT.
She waited a moment, hands poised over the keys, listening to what the two men couldn't. She added:
SERIOUSLY.
"Hell, I'm convinced," Hardison breathed, and scrambled to get the earbud back in place, too. Convinced he was going to hell, of course, but that was a given.
Eliot was still shaking his head, arms crossed resolutely over his chest.
A few seconds later, Hardison typed:
SOPHIE JUST SAID 'NIPPLE'.
"We're all a bunch of perverts," Eliot muttered. But he muttered it as he was replacing his comm.
The three of them, sitting side by side on the couch, listened.
"Turn over for me, Soph," Nate was saying.
"Why should I? I'm enjoying this bit."
"Make it worth your while."
"Only if you - oooh right there..." She gasped, and then let out a long moan.
"'Kay, I'm gonna need to get myself a room here like, any minute now," said Hardison.
Eliot shoved his shoulder, and made one of his angry faces. He typed:
THEY'LL HAER YOU
THEY ARE CLEARLY NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO ANYTHING ELSE RIGHT NOW, Hardison replied.
He considered telling Eliot to relax, but he wasn't sure the man was capable. On cue, Eliot typed out the following:
NATE WILL KILL US. I'D KILL US.
LIKE I'D LISTEN TO YOU DOING IT. THAT WOULD JUST BE WRONG MAN.
SHUT UP HARDISON THAt'S NOT WHAT I MEANT
At that moment, Parker wrested the laptop away from them and wrote:
YOU GUYS I'M MISSING THE PORN STOP MAKING ME READ STUFF.
Then she shut the laptop and sat on it.
Hardison avoided looking at anyone at that point. Sophie's breathy little moans were killing him and Nate was making these sounds and that was only when he wasn't giving out directions in a way that was seriously going to mess with Hardison's head the next time they were running a game and he had the man's voice in his ear barking orders.
None of those things were helping. But then there was also the little fact that Parker was sitting less than a foot away from him, wearing a towel. And Eliot right there being all cranky and disapproving and, meanwhile, horny - yeah, Hardison could tell. Dude was not the best at hiding his feelings.
So there was that going on, too. A tension thing. Hard to miss.
"Um," he said quietly.
"Yeah," said Eliot.
"Is this the part where we get a room?" said Parker. "Metaphorically," she added. "We're already in one."
Over the comms, Nate and Sophie were working up to a big finish. Loudly. And not at all metaphorically.
Hardison looked at Eliot. Eliot shrugged. Parker took off the towel.
*
Sophie collapsed onto Nate's chest, resting there for a minute before rolling off to lie beside him.
"Well," she said, as her chest rose and fell with each calming breath.
Nate turned onto his side to look down at her. "Yeah, that went well," he said.
Then he held out his hand, waiting. She reached up and took out her comm, dropping it in his open palm. He removed his own and deposited both on the night stand.
She turned her head, smiling against his shoulder. "Just when I think you can't get any more twisted, you talk me into doing something like that. Can't believe I let you talk me into something like that."
"Blame the champagne?"
"Mm, no, the party was ages ago. And what's your excuse?"
He shrugged, the movement shifting her head up and down. "It was fun?"
She snorted. "I mean I always knew you were kinky."
"Well you've seen under my bed." He stroked a hand down her side, over her hip. "One of your greatest performances," he continued, murmured words against her hair. Then he paused. "It... it wasn't all a performance though, I mean. Uh, right? Soph?"
She was kissing her way across the base of his throat. "Sophie?" he tried again.
"Hm? Sorry, you were saying?"
"That's not funny."
"No, not at all." She grazed her teeth over a nipple and he sucked in a quick breath, his hand curling behind her neck, then he was pulling her up, fusing their mouths together.
At which point she deemed him suitably distracted and grabbed for one of the earpieces off the nightstand, rolling away from him as she pressed it back into place.
"Hey, hey," Nate protested. "I was in the middle of something there."
She waved him off. "I just want to see what they're up to now."
Nate huffed behind her. She ignored him, focusing on Eliot's voice instead, which was coming through loud and clear.
"Oh god damn it Hardison!"
"What? What'd I do?"
"You knocked over your drink, there's orange soda everywhere. Got it all over me." A brief pause. "That was not an invitation!"
"You complaining?"
"Eliot's always complaining. Have you noticed that?"
"Yeah, I've noticed. The plight of the white man, see, it's a hard life I tell you."
"Hey, you're not the one who's all sticky."
"Well if you'd hold still for like two seconds -"
"I'm not - you just - okay what's Parker doing now?"
"Oh hey now watch the laptop! Watch the laptop! Okay, that is not going to come out."
"Oops. You guys now my breasts are covered in orange soda."
"See, that I can work with."
Sophie was laughing softly as she felt Nate's arm slide over her waist, his chin settling into the curve of her neck. He pulled her back into him and she rubbed a hand down his thigh. He was listening too, now, both of them picturing Hardison and Eliot plying their tongues to Parker's small pale breasts. Sophie sighed and arched her back and Nate bit at her shoulder, breathing into her skin.
Over the comms, someone groaned, and Sophie turned towards Nate, her hand edging down his belly.
"Yeah, it's going to be a long night," Nate said.