Fanfiction || The Therapeutic Job || Parker/Sophie || PART ONE
Title: The Therapeutic Job
Author: Sapphire Smoke cuzimastripper
Fandom: Leverage
Rating: NC-17 (for later)
Pairing: Parker/Sophie
Length Thus Far: 8,637 words
Setting: During 'The 12 Step Job'
Summary: Parker wants to talk to her counselor... Dr. Tanner.
SESSION #001
Posing as a councilor was having it’s downsides for Sophie. For one, since she was ‘hired’ at Second Act, she was required as part of her job description to have one-on-one therapy sessions with each member in her group. Now that obviously was the last thing she wanted to do, but in order to keep her cover she had to suck it up and listen to everyone’s problems and attempt to fix them. For two, playing therapist was starting to give her a migraine, especially after having to hear Marcy do nothing but bitch about how her mother is, well, a bitch for an entire hour in that dead monotonic voice that she uses.
She didn’t know how some people can do this for a living.
So when it was Parker’s turn to finally come in for her session, Sophie lets out a sigh of relief. “Thank god. Come on, let’s get out of here for an hour,” she says, standing up. She just needed to get out of this office - her office - right now. The plain white walls were starting to drive her insane herself.
“What? No, I thought it was my turn,” Parker said, honestly confused. She looked at Sophie like she was almost disappointed, which made Sophie raise an eyebrow.
“Parker, you’re not actually in rehab, you do know that, right?” Sophie asks, because it was starting to seem like Parker didn’t actually get that. She was participating in groups, even asked for a pencil and paper to write down all the people she had to apologize to - and even to Sophie’s dismay admitted to her that she had lifted her own wallet from her purse many times by ‘accident’, though made sure to tell her that she remembered to put it back each time.
She asked for forgiveness, which Sophie gave her just to make the whole awkward situation go away.
While acting the part was part of the con, the thing was… Parker didn’t know how to act. This seemed entirely too real for her, and entirely too real for Sophie’s level of comfort.
“But I need to talk about some things, and you’re my councilor,” Parker says, like Sophie should know that, and sits down in a chair. Sophie sighs. “You said talking about things is a way to work out our issues.”
“Parker, we’re in the middle of a con,” Sophie stresses, looking at her incredulously. “I’m not really you’re therapist.”
“I know you’re not, Sophie. But Dr. Tanner is,” Parker replied, like that should mean something that didn’t sound insanely absurd in it’s own right. “And I want to talk, please?”
“Oh for the love of Christ,” Sophie mumbles, and sits back down. She couldn’t believe Parker was doing this. But if Parker was set on trying to fix something in her life, who was she to stop her?
They both look at each other in silence for awhile, both expecting the other to talk. Finally Parker asks, “So how do we do this? I’ve never been in therapy.”
Sophie wanted to put her head in her hands and scream, but controlled herself. She took a deep breath. This was ridiculous.
“You tell me about the things in your life that are bothering you, and we try to work through them,” Sophie explains. Yeah, this was absolutely bloody maddening.
“Doctor-Patient rules apply right? The thing it says on that board out there?” Parker asks, pointing at the door, indicating outside. Sophie’s patience was getting tested in a big way.
“Yes, sure. Fine. Nothing leaves this room,” she replies, just wanting to get this over with.
“Okay,” Parker says, and smiles a bit. She starts picking at her shirt and squishes her face to side a bit as she thinks about what she wants to say. Finally she starts and says, “I don’t like being me sometimes.”
That makes Sophie stop thinking for a moment about how much she wants to get out of there just by such a simple admission from Parker. “Why do you say that?” Sophie asked her, curious enough to actually sound like an actual therapist for a moment.
Parker shrugs and picks more at her clothing. “I’m not normal. I’m weird. I say things that I think are just supposed to be in my head, and that makes people look at me funny. I don’t think the right way, I guess. Like, my thoughts are very fast and sometimes they jumble up, confusing me, which makes them not come out of my mouth right. And people don’t like me because my brain is broken.”
Sophie blinked, taken aback by what Parker just said. “Parker, there are a lot of people that like you,” she tells her. Parker looks up at her.
“That’s not what Dr. Tanner would say, that’s what Sophie would say.”
Sophie felt frustrated by that, and narrowed her eyes a bit. “Alright…” she said, playing along. “And how does that make you feel?” she half mocked the common phrase.
“Alone,” Parker tells her simply. “But I know I’m not, and I know the people I work with kinda like me. A little, anyway. They tolerate me I guess. Except for one of them, he really likes me.”
Sophie knew she was talking about Hardison and her own curiosity made her ask, “And how do you feel about him?” Because hell, if she was going to play therapist, she could at least get the gossip while she was at it.
“He’s nice,” Parker says and smiles a bit. “I like him a lot, but that’s the problem.”
“Why do you feel that’s a problem?” Sophie asks. Okay, she was getting a bit more into this as it was going on, it at least was entertaining a bit, and informative.
“Because I really like him, but I don’t think I… I mean I think I might be…” Parker stops, then looks at Sophie. “Shouldn’t you be writing this down?”
“Oh, Parker,” Sophie sighs heavily and rolls her eyes. “That’s not necessary.”
“Yes it is,” Parker insists, and points to the pad on her desk. “That’s what therapists do. They make lots of notes, and nod a lot while they do it. I see it in TV all the time.”
Sophie let out a breath and tested her patience as she reached for the pad of paper and a pen, and started writing down little notes like “Thinks her brain doesn’t work right” and “A coworker has a crush on her,” just in case she actually had to prove she did it later.
“Don’t forget I’m Rose in here,” Parker tells her, watching her write. Sophie refrained from rolling her eyes and put “Rose” in the top right corner. Finally she put down the pen and looked at her.
“Continue,” she tells her, and hopes that didn’t sound as sarcastic as she meant it to.
“Where was I?” Parker asks, and Sophie tries not to scream. Really, this was bad.
“I don’t know.”
“I thought you were writing this down!” Parker exclaims.
“For the love hell, Parker. For the last time, this is not a real therapy session!” Sophie bursts out suddenly, her patience level dropping rapidly.
“But…” Parker starts softly, and Sophie thinks she might cry for a minute. She looks upset. Sophie starts to feel bad and revises.
“I’m sorry, Parker. If you really need this, then yes we can do it, okay? I’d be happy to help you.” Sophie tried to sound as encouraging as she could, because honestly, she didn’t want to be the one to help her. But if no one else was going to…
The soft spot she had for the girl was starting to take over her good sense, apparently.
“I think the woman I work with doesn’t like me,” Parker says, and Sophie actually does a face palm. This was crazy.
“Parker I do-” she tries to start, but is interrupted.
“I’m talking to Dr. Tanner, not Sophie!” Parker insists, and Sophie lets out a big sigh. This was not how she thought her day would go.
“Right, sorry,” she says and takes a deep breath. Patience, Sophie. “And why do you think that?”
Parker shrugs, “She always acts like she doesn’t want to be around me.” Parker’s face actually fell at that, and Sophie starts to feel really guilty.
But she stays in character. “Have you asked her about it?” Talking about herself as another person was completely insane.
“No.”
“Why not?” Sophie asks her, now needing to know. She did like Parker, she did. Maybe she was a bit too crazy for her taste, but that didn’t mean she didn’t like her.
Parker looks down and picks at invisible lint before shrugging again and mumbling something inaudible. Sophie creases her brow and asks, “What was that?”
“I’m afraid she’ll tell me that I’m right,” Parker says again, a bit louder this time. Still not looking at her.
“Well you’ll never know unless you ask,” Sophie tells her, and waits for Parker to ask… but she doesn’t. Instead she changes the topic.
“I’ve never gone on a date,” Parker tells her, and Sophie’s eyebrows raise. She didn’t know exactly how that was relevant, but then again, she was talking to Parker. Relevance seemed to take a back seat to impulsivity.
“Ever?” Sophie asks, stunned.
Parker shakes her head. “Nope. Never had a boyfriend, either. Or… anything else. Is that weird?”
Sophie chose her words carefully. “Well… it’s quite unusual for someone your age.” She looked at her curiously. “Have you ever been asked?”
“Oh, loads of times,” Parker tells her with a nod, which makes Sophie even more confused.
“Then why have you never gone on one?”
“I’m scared to,” Parker admits. “I wouldn’t act right, they’d know I wasn’t normal and then it’d hurt. I mean, it hurts to be rejected, right? I don’t know. That’s what I hear.”
Sophie blinks a bit, still finding this entire situation and conversation a bit bizarre. “It does hurt to be rejected,” she tells her honestly, a bit too honestly in relation to her ‘will I, won’t I’ relationship with Nate. “But if you don’t run the risk of getting hurt, then you’ll never experience the good stuff either.”
“But is the good stuff really so good that it’s worth the bad?” Parker asks her.
Sophie smiles a bit at her. “Yeah…” she tells her softly. “It really is.” Parker just nods, and stays silent for awhile, so Sophie tries something. “Why don’t you try that with the guy that likes you?”
“Oh, I can’t,” Parker tells her, looking up at her seriously now.
“Why not?”
“Because I think I might be gay,” Parker says, which make’s Sophie’s eyes go wide. That was the last thing she was ever expecting. Sophie just stares at her for a little while, not speaking, so Parker asks, “Dr. Tanner?”
That snaps Sophie out of it. “Stop calling me that, please. And…” Sophie tries to think of an appropriate therapeutic response to that admittance and settles on, “Why do you think that?”
That probably wasn’t the right one, but she wanted to know.
“I enjoy sex with women more than men,” Parker tells her, like it should be obvious. But when Parker said she had never dated, Sophie had assumed…
“So you have had sex then?”
“Of course,” Parker says, looking at Sophie like she was the one being ridiculous. “I love sex.”
“But no dating?” Sophie asked. She couldn’t quite wrap her mind around that concept. Sure, she understood sex with no attachments, but to never have any attachments? Ever?
“Nope, because like I said,” Parker tells her. Then points to the piece of paper. “You should be writing.”
Sophie blinks a bit and writes “Gay?” on her paper, just to show her she was doing something. She held it up for Parker to see to make her point, Parker smiled, glad she was playing along in this little game Sophie completely was suckered into.
“So… you’re really gay then?” Sophie asks slowly, like she needed to make sure she didn’t just make that up in her head for some reason.
Though if she did, then that would open up a whole bunch of other questions about her own sexuality that she’s rather not get into.
“That’s what I said, yes. That wasn’t very therapist like,” Parker chides at her lack of professional demeanor.
“Sorry,” Sophie says, mostly sarcastically before revising. “So if you think you’re gay, I’m wondering why it should even matter to you because you clearly don’t seem interested in dating.”
“No, I am!” Parker says, and sits up a bit straighter. “But I’m un-dateable.”
“No one is un-dateable, Parker,” Sophie tells her, looking at her pointedly. “Well, first things first anyway, are you interested in another woman?”
“Yeah, but she doesn’t like me,” Parker tells her, slouching back down in her chair again and crossing her arms over her chest.
“What makes you think that?”
“We just had this conversation,” Parker tells her, like she was repeating something. But Sophie didn’t know what exactly they were repeating, they never talked about this!
“No, we didn’t.”
“Yes we did. You asked me why I thought she didn’t like me and I said because she acts like she doesn’t want to be around me,” Parker told her, looking annoyed now that she had to repeat herself. But Sophie didn’t care about that; she only caught one thing out of what she just said. The main point:
Parker liked her.
She didn’t know what to do about that. What even to say to that, and Parker just said it so nonchalantly like she really was talking about a different person, and not the person sitting in front of her pretending to be her therapist. “Uh… look, Parker, that’s sweet and all but I-”
She couldn’t get it all out though, because Parker stopped her. “Talking to Dr. Tanner,” she stresses. Sophie wants to scream. Again. She’s been wanting to do that a lot the last twenty minutes of this torture.
“Well, since it seems like you think she might not like you, maybe you should try someone else,” Sophie tells her, finally.
“But I want her, I can’t just switch it off,” Parker said, like she was being absurd.
This whole thing was bloody absurd.
“Well aiming your heart in the wrong direction can backfire on you,” Sophie tells her. She was trying to be nice here, let her down softly. She liked her, but she didn’t like her like that.
“But you told me if I don’t take a chance then I’ll never know,” Parker says, now confused. How Parker could be confused during this conversation, she didn’t know. She was talking to her after all, wasn’t she making it clear?
“Then ask her, right now,” Sophie told her, just wanting to get this over with.
“I will when I see her,” Parker says.
“I’m right here, Parker!” Sophie exclaims, exasperated. This was insane!
“No, Dr. Tanner is.”
“Parker! I am Dr. Tanner! This is a bloody con, for shit’s sake! And I don’t like you like that, okay?!” Sophie bursts out, then regrets doing so the moment she sees Parker’s face fall. Uh oh, maybe that wasn’t the best way to tell her.
Parker looked down and nodded slowly as she was back to picking at her clothes. “Yeah, I know that. Why I didn’t want to ask. I knew you’d be mean about it.”
“Oh, Parker…” Sophie starts, feeling horrible now. She really should not have said it like that. “It’s not that I don’t care about you, I do. But I’m just… I’m not into women.”
“Whatever,” Parker mumbles. She looked really upset, and Sophie knew it was all her fault.
Sophie scooted her chair closer to her, putting her notebook and pen on the floor. Forget being a bloody therapist, she needed to be Sophie for a moment. She put her hand on the other girls leg and said softly, “Hey sweetie… look at me, okay?” Parker shook her head and Sophie prodded more, “Please?”
Parker looked up at her finally, and Sophie could swear her eyes were slightly misted over, though knew Parker would never admit to it. She rubbed her leg a bit in comfort and told her softly, “You are a very sweet girl, and any woman would be lucky to have you. Really. But I’m just… I’m not the one for you, okay?”
“How do you know that?” Parker asked her quietly, and Sophie felt a little tug at her heart.
“Because I’m not interested in women, and you’re a woman, Parker.”
“Have you ever been with one?” Parker asks her, still with the same soft voice that almost sounded sort of vulnerable.
“Well no, but I-”
“Then how do you know?” Parker asks her, her voice gaining more confidence now.
Sophie felt perplexed, bewildered, and all those other funny words. “I just… do,” Sophie replied, but even heard how unsure she sounded when they came out. She didn’t like women; she would have known that by now, right?
“Are you afraid to try it?” Parker asked her.
“What? No, of course not,” Sophie said, almost defensively. She tried to take her hand away from Parker’s leg but Parker covered it with her own, stilling her.
“Then try it.” The way Parker said it almost sounded like a dare.
“Parker… you can’t just manipulate me into bed with you, I’m the queen of manipulation, remember?” Sophie told her, though did have to give the girl props for trying.
“I wasn’t trying to…” Parker starts, and takes her hand away from Sophie’s. She looks actually offended. “Nevermind, forget it.”
“What?” Sophie asks, wondering why she’s acting that way.
“I didn’t mean you have to sleep with me,” Parker explained, still looking offended that Sophie would think that was what she was trying to do. “I didn’t even mean you have to kiss me, just that I think you should at least try it with someone before you completely dismiss the idea.”
“Oh,” Sophie says, feeling a bit embarrassed at jumping to that conclusion. “Well… I will. I guess. One day.” But she knew she was lying, and so did Parker.
“No you won’t.”
Sophie sighed, her shoulders dropping a bit in defeat. “No, probably not. I don’t need to do that to know I’m not into women.”
Parker doesn’t say anything, she just leans back in her chair and lifts up her shirt a bit, exposing her stomach as she itches it lightly, right underneath her breasts. The movement was natural enough, and Sophie found nothing wrong in looking at her do it before Parker said, “But you just had your eyes roam the curves of my stomach.”
“What?” Sophie says, snapping out of it. She did do that, but that didn’t mean she was into women. She just thought Parker had a nice stomach. “So?”
Parker ran one of her hands through her hair, exposing her neck before saying, “And you just stared at the base of my neck.”
“What? So?” Sophie asked again, defensive all of a sudden because Parker was actually making her question herself, though she didn’t know why.
“They’re erogenous zones.” Sophie blinked; not believing Parker knew that, so Parker explains. “I do read, you know.”
“I didn’t say you didn’t,” Sophie says, avoiding the actual topic.
“So you obviously have some attraction to me, if not to women in general,” Parker tells her, and Sophie’s eyes go wide.
“I do not!”
Yes, she realized how much she sounded like a seven year old with the tone she used.
Parker just shrugged and leaned back in her chair again casually. Sophie didn’t like how confident Parker was suddenly getting, because she realized how unconfident it was making her.
“This session is over,” Sophie says finally before standing up.
“I still have twenty five minutes,” Parker points out, looking at her.
“Not anymore,” Sophie says and walks back to her desk, gathering up her pad of paper and pen. She didn’t like how uncomfortable she was right now. Even in her own skin. She was questioning herself now, and she didn’t like that. She had no control over questions; she had control over answers.
Parker sat there for a moment before getting up slowly. She pulled her shirt back down all the way and walked over to the door, but stopped before she put her hand on the door handle. She turned around, “I’m sorry I made you feel weird, Sophie. I didn’t mean to.”
“Yeah… I know,” Sophie says quietly, not looking at her. She was too busy trying to look involved in her paperwork, when really she couldn’t see the words in front of her. They could be bloody Japanese for all she knew.
Parker was silent for a moment before deciding not to go. She took a step towards Sophie, but stopped right there. “You’re going to not like me even more now, huh?”
“What? No,” Sophie said, turning around then to face her. “No, Parker. That’s not… I mean, we’ll be fine. I promise.”
Parker licked her lips nervously and shuffled her feet a bit before saying, “I like you because you can be anyone you want to be,” Parker tells her, and Sophie looks surprised. “You didn’t have to be Dr. Tanner for me, but you did, to help me. And you did… help me, I mean. So… thanks.”
Sophie’s heart was beating a million miles an hour, and she wished she knew why. “You’re welcome,” she says softly.
“You’re also the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” Parker tells her, then has a shy smile. She shrugs and finishes, “But you probably know that.” She purses her lips together before turning to leave, and Sophie was surprised to find herself stopping her.
“Parker,” she calls out, and Parker stops. “Don’t go. I mean… not yet, we still have twenty minutes left.” It was her own way of telling her that it was okay, that she appreciated what she said, because she did. It made Sophie feel really good, and it even made her smile a little bit.
Parker smiled, but turned away and tried to hide it. When Parker turned around again to face Sophie she wasn’t smiling as bit, but it was still hinting a bit at the corners of her lips. She sat back down in her chair without a word, and so did Sophie.
Cue awkward silence. Or at least it was awkward for Sophie.
“Well… um,” Sophie starts, trying to get back into therapist mode. “Anything else you’d like to talk about this session?” It was the best she could come up with.
Parker shook her head. “I don’t want to talk to Dr. Tanner anymore. I wanna talk to Sophie,” she says.
“Oh,” Sophie says, and looks down, feeling nervous all of a sudden. “About what?”
“What’s your real last name?” Parker asks her, which make’s Sophie head shoot up to look at her in surprised.
“How did you…?”
Parker just smirked. Sophie had to smile a little bit at that, and replied, “I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?” Parker asks, sitting forward in her seat a bit, interested now.
“Because then I’d have to kill you,” Sophie says, a smirk of her own playing at her lips now. Parker rolled her eyes.
“Seriously.”
Sophie let out a breath and shrugged a bit before averting her eyes to the wall. “I don’t know it,” she says honestly. Parker looks confused.
“How can you not know your own last name?”
“My parents abandoned me, I don’t know who I am really. I was raised by a woman from the church they left me at. I have her last name. She was French, but lived in London,” Sophie told her, then looked back at her. “I shouldn’t even be using this last name now, but I do just because Sophie isn’t my real first name.”
“Really? What is it?” Parker asks, looking intrigued.
“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” Sophie deals, since all they all have ever known each other by is Sophie and Parker… and Parker wasn’t her first name.
Parker made a face, but relented. “Margret.”
Sophie thinks she choked trying to contain that laugh that still sneaked out. “Margret? Are you serious?”
“Yes! I don’t like it, okay? Makes me sound old,” Parker says, stressing the word.
“Why don’t you go by Maggie or something?” Sophie asks, then has a flash of Nate’s ex wife. Nevermind.
“Because I like Parker,” Parker tells her. Then waves her hands at her. “You’re turn.”
Sophie sighed a bit, then admitted: “Jennifer.”
Parker studied her for a minute, tilting her head a bit to the side as if analyzing something, then voiced, “You don’t look like a Jennifer.”
“Hence, Sophie. Much more sophisticated,” Sophie told her.
“Yeah, it is,” Parker agreed. “I like you better as a Sophie.”
“Well I like you better as a Parker,” Sophie told her, then smiled.
Parker looked down, biting her lower lip as if trying to contain her own smile that was threatening to peak out. Sophie doesn’t think she had ever seen Parker even close to the word shy - but here it was in front of her. She had to admit, it was kind of cute.
Not that that would change her opinion on the matter of women. But she was kind of flattered that Parker liked her, she couldn’t deny that. It was… sweet. A little weird, but sweet.
Parker looked like she was about to say something when there was a knock on the door and a hushed call to “Sophie!” from the other side. Both women looked at the door, and Sophie sighed. Getting up, she opened the door and Nate came inside, but not before looking at the two women strangely.
But he shook his head, it really didn’t matter why Parker was trying to get therapy. He looked at Sophie and told her, “Eliot and Hardison just called, Hurley’s pissed off a lot of people in very high dangerous places.”
“What?” Sophie asked. “Like who?”
“Like Korean and Mexican gangs. Come on, they’ll be here in a minute,” Nate said, then wrapped his arms around himself and shivered.
“Are you okay?” Sophie asked him, but gave him a knowing look.
“I’m fine, I’m fine… let’s just get this over with,” Nate said before turning and walking out the door. Sophie sighed after looking at him walk away a little before turning back to Parker, only to realize she wasn’t even in the room anymore.
Damn, how does she do that?
SESSION #002
“Look at this!”
Sophie looked up just in time to see a bottle of pills being thrown in her direction, and if she didn’t catch it in time, it probably would have hit her straight in the face.
“Look at what they’re trying to do to me!” Parker exclaimed after bursting into Sophie’s office, making erratic hand gestures. “They’re trying to poison me!”
Sophie blinked at her a couple times, before looking down at the bottle in her hands. Anti-depressants. Sophie couldn’t help but smirk. “Parker, close the door,” she told her, and Parker closed the door, but not before folding her arms over her chest. “They’re not trying to poison you, they’re just pills to make you happier. Don’t worry; they probably won’t even start affecting you before we’re out of here and you can stop taking them. So just relax.”
“They’re poison,” Parker stresses, then starts doing the weird hand movements again to indicate her, head or at least that’s what it looked like to Sophie. “They’re trying to poison the bad parts in here so they die and the rest of my brain can work right.”
Sophie blinks again. What was she supposed to say to that?
“You’re being paranoid.”
“I am not paranoid!” Parker exclaims loudly, actually offended. Maybe that was the wrong thing to say.
“Alright, alright. Sit down, for the love of God. Just sit. Please,” Sophie says, pointing to the chair. Parker practically stomps over to the chair and sits, but not before starting to yell at her.
“Can’t you stop it? You’re my therapist! Tell them I don’t need drugs!”
“Parker, I’m posing as a psychologist, I am not, nor am I even posing as a psychiatrist,” Sophie told her, trying to be perfectly clear.
“What’s the difference?” Parker asks, confused.
“One prescribes drugs, the other doesn’t,” Sophie tells her.
“Which one are you?”
“The one that doesn’t!” Sophie exclaims, annoyed now. She leans back in her chair and looks at her. “Are you here for a reason? I mean one other than this?”
“Oh, yeah, right,” Parker says, remembering. Then she says all too casually, “Nate’s vomiting blood in the toilet near my room, it’s gross.”
“What?!” Sophie exclaims, sitting up now. She goes to stand up, worried now. She knew he was having withdrawal symptoms, but violent vomiting is never a good sign. Part of her was regretting doing this con, but at the same time, she knew Nate needed to have his eyes opened.
“Oh don’t bother,” Parker tells her in an airy voice on nonchalance as Sophie heads for the door. “They already have three man-nurse people with him. You’ll just crowd up the bathroom. Plus, I think he already passed out on the toilet seat anyway.”
“Orderlies,” Sophie corrects, and looks out the door. Sure enough, two men were picking Nate up and carrying him into his room. Sophie sighed and rubbed her temples. First he tries to go over the wall, now this?
Sophie turns back into the room and closes the door behind her, sighing heavily again before she looks at Parker. “Anything else?” she asks in a dreary voice. It had been a long day.
“My session starts in five minutes,” Parker told her seriously.
“Oh not this again,” Sophie mumbles before flopping down on the patient couch instead of her chair. She covers her face in her hands, and Parker looks confused.
“Are we going to do a role reversal? Do I get to be the therapist this time?” Parker asks curiously. Sophie’s about to scream. She already has a headache, and delving into the depths of Parker’s mind is a task and a half as it is, plus Parker apparently has a crush on her, which in Sophie was to be honest she thinks is the only real reason why she’s here… but then she has an idea.
“Sure,” she tells her, taking her hands off her face and looking at her. “Sure, you can be the therapist this time.”
This way, she can just relax. She likes to talk about herself anyway, and it wouldn’t be half as stressful. She stretches out on couch, getting comfortable, and looks at Parker. Parker stares back, before getting up, getting Sophie’s pen and paper, and taking her fake glasses - putting them on - and clears her throat. Sophie almost laughed, but suppressed it. Parker was being so serious about this. She sat back down.
“So,” Parker starts, fiddling with the glasses absentmindedly which makes Sophie emit a little giggle. “Tell me about your childhood.”
“Happy,” Sophie states.
“That’s it?” Parker asks, peering over the rim of the glasses before scribbling more on the piece of paper than just that one word.
“Not much to tell,” Sophie tells her honestly. “I’m sane, this won’t be too interesting.”
Parker actually lets out a “HA!” at that, which makes Sophie give her a dirty look. “Everyone’s a little crazy,” Parker tells her, and writes more.
“Maybe to you,” Sophie says, actually offended. She wasn’t crazy!
“Mhm…” Parker says distracted as she writes like a freaking book. Sophie just blinks at her.
“What could you possibly be writing so much about?” she asks, sitting up on the couch, curious. She tries to peer at the notebook, but Parker clutches it to her chest.
“You don’t get to read the therapist’s notes,” Parker chides her, before scooting back a bit and turning the notebook to an angle where Sophie couldn’t see. Sophie sighs and lays back down.
“Fine.”
“Tell me about Nate,” Parker says, without looking up at her. Sophie rolls her eyes.
“He’s a drunk, he’s my boss, and we’ve known each other for ten years,” Sophie tells her simply. She wasn’t going to get into that with Parker. No way.
“And you’re in love with him,” Parker tells (not asks, but tells) her, still writing.
“What? No, I’m not!” Sophie exclaims, lying through her teeth. “I just fancy him.”
“What does that even mean anyway?” Parker asks, finally looking at her. “Why do British people use all these weird words? Doesn’t fancy mean, like… nice? Like fancy clothing?”
“Oh don’t get on about how to talk,” Sophie tells her, narrowing her eyes. Parker just shrugs and continues scribbling on the paper.
Sophie really wanted to know what she was writing.
“And you’ve never been with a woman before,” Parker says, like it’s supposed to be a natural question and like Sophie wasn’t supposed to know her meaning behind it.
“Parker,” Sophie warns gently. She didn’t want to get into this again.
“Alright, alright,” Parker says, making a face. “Jeez, just trying to ask questions here.”
Sophie tried to contain her smile. Even though she was a it annoyed that it seemed like Parker was a bit pushy with it, she couldn’t help but feel flattered and think it’s a bit cute that Parker liked her. I mean, who didn’t feel even a little flattered when someone had a crush on them?
“It’s okay,” Sophie tells her. “I’m just… you know how I feel about that. It’s not going to change.”
“Yup,” Parker replied, but it seemed more like telling her what she wanted to hear. She continued writing in the notebook.
“I mean it,” Sophie says.
“Yeah yeah, sure,” Parker says, in that airy little voice she keeps using like she doesn’t believe her.
“Bisexuality doesn’t just pop up after forty years,” Sophie continues, still trying to make her point, or maybe even defend herself.
“Nope, not at all,” Parker says. That tone… Sophie wanted to make that tone illegal. It was driving her insane.
“You do get that, right?” Sophie asks, because it didn’t seem like she did. Hell, Sophie knows that she doesn’t.
“Oh yeah, totally,” Parker agrees, nodding her head a bit as if to emphasize it, but it still doesn’t sound like she does. Sophie just narrows her eyes and doesn’t say anything for a bit.
“And you’re okay with that?” Sophie presses finally, peering at her.
“Whatever you want to think is okay with me,” Parker tells her, still writing and half ignoring her, which makes Sophie’s eyes go wide. She knew Parker didn’t believe her!
“Parker!” she exclaims.
“What?” Parker asks, attempting to look innocent. She finally looks up from writing.
Sophie’s frustrated, and wants to yell but doesn’t exactly want to yell about that since she might hurt Parker’s feelings, so instead chooses to yell, “What the bloody hell do you keep writing?!”
Parker just blinks at her, before throwing her the notebook. Sophie catches it, looking down at a page filled with words. What could she have possibly wrote? She glanced up at Parker for a minute, catching her eye before she looked back down at the page. Starting at the top she started to read:
“It’s gonna really start to bug you that I’m writing so much. You’re really curious, and hate not knowing things so it’s gonna make you mad, isn’t it? I bet you’re gonna yell at me to give this to you, or steal it later just so you can see what I wrote. I bet you’re getting mad now that it’s all nothing, and that I pissed you off for no reason, right? But you’re kind of sexy when you’re mad, so that’s my fault. I like seeing it.”
Sophie blushes a bit at that, and her eyes flicker up to Parker, who is sitting there looking at her with her expression eerily unchanged for knowing what’s in the notebook.
“I bet you’re gonna look at me now after you read that, or you’re gonna blush or something. Am I right? See, now you’re gonna get creeped out, so sorry about that ahead of time. I just like watching how you act when stuff happens because that’s how I learn, and I like getting you all grr-like cause it’s hot and kind of funny. You’re mad at me now, aren’t you? Whoops.”
Sophie wasn’t mad though, she was more… intrigued. Though the fact that Parker knew her reactions so well was a bit creepy, but yet at the same time a proud moment for her because she was trying to teach her how to spot those things after all. She continued to read without looking back up at Parker because she was sure her cheeks were burning red because of how she would keep calling her ‘hot’ and ‘sexy’ in the notes.
“And you’re gonna get mad when you find out this isn’t even time for our session, and that I just pretended it was so I could be in a room with just you. Maybe you should have checked before believing me.
You’re really pretty, I like looking at you. And I like your voice, it’s like a song… only it’s not. It’s complicated; don’t ask me to explain it. I’ll get confused. You look really pretty in that dress by the way, though I don’t know how you can walk in those heels. Last time I tried I fell. Not in your heels, obviously. Mine. Well, ones I stole. Anyway. So I wanna do something but I don’t think you’ll let me, but you told me that asking is how you find out so I wanted to know if…”
And then there was nothing else: that was when Sophie interrupted her. She blinked down at the note for a moment, holding it in her hands, her cheeks still hot a bit before she finally got the courage to look Parker in the eyes. Parker just stared back at her, like it was nothing. Like all that was just… natural.
“What…?” Sophie started to say, then cleared her throat before it came out a bit strangled. “What did you want to ask me?” Sophie finally asks quietly. She was feeling… a bit odd. She couldn’t describe it.
“I was wondering if you’d let me touch you,” Parker says simply, which makes Sophie’s eyes go wide, then Parker’s once she realized how that sounded. “No! Not like that, I mean like your face and your hair and… stuff. Not private stuff. Normal stuff,” Parker revises, trying to explain. But Sophie still didn’t get it.
“Why?” Sophie asks. She got that she wasn’t asking for something sexual, but she didn’t know exactly why she wanted to do… that either.
“Because I’ve thought about it a lot,” Parker says, which makes Sophie cock an eyebrow at her. That’s an odd thing to think about.
“Uh,” Sophie starts, shifting a bit on the couch before shrugging lightly. “I guess it couldn’t hurt.” But then she looks at her seriously and points out, “But that doesn’t mean… anything, okay?”
“I know,” Parker says, and smiles in a way that makes Sophie instinctively have to smile back, and she gets up and comes over to Sophie on the couch, sitting next to her. She takes off the fake glasses, setting them down next to her before she moves her hand slowly.
Sophie has no idea what exactly her plan is and what it’s supposed to achieve, but she tenses nonetheless, being nervous for some reason. Maybe just because of how Parker felt about her.
But Parker just touched her cheek lightly, dragging her fingertips down over her jaw line slowly before brushing a piece of hair out of Sophie’s eyes. She’s smiling, looking at her in almost a childlike fascination, and that weird feeling came back that Sophie keeps randomly experiencing lately. But Parker doesn’t notice any change in Sophie, just kind of plays with her hair a bit, sliding it between her fingers and twirling it around. She’s looking at it, not at Sophie’s face, giving Sophie the freedom to watch Parker, almost as if in fascination herself.
She had never seen anyone do this before. She was acting as if Sophie was some precious, amazing thing that just needed to be touched, needed to be delicate with.
Then Parker’s fingertips are running across her cheek again, her eyes following her fingers. When she gets to Sophie’s lips, Sophie closes her eyes momentarily as Parker traces them like someone would if they were drawing a picture. When she opens her eyes, Parker’s hand has fallen down to Sophie’s as she starts tracing over each knuckle carefully. Sophie lifts up her hand a bit for her, just staring at Parker as she acted almost like a child, like she was seeing something wonderful for the first time. Parker’s hand follows Sophie’s as she raises it, and then Parker’s running all five of her fingertips down Sophie’s lightly, before lacing their fingers together. It was Sophie who closed her hand around Parker’s, just watching her. Parker smiled really big, looking at their hands.
“You’re like if a painting came to life,” Parker tells her, but still doesn’t look at her. She’s wiggling her hand softly out of Sophie’s grip, so Sophie lets go so Parker can trace her fingertips over the palm of her hand, and then down her arm. She started even tracing the tiny moles and freckles Sophie had on her arm. “Like every detail was worked on carefully, to make it perfect, you know?”
Sophie blushed deep at that. If she wasn’t mistaken, Parker just gave her the biggest compliment anyone has ever given her, and Parker didn’t even notice. She just said it because it’s what she thinks. Sophie doesn’t know what to say, but that’s alright because while Parker touches each mole softly before starting to play something that might be connect the dots, she goes on.
“Like this,” she tells her, and plays connect the dots on her skin. “That’s in the sky. I can’t remember where, but I’ve seen it.”
“There’s a constellation on my skin?” Sophie asks quietly, barely above a whisper. She doesn’t know why, but she can’t really talk at the moment.
Probably because she didn’t want to screw up the moment… for whatever it was. She didn’t want to analyze it; it was just nice.
“Yeah, with the stars, see?” Parker says, and traces it again, but Sophie can’t tell which one she’s trying to tell her it is. Sophie nods anyway, really not wanting to speak, or analyze what it is, or argue whether it’s even there. She just wants Parker to keep talking.
Parker doesn’t say anything for a bit though, she just runs her finger tips down her arm and then presses her hand against Sophie’s - palm to palm - and just looks at the size difference. It was slight, but it was there, Sophie’s was just a tiny bit bigger than hers.
Parker giggles a bit as she looks at their hands. “We look like a cow tail.”
“A what?” Sophie asks softly, looking at her confused, then back down at their hands. How did their hands look like something that should be hanging from a cows rear end?
“The candy,” Parker explains, looking at their hands together. “Kind of, anyway. See? Look,” she says, then uses her other hand to trace one of Sophie’s fingers. “This is the caramel-y part, or whatever it is. It tastes good, I don’t know. And then this,” she traces her own finger. “Is the white stuff they put in the middle of them. They taste good too. I don’t know what they are either.”
“We look like candy to you?” Sophie asks her with a hint of a smile tugging at her lips. She couldn’t help it, what Parker said was cute.
“Mhm,” Parker says and nods, then laces their fingers together. Sophie holds her hand and lets it fall to her lap, and then finally Parker looks at her face.
“You’re pretty,” she tells her.
“You’re pretty too,” Sophie says with a little smile. She then chews on her bottom lip and looks down before taking a breath. This was a little weird for her. Parker was making her feel something. She didn’t know what, but there was definitely a something… somewhere.
Sophie clears her throat, she doesn’t know what else to do. They’re still holding hands and she doesn’t know if she wants her to let go.
She’s getting a bit confused.
“Um…” Sophie starts, but Parker interrupts.
“I’m making you feel weird now,” she says, like she knows. Sophie just nods a bit so Parker lets go of her hand. “Sorry.”
“No, no… it’s not…” Sophie starts, looking down before tucking her hair back behind her ear. She looks back up at her. “That was really sweet… it was. That was… probably one of the sweetest moments I’ve ever had in my life but I’m just… I don’t think I…”
“Like me like that,” Parker finishes. “I know.”
“I’m sorry,” Sophie says, feeling awful for some reason.
Parker just shrugs lightly, “It’s okay. I know you can’t ever like me.”
Sophie looks at her, her eyebrows furrowed and asks, “What do you think that?” Because it sounded like it was something other than the whole girl/girl aspect of it.
“I’m crazy,” Parker tells her, then smiles a bit at her, but it’s not happy. More upset trying to seem okay.
“You’re not crazy,” Sophie tells her, putting a hand on her leg to comfort her, and Parker put her hand over Sophie’s. “You’re not, okay? Don’t let anyone tell you that.”
“You don’t know me,” Parker tells her bluntly, but softly. Sophie holds her hand again, just needing to comfort her a bit.
“No, maybe not. But I know what I’ve seen,” Sophie tells her seriously. “And you don’t act crazy.”
“Whatever,” Parker mumbles, and looks down at her sneakers.
“Hey,” Sophie says quietly before putting a finger under her chin, tipping it up a bit so she could look at her. “I mean it.”
They were close to each other, really close in fact, and Sophie saw just for a moment Parker’s eyes look at her lips. But then she was looking her in the eyes again, and Sophie convinced herself she was imagining it, yet her heart started to pound a bit in her chest.
“Okay…” Parker says softly, and then licks her bottom lip a bit self consciously, and Sophie caught herself staring at them.
This isn’t good.
They’re both quiet for a moment, maybe a little longer for a moment. Sophie’s hand has only moved just slightly, resting it on Parker’s cheek instead of her chin. She knows she should put it down, but it would just seem so awkward if she did. Like she was trying to get away from something that couldn’t be there, and that there was nothing wrong with what she was doing… so she just left it there.
“Do you really think I look like a painting?” Sophie whispers, her thumb stroking Parker’s cheek like it has a mind of it’s own.
Parker smiles lightly then nods a bit, just once, before saying softly, “Yeah… I do.” A pause, and Parker got a little closer to her, or maybe it was Sophie that got a little closer to her. She’s not sure. “Like one in a museum, the big expensive ones that are heavily guarded,” Parker finishes.
That makes Sophie smile big and she looks down, almost shy. But when she brings her head back up to look at her, somehow their lips almost touched. Sophie wants to jump back, but stays where she is only because she didn’t want to make Parker feel like she was freaked out by her. She wasn’t. She needed to prove that… or something.
Where the hell was this logic even coming from?
Parker’s breathing had picked up, and Sophie noticed it right off the bat only due to finally noticing hers had to. She could feel Parker’s on her lips, and she licked them because she was sure they were starting to get dry from being so insanely nervous about… something.
Parker moves in a bit, but then stops herself right before brushing her lips against the grifter’s, and she closes her eyes, like she was trying to control herself. But it wasn’t that that surprised her, it was that right after she did that, Sophie did brush her lips against Parker’s. Just lightly, but it happened.
Sophie didn’t even know she had done it until after it had already been done.
But that made Parker do it to her, and Sophie closed her eyes. Her walls were breaking, whatever walls she bad put up there, and she mutters under her breath, “Shit.” Just softly, she didn’t even know if Parker could hear her. It was more to herself, and more in defeat, right before she pressed her lips fully against Parker’s.
She has no idea why she just did that. She blames… the moment. Right. Just a really good… moment.
Parker parts her lips automatically, letting Sophie do the same before sliding her tongue into the brunette’s mouth. Sophie heard herself moan softly at the contact, and the grip Parker had on her hand tightened. They kissed softly, tentatively, for almost a whole minute. Like testing something… like both of them were scared.
And then it was over, and Parker looks scared because she thinks Sophie’s going to yell at her, and Sophie looks scared because she just kissed a woman and enjoyed it.
They both looked at each other, waiting for the other one to speak… but neither of them did.
Probably a good five whole minutes had passed until Sophie cleared her throat, looked down, letting go of Parker’s hand and said, “Okay then… so…”
She didn’t know what she was going to say, she just needed to stop the silence.
“Yeah…” Parker says, also not knowing what to say. She looks down at her own shoes again.
“That happened?” Sophie asks, not looking at her, but needing to confirm it.
“I think so,” Parker says, like she’s confused for a minute. But then she nods her head after looking like she had to replay it, and says, “Yeah.”
“Right,” Sophie said and bit her bottom lip. This could potentially be… bad. Or maybe good, but she was sure it was more bad than good, though didn’t know why.
“Yeah,” Parker says again, then blinks a bit before getting up. Sophie looked up at her finally. “I’m gonna…” Parker says, and points to the door. Leaving.
“Okay,” Sophie says, not knowing what else to say. She didn’t know how to make the weirdness stop, and she couldn’t think straight while Parker was in the room.
“Okay,” Parker says, and turns around to leave. But when she gets to the door she doesn’t turn back, just requests softly, “Please don’t hate me.”
“Parker…” Sophie says, and gets up. She doesn’t move towards her though, just tells her honestly. “I don’t think I could ever hate you…”
Parker looks back at her before her hand found the doorknob, and then she was out the door, gone, closing the door behind her. Sophie sat back down on the couch heavily, shaking her head a bit to see if this was really reality.
How did that just happen?
POST TOO BIG
PART TWO IS HERE.
Author: Sapphire Smoke cuzimastripper
Fandom: Leverage
Rating: NC-17 (for later)
Pairing: Parker/Sophie
Length Thus Far: 8,637 words
Setting: During 'The 12 Step Job'
Summary: Parker wants to talk to her counselor... Dr. Tanner.
SESSION #001
Posing as a councilor was having it’s downsides for Sophie. For one, since she was ‘hired’ at Second Act, she was required as part of her job description to have one-on-one therapy sessions with each member in her group. Now that obviously was the last thing she wanted to do, but in order to keep her cover she had to suck it up and listen to everyone’s problems and attempt to fix them. For two, playing therapist was starting to give her a migraine, especially after having to hear Marcy do nothing but bitch about how her mother is, well, a bitch for an entire hour in that dead monotonic voice that she uses.
She didn’t know how some people can do this for a living.
So when it was Parker’s turn to finally come in for her session, Sophie lets out a sigh of relief. “Thank god. Come on, let’s get out of here for an hour,” she says, standing up. She just needed to get out of this office - her office - right now. The plain white walls were starting to drive her insane herself.
“What? No, I thought it was my turn,” Parker said, honestly confused. She looked at Sophie like she was almost disappointed, which made Sophie raise an eyebrow.
“Parker, you’re not actually in rehab, you do know that, right?” Sophie asks, because it was starting to seem like Parker didn’t actually get that. She was participating in groups, even asked for a pencil and paper to write down all the people she had to apologize to - and even to Sophie’s dismay admitted to her that she had lifted her own wallet from her purse many times by ‘accident’, though made sure to tell her that she remembered to put it back each time.
She asked for forgiveness, which Sophie gave her just to make the whole awkward situation go away.
While acting the part was part of the con, the thing was… Parker didn’t know how to act. This seemed entirely too real for her, and entirely too real for Sophie’s level of comfort.
“But I need to talk about some things, and you’re my councilor,” Parker says, like Sophie should know that, and sits down in a chair. Sophie sighs. “You said talking about things is a way to work out our issues.”
“Parker, we’re in the middle of a con,” Sophie stresses, looking at her incredulously. “I’m not really you’re therapist.”
“I know you’re not, Sophie. But Dr. Tanner is,” Parker replied, like that should mean something that didn’t sound insanely absurd in it’s own right. “And I want to talk, please?”
“Oh for the love of Christ,” Sophie mumbles, and sits back down. She couldn’t believe Parker was doing this. But if Parker was set on trying to fix something in her life, who was she to stop her?
They both look at each other in silence for awhile, both expecting the other to talk. Finally Parker asks, “So how do we do this? I’ve never been in therapy.”
Sophie wanted to put her head in her hands and scream, but controlled herself. She took a deep breath. This was ridiculous.
“You tell me about the things in your life that are bothering you, and we try to work through them,” Sophie explains. Yeah, this was absolutely bloody maddening.
“Doctor-Patient rules apply right? The thing it says on that board out there?” Parker asks, pointing at the door, indicating outside. Sophie’s patience was getting tested in a big way.
“Yes, sure. Fine. Nothing leaves this room,” she replies, just wanting to get this over with.
“Okay,” Parker says, and smiles a bit. She starts picking at her shirt and squishes her face to side a bit as she thinks about what she wants to say. Finally she starts and says, “I don’t like being me sometimes.”
That makes Sophie stop thinking for a moment about how much she wants to get out of there just by such a simple admission from Parker. “Why do you say that?” Sophie asked her, curious enough to actually sound like an actual therapist for a moment.
Parker shrugs and picks more at her clothing. “I’m not normal. I’m weird. I say things that I think are just supposed to be in my head, and that makes people look at me funny. I don’t think the right way, I guess. Like, my thoughts are very fast and sometimes they jumble up, confusing me, which makes them not come out of my mouth right. And people don’t like me because my brain is broken.”
Sophie blinked, taken aback by what Parker just said. “Parker, there are a lot of people that like you,” she tells her. Parker looks up at her.
“That’s not what Dr. Tanner would say, that’s what Sophie would say.”
Sophie felt frustrated by that, and narrowed her eyes a bit. “Alright…” she said, playing along. “And how does that make you feel?” she half mocked the common phrase.
“Alone,” Parker tells her simply. “But I know I’m not, and I know the people I work with kinda like me. A little, anyway. They tolerate me I guess. Except for one of them, he really likes me.”
Sophie knew she was talking about Hardison and her own curiosity made her ask, “And how do you feel about him?” Because hell, if she was going to play therapist, she could at least get the gossip while she was at it.
“He’s nice,” Parker says and smiles a bit. “I like him a lot, but that’s the problem.”
“Why do you feel that’s a problem?” Sophie asks. Okay, she was getting a bit more into this as it was going on, it at least was entertaining a bit, and informative.
“Because I really like him, but I don’t think I… I mean I think I might be…” Parker stops, then looks at Sophie. “Shouldn’t you be writing this down?”
“Oh, Parker,” Sophie sighs heavily and rolls her eyes. “That’s not necessary.”
“Yes it is,” Parker insists, and points to the pad on her desk. “That’s what therapists do. They make lots of notes, and nod a lot while they do it. I see it in TV all the time.”
Sophie let out a breath and tested her patience as she reached for the pad of paper and a pen, and started writing down little notes like “Thinks her brain doesn’t work right” and “A coworker has a crush on her,” just in case she actually had to prove she did it later.
“Don’t forget I’m Rose in here,” Parker tells her, watching her write. Sophie refrained from rolling her eyes and put “Rose” in the top right corner. Finally she put down the pen and looked at her.
“Continue,” she tells her, and hopes that didn’t sound as sarcastic as she meant it to.
“Where was I?” Parker asks, and Sophie tries not to scream. Really, this was bad.
“I don’t know.”
“I thought you were writing this down!” Parker exclaims.
“For the love hell, Parker. For the last time, this is not a real therapy session!” Sophie bursts out suddenly, her patience level dropping rapidly.
“But…” Parker starts softly, and Sophie thinks she might cry for a minute. She looks upset. Sophie starts to feel bad and revises.
“I’m sorry, Parker. If you really need this, then yes we can do it, okay? I’d be happy to help you.” Sophie tried to sound as encouraging as she could, because honestly, she didn’t want to be the one to help her. But if no one else was going to…
The soft spot she had for the girl was starting to take over her good sense, apparently.
“I think the woman I work with doesn’t like me,” Parker says, and Sophie actually does a face palm. This was crazy.
“Parker I do-” she tries to start, but is interrupted.
“I’m talking to Dr. Tanner, not Sophie!” Parker insists, and Sophie lets out a big sigh. This was not how she thought her day would go.
“Right, sorry,” she says and takes a deep breath. Patience, Sophie. “And why do you think that?”
Parker shrugs, “She always acts like she doesn’t want to be around me.” Parker’s face actually fell at that, and Sophie starts to feel really guilty.
But she stays in character. “Have you asked her about it?” Talking about herself as another person was completely insane.
“No.”
“Why not?” Sophie asks her, now needing to know. She did like Parker, she did. Maybe she was a bit too crazy for her taste, but that didn’t mean she didn’t like her.
Parker looks down and picks at invisible lint before shrugging again and mumbling something inaudible. Sophie creases her brow and asks, “What was that?”
“I’m afraid she’ll tell me that I’m right,” Parker says again, a bit louder this time. Still not looking at her.
“Well you’ll never know unless you ask,” Sophie tells her, and waits for Parker to ask… but she doesn’t. Instead she changes the topic.
“I’ve never gone on a date,” Parker tells her, and Sophie’s eyebrows raise. She didn’t know exactly how that was relevant, but then again, she was talking to Parker. Relevance seemed to take a back seat to impulsivity.
“Ever?” Sophie asks, stunned.
Parker shakes her head. “Nope. Never had a boyfriend, either. Or… anything else. Is that weird?”
Sophie chose her words carefully. “Well… it’s quite unusual for someone your age.” She looked at her curiously. “Have you ever been asked?”
“Oh, loads of times,” Parker tells her with a nod, which makes Sophie even more confused.
“Then why have you never gone on one?”
“I’m scared to,” Parker admits. “I wouldn’t act right, they’d know I wasn’t normal and then it’d hurt. I mean, it hurts to be rejected, right? I don’t know. That’s what I hear.”
Sophie blinks a bit, still finding this entire situation and conversation a bit bizarre. “It does hurt to be rejected,” she tells her honestly, a bit too honestly in relation to her ‘will I, won’t I’ relationship with Nate. “But if you don’t run the risk of getting hurt, then you’ll never experience the good stuff either.”
“But is the good stuff really so good that it’s worth the bad?” Parker asks her.
Sophie smiles a bit at her. “Yeah…” she tells her softly. “It really is.” Parker just nods, and stays silent for awhile, so Sophie tries something. “Why don’t you try that with the guy that likes you?”
“Oh, I can’t,” Parker tells her, looking up at her seriously now.
“Why not?”
“Because I think I might be gay,” Parker says, which make’s Sophie’s eyes go wide. That was the last thing she was ever expecting. Sophie just stares at her for a little while, not speaking, so Parker asks, “Dr. Tanner?”
That snaps Sophie out of it. “Stop calling me that, please. And…” Sophie tries to think of an appropriate therapeutic response to that admittance and settles on, “Why do you think that?”
That probably wasn’t the right one, but she wanted to know.
“I enjoy sex with women more than men,” Parker tells her, like it should be obvious. But when Parker said she had never dated, Sophie had assumed…
“So you have had sex then?”
“Of course,” Parker says, looking at Sophie like she was the one being ridiculous. “I love sex.”
“But no dating?” Sophie asked. She couldn’t quite wrap her mind around that concept. Sure, she understood sex with no attachments, but to never have any attachments? Ever?
“Nope, because like I said,” Parker tells her. Then points to the piece of paper. “You should be writing.”
Sophie blinks a bit and writes “Gay?” on her paper, just to show her she was doing something. She held it up for Parker to see to make her point, Parker smiled, glad she was playing along in this little game Sophie completely was suckered into.
“So… you’re really gay then?” Sophie asks slowly, like she needed to make sure she didn’t just make that up in her head for some reason.
Though if she did, then that would open up a whole bunch of other questions about her own sexuality that she’s rather not get into.
“That’s what I said, yes. That wasn’t very therapist like,” Parker chides at her lack of professional demeanor.
“Sorry,” Sophie says, mostly sarcastically before revising. “So if you think you’re gay, I’m wondering why it should even matter to you because you clearly don’t seem interested in dating.”
“No, I am!” Parker says, and sits up a bit straighter. “But I’m un-dateable.”
“No one is un-dateable, Parker,” Sophie tells her, looking at her pointedly. “Well, first things first anyway, are you interested in another woman?”
“Yeah, but she doesn’t like me,” Parker tells her, slouching back down in her chair again and crossing her arms over her chest.
“What makes you think that?”
“We just had this conversation,” Parker tells her, like she was repeating something. But Sophie didn’t know what exactly they were repeating, they never talked about this!
“No, we didn’t.”
“Yes we did. You asked me why I thought she didn’t like me and I said because she acts like she doesn’t want to be around me,” Parker told her, looking annoyed now that she had to repeat herself. But Sophie didn’t care about that; she only caught one thing out of what she just said. The main point:
Parker liked her.
She didn’t know what to do about that. What even to say to that, and Parker just said it so nonchalantly like she really was talking about a different person, and not the person sitting in front of her pretending to be her therapist. “Uh… look, Parker, that’s sweet and all but I-”
She couldn’t get it all out though, because Parker stopped her. “Talking to Dr. Tanner,” she stresses. Sophie wants to scream. Again. She’s been wanting to do that a lot the last twenty minutes of this torture.
“Well, since it seems like you think she might not like you, maybe you should try someone else,” Sophie tells her, finally.
“But I want her, I can’t just switch it off,” Parker said, like she was being absurd.
This whole thing was bloody absurd.
“Well aiming your heart in the wrong direction can backfire on you,” Sophie tells her. She was trying to be nice here, let her down softly. She liked her, but she didn’t like her like that.
“But you told me if I don’t take a chance then I’ll never know,” Parker says, now confused. How Parker could be confused during this conversation, she didn’t know. She was talking to her after all, wasn’t she making it clear?
“Then ask her, right now,” Sophie told her, just wanting to get this over with.
“I will when I see her,” Parker says.
“I’m right here, Parker!” Sophie exclaims, exasperated. This was insane!
“No, Dr. Tanner is.”
“Parker! I am Dr. Tanner! This is a bloody con, for shit’s sake! And I don’t like you like that, okay?!” Sophie bursts out, then regrets doing so the moment she sees Parker’s face fall. Uh oh, maybe that wasn’t the best way to tell her.
Parker looked down and nodded slowly as she was back to picking at her clothes. “Yeah, I know that. Why I didn’t want to ask. I knew you’d be mean about it.”
“Oh, Parker…” Sophie starts, feeling horrible now. She really should not have said it like that. “It’s not that I don’t care about you, I do. But I’m just… I’m not into women.”
“Whatever,” Parker mumbles. She looked really upset, and Sophie knew it was all her fault.
Sophie scooted her chair closer to her, putting her notebook and pen on the floor. Forget being a bloody therapist, she needed to be Sophie for a moment. She put her hand on the other girls leg and said softly, “Hey sweetie… look at me, okay?” Parker shook her head and Sophie prodded more, “Please?”
Parker looked up at her finally, and Sophie could swear her eyes were slightly misted over, though knew Parker would never admit to it. She rubbed her leg a bit in comfort and told her softly, “You are a very sweet girl, and any woman would be lucky to have you. Really. But I’m just… I’m not the one for you, okay?”
“How do you know that?” Parker asked her quietly, and Sophie felt a little tug at her heart.
“Because I’m not interested in women, and you’re a woman, Parker.”
“Have you ever been with one?” Parker asks her, still with the same soft voice that almost sounded sort of vulnerable.
“Well no, but I-”
“Then how do you know?” Parker asks her, her voice gaining more confidence now.
Sophie felt perplexed, bewildered, and all those other funny words. “I just… do,” Sophie replied, but even heard how unsure she sounded when they came out. She didn’t like women; she would have known that by now, right?
“Are you afraid to try it?” Parker asked her.
“What? No, of course not,” Sophie said, almost defensively. She tried to take her hand away from Parker’s leg but Parker covered it with her own, stilling her.
“Then try it.” The way Parker said it almost sounded like a dare.
“Parker… you can’t just manipulate me into bed with you, I’m the queen of manipulation, remember?” Sophie told her, though did have to give the girl props for trying.
“I wasn’t trying to…” Parker starts, and takes her hand away from Sophie’s. She looks actually offended. “Nevermind, forget it.”
“What?” Sophie asks, wondering why she’s acting that way.
“I didn’t mean you have to sleep with me,” Parker explained, still looking offended that Sophie would think that was what she was trying to do. “I didn’t even mean you have to kiss me, just that I think you should at least try it with someone before you completely dismiss the idea.”
“Oh,” Sophie says, feeling a bit embarrassed at jumping to that conclusion. “Well… I will. I guess. One day.” But she knew she was lying, and so did Parker.
“No you won’t.”
Sophie sighed, her shoulders dropping a bit in defeat. “No, probably not. I don’t need to do that to know I’m not into women.”
Parker doesn’t say anything, she just leans back in her chair and lifts up her shirt a bit, exposing her stomach as she itches it lightly, right underneath her breasts. The movement was natural enough, and Sophie found nothing wrong in looking at her do it before Parker said, “But you just had your eyes roam the curves of my stomach.”
“What?” Sophie says, snapping out of it. She did do that, but that didn’t mean she was into women. She just thought Parker had a nice stomach. “So?”
Parker ran one of her hands through her hair, exposing her neck before saying, “And you just stared at the base of my neck.”
“What? So?” Sophie asked again, defensive all of a sudden because Parker was actually making her question herself, though she didn’t know why.
“They’re erogenous zones.” Sophie blinked; not believing Parker knew that, so Parker explains. “I do read, you know.”
“I didn’t say you didn’t,” Sophie says, avoiding the actual topic.
“So you obviously have some attraction to me, if not to women in general,” Parker tells her, and Sophie’s eyes go wide.
“I do not!”
Yes, she realized how much she sounded like a seven year old with the tone she used.
Parker just shrugged and leaned back in her chair again casually. Sophie didn’t like how confident Parker was suddenly getting, because she realized how unconfident it was making her.
“This session is over,” Sophie says finally before standing up.
“I still have twenty five minutes,” Parker points out, looking at her.
“Not anymore,” Sophie says and walks back to her desk, gathering up her pad of paper and pen. She didn’t like how uncomfortable she was right now. Even in her own skin. She was questioning herself now, and she didn’t like that. She had no control over questions; she had control over answers.
Parker sat there for a moment before getting up slowly. She pulled her shirt back down all the way and walked over to the door, but stopped before she put her hand on the door handle. She turned around, “I’m sorry I made you feel weird, Sophie. I didn’t mean to.”
“Yeah… I know,” Sophie says quietly, not looking at her. She was too busy trying to look involved in her paperwork, when really she couldn’t see the words in front of her. They could be bloody Japanese for all she knew.
Parker was silent for a moment before deciding not to go. She took a step towards Sophie, but stopped right there. “You’re going to not like me even more now, huh?”
“What? No,” Sophie said, turning around then to face her. “No, Parker. That’s not… I mean, we’ll be fine. I promise.”
Parker licked her lips nervously and shuffled her feet a bit before saying, “I like you because you can be anyone you want to be,” Parker tells her, and Sophie looks surprised. “You didn’t have to be Dr. Tanner for me, but you did, to help me. And you did… help me, I mean. So… thanks.”
Sophie’s heart was beating a million miles an hour, and she wished she knew why. “You’re welcome,” she says softly.
“You’re also the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” Parker tells her, then has a shy smile. She shrugs and finishes, “But you probably know that.” She purses her lips together before turning to leave, and Sophie was surprised to find herself stopping her.
“Parker,” she calls out, and Parker stops. “Don’t go. I mean… not yet, we still have twenty minutes left.” It was her own way of telling her that it was okay, that she appreciated what she said, because she did. It made Sophie feel really good, and it even made her smile a little bit.
Parker smiled, but turned away and tried to hide it. When Parker turned around again to face Sophie she wasn’t smiling as bit, but it was still hinting a bit at the corners of her lips. She sat back down in her chair without a word, and so did Sophie.
Cue awkward silence. Or at least it was awkward for Sophie.
“Well… um,” Sophie starts, trying to get back into therapist mode. “Anything else you’d like to talk about this session?” It was the best she could come up with.
Parker shook her head. “I don’t want to talk to Dr. Tanner anymore. I wanna talk to Sophie,” she says.
“Oh,” Sophie says, and looks down, feeling nervous all of a sudden. “About what?”
“What’s your real last name?” Parker asks her, which make’s Sophie head shoot up to look at her in surprised.
“How did you…?”
Parker just smirked. Sophie had to smile a little bit at that, and replied, “I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?” Parker asks, sitting forward in her seat a bit, interested now.
“Because then I’d have to kill you,” Sophie says, a smirk of her own playing at her lips now. Parker rolled her eyes.
“Seriously.”
Sophie let out a breath and shrugged a bit before averting her eyes to the wall. “I don’t know it,” she says honestly. Parker looks confused.
“How can you not know your own last name?”
“My parents abandoned me, I don’t know who I am really. I was raised by a woman from the church they left me at. I have her last name. She was French, but lived in London,” Sophie told her, then looked back at her. “I shouldn’t even be using this last name now, but I do just because Sophie isn’t my real first name.”
“Really? What is it?” Parker asks, looking intrigued.
“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” Sophie deals, since all they all have ever known each other by is Sophie and Parker… and Parker wasn’t her first name.
Parker made a face, but relented. “Margret.”
Sophie thinks she choked trying to contain that laugh that still sneaked out. “Margret? Are you serious?”
“Yes! I don’t like it, okay? Makes me sound old,” Parker says, stressing the word.
“Why don’t you go by Maggie or something?” Sophie asks, then has a flash of Nate’s ex wife. Nevermind.
“Because I like Parker,” Parker tells her. Then waves her hands at her. “You’re turn.”
Sophie sighed a bit, then admitted: “Jennifer.”
Parker studied her for a minute, tilting her head a bit to the side as if analyzing something, then voiced, “You don’t look like a Jennifer.”
“Hence, Sophie. Much more sophisticated,” Sophie told her.
“Yeah, it is,” Parker agreed. “I like you better as a Sophie.”
“Well I like you better as a Parker,” Sophie told her, then smiled.
Parker looked down, biting her lower lip as if trying to contain her own smile that was threatening to peak out. Sophie doesn’t think she had ever seen Parker even close to the word shy - but here it was in front of her. She had to admit, it was kind of cute.
Not that that would change her opinion on the matter of women. But she was kind of flattered that Parker liked her, she couldn’t deny that. It was… sweet. A little weird, but sweet.
Parker looked like she was about to say something when there was a knock on the door and a hushed call to “Sophie!” from the other side. Both women looked at the door, and Sophie sighed. Getting up, she opened the door and Nate came inside, but not before looking at the two women strangely.
But he shook his head, it really didn’t matter why Parker was trying to get therapy. He looked at Sophie and told her, “Eliot and Hardison just called, Hurley’s pissed off a lot of people in very high dangerous places.”
“What?” Sophie asked. “Like who?”
“Like Korean and Mexican gangs. Come on, they’ll be here in a minute,” Nate said, then wrapped his arms around himself and shivered.
“Are you okay?” Sophie asked him, but gave him a knowing look.
“I’m fine, I’m fine… let’s just get this over with,” Nate said before turning and walking out the door. Sophie sighed after looking at him walk away a little before turning back to Parker, only to realize she wasn’t even in the room anymore.
Damn, how does she do that?
SESSION #002
“Look at this!”
Sophie looked up just in time to see a bottle of pills being thrown in her direction, and if she didn’t catch it in time, it probably would have hit her straight in the face.
“Look at what they’re trying to do to me!” Parker exclaimed after bursting into Sophie’s office, making erratic hand gestures. “They’re trying to poison me!”
Sophie blinked at her a couple times, before looking down at the bottle in her hands. Anti-depressants. Sophie couldn’t help but smirk. “Parker, close the door,” she told her, and Parker closed the door, but not before folding her arms over her chest. “They’re not trying to poison you, they’re just pills to make you happier. Don’t worry; they probably won’t even start affecting you before we’re out of here and you can stop taking them. So just relax.”
“They’re poison,” Parker stresses, then starts doing the weird hand movements again to indicate her, head or at least that’s what it looked like to Sophie. “They’re trying to poison the bad parts in here so they die and the rest of my brain can work right.”
Sophie blinks again. What was she supposed to say to that?
“You’re being paranoid.”
“I am not paranoid!” Parker exclaims loudly, actually offended. Maybe that was the wrong thing to say.
“Alright, alright. Sit down, for the love of God. Just sit. Please,” Sophie says, pointing to the chair. Parker practically stomps over to the chair and sits, but not before starting to yell at her.
“Can’t you stop it? You’re my therapist! Tell them I don’t need drugs!”
“Parker, I’m posing as a psychologist, I am not, nor am I even posing as a psychiatrist,” Sophie told her, trying to be perfectly clear.
“What’s the difference?” Parker asks, confused.
“One prescribes drugs, the other doesn’t,” Sophie tells her.
“Which one are you?”
“The one that doesn’t!” Sophie exclaims, annoyed now. She leans back in her chair and looks at her. “Are you here for a reason? I mean one other than this?”
“Oh, yeah, right,” Parker says, remembering. Then she says all too casually, “Nate’s vomiting blood in the toilet near my room, it’s gross.”
“What?!” Sophie exclaims, sitting up now. She goes to stand up, worried now. She knew he was having withdrawal symptoms, but violent vomiting is never a good sign. Part of her was regretting doing this con, but at the same time, she knew Nate needed to have his eyes opened.
“Oh don’t bother,” Parker tells her in an airy voice on nonchalance as Sophie heads for the door. “They already have three man-nurse people with him. You’ll just crowd up the bathroom. Plus, I think he already passed out on the toilet seat anyway.”
“Orderlies,” Sophie corrects, and looks out the door. Sure enough, two men were picking Nate up and carrying him into his room. Sophie sighed and rubbed her temples. First he tries to go over the wall, now this?
Sophie turns back into the room and closes the door behind her, sighing heavily again before she looks at Parker. “Anything else?” she asks in a dreary voice. It had been a long day.
“My session starts in five minutes,” Parker told her seriously.
“Oh not this again,” Sophie mumbles before flopping down on the patient couch instead of her chair. She covers her face in her hands, and Parker looks confused.
“Are we going to do a role reversal? Do I get to be the therapist this time?” Parker asks curiously. Sophie’s about to scream. She already has a headache, and delving into the depths of Parker’s mind is a task and a half as it is, plus Parker apparently has a crush on her, which in Sophie was to be honest she thinks is the only real reason why she’s here… but then she has an idea.
“Sure,” she tells her, taking her hands off her face and looking at her. “Sure, you can be the therapist this time.”
This way, she can just relax. She likes to talk about herself anyway, and it wouldn’t be half as stressful. She stretches out on couch, getting comfortable, and looks at Parker. Parker stares back, before getting up, getting Sophie’s pen and paper, and taking her fake glasses - putting them on - and clears her throat. Sophie almost laughed, but suppressed it. Parker was being so serious about this. She sat back down.
“So,” Parker starts, fiddling with the glasses absentmindedly which makes Sophie emit a little giggle. “Tell me about your childhood.”
“Happy,” Sophie states.
“That’s it?” Parker asks, peering over the rim of the glasses before scribbling more on the piece of paper than just that one word.
“Not much to tell,” Sophie tells her honestly. “I’m sane, this won’t be too interesting.”
Parker actually lets out a “HA!” at that, which makes Sophie give her a dirty look. “Everyone’s a little crazy,” Parker tells her, and writes more.
“Maybe to you,” Sophie says, actually offended. She wasn’t crazy!
“Mhm…” Parker says distracted as she writes like a freaking book. Sophie just blinks at her.
“What could you possibly be writing so much about?” she asks, sitting up on the couch, curious. She tries to peer at the notebook, but Parker clutches it to her chest.
“You don’t get to read the therapist’s notes,” Parker chides her, before scooting back a bit and turning the notebook to an angle where Sophie couldn’t see. Sophie sighs and lays back down.
“Fine.”
“Tell me about Nate,” Parker says, without looking up at her. Sophie rolls her eyes.
“He’s a drunk, he’s my boss, and we’ve known each other for ten years,” Sophie tells her simply. She wasn’t going to get into that with Parker. No way.
“And you’re in love with him,” Parker tells (not asks, but tells) her, still writing.
“What? No, I’m not!” Sophie exclaims, lying through her teeth. “I just fancy him.”
“What does that even mean anyway?” Parker asks, finally looking at her. “Why do British people use all these weird words? Doesn’t fancy mean, like… nice? Like fancy clothing?”
“Oh don’t get on about how to talk,” Sophie tells her, narrowing her eyes. Parker just shrugs and continues scribbling on the paper.
Sophie really wanted to know what she was writing.
“And you’ve never been with a woman before,” Parker says, like it’s supposed to be a natural question and like Sophie wasn’t supposed to know her meaning behind it.
“Parker,” Sophie warns gently. She didn’t want to get into this again.
“Alright, alright,” Parker says, making a face. “Jeez, just trying to ask questions here.”
Sophie tried to contain her smile. Even though she was a it annoyed that it seemed like Parker was a bit pushy with it, she couldn’t help but feel flattered and think it’s a bit cute that Parker liked her. I mean, who didn’t feel even a little flattered when someone had a crush on them?
“It’s okay,” Sophie tells her. “I’m just… you know how I feel about that. It’s not going to change.”
“Yup,” Parker replied, but it seemed more like telling her what she wanted to hear. She continued writing in the notebook.
“I mean it,” Sophie says.
“Yeah yeah, sure,” Parker says, in that airy little voice she keeps using like she doesn’t believe her.
“Bisexuality doesn’t just pop up after forty years,” Sophie continues, still trying to make her point, or maybe even defend herself.
“Nope, not at all,” Parker says. That tone… Sophie wanted to make that tone illegal. It was driving her insane.
“You do get that, right?” Sophie asks, because it didn’t seem like she did. Hell, Sophie knows that she doesn’t.
“Oh yeah, totally,” Parker agrees, nodding her head a bit as if to emphasize it, but it still doesn’t sound like she does. Sophie just narrows her eyes and doesn’t say anything for a bit.
“And you’re okay with that?” Sophie presses finally, peering at her.
“Whatever you want to think is okay with me,” Parker tells her, still writing and half ignoring her, which makes Sophie’s eyes go wide. She knew Parker didn’t believe her!
“Parker!” she exclaims.
“What?” Parker asks, attempting to look innocent. She finally looks up from writing.
Sophie’s frustrated, and wants to yell but doesn’t exactly want to yell about that since she might hurt Parker’s feelings, so instead chooses to yell, “What the bloody hell do you keep writing?!”
Parker just blinks at her, before throwing her the notebook. Sophie catches it, looking down at a page filled with words. What could she have possibly wrote? She glanced up at Parker for a minute, catching her eye before she looked back down at the page. Starting at the top she started to read:
“It’s gonna really start to bug you that I’m writing so much. You’re really curious, and hate not knowing things so it’s gonna make you mad, isn’t it? I bet you’re gonna yell at me to give this to you, or steal it later just so you can see what I wrote. I bet you’re getting mad now that it’s all nothing, and that I pissed you off for no reason, right? But you’re kind of sexy when you’re mad, so that’s my fault. I like seeing it.”
Sophie blushes a bit at that, and her eyes flicker up to Parker, who is sitting there looking at her with her expression eerily unchanged for knowing what’s in the notebook.
“I bet you’re gonna look at me now after you read that, or you’re gonna blush or something. Am I right? See, now you’re gonna get creeped out, so sorry about that ahead of time. I just like watching how you act when stuff happens because that’s how I learn, and I like getting you all grr-like cause it’s hot and kind of funny. You’re mad at me now, aren’t you? Whoops.”
Sophie wasn’t mad though, she was more… intrigued. Though the fact that Parker knew her reactions so well was a bit creepy, but yet at the same time a proud moment for her because she was trying to teach her how to spot those things after all. She continued to read without looking back up at Parker because she was sure her cheeks were burning red because of how she would keep calling her ‘hot’ and ‘sexy’ in the notes.
“And you’re gonna get mad when you find out this isn’t even time for our session, and that I just pretended it was so I could be in a room with just you. Maybe you should have checked before believing me.
You’re really pretty, I like looking at you. And I like your voice, it’s like a song… only it’s not. It’s complicated; don’t ask me to explain it. I’ll get confused. You look really pretty in that dress by the way, though I don’t know how you can walk in those heels. Last time I tried I fell. Not in your heels, obviously. Mine. Well, ones I stole. Anyway. So I wanna do something but I don’t think you’ll let me, but you told me that asking is how you find out so I wanted to know if…”
And then there was nothing else: that was when Sophie interrupted her. She blinked down at the note for a moment, holding it in her hands, her cheeks still hot a bit before she finally got the courage to look Parker in the eyes. Parker just stared back at her, like it was nothing. Like all that was just… natural.
“What…?” Sophie started to say, then cleared her throat before it came out a bit strangled. “What did you want to ask me?” Sophie finally asks quietly. She was feeling… a bit odd. She couldn’t describe it.
“I was wondering if you’d let me touch you,” Parker says simply, which makes Sophie’s eyes go wide, then Parker’s once she realized how that sounded. “No! Not like that, I mean like your face and your hair and… stuff. Not private stuff. Normal stuff,” Parker revises, trying to explain. But Sophie still didn’t get it.
“Why?” Sophie asks. She got that she wasn’t asking for something sexual, but she didn’t know exactly why she wanted to do… that either.
“Because I’ve thought about it a lot,” Parker says, which makes Sophie cock an eyebrow at her. That’s an odd thing to think about.
“Uh,” Sophie starts, shifting a bit on the couch before shrugging lightly. “I guess it couldn’t hurt.” But then she looks at her seriously and points out, “But that doesn’t mean… anything, okay?”
“I know,” Parker says, and smiles in a way that makes Sophie instinctively have to smile back, and she gets up and comes over to Sophie on the couch, sitting next to her. She takes off the fake glasses, setting them down next to her before she moves her hand slowly.
Sophie has no idea what exactly her plan is and what it’s supposed to achieve, but she tenses nonetheless, being nervous for some reason. Maybe just because of how Parker felt about her.
But Parker just touched her cheek lightly, dragging her fingertips down over her jaw line slowly before brushing a piece of hair out of Sophie’s eyes. She’s smiling, looking at her in almost a childlike fascination, and that weird feeling came back that Sophie keeps randomly experiencing lately. But Parker doesn’t notice any change in Sophie, just kind of plays with her hair a bit, sliding it between her fingers and twirling it around. She’s looking at it, not at Sophie’s face, giving Sophie the freedom to watch Parker, almost as if in fascination herself.
She had never seen anyone do this before. She was acting as if Sophie was some precious, amazing thing that just needed to be touched, needed to be delicate with.
Then Parker’s fingertips are running across her cheek again, her eyes following her fingers. When she gets to Sophie’s lips, Sophie closes her eyes momentarily as Parker traces them like someone would if they were drawing a picture. When she opens her eyes, Parker’s hand has fallen down to Sophie’s as she starts tracing over each knuckle carefully. Sophie lifts up her hand a bit for her, just staring at Parker as she acted almost like a child, like she was seeing something wonderful for the first time. Parker’s hand follows Sophie’s as she raises it, and then Parker’s running all five of her fingertips down Sophie’s lightly, before lacing their fingers together. It was Sophie who closed her hand around Parker’s, just watching her. Parker smiled really big, looking at their hands.
“You’re like if a painting came to life,” Parker tells her, but still doesn’t look at her. She’s wiggling her hand softly out of Sophie’s grip, so Sophie lets go so Parker can trace her fingertips over the palm of her hand, and then down her arm. She started even tracing the tiny moles and freckles Sophie had on her arm. “Like every detail was worked on carefully, to make it perfect, you know?”
Sophie blushed deep at that. If she wasn’t mistaken, Parker just gave her the biggest compliment anyone has ever given her, and Parker didn’t even notice. She just said it because it’s what she thinks. Sophie doesn’t know what to say, but that’s alright because while Parker touches each mole softly before starting to play something that might be connect the dots, she goes on.
“Like this,” she tells her, and plays connect the dots on her skin. “That’s in the sky. I can’t remember where, but I’ve seen it.”
“There’s a constellation on my skin?” Sophie asks quietly, barely above a whisper. She doesn’t know why, but she can’t really talk at the moment.
Probably because she didn’t want to screw up the moment… for whatever it was. She didn’t want to analyze it; it was just nice.
“Yeah, with the stars, see?” Parker says, and traces it again, but Sophie can’t tell which one she’s trying to tell her it is. Sophie nods anyway, really not wanting to speak, or analyze what it is, or argue whether it’s even there. She just wants Parker to keep talking.
Parker doesn’t say anything for a bit though, she just runs her finger tips down her arm and then presses her hand against Sophie’s - palm to palm - and just looks at the size difference. It was slight, but it was there, Sophie’s was just a tiny bit bigger than hers.
Parker giggles a bit as she looks at their hands. “We look like a cow tail.”
“A what?” Sophie asks softly, looking at her confused, then back down at their hands. How did their hands look like something that should be hanging from a cows rear end?
“The candy,” Parker explains, looking at their hands together. “Kind of, anyway. See? Look,” she says, then uses her other hand to trace one of Sophie’s fingers. “This is the caramel-y part, or whatever it is. It tastes good, I don’t know. And then this,” she traces her own finger. “Is the white stuff they put in the middle of them. They taste good too. I don’t know what they are either.”
“We look like candy to you?” Sophie asks her with a hint of a smile tugging at her lips. She couldn’t help it, what Parker said was cute.
“Mhm,” Parker says and nods, then laces their fingers together. Sophie holds her hand and lets it fall to her lap, and then finally Parker looks at her face.
“You’re pretty,” she tells her.
“You’re pretty too,” Sophie says with a little smile. She then chews on her bottom lip and looks down before taking a breath. This was a little weird for her. Parker was making her feel something. She didn’t know what, but there was definitely a something… somewhere.
Sophie clears her throat, she doesn’t know what else to do. They’re still holding hands and she doesn’t know if she wants her to let go.
She’s getting a bit confused.
“Um…” Sophie starts, but Parker interrupts.
“I’m making you feel weird now,” she says, like she knows. Sophie just nods a bit so Parker lets go of her hand. “Sorry.”
“No, no… it’s not…” Sophie starts, looking down before tucking her hair back behind her ear. She looks back up at her. “That was really sweet… it was. That was… probably one of the sweetest moments I’ve ever had in my life but I’m just… I don’t think I…”
“Like me like that,” Parker finishes. “I know.”
“I’m sorry,” Sophie says, feeling awful for some reason.
Parker just shrugs lightly, “It’s okay. I know you can’t ever like me.”
Sophie looks at her, her eyebrows furrowed and asks, “What do you think that?” Because it sounded like it was something other than the whole girl/girl aspect of it.
“I’m crazy,” Parker tells her, then smiles a bit at her, but it’s not happy. More upset trying to seem okay.
“You’re not crazy,” Sophie tells her, putting a hand on her leg to comfort her, and Parker put her hand over Sophie’s. “You’re not, okay? Don’t let anyone tell you that.”
“You don’t know me,” Parker tells her bluntly, but softly. Sophie holds her hand again, just needing to comfort her a bit.
“No, maybe not. But I know what I’ve seen,” Sophie tells her seriously. “And you don’t act crazy.”
“Whatever,” Parker mumbles, and looks down at her sneakers.
“Hey,” Sophie says quietly before putting a finger under her chin, tipping it up a bit so she could look at her. “I mean it.”
They were close to each other, really close in fact, and Sophie saw just for a moment Parker’s eyes look at her lips. But then she was looking her in the eyes again, and Sophie convinced herself she was imagining it, yet her heart started to pound a bit in her chest.
“Okay…” Parker says softly, and then licks her bottom lip a bit self consciously, and Sophie caught herself staring at them.
This isn’t good.
They’re both quiet for a moment, maybe a little longer for a moment. Sophie’s hand has only moved just slightly, resting it on Parker’s cheek instead of her chin. She knows she should put it down, but it would just seem so awkward if she did. Like she was trying to get away from something that couldn’t be there, and that there was nothing wrong with what she was doing… so she just left it there.
“Do you really think I look like a painting?” Sophie whispers, her thumb stroking Parker’s cheek like it has a mind of it’s own.
Parker smiles lightly then nods a bit, just once, before saying softly, “Yeah… I do.” A pause, and Parker got a little closer to her, or maybe it was Sophie that got a little closer to her. She’s not sure. “Like one in a museum, the big expensive ones that are heavily guarded,” Parker finishes.
That makes Sophie smile big and she looks down, almost shy. But when she brings her head back up to look at her, somehow their lips almost touched. Sophie wants to jump back, but stays where she is only because she didn’t want to make Parker feel like she was freaked out by her. She wasn’t. She needed to prove that… or something.
Where the hell was this logic even coming from?
Parker’s breathing had picked up, and Sophie noticed it right off the bat only due to finally noticing hers had to. She could feel Parker’s on her lips, and she licked them because she was sure they were starting to get dry from being so insanely nervous about… something.
Parker moves in a bit, but then stops herself right before brushing her lips against the grifter’s, and she closes her eyes, like she was trying to control herself. But it wasn’t that that surprised her, it was that right after she did that, Sophie did brush her lips against Parker’s. Just lightly, but it happened.
Sophie didn’t even know she had done it until after it had already been done.
But that made Parker do it to her, and Sophie closed her eyes. Her walls were breaking, whatever walls she bad put up there, and she mutters under her breath, “Shit.” Just softly, she didn’t even know if Parker could hear her. It was more to herself, and more in defeat, right before she pressed her lips fully against Parker’s.
She has no idea why she just did that. She blames… the moment. Right. Just a really good… moment.
Parker parts her lips automatically, letting Sophie do the same before sliding her tongue into the brunette’s mouth. Sophie heard herself moan softly at the contact, and the grip Parker had on her hand tightened. They kissed softly, tentatively, for almost a whole minute. Like testing something… like both of them were scared.
And then it was over, and Parker looks scared because she thinks Sophie’s going to yell at her, and Sophie looks scared because she just kissed a woman and enjoyed it.
They both looked at each other, waiting for the other one to speak… but neither of them did.
Probably a good five whole minutes had passed until Sophie cleared her throat, looked down, letting go of Parker’s hand and said, “Okay then… so…”
She didn’t know what she was going to say, she just needed to stop the silence.
“Yeah…” Parker says, also not knowing what to say. She looks down at her own shoes again.
“That happened?” Sophie asks, not looking at her, but needing to confirm it.
“I think so,” Parker says, like she’s confused for a minute. But then she nods her head after looking like she had to replay it, and says, “Yeah.”
“Right,” Sophie said and bit her bottom lip. This could potentially be… bad. Or maybe good, but she was sure it was more bad than good, though didn’t know why.
“Yeah,” Parker says again, then blinks a bit before getting up. Sophie looked up at her finally. “I’m gonna…” Parker says, and points to the door. Leaving.
“Okay,” Sophie says, not knowing what else to say. She didn’t know how to make the weirdness stop, and she couldn’t think straight while Parker was in the room.
“Okay,” Parker says, and turns around to leave. But when she gets to the door she doesn’t turn back, just requests softly, “Please don’t hate me.”
“Parker…” Sophie says, and gets up. She doesn’t move towards her though, just tells her honestly. “I don’t think I could ever hate you…”
Parker looks back at her before her hand found the doorknob, and then she was out the door, gone, closing the door behind her. Sophie sat back down on the couch heavily, shaking her head a bit to see if this was really reality.
How did that just happen?
POST TOO BIG
PART TWO IS HERE.