Man I Used to Be #19
Title: Man I Used to Be
Rating: NC-17 (this chapter) (Yep. Finally)
Spoilers: Up through 2x07
Pairing: Alec Hardison/ Eliot Spencer
Genre: Drama
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, don't take this too seriously.
Summary: The present's a mess, and the past isn't helping.
A/N: Whoohoo! This thing's finally coming to an end. Chapter 20 will be the epilogue. :)
Banner by the wonderful and amazing and brilliant cybel
Previous Chapters: Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18
The sound of the zipper had roused Alec far too early, but it was the finality of the shutting door that kept him awake.
It might have been what had his stomach in a knot, too, but it could have been waking too soon that caused the unpleasant sensation. He scowled at the alarm clock. That had to be it, he couldn't have been asleep for more than half an hour.
And he'd still woken up too late. Eliot had already left. And after all this, Alec didn't know if he was supposed to be heartbroken- because it was feeling like it was going that way- or not.
If this were a movie, he'd be tearing at the bed sheets by now, not lying there, trying to decide how to feel. And maybe it was a sign, some sort of omen, whatever, one of those things that didn't happen in real life.
It wasn't just that this was probably the end of the team.
It wasn't just that he was leaving, or that they'd never got the chance to figure out what they could be. Not when part of it- most of it- the part that was making him curl up on himself, was the suspicion of what would be.
Eliot had left, but Alec didn't know if it was the Eliot who grumbled constantly about missing games, but wouldn't buy a damned television. The Eliot who cooked for the crew, when the mood hit, and who kept a garden in the back yard. Who kissed bravely and who would have met him, that night, when everything went to hell.
Maybe the Eliot who had left was the one who followed orders and knew when not to, who kept a clear eye out, alert on jobs. Or maybe it was the Eliot who killed when he had to, and sometimes when he didn't. Who didn't stop to see the damage he caused, trailing bodies and blood, deserved or not, in his wake.
If Alec hadn't been so useless, if he would've just manned up and said something. If he'd been aware, with it, not this purposeless mess, he wouldn't be left contemplating the odds, wondering who Eliot would become next.
But it wasn't so simple, splitting him out like that, boiling him down into his constituent parts. It wasn't that easy. Take any of those out of the equation, and the sum winds up different. It wasn't much easier, though, taking him as a whole.
A few months ago, he wouldn't even have to puzzle it out, Alec would have known what to think. But this fucked headspace he was in now was evidence enough that he'd lost whatever distance he'd had. Muddied the waters. He didn't even know if he was overreacting, anymore.
He didn't know if he should even be lying here, broken up and missing him. He just knew that he was.
---
Light swung into the room, painting the walls from the hallway as the door opened, slowly.
The footsteps edging inside were familiar, if hesitant, but Alec didn't turn to face them. It didn't matter much, anyway. Closing the door behind him, Eliot seemed to know that he was awake, but spoke quietly, like he was willing to let him pretend, if he wanted to. "Hey."
Alec waited for the light to turn on, preparing for the embarrassment. When it didn't, he allowed himself to roll over, raised his head search him out in the dark. "Where'd you go?"
"Needed some air," Eliot explained, the act of lying apparently enough to goad him into movement. He toed out of his shoes and took his cap off, but then the momentum was lost again, and he was left standing, barefoot, in the middle of the room, lost.
Pretending that his eyes hadn't adjusted, that he hadn't seen his apprehension, the terrifying combination of hope and misery, Alec let his head fall back against the pillow and made a decision that should've come more easily. "You need to get some sleep, man. Seriously."
Eliot emptied his pockets onto the nightstand before climbing, barely, into the bed, no further from the edge than he'd been before, and mumbling something Alec couldn’t hear.
"Hm?"
"Said, you doin' okay?"
No, Alec wanted to answer, because it had been emphatically true a moment ago, and it probably should have been now, too. "Yeah. Just want to go home."
"Good. Yeah." And that was the end of it, or so Alec thought, but Eliot continued, his words fast and hushed. "I'm real sorry? About everything?"
It was the most fucked kind of thing to say, Alec thought. He sounded like a funeral guest, I'm sorry for your loss, but your brother's in a better place now. Someone cautiously offering a bright side, knowing it was still too early to be accepted, or maybe casting out the words, experimentally, to see if they'd work.
Yeah, I know a man died, but he deserved it?
Sorry you got caught up in the middle, but it won't happen again?
Sorry you had to go through all of this, but I hid the body?
He'd stood in that hallway, listened to shower curtains being dragged across the floor, duct tape being pulled off the roll. That had been seriously fucked. It was something murderers did, hiding the bodies, hiding the evidence.
It was a bit more than just covering their tracks. It was a bit more than Alec could do.
"What are you doing?" Eliot asked, having to squint down at the computer screen, because Parker, asleep on the couch, still wore his glasses.
"Monitoring and cleanup," Alec read on, making sure the auction house wasn't reporting anything out of the ordinary.
"What's that mean?"
"The usual."
Eliot tried again, more emphatically. "What's that mean?"
"Making sure the jobs we cleared stay clear," Alec explained, wondering why he was interested, and then began to show him how.
He didn't know why he was remembering that particular part of that particular night, since what had happened later, at the bar, usually figured more heavily in his thoughts, but sometimes his brain drew connections before he realized them.
What Eliot had done was the same thing that Alec did, routinely. Removed all traces of themselves from the scene. Fingerprints, this time, instead of banking transactions, plastic wrap and garbage bags instead of falsified police records.
And he got it. The statements weren't questions because Eliot was asking himself if he meant them. He was asking Alec if he'd hear them.
And useless as Alec was, he still hadn't managed a response.
---
Even with only the hint of streetlights creeping in around the edges of the curtain, he could see that Hardison was thinking about it, hard.
He wasn't taking it lightly. Wasn't blowing him off. He was trying to puzzle out the solution, same way he did, sometimes, when it was important.
At least it matters enough to consider, Eliot decided, repeating it in his head, because even if this went all the way straight down to hell, it might be the closest thing he had to a handhold. Hardison wasn't damning him outright.
He wondered, briefly, what Hardison would say if he realized how much was hinging on the next words that came out of his mouth. It was why he hadn't mentioned anything, not Nate's last words to him, or what Sophie had told him about forgiveness, five minutes before he got what she'd meant.
And he was fooling himself if he couldn't admit why it was, exactly, that Hardison's opinion mattered most, above the others. Maybe he'd find out, later, sometime, if Alec saw it too. But he wasn't going to set himself up to hope for that, not now.
Hardison was blinking, shaking his head a little like he'd just remembered something, but Eliot managed to keep himself breathing.
"I'm freaked, okay. I'll give you that." It wasn't downright dismissal, but Eliot's throat constricted nonetheless. "Tonight was fucked. Seriously. Bad scene, and I don't have it all figured out yet. Don't think anyone does. It's gonna take some time." Hardison scowled at the ceiling. "Were you lookin' to bail, just then?"
He could have said something about going out for ice, but Alec had already seen through getting some air.
But I came back, he wanted to explain, but instead, he just nodded.
"Do that again, and we're gonna have problems." Alec turned to look at him, hard, and must have seen something he didn't like, because he hurried to finish. "Aside from that, I ain't mad at you. For anything, not tonight, and not for bad shit going down a decade before I even knew you."
---
Alec hadn't been able to do much, lately, he'd been all too aware of it, but he'd somehow managed to get that carefully blank expression off Eliot's scuffed face. Even now, as ripped open and raw as he seemed, the steel was easing, not breaking, and it was almost too much to deal with.
It was easier to lie back and reach out than it was to keep looking at him, not if he didn't want to start crying, or worse. He'd just spent four days having to ask men with guns if he'd be allowed to go to the bathroom. There was only so much humiliation a man could take.
Sixteen seconds went by, slowly, before Eliot edged into position, maneuvering his injured arm carefully across Alec's chest, and it was terrifying to think that he'd be able to feel exactly how fast his heart was going. Eliot's head was pressed against his arm, low enough that Alec could feel his breath, but not see his eyes. It also meant the reverse was true.
It was a bit of a relief. He was too tired to keep fucking worrying about it.
Eventually, they settled, one arm wrapped loosely against Eliot's back, his other hand on his own stomach, a few inches below Eliot's.
Alec basked in the weight that pushing him lightly down into the mattress, down into sleep. He was close enough to coma that when Eliot began moving cautiously across his chest, pulling at his hand, he thought he was dreaming it.
He felt lips brushing his knuckles, and he had to bite his lip, because when they got past this? Out of this room and out of this hotel and away from this entire fuckstorm of a season?
He wasn't going to let Eliot live it down.
---
"Hey man, c'mon."
Alec's first thought, opening his eyes to see the curtains thrown back and daylight streaming in, was you can't be serious. His second was that Eliot looked like hell. The shadows under his eyes seemed to spread out to the rest of his face, and he really needed a shave. He wasn't wearing quite so many layers, for once, but the sling was back, and needed to be washed, or maybe burned.
Keep talkin', 'cause you're all GQ right now yourself.
"Sophie called. Something's up."
Alec's third or fourth thought was oh. shit.
Retrieving his earpiece from the nightstand, Alec threw the blankets aside and started for the bathroom, where his suspicions regarding his own haggard appearance were proven unpleasantly true. With a longing glance at the shower, and the thick cream towels on the rack, he grabbed a plastic-wrapped toothbrush from the counter, sending up thanks to whatever gods oversaw the amenities in expensive hotels.
"What is it?" he asked, his mouth full of foam. Someone could be hurt. They could have been seen. Hastings. The body could have been discovered. They might have left prints.
There was no response on comms. "Dunno. Get your shoes on," Eliot barked from his post by the window, scanning the streets below and the windows across the street.
Well, hell, Alec thought, tightening his laces a moment later. Least we ain't got the time for things to get awkward.
---
Behind him, Hardison was carrying the duffel bag, and for once, seemed to know that now was not the time for chatter or complaints. Ahead, a guy in a suit was fumbling with the newspaper and his briefcase as he pressed the elevator's call button.
Eliot slowed his pace, raised a hand to signal Hardison to do likewise. The man hadn't looked in their direction, and really, it was only Sophie's phone call that had him suspicious, but they took the stairs down, instead.
Sophie had been watching the elevator doors, and spun, startled, when she heard them approach. "There you are!"
"What's going on?"
"I don't know," she nodded back over her shoulder to where Nate was having a hushed and intense looking conversation with a man that might have been the hotel manager. "He's figuring it out right now, told me to wait for you."
"Where are the others?" Hardison asked, just as Parker came in through the glass doors, coffee in hand, her eyes already puzzled at the scene they all made.
"Tara went to the airport an hour ago, and I'm presuming Parker and Apollo said their goodbyes privately?" Sophie asked Parker, who slowed to a stop next to her, brows quirked, already aware that something was going down.
"What's going on? Why aren't we on comms?" she asked.
"Laptop's in the bag," Hardison indicated the satchel Nate had slung over his shoulder, but it didn't matter, though, because Nate was gesturing carefully, nodding once, and heading back in their direction with a warning expression on his face.
Stay cool, he was saying, so they waited for him to come to a standstill in front of them.
"I believe we've got the third bomb. I overheard maintenance reporting that they found a strange device in the basement. Right next to the elevator shaft."
"Seriously?"
"From what they can tell, it's not live, but they're checking it out. Lucky for them, there are five ATF agents who just happened to be in town.
"You brought the IDs?" This, of course, was the detail that threw Hardison.
"Didn't know what to expect, did I?" Nate smirked. "Doesn't matter, right now, they're worried about a possible panic. What we need to do is dismantle and remove it, and do a sweep to make sure there aren't any more."
"How are we going to know that?"
"I'm on it," Hardison asked, reaching for the laptop bag. "I'm gonna need a look at the one they found before it's dismantled."
Earpieces were inserted as Nate doled out the assignments. "Okay, Hardison, you're with Parker. Sophie, the manager's close to having a nervous breakdown, I need her kept calm, and we'll need to share information. Eliot, you're with me," he said, heading towards the front door.
"I should-" he scowled, momentarily watching Hardison and Parker's progress towards the stairs, before turning a hard stare in Nate's direction, finding him tense, but confident, like he knew he had something to prove.
And maybe he had the means to do it, too. "They got this. You and I, we've got something else." He started for the main entrance, beckoning Eliot to follow.
Eliot waited until they were standing on the sidewalk before cornering him, guessing what the something else was. "How did they know where to plant it?"
Nate's half grin was amused, almost, as he stepped around the corner into the alley, out of the way of pedestrians. "How would you do it? Plant them in several locations, play the odds?"
"Sloppy. And overkill. Waste of resources."
"We got it," Hardison came suddenly on the comms. "It's dead, no worries. Now don't panic, I have to turn it on again to pull the radio frequency, isolate the pingbacks, if I can determine the pattern…"
"Hardison," Eliot warned, but Nate was talking over him. "Great. Don't blow anything up."
"Parker's already stripped the C4."
"C4? That's all they used?"
"It's all they needed. They placed it well." Parker replied. "Too well. I'm not seeing any other devices, but I don't think they would have needed them. I'll keep looking."
"All right, you do that." Nate was stepping out of the alley, surveying the sidewalk and hotel entrance, one of the valets stepping toward the car that was pulling up. "Sophie, pass it along?" His attention shifting back to Eliot, he continued. "So Hastings. His crew. They had to know where we were staying."
"Hate to say it, but you're right," Hardison said. "Though maybe that's good. I don't know. I'm only looking at eighteen percent completion right here, but the timing of the pingbacks? They're coming in threes. All the bombs are accounted for. But Nate, man. There ain't no way I can get any more information out of this thing."
"That's fine. I have an idea. Eliot, follow my lead, but disagree with everything I'm about to say."
"What?" But Nate was already stepping out around the corner, leaving him no choice but to follow.
"It's the right thing to do, Eliot," he was saying, more loudly now. "Pay it forward, you know that."
"But-" not having enough of a lead to go on, he shook his head, confusion working just as well as disagreement. "You don't even-"
"What," Nate spun on him, deliberately not looking at the valets standing by the door. "If it wasn't for them, we'd be up shit creek, and you know it. It's not like we can't afford to be generous, here."
"What is this, another one of the twelve steps?"
"Maybe," he shrugged, cutting him a bemused look. "Doesn't mean I'm wrong." Eliot rolled his eyes, and that, apparently, was the reaction Nate had been waiting for. Resuming his stride, he approached the jacket-clad valets, who had been watching the exchange with interest, but they were standing a little straighter, now.
"Excuse me. I was wondering if you could help me out, and pardon me if this seems strange, but. Do either of you recognize me?"
"Uh," they shared an uneasy look. "No," said the first. "Sorry, sir."
The other one, however, hesitated, and when their attention lit on him, he scratched at his collar. "Yes, sir. I was told to watch for you."
A sidelong glance told Eliot that Nate was grinning affably, putting them at their ease. "See, Eliot? I knew it!"
"All right, fine," Eliot put his hands in his pockets and looked out over the street, feigning bemused disinterest.
"You see," Nate was saying, "I lost something that was very valuable of mine a few days ago, only to find that last night, when I came back, it had been returned, waiting at the front desk. I'm looking for the parties, ah, responsible, I guess. There was no note attached, see, so I don't know how to contact my, ah, Samaritans, to show my appreciation."
Puzzlement was all he received in response, at first, and Eliot was starting to think that this was a dead end, but then the valet went into his pocket. "Yeah. There was a guy…" He pulled out a piece of paper. "Showed up yesterday morning. Said he'd found something that wasn't his and wanted to return it. Gave me this."
Taking the crumpled up piece of paper, Nate held it so Eliot could read four descriptions. His, Parker's, Sophie's, and Nate's. Not down to the last detail or anything, but close enough for anyone paying attention. He frowned, though, and so did Nate.
"Did you happen to get a name?"
"No sir. Just the phone number, so we could call if we saw you. Big guy. Long hair, looked like that bounty hunter guy on TV." Over the comms, Hardison laughed.
"Weird. Eliot, you recognize him?"
"Yeah, there was one guy. Think I remember him," he considered. "So he must've gone to all the hotels, asked around."
"That's what he said," the valet confirmed. "I called the number, he gave me twenty bucks, as, like, thanks."
"Excellent, excellent," Nate reached into his pocket with one hand. "You mind if I keep this?" he waved the paper, and the valet shrugged. "If it wasn't for what you did, I would be a dead man, right now, so thank you."
Eliot was surprised when Nate opened his wallet to hand over a few large bills, but held his tongue. That Nate answered him, regardless, was hardly a surprise.
"Small price to pay, don't you think?"
Rolling his eyes, Eliot opened the door.
---
Eliot, Nate and Sophie were waiting in the lobby when they arrived, disassembled remnants of the bomb sequestered in Parker's overnight bag.
"What was that all about?" Alec asked, and received a crumpled piece of paper in return. Ten digits. A phone number. "Dog?"
"What?"
"Nothing. The guy." Confused, but not knowing where to go with it, he shook off their blank stares, and the silence was deafening. "We done here?"
He wished he hadn't asked, waiting for next bombardment, the next crash of bad news. From the looks of it, he wasn't the only one.
Nodding once, with certain finality, Nate tossed the keys in his hand and started for the door.
They were done.
"C'mon," Nate grumbled, confused as to why no one was following. "Let's go home."
Maybe they weren't as done as he'd thought.
Outside, the valets retrieved Sophie's truck in record time, rushing around doors to load the luggage in the back, a two-person swarm in yellow nylon.
Inside, though, everything was still, besides Sophie's hands steering them through traffic. And maybe if the radio had been on, or there was something more interesting going on outside, Alec wouldn't have been aware of exactly how heavy the silence was becoming.
But then Parker stirred, looked at her watch. "Twenty minutes. All that, and we're only twenty minutes late."
Up front, Nate was leaning back against the seat, looking smug, and Sophie was threatening to break into a grin.
Next to him, on the seat, Eliot shifted slightly, a little bit closer, so Alec did, too, before asking, "Nate, man. How'd you know Dog told him he had something of yours?"
Sophie glanced back at in the rearview. "Dog?"
"Like on TV," Alec shrugged. Until he got home, got his hands on a computer, the nickname would have to suffice.
"Oh, that,' Nate scratched at his hair. "Easy. You want to know someone's comings and goings, you know, you look for witnesses. If it wasn't the valet, it would've been someone working the desk inside, then it was just, ah…"
"Grifting 101," Sophie cut in. "You don't let them know why you want to know what you want to know."
"Right. Dog, or whatever his name is, far as I can tell, isn't stupid. A Samaritan is less suspicious than a hit man. He would have had to play it soft, and I just cribbed off his game."
"Cool," Parker said happily to Nate, leaning over Sophie's seat. "See? Don't worry, you still know how to run a con." Alec shot her a frustrated look. Too early to go there. Nate was glaring out the window again, and Sophie had tensed in the silence. He didn't want to be so obvious as to try reading Eliot's face.
Alec let another quarter mile slip past before speaking. "Way I see it, man, is that even without a plan, hell, even with all your cross purposes, or whatever- it's cool. Even with all that nastiness that went down, you still managed to keep to what was important."
"And what's that?" Eliot was staring at him, he could feel it, and Nate was likewise hanging on his next words.
"Getting my ass the hell out of there."
---
Maybe it was because usually, out of town jobs routed them through the airport, where they'd disperse upon arrival. Maybe it was because usually, by the time Eliot was halfway home, he knew what came next. Dinner, shower, a nap, if he needed it, or a beer out in the garden.
It's probably gone all to hell by now, Eliot was thinking, irritably, as if dead plants that were really his biggest concern. Because this time was different, and it wasn't just the long hours sitting quiet in the back seat.
Right now, he had no idea what came next. What would happen when they got back. He hadn't even figured out what he'd say to Hardison when they parted ways.
"…Nah, man," Hardison was speaking over the talk show on the radio. "If they're really going out and pulling half the crap this dude's saying, if I dig around in Seattle, someone's likely to come up with a case."
"Everyone's lawyered up already," Nate pointed out. "It's going to be hard to find clients, what with all the confidentiality agreements flying around, but…" He was considering it, but Eliot didn't ask what he'd missed, and Hardison was already talking a mile a minute, anyway. Whatever the game was, between the two of them, they'd have it figured out before they passed the next exit.
The effect of the realization, the moment of relative calm, was surprising.
Outside Worcester, a third or fourth wave of insane giddiness swept over him, but he kept his eyes out the window, and didn't let on. Turned his head into the glass a little more in case anyone saw him grinning like a moron.
When they got out for gas and coffee in Hartford, he realized exactly how much the warmth from Hardison's body had been easing the ache radiating down into his arm, and wished, idly, that they were making the drive on their own. He toyed with the idea of actually telling Hardison as much, but he was already inside, regarding the coolers, and it was too bright, with too many people inside, for saying anything that sounded so stupid.
Over by the coolers, Hardison had his arms raised tightly back over his head, lifting the hem of his shirt just enough to reveal a thin strip of skin at his lower back. More than anything, even more than the fleeting thought to touch, Eliot was jealous of the movement. He wouldn't be able to stretch painlessly for another week or two, at least. He had a sinking suspicion, though, that Sophie had managed to catch him staring, maybe even blushing. Furiously. Which only served to make it worse, so he regarded the disturbingly large selection of artificially flavored creamers he had no intention of using, and didn't move away until she was already at the register.
Another lull in the conversation, as they were passing Bridgeport, he was overcome with the need to jump out of the vehicle while it was still moving. Because Hardison was right there, next to him, close enough to touch, and things that made sense at three in the morning looked different in the afternoon, and there was no way this entire thing with Hardison was going to end well, for either of them, at all, only…
It hasn't, yet.
Okay, so he'd nearly bailed, last night, but he'd come back. Crashed out with Hardison and woken up in one piece. And maybe it meant that they had a thing, now. Or were a thing, now. And at some point, if they ever made it out of this overpopulated car, he'd run out of excuses, be able to ask.
---
Alec's body was stiff, and he'd been failing, consistently, for the past hour or so. It wasn't that he didn't know how to talk to people, but he didn't need an audience. And as he'd been able to find, there was no way to ask Eliot what was going to happen next, were they okay, what were the chances that they'd ever figure this out, not without the others hearing everything.
Every once in a while, he would catch Eliot almost looking at him, irritated, willing him to figure it out, to decode the damned thing already, but every time, he'd come up blank.
Can I call you? would have been the simplest, he knew it, but he'd been living up to all the lowest of his expectations for days, now.
And maybe he was misreading Eliot's frustration, anyway. Maybe he didn't want him to say anything, maybe he just wanted out of the damn car. Maybe his shoulder was bothering him, and maybe he had regrets. Maybe it wasn't impatience, maybe it was just dread.
So Alec held his tongue and watched Boston grow closer.
---
Sophie dropped Parker off first. "Hang on a sec," She said before getting out, leaning over the back seat to rummage through her overnight bag. Kneeling on the seat, she handed Alec the two drives he'd stripped from the warehouse computer, which had been, last he checked, locked in a drawer in his desk.
He accepted them with a chagrined nod, but she didn't seem to be expecting him to say thanks.
The door closed, and Sophie was pulling away from the curb, and at this point, there was no reason to be sitting so close to Eliot, so close to his closed-off features, so he slid over to Parker's vacated spot. He hefted the drives once, though, and held them out.
"What're-" Eliot started to ask. Realizing exactly what they were, disgust swept across his eyes as the corners of his mouth tensed, a moment, before he took them, one at a time, settling them next to him on the seat. He exhaled sharply; it could have been a laugh. "You care if I take a hammer to these?"
"Only way I ever want to see them again is if they're on fire." Alec wiped his hands on his leg. "But that should work too."
Eliot grinned then, considering it for a few moments, before rocking his head back and deciding, "Chainsaw."
"Acid."
"C4." Nate turned his head at this, looking a little concerned, but said nothing.
"You know where we can find a rail gun?"
Eliot shook his head.
"Left on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, then." Alec was out of options that weren't based entirely in science fiction, and Eliot wasn't coming up with any more, and anyway, they were already in front of his building, and he hadn't managed to man up enough to say anything important.
---
Finally showered and shaved and dressed in his own damn clothes, Alec made his way to the kitchen. After staring at the cupboards for what might have been half an hour, wishing he had the energy to make it down to the corner store, he nuked a bag of popcorn and grabbed a soda out of the fridge, kicking the door shut.
Another hour or so, and he'd run out of internet to browse. He knew that he needed to do something to get his head running again, but the paints were all the way in the other room, and his brain was refusing to gear up. Even the TiVo options were almost too much to deal with, so he selected one at random and lay down on the couch. If he couldn't get his brain functioning, he'd kill it instead.
---
His phone rang a little after nine. Nate was probably calling to inform him about a new client, or something, and that Alec would have to be there in ten hours ready to go off again, another airport, another hotel. Even before that, he'd have to spend the night researching, pulling apart financials, tracking airline miles, the rest of it.
He let the call go to voicemail. The team could wait another day or so to find out exactly how useless he was. Eliot probably suspected already.
Stop it. You just need some sleep. Real sleep. In your own damned bed. Which is right up the stairs, no problem.
Dragging himself up off the couch, he switched off the television and headed back to his room. Plugging his nearly drained phone into the charger, he considered setting the alarm, before deciding not to. He shut the ringer off as well. The only reason he knew Eliot was calling was because two minutes after he shut off the lights, he hadn't yet shut his eyes.
He reached for it, and answered, annoyed at how strongly the anticipation felt.
Maybe things weren't as bad as they seemed. Sure, he hadn't managed to string four words together, but at least Eliot was trying. "Hey," he said, but even to his own ears, his voice fell flat.
In answer, Eliot's voice was gruff, tense and accusing. "Nate said he called a while ago, and you didn't pick up."
"Yeah?" Alec fell back against the pillow and decided to lie. "I was sleeping. What's up?"
---
Eliot stopped his pacing. You didn't answer the damn phone, he thought, irritably. "Nate found a new client. Nothing going on until next week, but he wanted to give you fair warning." He called here looking for you when you didn't answer, and I've been freaking out for the past five minutes, because I thought you were gone, or dead, or just avoiding us. Me.
He set his keys down again, and eased back out of his coat, carefully. "So yeah, uh. That was it. How're you doing? Tired?"
"Beat all to hell, and out of milk." Hardison's voice was low, a little more gravelly than usual. "How's the arm?"
"Waiting for the painkillers to kick in," which was true, but not why he'd called, and it would've been nice, really nice, if Hardison would show some signs of life, maybe let him know that Eliot wasn't boring the hell out of him, but screw it. He's not the one that has shit to make up for. "So listen, I was thinking. Your car probably got towed by now. You need a ride to the pick it up tomorrow?"
"Shit." Hardison coughed, and there was rustling on the line. Sounding much more alert, however, he continued. "You know, I hadn't even thought about that. Lame, right?"
"You've had a lot on your plate. Only reason I thought of it was something Nate said." When he asked if I'd checked up on you yet, and told me I was a jackass without saying anything at all. "So yeah. Give me a call when you want me to come get you. And then maybe we can do something afterward, if you're feeling up to it." Unsure of what he was trying to gain, tossing it in there like maybe it wouldn't be noticed, he only felt more foolish as the answering silence lengthened.
"I don't know man," Hardison eventually replied, but the humor was back in his voice. "First date was awesome, but how're you going to top my getting kidnapped?"
"What, the impound lot on a Saturday isn't hellish enough? Want me to make reservations for root canals somewhere?"
"Awesome," Hardison agreed, laughing, and then there was another pause. "I'll, uh. Call you in the afternoon."
"Cool, looking forward to it," Eliot said, wondering if it had come out as nerdy as he suspected it had, and glad that nobody but his reflection knew exactly how red in the face he was getting.
Hardison, though, didn't sound like he was doing much better. "Me too. So. Yeah. I'm gonna. Head to sleep, here. So, uh. Good night, man."
"You too, g'night," Eliot said, and hung up the phone before he could say anything more ridiculous.
---
The sun was out, but it had snowed something awful over the night, and the line was stretching out of the impound building and across the parking lot.
Even as freezing as it was, standing there, Eliot had ignored his first three offers to meet back up at his house. At the fourth, he merely smirked, saying "I'm not letting you out of my sight, man," and squinted against the harsh glare of the snow, like it was nothing. And maybe he hadn't heard himself saying it, maybe Alec was just reading too much into it, but when another blast of cold blasted through them, it wasn't any great hardship to step just a little bit closer, shield him from the wind just a little bit.
Eventually, though, they made it up to the counter, Alec got his directions, and Eliot went back out to his own truck. Ten long minutes later, turning out of the lot, he was surprised to find the truck waiting, following him into traffic, and then all the way out to Hough's Neck. He only had to wait a minute, or so, for Eliot to pull into the driveway.
"Sorry, man, got held up at the lights."
"I dig," Alec followed him into the house, feeling the anticipation coiled low in his gut, now that he was no longer distracted by driving. It was early, yet, not even night, and the hours stretched in front of him, blank and waiting. Chili would be involved at some point, he could smell it already.
Eliot closed the door behind them, slowly, and turned around with the same sort of ease that he wore in a fight, all easy confidence, except for the self-deprecating grin for what it really was. Alec held his ground, didn't let himself look away, though it would have been easier.
"What?" Eliot asked, smirking 'cause he knew he'd been caught out.
"Nothing," Alec shrugged, trying not to smile too wide. "You." Eliot snorted, but it was becoming quickly apparent that if they were ever going to move this out of the entryway, Alec would have to go first. So he took one step backwards, and then another, before turning and heading into the kitchen.
---
There was another half hour left to go on the chili, and at that point, at least, they'd be occupied.
He still hadn't figured out how, exactly, one talked with Alec Hardison, let alone flirted with him. It usually wasn't this hard to get some sort of conversation going, but then again, usually he couldn't get a word in edgewise. Hardison didn't really seem down, for the most part, unhappy or anything, but he'd been quiet ever since they'd found him.
Maybe he should have waited, put this off. Given the guy a day or two to get his head together, before forcing all this shit on him.
But you didn't, so stop being an idiot and get the man a drink.
"Got a while, before the food's done. You want a beer? Otherwise we got whiskey, soda…"
"Beer's cool, thanks," Hardison said, watching him set the oven to preheating, clearly at loose ends. "You need any help with that?"
"Nah, man, chili's doin' it's own thing now, and this will only take a minute. You wanna go put some music on?" Cracking two beers, he handed one over.
Hardison looked amused, finally, a lot less uncomfortable. "Any requests?"
"You find anything, throw it on, otherwise the radio's fine." He set himself to work, pulling out the ingredients for the cornbread and trying to come up with something brilliant to say.
---
Eliot's collection was mostly old tired country stuff, some rock and roll, some blues. Nothing that came out in the past twenty years, unless he had CD's hidden away somewhere. Alec didn't feel like rummaging around, though, and he'd probably been gone too long already, so he turned the radio on and found the oldies station he sometimes threw on when he was feeling nostalgic. It would do, at least, and maybe it would set Eliot at ease.
He slipped back into the kitchen to find Eliot struggling to keep a bowl in place with the arm that should have been back in its sling, so he hurried forward to grab the whisk.
"I got it," Eliot grumbled, sheepish, but annoyed, too, and Alec realized a moment too late that he wasn't so keen on being seen like he was, that he was totally self-conscious, so he did the only logical thing, and ignored it completely.
"How long should I keep stirring for?"
"Until the bigger lumps are out," Eliot watched the bowl, for a moment, before nodding and heading back to the table, moving gingerly. "That's good. Just dump it all in the pan, it's ready to go."
Cornbread set to baking, he snagged the sling off the counter and tossed it over to Eliot. "Put that back on, you're making me nervous." Something sarcastic slid across Eliot's eyes, but he did as he was told, and Alec watched, waiting
So intent was he on getting the sling into place, he seemed surprised to find Alec standing in his space. He kissed back, though, after just the slightest of delays and when Alec pulled back to reach for his beer, he was laughing, a bit.
"What's so funny?"
"This," Eliot shrugged. "Everything. You."
"Me?"
Eliot shrugged, sipping at his beer, and cocked his head. "Okay, fine. Me," he admitted. "Don't know what I'm doing, here. Thinking too much."
There were a lot of things Alec could have said to blow right past that, and he opened his mouth to do so, but he stopped. Thought it through, for once. There was a lot of shit that was left hanging, after the past few days, and it wasn't likely to go away on it's own.
And man, you've been dense. Kidnappings, bombs, bodies. Never mind the fact that he's still got to be a little hung up on the entire guy factor. Ease up.
"Stop it," Eliot said, out of nowhere.
"What?"
"Now you're thinking too damned much. Trying to solve it. Won't work."
"You have any better ideas?"
Eliot grinned, and there was no way for him to know it, but the flush spreading up towards his ears was kind of adorable. "The kissin' was a good start."
The man had a point.
---
For being so damned premeditated, kissing Hardison still managed to have some sort of calming effect. Like they'd figured out the basics, and all that was left to do now was let the rest fall where it would. And keep an eye on the cornbread, make sure it didn't burn.
It was a near thing, though, and Hardison looked smug, watching Eliot darting towards the oven to find that the bread was a little burnt, on one edge, but it was nothing that couldn't be salvaged.
---
Dinner had gone better than the cooking had, and Alec insisted on doing the dishes, if only because one, it was polite, and two, watching Eliot fumble around would be the quickest way to destroy the stride they'd found. He listened, as he set the last of the dishes aside, as Eliot continued his story.
"…so I found the guy, but he ran out the front. Slipped on the ice and bowled over two cops, no kidding. All I had to do was slip out the back. I wound up running through the background of some news crew's shot. Saw it the next morning, but nobody ever put two and two together." Eliot finished, laughing, and Alec pretended not to be impressed, heading to the fridge for another round, before following him into the living room.
Somewhere in between the kitchen and the couch, the conversation had died, gotten tripped up on the threshold, and Alec had to stop himself from backing into the hallway to see if he could retrieve it. It wasn't tense, yet, the silence hadn't gone that long, but already it was showing the signs of permanence, so Alec did the only thing he could think of, and hoped for the best.
---
He'd been going on, telling old war stories like they were really more interesting than watching the shift of Hardison's muscles underneath his shirt. Babbling, because it kept Hardison listening, and when he laughed, his entire face would light up. It was really something to look at.
But he'd slipped up, finished one story without having another lined up, and now they were going to have to start all over again. Get whatever easiness they'd found back.
Hardison, on the other hand, came to stand in front of him, instead of joining him on the couch, and whatever Eliot had been thinking this was going to be, it was starting to look a little more like what he wanted. Like Hardison had figured it out, without anyone needing to say so.
Finally. It felt like something was about to happen.
By the time Eliot's reached out to touch, he only felt the brush of Hardison's body sliding down until he landed, kneeling between his knees. Eliot slid his hand up, catching slightly at the thin material of shirt as he swept against muscles and bone and skin. He curled his fingers against Hardison's side, but feeling him breathe was a bit too much, or not enough, and he continued his journey up towards his chest, throat, ear, temple. He splayed his fingers across the back of Hardison's head, dragging him close enough to kiss.
He could feel Hardison's arms winding loosely around his hips, hands stroking heavily at the small of his back as their mouths finally met.
---
Eliot's mouth against his own was vehement, spice and beer as he crushed against him, muscles gone rigid, thighs pressing tight against his hips. He couldn't escape if he wanted to, and his own fingers clutched and pressed a bit more tightly, deliberate and final, because it wasn't every day he got to hang on to something he wanted this much.
It felt like he was pushing his luck- again- and coming out ahead, so he pushed it a bit more, pulling at Eliot until there was no more room between them, not even room enough for questions, because it seemed like they knew what was coming next.
And already, it was becoming too much, too much friction and pressure and Eliot was shoving at him, trying for a better angle, manic until he found it. He turned the game around, deepening the kiss, for long moments that had Alec's chest too terrified to breathe, to stop, to do anything but this, suffocation be damned.
Alec skimmed back up along Eliot's spine, coming to rest at the back of his neck. The skin was just barely damp with sweat underneath all that hair, feeling it sliding between his fingers as they moved. Something in Eliot seemed loosened in response, so he did it again, slowing that mouth with his own, quieting them both. Easing just enough that Eliot could rock his head to the side, slide his lips torturously down against his throat.
Opening his eyes, fingers carding through Eliot's hair again, he could see the shell of his ear, hot and red. Wondering just how low that flush went, he traced it clumsily with the side of his thumb.
---
Overheated, he kept close, averting his own eyes and hoping Hardison would ignore the blushing, and did his best to pretend he wasn't embarrassed and happy and freaking the hell out. The vertigo that had been coming and going for weeks, now, whenever he thought about it, had nothing on the dizziness washing over him now that he actually had it crashing back against him.
Slowly, he was being pushed against the sofa, deliberately, tangling with Hardison until they were sprawled lengthwise along the sofa. There was a momentary wrench at his shoulder, but Hardison seemed aware of it, easing around it, like they'd done this a hundred times before, like this wasn't the first time.
And then he distracted him, friction and warmth all along his body, radiating back up and into his spine. The barest hint of teeth worried at the skin just behind his collar, and he found himself grinding his hips up to press into Hardison's. The hiss he elicited was almost enough to have him undone, but some small part of him was damned if he was going to go it alone.
It was all catching up to him as his hand slipped down to Hardison's waistband and got lost, not knowing what the hell he was supposed to do. What Hardison wanted, where the lines were drawn. His fingertips caught again at the edge of his fly, skirting it once, then again. He knew he was hesitating, but Hardison was pushing down to tangle with his fingers. Grasping them into stillness, he waited for Eliot to look at him.
"Clothes don't have to come off," he murmured, breathing heavy. Poised over him, inches away, he could see the reluctant concern, there, the question, and all he wanted to do was lunge up and kiss him quiet again, but unless he wanted to risk wrenching his shoulder, he was pinned.
I'm fine, he glared, before twisting his wrist free and regaining a hold on Hardison's waistband, slipping just under the material. Hardison's stomach twitched against his knuckles, and he thumbed the button free. Another twist of the wrist and he found the zipper, dragging it down as Hardison waited, tense and frozen above him. Sliding down again, a little more pressure this time, brushing once, experimentally, against him, warm through the cotton.
Hardison surprised him, jerking back out of reach. Straddling his leg, his thigh pressed tight against Eliot with more friction than he could bear, almost painful, and then it was gone, and Hardison's hands were both free, now, worrying at the straps to his sling, sweeping the hem of his shirt up over his stomach, stroking the skin there.
Blood was pounding in his ears as he tried to move, get closer, do something to stop feeling so damned exposed, but Hardison was already at work on his fly, tugging his jeans open before sighing his irritation.
"Hang on a sec," he said, and eased back, up and off the couch before Eliot could protest.
---
Eliot was going to kill him if he didn't hurry, that much was plain, but it wasn't like he didn't already have plenty of motivation on his own. Right now the damned jeans, all of 'em, had to go. Jerking his own down, he stepped on the cuffs to extract himself. Knowing exactly how ridiculous he must 've looked, he hurried to finish. Crouching next to the couch, he leaned over and caught at Eliot's lips again as he tried to do the same for him.
It was awkward and fumbling and about as graceful as a horse on rollerskates, but they worked it out, and soon enough, he was thrusting Eliot's jeans towards the general vicinity of his shoes, and climbing back onto the couch, only to find Eliot tugging at his shirt, telling him this goes, too.. Once that was dealt with, he contemplated trying to return the favor, but Eliot had other ideas, dragging him close again, next to him on the couch, mouthing kisses into his chest and shoulder, and he'd been too far away, anyhow.
Brushing Eliot's hair back from the sweat at his temple, he pressed a kiss into his hairline before sliding his hand down. Carefully, over the shoulder, then more insistent as he reached his destination.
Eliot was the quiet type. This wasn't surprising, but when he stroked the material of his shirt up and out of the way, brushing over the inside of Eliot's hip, he was close enough to hear his breath catch, even before the shudder came, inviting him to do it again.
So he did, deliberately, and Eliot surged against him, then, grabbing roughly at his hip and grinding close before settling, hard against him.
---
Hardison's hands were everywhere, stroking down along his hip, teasing in, and then diverting their agonizing course to skim along the fabric of his boxers, brushing along the leg opening and tugging, just a bit.
He was waiting for permission, Eliot realized, maybe even waiting for him to freak out or something, come to some startling realization, but really? He was just waiting for him to get on with it, already. He nodded tightly against a shoulder, broader and warmer than his own, and took two breaths before reaching out to touch Hardison again. Rougher, this time, deliberate. The most direct answer he could come up with.
Because it wasn't like Eliot was going into this blind. Hardison was solid, stronger than he usually carried himself, and there was no way to ignore that, not this close up, even with how carefully Hardison kept clear of his injuries.
It was frustrating, though, not being able to move like he wanted, not being able to push back, flip this around and take the lead, map him out all that skin and muscle and bone, find out the things he didn't already know about Hardison's body, because he really wanted to.
As it was, now, his own movements were small, insubstantial things, pathetic responses to the storm, and he wished he didn't know it.
He managed to curl his fingers, palming him tightly through the fabric, he spared a thought to be relieved at how weird this wasn't feeling, but then Hardison moaned, more like a sigh, and fuck, that sound had never been so hot before. And maybe he was getting the hang of this, but Hardison was apparently done playing around now, dragging his whole hand up against him, once, all the way up to the base of his stomach before pressing down below the elastic, gripping him bare, and he might have lost it, a little bit, for a minute, but he wasn't sure.
---
Eliot nearly whined, covering it with growl as he yanked, sharply, at Alec's waistband, tugging insistently. His angle wasn't great for doing much more, but the message couldn't be clearer.
Off. Rightthefucknow.
He rose up on his elbow, and there were uncoordinated hips, distracted hands, and a tangle of legs to contend with, but then, finally, there was nothing but skin, threatening to cool.
Sliding his thigh over to straddle Eliot, he crushed them back together, grinding direct, felt him grabbing at his side and sliding splayed fingers roughly over his back. Alec followed the lead down, catching wild eyes for just a fraction of a second, and fell back into another rough kiss.
Their mouths were warring, open and slick, all hot breath and tongue and teeth as they slid experimentally against each other, once, and again and again, but it wasn't enough. Both, maybe, were too tense to find any sort of rhythm, so after one slow long thrust of his hips, Alec made himself stop, tight against Eliot, and deepened the kiss until he felt muscles loosen beneath him.
Another few moments, and Eliot's thighs relaxed, almost imperceptibly, but it was enough to allow that last millimeter that had been missing, and when Alec shifted again, Eliot rose to meet him. Seamless.
He wasn't going to last much longer, but he still had a little luck left to press.
---
Hardison changed the game up, again, easing back enough to wrap, awkwardly, around them both, and fuck it was good, feeling that slide next to close-pressed hips, a thousand shifting frictions and he wasn't going to last long.
---
Eliot had gone slack, but his breathing was sharp, stuttering, harsh against his ear. The flush radiated down from his ears, along his throat to disappear under his collar, and sometime, soon, they really needed to do something about that shirt, if only to see just how much blood was rising to his skin, to see watch his breath, see the muscles jump under his touch.
But not right now, because Alec felt himself crashing down again, curling his head against the armrest to look down at the two of them. Eliot's arm, curled against his chest, the damnable shirt and his own wrist shifting beneath, and holy shit, he was doing this, and Eliot, ready to go, was going to be his own undoing, and all he had to do was puzzle it out. Decode the catching breath, apply the right turn of the wrist, don't get distracted, now, pay attention.
---
Fuck, he was close. The sliding had gone slick and hot and so damned easy, and he wanted more, anything, to fuck, to be fucked, to never think again and just feel, too many things all at once, Hardison's breath warm on his throat, fuck, keening, and he was falling under the onslaught, losing and winning and not going down alone.
---
Epilogue
Rating: NC-17 (this chapter) (Yep. Finally)
Spoilers: Up through 2x07
Pairing: Alec Hardison/ Eliot Spencer
Genre: Drama
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, don't take this too seriously.
Summary: The present's a mess, and the past isn't helping.
A/N: Whoohoo! This thing's finally coming to an end. Chapter 20 will be the epilogue. :)
Banner by the wonderful and amazing and brilliant cybel
Previous Chapters: Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18
The sound of the zipper had roused Alec far too early, but it was the finality of the shutting door that kept him awake.
It might have been what had his stomach in a knot, too, but it could have been waking too soon that caused the unpleasant sensation. He scowled at the alarm clock. That had to be it, he couldn't have been asleep for more than half an hour.
And he'd still woken up too late. Eliot had already left. And after all this, Alec didn't know if he was supposed to be heartbroken- because it was feeling like it was going that way- or not.
If this were a movie, he'd be tearing at the bed sheets by now, not lying there, trying to decide how to feel. And maybe it was a sign, some sort of omen, whatever, one of those things that didn't happen in real life.
It wasn't just that this was probably the end of the team.
It wasn't just that he was leaving, or that they'd never got the chance to figure out what they could be. Not when part of it- most of it- the part that was making him curl up on himself, was the suspicion of what would be.
Eliot had left, but Alec didn't know if it was the Eliot who grumbled constantly about missing games, but wouldn't buy a damned television. The Eliot who cooked for the crew, when the mood hit, and who kept a garden in the back yard. Who kissed bravely and who would have met him, that night, when everything went to hell.
Maybe the Eliot who had left was the one who followed orders and knew when not to, who kept a clear eye out, alert on jobs. Or maybe it was the Eliot who killed when he had to, and sometimes when he didn't. Who didn't stop to see the damage he caused, trailing bodies and blood, deserved or not, in his wake.
If Alec hadn't been so useless, if he would've just manned up and said something. If he'd been aware, with it, not this purposeless mess, he wouldn't be left contemplating the odds, wondering who Eliot would become next.
But it wasn't so simple, splitting him out like that, boiling him down into his constituent parts. It wasn't that easy. Take any of those out of the equation, and the sum winds up different. It wasn't much easier, though, taking him as a whole.
A few months ago, he wouldn't even have to puzzle it out, Alec would have known what to think. But this fucked headspace he was in now was evidence enough that he'd lost whatever distance he'd had. Muddied the waters. He didn't even know if he was overreacting, anymore.
He didn't know if he should even be lying here, broken up and missing him. He just knew that he was.
---
Light swung into the room, painting the walls from the hallway as the door opened, slowly.
The footsteps edging inside were familiar, if hesitant, but Alec didn't turn to face them. It didn't matter much, anyway. Closing the door behind him, Eliot seemed to know that he was awake, but spoke quietly, like he was willing to let him pretend, if he wanted to. "Hey."
Alec waited for the light to turn on, preparing for the embarrassment. When it didn't, he allowed himself to roll over, raised his head search him out in the dark. "Where'd you go?"
"Needed some air," Eliot explained, the act of lying apparently enough to goad him into movement. He toed out of his shoes and took his cap off, but then the momentum was lost again, and he was left standing, barefoot, in the middle of the room, lost.
Pretending that his eyes hadn't adjusted, that he hadn't seen his apprehension, the terrifying combination of hope and misery, Alec let his head fall back against the pillow and made a decision that should've come more easily. "You need to get some sleep, man. Seriously."
Eliot emptied his pockets onto the nightstand before climbing, barely, into the bed, no further from the edge than he'd been before, and mumbling something Alec couldn’t hear.
"Hm?"
"Said, you doin' okay?"
No, Alec wanted to answer, because it had been emphatically true a moment ago, and it probably should have been now, too. "Yeah. Just want to go home."
"Good. Yeah." And that was the end of it, or so Alec thought, but Eliot continued, his words fast and hushed. "I'm real sorry? About everything?"
It was the most fucked kind of thing to say, Alec thought. He sounded like a funeral guest, I'm sorry for your loss, but your brother's in a better place now. Someone cautiously offering a bright side, knowing it was still too early to be accepted, or maybe casting out the words, experimentally, to see if they'd work.
Yeah, I know a man died, but he deserved it?
Sorry you got caught up in the middle, but it won't happen again?
Sorry you had to go through all of this, but I hid the body?
He'd stood in that hallway, listened to shower curtains being dragged across the floor, duct tape being pulled off the roll. That had been seriously fucked. It was something murderers did, hiding the bodies, hiding the evidence.
It was a bit more than just covering their tracks. It was a bit more than Alec could do.
"What are you doing?" Eliot asked, having to squint down at the computer screen, because Parker, asleep on the couch, still wore his glasses.
"Monitoring and cleanup," Alec read on, making sure the auction house wasn't reporting anything out of the ordinary.
"What's that mean?"
"The usual."
Eliot tried again, more emphatically. "What's that mean?"
"Making sure the jobs we cleared stay clear," Alec explained, wondering why he was interested, and then began to show him how.
He didn't know why he was remembering that particular part of that particular night, since what had happened later, at the bar, usually figured more heavily in his thoughts, but sometimes his brain drew connections before he realized them.
What Eliot had done was the same thing that Alec did, routinely. Removed all traces of themselves from the scene. Fingerprints, this time, instead of banking transactions, plastic wrap and garbage bags instead of falsified police records.
And he got it. The statements weren't questions because Eliot was asking himself if he meant them. He was asking Alec if he'd hear them.
And useless as Alec was, he still hadn't managed a response.
---
Even with only the hint of streetlights creeping in around the edges of the curtain, he could see that Hardison was thinking about it, hard.
He wasn't taking it lightly. Wasn't blowing him off. He was trying to puzzle out the solution, same way he did, sometimes, when it was important.
At least it matters enough to consider, Eliot decided, repeating it in his head, because even if this went all the way straight down to hell, it might be the closest thing he had to a handhold. Hardison wasn't damning him outright.
He wondered, briefly, what Hardison would say if he realized how much was hinging on the next words that came out of his mouth. It was why he hadn't mentioned anything, not Nate's last words to him, or what Sophie had told him about forgiveness, five minutes before he got what she'd meant.
And he was fooling himself if he couldn't admit why it was, exactly, that Hardison's opinion mattered most, above the others. Maybe he'd find out, later, sometime, if Alec saw it too. But he wasn't going to set himself up to hope for that, not now.
Hardison was blinking, shaking his head a little like he'd just remembered something, but Eliot managed to keep himself breathing.
"I'm freaked, okay. I'll give you that." It wasn't downright dismissal, but Eliot's throat constricted nonetheless. "Tonight was fucked. Seriously. Bad scene, and I don't have it all figured out yet. Don't think anyone does. It's gonna take some time." Hardison scowled at the ceiling. "Were you lookin' to bail, just then?"
He could have said something about going out for ice, but Alec had already seen through getting some air.
But I came back, he wanted to explain, but instead, he just nodded.
"Do that again, and we're gonna have problems." Alec turned to look at him, hard, and must have seen something he didn't like, because he hurried to finish. "Aside from that, I ain't mad at you. For anything, not tonight, and not for bad shit going down a decade before I even knew you."
---
Alec hadn't been able to do much, lately, he'd been all too aware of it, but he'd somehow managed to get that carefully blank expression off Eliot's scuffed face. Even now, as ripped open and raw as he seemed, the steel was easing, not breaking, and it was almost too much to deal with.
It was easier to lie back and reach out than it was to keep looking at him, not if he didn't want to start crying, or worse. He'd just spent four days having to ask men with guns if he'd be allowed to go to the bathroom. There was only so much humiliation a man could take.
Sixteen seconds went by, slowly, before Eliot edged into position, maneuvering his injured arm carefully across Alec's chest, and it was terrifying to think that he'd be able to feel exactly how fast his heart was going. Eliot's head was pressed against his arm, low enough that Alec could feel his breath, but not see his eyes. It also meant the reverse was true.
It was a bit of a relief. He was too tired to keep fucking worrying about it.
Eventually, they settled, one arm wrapped loosely against Eliot's back, his other hand on his own stomach, a few inches below Eliot's.
Alec basked in the weight that pushing him lightly down into the mattress, down into sleep. He was close enough to coma that when Eliot began moving cautiously across his chest, pulling at his hand, he thought he was dreaming it.
He felt lips brushing his knuckles, and he had to bite his lip, because when they got past this? Out of this room and out of this hotel and away from this entire fuckstorm of a season?
He wasn't going to let Eliot live it down.
---
"Hey man, c'mon."
Alec's first thought, opening his eyes to see the curtains thrown back and daylight streaming in, was you can't be serious. His second was that Eliot looked like hell. The shadows under his eyes seemed to spread out to the rest of his face, and he really needed a shave. He wasn't wearing quite so many layers, for once, but the sling was back, and needed to be washed, or maybe burned.
Keep talkin', 'cause you're all GQ right now yourself.
"Sophie called. Something's up."
Alec's third or fourth thought was oh. shit.
Retrieving his earpiece from the nightstand, Alec threw the blankets aside and started for the bathroom, where his suspicions regarding his own haggard appearance were proven unpleasantly true. With a longing glance at the shower, and the thick cream towels on the rack, he grabbed a plastic-wrapped toothbrush from the counter, sending up thanks to whatever gods oversaw the amenities in expensive hotels.
"What is it?" he asked, his mouth full of foam. Someone could be hurt. They could have been seen. Hastings. The body could have been discovered. They might have left prints.
There was no response on comms. "Dunno. Get your shoes on," Eliot barked from his post by the window, scanning the streets below and the windows across the street.
Well, hell, Alec thought, tightening his laces a moment later. Least we ain't got the time for things to get awkward.
---
Behind him, Hardison was carrying the duffel bag, and for once, seemed to know that now was not the time for chatter or complaints. Ahead, a guy in a suit was fumbling with the newspaper and his briefcase as he pressed the elevator's call button.
Eliot slowed his pace, raised a hand to signal Hardison to do likewise. The man hadn't looked in their direction, and really, it was only Sophie's phone call that had him suspicious, but they took the stairs down, instead.
Sophie had been watching the elevator doors, and spun, startled, when she heard them approach. "There you are!"
"What's going on?"
"I don't know," she nodded back over her shoulder to where Nate was having a hushed and intense looking conversation with a man that might have been the hotel manager. "He's figuring it out right now, told me to wait for you."
"Where are the others?" Hardison asked, just as Parker came in through the glass doors, coffee in hand, her eyes already puzzled at the scene they all made.
"Tara went to the airport an hour ago, and I'm presuming Parker and Apollo said their goodbyes privately?" Sophie asked Parker, who slowed to a stop next to her, brows quirked, already aware that something was going down.
"What's going on? Why aren't we on comms?" she asked.
"Laptop's in the bag," Hardison indicated the satchel Nate had slung over his shoulder, but it didn't matter, though, because Nate was gesturing carefully, nodding once, and heading back in their direction with a warning expression on his face.
Stay cool, he was saying, so they waited for him to come to a standstill in front of them.
"I believe we've got the third bomb. I overheard maintenance reporting that they found a strange device in the basement. Right next to the elevator shaft."
"Seriously?"
"From what they can tell, it's not live, but they're checking it out. Lucky for them, there are five ATF agents who just happened to be in town.
"You brought the IDs?" This, of course, was the detail that threw Hardison.
"Didn't know what to expect, did I?" Nate smirked. "Doesn't matter, right now, they're worried about a possible panic. What we need to do is dismantle and remove it, and do a sweep to make sure there aren't any more."
"How are we going to know that?"
"I'm on it," Hardison asked, reaching for the laptop bag. "I'm gonna need a look at the one they found before it's dismantled."
Earpieces were inserted as Nate doled out the assignments. "Okay, Hardison, you're with Parker. Sophie, the manager's close to having a nervous breakdown, I need her kept calm, and we'll need to share information. Eliot, you're with me," he said, heading towards the front door.
"I should-" he scowled, momentarily watching Hardison and Parker's progress towards the stairs, before turning a hard stare in Nate's direction, finding him tense, but confident, like he knew he had something to prove.
And maybe he had the means to do it, too. "They got this. You and I, we've got something else." He started for the main entrance, beckoning Eliot to follow.
Eliot waited until they were standing on the sidewalk before cornering him, guessing what the something else was. "How did they know where to plant it?"
Nate's half grin was amused, almost, as he stepped around the corner into the alley, out of the way of pedestrians. "How would you do it? Plant them in several locations, play the odds?"
"Sloppy. And overkill. Waste of resources."
"We got it," Hardison came suddenly on the comms. "It's dead, no worries. Now don't panic, I have to turn it on again to pull the radio frequency, isolate the pingbacks, if I can determine the pattern…"
"Hardison," Eliot warned, but Nate was talking over him. "Great. Don't blow anything up."
"Parker's already stripped the C4."
"C4? That's all they used?"
"It's all they needed. They placed it well." Parker replied. "Too well. I'm not seeing any other devices, but I don't think they would have needed them. I'll keep looking."
"All right, you do that." Nate was stepping out of the alley, surveying the sidewalk and hotel entrance, one of the valets stepping toward the car that was pulling up. "Sophie, pass it along?" His attention shifting back to Eliot, he continued. "So Hastings. His crew. They had to know where we were staying."
"Hate to say it, but you're right," Hardison said. "Though maybe that's good. I don't know. I'm only looking at eighteen percent completion right here, but the timing of the pingbacks? They're coming in threes. All the bombs are accounted for. But Nate, man. There ain't no way I can get any more information out of this thing."
"That's fine. I have an idea. Eliot, follow my lead, but disagree with everything I'm about to say."
"What?" But Nate was already stepping out around the corner, leaving him no choice but to follow.
"It's the right thing to do, Eliot," he was saying, more loudly now. "Pay it forward, you know that."
"But-" not having enough of a lead to go on, he shook his head, confusion working just as well as disagreement. "You don't even-"
"What," Nate spun on him, deliberately not looking at the valets standing by the door. "If it wasn't for them, we'd be up shit creek, and you know it. It's not like we can't afford to be generous, here."
"What is this, another one of the twelve steps?"
"Maybe," he shrugged, cutting him a bemused look. "Doesn't mean I'm wrong." Eliot rolled his eyes, and that, apparently, was the reaction Nate had been waiting for. Resuming his stride, he approached the jacket-clad valets, who had been watching the exchange with interest, but they were standing a little straighter, now.
"Excuse me. I was wondering if you could help me out, and pardon me if this seems strange, but. Do either of you recognize me?"
"Uh," they shared an uneasy look. "No," said the first. "Sorry, sir."
The other one, however, hesitated, and when their attention lit on him, he scratched at his collar. "Yes, sir. I was told to watch for you."
A sidelong glance told Eliot that Nate was grinning affably, putting them at their ease. "See, Eliot? I knew it!"
"All right, fine," Eliot put his hands in his pockets and looked out over the street, feigning bemused disinterest.
"You see," Nate was saying, "I lost something that was very valuable of mine a few days ago, only to find that last night, when I came back, it had been returned, waiting at the front desk. I'm looking for the parties, ah, responsible, I guess. There was no note attached, see, so I don't know how to contact my, ah, Samaritans, to show my appreciation."
Puzzlement was all he received in response, at first, and Eliot was starting to think that this was a dead end, but then the valet went into his pocket. "Yeah. There was a guy…" He pulled out a piece of paper. "Showed up yesterday morning. Said he'd found something that wasn't his and wanted to return it. Gave me this."
Taking the crumpled up piece of paper, Nate held it so Eliot could read four descriptions. His, Parker's, Sophie's, and Nate's. Not down to the last detail or anything, but close enough for anyone paying attention. He frowned, though, and so did Nate.
"Did you happen to get a name?"
"No sir. Just the phone number, so we could call if we saw you. Big guy. Long hair, looked like that bounty hunter guy on TV." Over the comms, Hardison laughed.
"Weird. Eliot, you recognize him?"
"Yeah, there was one guy. Think I remember him," he considered. "So he must've gone to all the hotels, asked around."
"That's what he said," the valet confirmed. "I called the number, he gave me twenty bucks, as, like, thanks."
"Excellent, excellent," Nate reached into his pocket with one hand. "You mind if I keep this?" he waved the paper, and the valet shrugged. "If it wasn't for what you did, I would be a dead man, right now, so thank you."
Eliot was surprised when Nate opened his wallet to hand over a few large bills, but held his tongue. That Nate answered him, regardless, was hardly a surprise.
"Small price to pay, don't you think?"
Rolling his eyes, Eliot opened the door.
---
Eliot, Nate and Sophie were waiting in the lobby when they arrived, disassembled remnants of the bomb sequestered in Parker's overnight bag.
"What was that all about?" Alec asked, and received a crumpled piece of paper in return. Ten digits. A phone number. "Dog?"
"What?"
"Nothing. The guy." Confused, but not knowing where to go with it, he shook off their blank stares, and the silence was deafening. "We done here?"
He wished he hadn't asked, waiting for next bombardment, the next crash of bad news. From the looks of it, he wasn't the only one.
Nodding once, with certain finality, Nate tossed the keys in his hand and started for the door.
They were done.
"C'mon," Nate grumbled, confused as to why no one was following. "Let's go home."
Maybe they weren't as done as he'd thought.
Outside, the valets retrieved Sophie's truck in record time, rushing around doors to load the luggage in the back, a two-person swarm in yellow nylon.
Inside, though, everything was still, besides Sophie's hands steering them through traffic. And maybe if the radio had been on, or there was something more interesting going on outside, Alec wouldn't have been aware of exactly how heavy the silence was becoming.
But then Parker stirred, looked at her watch. "Twenty minutes. All that, and we're only twenty minutes late."
Up front, Nate was leaning back against the seat, looking smug, and Sophie was threatening to break into a grin.
Next to him, on the seat, Eliot shifted slightly, a little bit closer, so Alec did, too, before asking, "Nate, man. How'd you know Dog told him he had something of yours?"
Sophie glanced back at in the rearview. "Dog?"
"Like on TV," Alec shrugged. Until he got home, got his hands on a computer, the nickname would have to suffice.
"Oh, that,' Nate scratched at his hair. "Easy. You want to know someone's comings and goings, you know, you look for witnesses. If it wasn't the valet, it would've been someone working the desk inside, then it was just, ah…"
"Grifting 101," Sophie cut in. "You don't let them know why you want to know what you want to know."
"Right. Dog, or whatever his name is, far as I can tell, isn't stupid. A Samaritan is less suspicious than a hit man. He would have had to play it soft, and I just cribbed off his game."
"Cool," Parker said happily to Nate, leaning over Sophie's seat. "See? Don't worry, you still know how to run a con." Alec shot her a frustrated look. Too early to go there. Nate was glaring out the window again, and Sophie had tensed in the silence. He didn't want to be so obvious as to try reading Eliot's face.
Alec let another quarter mile slip past before speaking. "Way I see it, man, is that even without a plan, hell, even with all your cross purposes, or whatever- it's cool. Even with all that nastiness that went down, you still managed to keep to what was important."
"And what's that?" Eliot was staring at him, he could feel it, and Nate was likewise hanging on his next words.
"Getting my ass the hell out of there."
---
Maybe it was because usually, out of town jobs routed them through the airport, where they'd disperse upon arrival. Maybe it was because usually, by the time Eliot was halfway home, he knew what came next. Dinner, shower, a nap, if he needed it, or a beer out in the garden.
It's probably gone all to hell by now, Eliot was thinking, irritably, as if dead plants that were really his biggest concern. Because this time was different, and it wasn't just the long hours sitting quiet in the back seat.
Right now, he had no idea what came next. What would happen when they got back. He hadn't even figured out what he'd say to Hardison when they parted ways.
"…Nah, man," Hardison was speaking over the talk show on the radio. "If they're really going out and pulling half the crap this dude's saying, if I dig around in Seattle, someone's likely to come up with a case."
"Everyone's lawyered up already," Nate pointed out. "It's going to be hard to find clients, what with all the confidentiality agreements flying around, but…" He was considering it, but Eliot didn't ask what he'd missed, and Hardison was already talking a mile a minute, anyway. Whatever the game was, between the two of them, they'd have it figured out before they passed the next exit.
The effect of the realization, the moment of relative calm, was surprising.
Outside Worcester, a third or fourth wave of insane giddiness swept over him, but he kept his eyes out the window, and didn't let on. Turned his head into the glass a little more in case anyone saw him grinning like a moron.
When they got out for gas and coffee in Hartford, he realized exactly how much the warmth from Hardison's body had been easing the ache radiating down into his arm, and wished, idly, that they were making the drive on their own. He toyed with the idea of actually telling Hardison as much, but he was already inside, regarding the coolers, and it was too bright, with too many people inside, for saying anything that sounded so stupid.
Over by the coolers, Hardison had his arms raised tightly back over his head, lifting the hem of his shirt just enough to reveal a thin strip of skin at his lower back. More than anything, even more than the fleeting thought to touch, Eliot was jealous of the movement. He wouldn't be able to stretch painlessly for another week or two, at least. He had a sinking suspicion, though, that Sophie had managed to catch him staring, maybe even blushing. Furiously. Which only served to make it worse, so he regarded the disturbingly large selection of artificially flavored creamers he had no intention of using, and didn't move away until she was already at the register.
Another lull in the conversation, as they were passing Bridgeport, he was overcome with the need to jump out of the vehicle while it was still moving. Because Hardison was right there, next to him, close enough to touch, and things that made sense at three in the morning looked different in the afternoon, and there was no way this entire thing with Hardison was going to end well, for either of them, at all, only…
It hasn't, yet.
Okay, so he'd nearly bailed, last night, but he'd come back. Crashed out with Hardison and woken up in one piece. And maybe it meant that they had a thing, now. Or were a thing, now. And at some point, if they ever made it out of this overpopulated car, he'd run out of excuses, be able to ask.
---
Alec's body was stiff, and he'd been failing, consistently, for the past hour or so. It wasn't that he didn't know how to talk to people, but he didn't need an audience. And as he'd been able to find, there was no way to ask Eliot what was going to happen next, were they okay, what were the chances that they'd ever figure this out, not without the others hearing everything.
Every once in a while, he would catch Eliot almost looking at him, irritated, willing him to figure it out, to decode the damned thing already, but every time, he'd come up blank.
Can I call you? would have been the simplest, he knew it, but he'd been living up to all the lowest of his expectations for days, now.
And maybe he was misreading Eliot's frustration, anyway. Maybe he didn't want him to say anything, maybe he just wanted out of the damn car. Maybe his shoulder was bothering him, and maybe he had regrets. Maybe it wasn't impatience, maybe it was just dread.
So Alec held his tongue and watched Boston grow closer.
---
Sophie dropped Parker off first. "Hang on a sec," She said before getting out, leaning over the back seat to rummage through her overnight bag. Kneeling on the seat, she handed Alec the two drives he'd stripped from the warehouse computer, which had been, last he checked, locked in a drawer in his desk.
He accepted them with a chagrined nod, but she didn't seem to be expecting him to say thanks.
The door closed, and Sophie was pulling away from the curb, and at this point, there was no reason to be sitting so close to Eliot, so close to his closed-off features, so he slid over to Parker's vacated spot. He hefted the drives once, though, and held them out.
"What're-" Eliot started to ask. Realizing exactly what they were, disgust swept across his eyes as the corners of his mouth tensed, a moment, before he took them, one at a time, settling them next to him on the seat. He exhaled sharply; it could have been a laugh. "You care if I take a hammer to these?"
"Only way I ever want to see them again is if they're on fire." Alec wiped his hands on his leg. "But that should work too."
Eliot grinned then, considering it for a few moments, before rocking his head back and deciding, "Chainsaw."
"Acid."
"C4." Nate turned his head at this, looking a little concerned, but said nothing.
"You know where we can find a rail gun?"
Eliot shook his head.
"Left on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, then." Alec was out of options that weren't based entirely in science fiction, and Eliot wasn't coming up with any more, and anyway, they were already in front of his building, and he hadn't managed to man up enough to say anything important.
---
Finally showered and shaved and dressed in his own damn clothes, Alec made his way to the kitchen. After staring at the cupboards for what might have been half an hour, wishing he had the energy to make it down to the corner store, he nuked a bag of popcorn and grabbed a soda out of the fridge, kicking the door shut.
Another hour or so, and he'd run out of internet to browse. He knew that he needed to do something to get his head running again, but the paints were all the way in the other room, and his brain was refusing to gear up. Even the TiVo options were almost too much to deal with, so he selected one at random and lay down on the couch. If he couldn't get his brain functioning, he'd kill it instead.
---
His phone rang a little after nine. Nate was probably calling to inform him about a new client, or something, and that Alec would have to be there in ten hours ready to go off again, another airport, another hotel. Even before that, he'd have to spend the night researching, pulling apart financials, tracking airline miles, the rest of it.
He let the call go to voicemail. The team could wait another day or so to find out exactly how useless he was. Eliot probably suspected already.
Stop it. You just need some sleep. Real sleep. In your own damned bed. Which is right up the stairs, no problem.
Dragging himself up off the couch, he switched off the television and headed back to his room. Plugging his nearly drained phone into the charger, he considered setting the alarm, before deciding not to. He shut the ringer off as well. The only reason he knew Eliot was calling was because two minutes after he shut off the lights, he hadn't yet shut his eyes.
He reached for it, and answered, annoyed at how strongly the anticipation felt.
Maybe things weren't as bad as they seemed. Sure, he hadn't managed to string four words together, but at least Eliot was trying. "Hey," he said, but even to his own ears, his voice fell flat.
In answer, Eliot's voice was gruff, tense and accusing. "Nate said he called a while ago, and you didn't pick up."
"Yeah?" Alec fell back against the pillow and decided to lie. "I was sleeping. What's up?"
---
Eliot stopped his pacing. You didn't answer the damn phone, he thought, irritably. "Nate found a new client. Nothing going on until next week, but he wanted to give you fair warning." He called here looking for you when you didn't answer, and I've been freaking out for the past five minutes, because I thought you were gone, or dead, or just avoiding us. Me.
He set his keys down again, and eased back out of his coat, carefully. "So yeah, uh. That was it. How're you doing? Tired?"
"Beat all to hell, and out of milk." Hardison's voice was low, a little more gravelly than usual. "How's the arm?"
"Waiting for the painkillers to kick in," which was true, but not why he'd called, and it would've been nice, really nice, if Hardison would show some signs of life, maybe let him know that Eliot wasn't boring the hell out of him, but screw it. He's not the one that has shit to make up for. "So listen, I was thinking. Your car probably got towed by now. You need a ride to the pick it up tomorrow?"
"Shit." Hardison coughed, and there was rustling on the line. Sounding much more alert, however, he continued. "You know, I hadn't even thought about that. Lame, right?"
"You've had a lot on your plate. Only reason I thought of it was something Nate said." When he asked if I'd checked up on you yet, and told me I was a jackass without saying anything at all. "So yeah. Give me a call when you want me to come get you. And then maybe we can do something afterward, if you're feeling up to it." Unsure of what he was trying to gain, tossing it in there like maybe it wouldn't be noticed, he only felt more foolish as the answering silence lengthened.
"I don't know man," Hardison eventually replied, but the humor was back in his voice. "First date was awesome, but how're you going to top my getting kidnapped?"
"What, the impound lot on a Saturday isn't hellish enough? Want me to make reservations for root canals somewhere?"
"Awesome," Hardison agreed, laughing, and then there was another pause. "I'll, uh. Call you in the afternoon."
"Cool, looking forward to it," Eliot said, wondering if it had come out as nerdy as he suspected it had, and glad that nobody but his reflection knew exactly how red in the face he was getting.
Hardison, though, didn't sound like he was doing much better. "Me too. So. Yeah. I'm gonna. Head to sleep, here. So, uh. Good night, man."
"You too, g'night," Eliot said, and hung up the phone before he could say anything more ridiculous.
---
The sun was out, but it had snowed something awful over the night, and the line was stretching out of the impound building and across the parking lot.
Even as freezing as it was, standing there, Eliot had ignored his first three offers to meet back up at his house. At the fourth, he merely smirked, saying "I'm not letting you out of my sight, man," and squinted against the harsh glare of the snow, like it was nothing. And maybe he hadn't heard himself saying it, maybe Alec was just reading too much into it, but when another blast of cold blasted through them, it wasn't any great hardship to step just a little bit closer, shield him from the wind just a little bit.
Eventually, though, they made it up to the counter, Alec got his directions, and Eliot went back out to his own truck. Ten long minutes later, turning out of the lot, he was surprised to find the truck waiting, following him into traffic, and then all the way out to Hough's Neck. He only had to wait a minute, or so, for Eliot to pull into the driveway.
"Sorry, man, got held up at the lights."
"I dig," Alec followed him into the house, feeling the anticipation coiled low in his gut, now that he was no longer distracted by driving. It was early, yet, not even night, and the hours stretched in front of him, blank and waiting. Chili would be involved at some point, he could smell it already.
Eliot closed the door behind them, slowly, and turned around with the same sort of ease that he wore in a fight, all easy confidence, except for the self-deprecating grin for what it really was. Alec held his ground, didn't let himself look away, though it would have been easier.
"What?" Eliot asked, smirking 'cause he knew he'd been caught out.
"Nothing," Alec shrugged, trying not to smile too wide. "You." Eliot snorted, but it was becoming quickly apparent that if they were ever going to move this out of the entryway, Alec would have to go first. So he took one step backwards, and then another, before turning and heading into the kitchen.
---
There was another half hour left to go on the chili, and at that point, at least, they'd be occupied.
He still hadn't figured out how, exactly, one talked with Alec Hardison, let alone flirted with him. It usually wasn't this hard to get some sort of conversation going, but then again, usually he couldn't get a word in edgewise. Hardison didn't really seem down, for the most part, unhappy or anything, but he'd been quiet ever since they'd found him.
Maybe he should have waited, put this off. Given the guy a day or two to get his head together, before forcing all this shit on him.
But you didn't, so stop being an idiot and get the man a drink.
"Got a while, before the food's done. You want a beer? Otherwise we got whiskey, soda…"
"Beer's cool, thanks," Hardison said, watching him set the oven to preheating, clearly at loose ends. "You need any help with that?"
"Nah, man, chili's doin' it's own thing now, and this will only take a minute. You wanna go put some music on?" Cracking two beers, he handed one over.
Hardison looked amused, finally, a lot less uncomfortable. "Any requests?"
"You find anything, throw it on, otherwise the radio's fine." He set himself to work, pulling out the ingredients for the cornbread and trying to come up with something brilliant to say.
---
Eliot's collection was mostly old tired country stuff, some rock and roll, some blues. Nothing that came out in the past twenty years, unless he had CD's hidden away somewhere. Alec didn't feel like rummaging around, though, and he'd probably been gone too long already, so he turned the radio on and found the oldies station he sometimes threw on when he was feeling nostalgic. It would do, at least, and maybe it would set Eliot at ease.
He slipped back into the kitchen to find Eliot struggling to keep a bowl in place with the arm that should have been back in its sling, so he hurried forward to grab the whisk.
"I got it," Eliot grumbled, sheepish, but annoyed, too, and Alec realized a moment too late that he wasn't so keen on being seen like he was, that he was totally self-conscious, so he did the only logical thing, and ignored it completely.
"How long should I keep stirring for?"
"Until the bigger lumps are out," Eliot watched the bowl, for a moment, before nodding and heading back to the table, moving gingerly. "That's good. Just dump it all in the pan, it's ready to go."
Cornbread set to baking, he snagged the sling off the counter and tossed it over to Eliot. "Put that back on, you're making me nervous." Something sarcastic slid across Eliot's eyes, but he did as he was told, and Alec watched, waiting
So intent was he on getting the sling into place, he seemed surprised to find Alec standing in his space. He kissed back, though, after just the slightest of delays and when Alec pulled back to reach for his beer, he was laughing, a bit.
"What's so funny?"
"This," Eliot shrugged. "Everything. You."
"Me?"
Eliot shrugged, sipping at his beer, and cocked his head. "Okay, fine. Me," he admitted. "Don't know what I'm doing, here. Thinking too much."
There were a lot of things Alec could have said to blow right past that, and he opened his mouth to do so, but he stopped. Thought it through, for once. There was a lot of shit that was left hanging, after the past few days, and it wasn't likely to go away on it's own.
And man, you've been dense. Kidnappings, bombs, bodies. Never mind the fact that he's still got to be a little hung up on the entire guy factor. Ease up.
"Stop it," Eliot said, out of nowhere.
"What?"
"Now you're thinking too damned much. Trying to solve it. Won't work."
"You have any better ideas?"
Eliot grinned, and there was no way for him to know it, but the flush spreading up towards his ears was kind of adorable. "The kissin' was a good start."
The man had a point.
---
For being so damned premeditated, kissing Hardison still managed to have some sort of calming effect. Like they'd figured out the basics, and all that was left to do now was let the rest fall where it would. And keep an eye on the cornbread, make sure it didn't burn.
It was a near thing, though, and Hardison looked smug, watching Eliot darting towards the oven to find that the bread was a little burnt, on one edge, but it was nothing that couldn't be salvaged.
---
Dinner had gone better than the cooking had, and Alec insisted on doing the dishes, if only because one, it was polite, and two, watching Eliot fumble around would be the quickest way to destroy the stride they'd found. He listened, as he set the last of the dishes aside, as Eliot continued his story.
"…so I found the guy, but he ran out the front. Slipped on the ice and bowled over two cops, no kidding. All I had to do was slip out the back. I wound up running through the background of some news crew's shot. Saw it the next morning, but nobody ever put two and two together." Eliot finished, laughing, and Alec pretended not to be impressed, heading to the fridge for another round, before following him into the living room.
Somewhere in between the kitchen and the couch, the conversation had died, gotten tripped up on the threshold, and Alec had to stop himself from backing into the hallway to see if he could retrieve it. It wasn't tense, yet, the silence hadn't gone that long, but already it was showing the signs of permanence, so Alec did the only thing he could think of, and hoped for the best.
---
He'd been going on, telling old war stories like they were really more interesting than watching the shift of Hardison's muscles underneath his shirt. Babbling, because it kept Hardison listening, and when he laughed, his entire face would light up. It was really something to look at.
But he'd slipped up, finished one story without having another lined up, and now they were going to have to start all over again. Get whatever easiness they'd found back.
Hardison, on the other hand, came to stand in front of him, instead of joining him on the couch, and whatever Eliot had been thinking this was going to be, it was starting to look a little more like what he wanted. Like Hardison had figured it out, without anyone needing to say so.
Finally. It felt like something was about to happen.
By the time Eliot's reached out to touch, he only felt the brush of Hardison's body sliding down until he landed, kneeling between his knees. Eliot slid his hand up, catching slightly at the thin material of shirt as he swept against muscles and bone and skin. He curled his fingers against Hardison's side, but feeling him breathe was a bit too much, or not enough, and he continued his journey up towards his chest, throat, ear, temple. He splayed his fingers across the back of Hardison's head, dragging him close enough to kiss.
He could feel Hardison's arms winding loosely around his hips, hands stroking heavily at the small of his back as their mouths finally met.
---
Eliot's mouth against his own was vehement, spice and beer as he crushed against him, muscles gone rigid, thighs pressing tight against his hips. He couldn't escape if he wanted to, and his own fingers clutched and pressed a bit more tightly, deliberate and final, because it wasn't every day he got to hang on to something he wanted this much.
It felt like he was pushing his luck- again- and coming out ahead, so he pushed it a bit more, pulling at Eliot until there was no more room between them, not even room enough for questions, because it seemed like they knew what was coming next.
And already, it was becoming too much, too much friction and pressure and Eliot was shoving at him, trying for a better angle, manic until he found it. He turned the game around, deepening the kiss, for long moments that had Alec's chest too terrified to breathe, to stop, to do anything but this, suffocation be damned.
Alec skimmed back up along Eliot's spine, coming to rest at the back of his neck. The skin was just barely damp with sweat underneath all that hair, feeling it sliding between his fingers as they moved. Something in Eliot seemed loosened in response, so he did it again, slowing that mouth with his own, quieting them both. Easing just enough that Eliot could rock his head to the side, slide his lips torturously down against his throat.
Opening his eyes, fingers carding through Eliot's hair again, he could see the shell of his ear, hot and red. Wondering just how low that flush went, he traced it clumsily with the side of his thumb.
---
Overheated, he kept close, averting his own eyes and hoping Hardison would ignore the blushing, and did his best to pretend he wasn't embarrassed and happy and freaking the hell out. The vertigo that had been coming and going for weeks, now, whenever he thought about it, had nothing on the dizziness washing over him now that he actually had it crashing back against him.
Slowly, he was being pushed against the sofa, deliberately, tangling with Hardison until they were sprawled lengthwise along the sofa. There was a momentary wrench at his shoulder, but Hardison seemed aware of it, easing around it, like they'd done this a hundred times before, like this wasn't the first time.
And then he distracted him, friction and warmth all along his body, radiating back up and into his spine. The barest hint of teeth worried at the skin just behind his collar, and he found himself grinding his hips up to press into Hardison's. The hiss he elicited was almost enough to have him undone, but some small part of him was damned if he was going to go it alone.
It was all catching up to him as his hand slipped down to Hardison's waistband and got lost, not knowing what the hell he was supposed to do. What Hardison wanted, where the lines were drawn. His fingertips caught again at the edge of his fly, skirting it once, then again. He knew he was hesitating, but Hardison was pushing down to tangle with his fingers. Grasping them into stillness, he waited for Eliot to look at him.
"Clothes don't have to come off," he murmured, breathing heavy. Poised over him, inches away, he could see the reluctant concern, there, the question, and all he wanted to do was lunge up and kiss him quiet again, but unless he wanted to risk wrenching his shoulder, he was pinned.
I'm fine, he glared, before twisting his wrist free and regaining a hold on Hardison's waistband, slipping just under the material. Hardison's stomach twitched against his knuckles, and he thumbed the button free. Another twist of the wrist and he found the zipper, dragging it down as Hardison waited, tense and frozen above him. Sliding down again, a little more pressure this time, brushing once, experimentally, against him, warm through the cotton.
Hardison surprised him, jerking back out of reach. Straddling his leg, his thigh pressed tight against Eliot with more friction than he could bear, almost painful, and then it was gone, and Hardison's hands were both free, now, worrying at the straps to his sling, sweeping the hem of his shirt up over his stomach, stroking the skin there.
Blood was pounding in his ears as he tried to move, get closer, do something to stop feeling so damned exposed, but Hardison was already at work on his fly, tugging his jeans open before sighing his irritation.
"Hang on a sec," he said, and eased back, up and off the couch before Eliot could protest.
---
Eliot was going to kill him if he didn't hurry, that much was plain, but it wasn't like he didn't already have plenty of motivation on his own. Right now the damned jeans, all of 'em, had to go. Jerking his own down, he stepped on the cuffs to extract himself. Knowing exactly how ridiculous he must 've looked, he hurried to finish. Crouching next to the couch, he leaned over and caught at Eliot's lips again as he tried to do the same for him.
It was awkward and fumbling and about as graceful as a horse on rollerskates, but they worked it out, and soon enough, he was thrusting Eliot's jeans towards the general vicinity of his shoes, and climbing back onto the couch, only to find Eliot tugging at his shirt, telling him this goes, too.. Once that was dealt with, he contemplated trying to return the favor, but Eliot had other ideas, dragging him close again, next to him on the couch, mouthing kisses into his chest and shoulder, and he'd been too far away, anyhow.
Brushing Eliot's hair back from the sweat at his temple, he pressed a kiss into his hairline before sliding his hand down. Carefully, over the shoulder, then more insistent as he reached his destination.
Eliot was the quiet type. This wasn't surprising, but when he stroked the material of his shirt up and out of the way, brushing over the inside of Eliot's hip, he was close enough to hear his breath catch, even before the shudder came, inviting him to do it again.
So he did, deliberately, and Eliot surged against him, then, grabbing roughly at his hip and grinding close before settling, hard against him.
---
Hardison's hands were everywhere, stroking down along his hip, teasing in, and then diverting their agonizing course to skim along the fabric of his boxers, brushing along the leg opening and tugging, just a bit.
He was waiting for permission, Eliot realized, maybe even waiting for him to freak out or something, come to some startling realization, but really? He was just waiting for him to get on with it, already. He nodded tightly against a shoulder, broader and warmer than his own, and took two breaths before reaching out to touch Hardison again. Rougher, this time, deliberate. The most direct answer he could come up with.
Because it wasn't like Eliot was going into this blind. Hardison was solid, stronger than he usually carried himself, and there was no way to ignore that, not this close up, even with how carefully Hardison kept clear of his injuries.
It was frustrating, though, not being able to move like he wanted, not being able to push back, flip this around and take the lead, map him out all that skin and muscle and bone, find out the things he didn't already know about Hardison's body, because he really wanted to.
As it was, now, his own movements were small, insubstantial things, pathetic responses to the storm, and he wished he didn't know it.
He managed to curl his fingers, palming him tightly through the fabric, he spared a thought to be relieved at how weird this wasn't feeling, but then Hardison moaned, more like a sigh, and fuck, that sound had never been so hot before. And maybe he was getting the hang of this, but Hardison was apparently done playing around now, dragging his whole hand up against him, once, all the way up to the base of his stomach before pressing down below the elastic, gripping him bare, and he might have lost it, a little bit, for a minute, but he wasn't sure.
---
Eliot nearly whined, covering it with growl as he yanked, sharply, at Alec's waistband, tugging insistently. His angle wasn't great for doing much more, but the message couldn't be clearer.
Off. Rightthefucknow.
He rose up on his elbow, and there were uncoordinated hips, distracted hands, and a tangle of legs to contend with, but then, finally, there was nothing but skin, threatening to cool.
Sliding his thigh over to straddle Eliot, he crushed them back together, grinding direct, felt him grabbing at his side and sliding splayed fingers roughly over his back. Alec followed the lead down, catching wild eyes for just a fraction of a second, and fell back into another rough kiss.
Their mouths were warring, open and slick, all hot breath and tongue and teeth as they slid experimentally against each other, once, and again and again, but it wasn't enough. Both, maybe, were too tense to find any sort of rhythm, so after one slow long thrust of his hips, Alec made himself stop, tight against Eliot, and deepened the kiss until he felt muscles loosen beneath him.
Another few moments, and Eliot's thighs relaxed, almost imperceptibly, but it was enough to allow that last millimeter that had been missing, and when Alec shifted again, Eliot rose to meet him. Seamless.
He wasn't going to last much longer, but he still had a little luck left to press.
---
Hardison changed the game up, again, easing back enough to wrap, awkwardly, around them both, and fuck it was good, feeling that slide next to close-pressed hips, a thousand shifting frictions and he wasn't going to last long.
---
Eliot had gone slack, but his breathing was sharp, stuttering, harsh against his ear. The flush radiated down from his ears, along his throat to disappear under his collar, and sometime, soon, they really needed to do something about that shirt, if only to see just how much blood was rising to his skin, to see watch his breath, see the muscles jump under his touch.
But not right now, because Alec felt himself crashing down again, curling his head against the armrest to look down at the two of them. Eliot's arm, curled against his chest, the damnable shirt and his own wrist shifting beneath, and holy shit, he was doing this, and Eliot, ready to go, was going to be his own undoing, and all he had to do was puzzle it out. Decode the catching breath, apply the right turn of the wrist, don't get distracted, now, pay attention.
---
Fuck, he was close. The sliding had gone slick and hot and so damned easy, and he wanted more, anything, to fuck, to be fucked, to never think again and just feel, too many things all at once, Hardison's breath warm on his throat, fuck, keening, and he was falling under the onslaught, losing and winning and not going down alone.
---
Epilogue