Fic: Thicker Than Blood
Thicker Than Blood
Characters: Eliot, Parker
Rating: PG-13ish for language
A/N: Another comment_fic for sheryden
Eliot already has a sister.
A real sister, related to him by blood, who shares his eye color and hair color (unless she’s been hitting the Clairol again) and the temper they both inherited from Daddy, and who knows every detail, down to the most humiliating, of his first 18 years. Like any good big sister, she had loved him, hated him, been horrified by and proud of him, had prayed fervently for the day he’d be kidnapped by gypsies or eaten by wolves and had cried every bit as hard as Mama the day he’d joined the Army.
He already has a sister. And, yeah, maybe he doesn’t see her that often, maybe once a year … or two or three … but it’s for her protection. After all, she’s got a kid, his nephew, and the last thing they need is his fucked-up mess of a life endangering theirs. But he calls occasionally, just to let her know he’s still alive, and emails (when he’s certain - has Hardison make certain - the connection can’t be traced), and sends postcards of places he thinks they’d like, complete with exciting details of his travels.
Except that the cards are almost never from where he really is at the time, but random ones chosen from the stash he’s collected over the years for just this purpose. And the completely made-up details he includes never make any mention of prisons or torture or some asshole’s latest attempt to collect one of the bounties on his head, or of the warlord, druglord, kleptocrat or covert government (pick a government, any government) agency currently employing/hunting him. Somehow “skiing in the Alps” seems more like something she’d want to read than “recovering at a hospital in Colombo from wounds suffered while retrieving a wealthy Sri Lankan tea plantation owner’s daughter from the Tamil Tigers.”
He’s kept her in the dark for years, lied to her, but always for her own good. To keep her safe. Because that’s what brothers do.
He’s already got a sister to protect. He doesn’t need another.
*~*~*
Parker had a brother. Once.
A younger brother, though not by much. One year younger, exactly, born on her first birthday. People had called them “Irish twins,” which had never made any sense to her. They weren’t Irish, and they weren’t twins.
They were just … them.
And so many times it was just them, just the two of them, even when they were in a foster home with foster parents and foster … other kids. They knew they were all they had, really had, and so they had clung together, just the two of them in and against a world that didn’t seem to know they existed, much less care. But she cared. She had a brother, a little brother (though not by much), who looked up to her and depended on her … and needed her. And whom she needed in return. He was hers as much as Bunny was, the only one (besides Bunny) who understood her, who knew how to love her. Or even bothered to try.
So she had made it her job to take care of him, to teach him, to keep him safe. In the home where the parents locked bothersome children in closets, she learned and then taught him to pick locks to get out. In the home where food was withheld as punishment, she taught him to steal more. She taught him to regard window ledges as bridges to better places, and small, cramped, narrow spaces where no adult could fit as safe havens.
And she taught him to ride a bike.
It had been almost like flying, that rush of freedom and speed, and she remembers laughing and clapping her hands and shouting with pride and joy as he had sped down that driveway, pedaling as fast as he could. And then she remembers the car that neither of them had seen coming, the squeal of brakes and tires, and the horrible, hideous thump that had been her brother and the bike colliding with the car-
Parker had had one brother to love, and she’d only managed to lose him. She doesn’t need another.
*~*~*
She’s fucking nuts and he knows it, sometimes so far around the bend he doubts they’ll ever get her back. Twenty pounds of crazy in a five-pound bag, and sometimes he swears somebody poured more crazy in when he wasn’t looking. She can pick any lock that’s ever been made, beat any security system ever designed (except that bastard of a Steranko), hell, could probably steal the crown right off the Queen of England’s head.
Then she’d probably tase the old woman just for the hell of it.
Parker. is fucking. NUTS. And he’d always made it a habit in life to stay far, far away from crazy people, because, hello, crazy. Crazy people are dangerous, unreliable. They endanger missions, take risks no sane person would even consider, bring a frightening level of unpredictability to the simplest of jobs. Thieves in general are a pretty unstable bunch, but Parker? She’s just batshit insane. He’s got enough on his hands trying to control his own demons and darkness, thank you very much. He doesn’t need to deal with Lunatic Barbie as well. Except … he can’t help himself.
Yes, Parker is quite possibly the world’s greatest thief, and, yes, she is certainly the world’s most fucked-up one. Jesus, she lives in a warehouse! With a stuffed bunny. But … it’s the bunny that gets him. Every time. Because when he sees it, or just thinks about it, he can’t help but see the girl - not the crazy woman, not the thief, but the girl - who probably still clutches it to her when she sleeps. Because, hell, Parker clutches things, people, even when she’s awake. Clutches them like she won’t - can’t - ever let them go.
Like there aren’t many more things … people … she could stand to lose. Because she never had that many to begin with-
And she’s already lost far too many of them.
He can still remember how she looked when Sophie had left. Lost. Shattered. As if a piece of her world she’d only just realized she loved and needed had been torn away. And for a few moments, he’d come close to hating Sophie for doing that to Parker. Until he’d remembered how lost Sophie had been as well.
Then there’d been that psychic. Hell, when Rand had ripped the scab off Parker’s soul and left her crying and hurting - bleeding - on Nate’s floor, he’d truly intended to kill the motherfucker. Slowly and painfully, using every torture technique that had ever been tested on him. Because no one, fucking no one, got to do that to the people he-
To his team.
But especially not to Parker. She’s vulnerable in ways no grown woman should ever be, doesn’t understand the world or people and has no real defense against either. She could steal the ceiling right out of the Sistine Chapel, but she has no. fucking. clue. how to talk to people or how to protect herself against them. Hell, she doesn’t even know how to tell Hardison she likes him.
And there’s another can of worms Eliot’s not sure he wants to see opened. Hardison’s just a kid, Parker’s insane-
It’s got “clusterfuck” written all over it.
But as much as he tells himself he should just walk away, avert his eyes and not watch the train wreck happen, he knows he won’t. Knows he can’t.
He’s already got a sister, a real sister, related to him by blood. He doesn’t need another.
But, hell, blood isn’t everything.
And even Parker needs more than just a stuffed bunny to cling to.
*~*~*
He’s nothing like her brother was. He’s growly and grouchy and scowls more than he smiles, he snaps and snarls and cusses at them, and he gets pissy when she pokes his bruises. Or hits him with a crowbar. Or gets him hit by a car. For a hitter, he’s really touchy about getting hit.
Which is strange, because that’s kind of his job, right?
And he’s good at his job. Really good. No matter how big the bad guys are, or how many of them there are, he always manages to take them down, keeping the team safe in the process. Oh, sure, sometimes she or one of the others is there to help out, but he doesn’t really need them. He doesn’t need anybody.
Except … she knows he does.
Like her, he spent most of his life working alone. She doesn’t know exactly what he did, and doesn’t really want to, but she does know it wasn’t always good, and that he’s been hurt because of it. Not necessarily to his body - although there was certainly some of that; she’s seen the scars - but to other parts, the parts that make him Eliot. She’s seen it in the shadows that fill his eyes when a job hits too close to home, when it reminds him of something he did before. And she heard it in his voice when he sang that song in Memphis. Maybe he did used to hurt people, before, but he was hurt, too-
And he needs them to help him heal.
It’s there when he cooks for them, when he slips her pieces of vegetables and bickers with Hardison about … whatever they’re bickering about now … and it’s there when he rushes into a fight to protect them and tends them afterward when they’ve been hurt. He does it not because they need him - after all, they’d looked after themselves just fine before they ever met him - but because he needs them. He needs them to be safe, he needs them to be well, he needs them to be whole.
Because … he needs them to be here. With him. For him. They’re all he has.
And she understands that. She had a brother once, and she lost him. She’d tried to take care of him and failed. She obviously just isn’t any good at that.
But Eliot is good at it. And if doing that gets the shadows out of his eyes and the sadness out of his face-
Well, there are worse things than having someone around who knows how to cook more than just cereal and doesn’t mind punching out bad guys, right?
*~*~*
He rolls his eyes and shakes his head, muttering under his breath as she fires up the taser and grins maniacally. Twenty pounds of crazy in a five-pound bag. But when he starts taking out the thugs who are blocking their access to the stairs, he’s careful to throw one her way. No sense keeping all the fun to himself.
She pokes his latest bruise and mimics him when he growls. Seriously, he needs to lighten up. It’s not like he’s bleeding. Though if he should suddenly start, she’s ready with the Scooby-Doo bandaids she stashed in the van just for him.
He checks her harnesses, makes sure they’re strong enough to bear her weight plus his - not that there’s any way in hell he’s ever using the goddamned thing - and she steals him a few knives from his favorite cutlery store as a get-well present after he’s hurt on a job. And when she goes to check on him that night, breaking into his house, she makes a note of the weakness in the security system and vows to tell Hardison about it later. Then she tucks Bunny into bed with him and slips away again into the night.
They don’t need siblings.
But they do need each other.
And, really, that’s all it takes to make a family.
The End
Characters: Eliot, Parker
Rating: PG-13ish for language
A/N: Another comment_fic for sheryden
Eliot already has a sister.
A real sister, related to him by blood, who shares his eye color and hair color (unless she’s been hitting the Clairol again) and the temper they both inherited from Daddy, and who knows every detail, down to the most humiliating, of his first 18 years. Like any good big sister, she had loved him, hated him, been horrified by and proud of him, had prayed fervently for the day he’d be kidnapped by gypsies or eaten by wolves and had cried every bit as hard as Mama the day he’d joined the Army.
He already has a sister. And, yeah, maybe he doesn’t see her that often, maybe once a year … or two or three … but it’s for her protection. After all, she’s got a kid, his nephew, and the last thing they need is his fucked-up mess of a life endangering theirs. But he calls occasionally, just to let her know he’s still alive, and emails (when he’s certain - has Hardison make certain - the connection can’t be traced), and sends postcards of places he thinks they’d like, complete with exciting details of his travels.
Except that the cards are almost never from where he really is at the time, but random ones chosen from the stash he’s collected over the years for just this purpose. And the completely made-up details he includes never make any mention of prisons or torture or some asshole’s latest attempt to collect one of the bounties on his head, or of the warlord, druglord, kleptocrat or covert government (pick a government, any government) agency currently employing/hunting him. Somehow “skiing in the Alps” seems more like something she’d want to read than “recovering at a hospital in Colombo from wounds suffered while retrieving a wealthy Sri Lankan tea plantation owner’s daughter from the Tamil Tigers.”
He’s kept her in the dark for years, lied to her, but always for her own good. To keep her safe. Because that’s what brothers do.
He’s already got a sister to protect. He doesn’t need another.
*~*~*
Parker had a brother. Once.
A younger brother, though not by much. One year younger, exactly, born on her first birthday. People had called them “Irish twins,” which had never made any sense to her. They weren’t Irish, and they weren’t twins.
They were just … them.
And so many times it was just them, just the two of them, even when they were in a foster home with foster parents and foster … other kids. They knew they were all they had, really had, and so they had clung together, just the two of them in and against a world that didn’t seem to know they existed, much less care. But she cared. She had a brother, a little brother (though not by much), who looked up to her and depended on her … and needed her. And whom she needed in return. He was hers as much as Bunny was, the only one (besides Bunny) who understood her, who knew how to love her. Or even bothered to try.
So she had made it her job to take care of him, to teach him, to keep him safe. In the home where the parents locked bothersome children in closets, she learned and then taught him to pick locks to get out. In the home where food was withheld as punishment, she taught him to steal more. She taught him to regard window ledges as bridges to better places, and small, cramped, narrow spaces where no adult could fit as safe havens.
And she taught him to ride a bike.
It had been almost like flying, that rush of freedom and speed, and she remembers laughing and clapping her hands and shouting with pride and joy as he had sped down that driveway, pedaling as fast as he could. And then she remembers the car that neither of them had seen coming, the squeal of brakes and tires, and the horrible, hideous thump that had been her brother and the bike colliding with the car-
Parker had had one brother to love, and she’d only managed to lose him. She doesn’t need another.
*~*~*
She’s fucking nuts and he knows it, sometimes so far around the bend he doubts they’ll ever get her back. Twenty pounds of crazy in a five-pound bag, and sometimes he swears somebody poured more crazy in when he wasn’t looking. She can pick any lock that’s ever been made, beat any security system ever designed (except that bastard of a Steranko), hell, could probably steal the crown right off the Queen of England’s head.
Then she’d probably tase the old woman just for the hell of it.
Parker. is fucking. NUTS. And he’d always made it a habit in life to stay far, far away from crazy people, because, hello, crazy. Crazy people are dangerous, unreliable. They endanger missions, take risks no sane person would even consider, bring a frightening level of unpredictability to the simplest of jobs. Thieves in general are a pretty unstable bunch, but Parker? She’s just batshit insane. He’s got enough on his hands trying to control his own demons and darkness, thank you very much. He doesn’t need to deal with Lunatic Barbie as well. Except … he can’t help himself.
Yes, Parker is quite possibly the world’s greatest thief, and, yes, she is certainly the world’s most fucked-up one. Jesus, she lives in a warehouse! With a stuffed bunny. But … it’s the bunny that gets him. Every time. Because when he sees it, or just thinks about it, he can’t help but see the girl - not the crazy woman, not the thief, but the girl - who probably still clutches it to her when she sleeps. Because, hell, Parker clutches things, people, even when she’s awake. Clutches them like she won’t - can’t - ever let them go.
Like there aren’t many more things … people … she could stand to lose. Because she never had that many to begin with-
And she’s already lost far too many of them.
He can still remember how she looked when Sophie had left. Lost. Shattered. As if a piece of her world she’d only just realized she loved and needed had been torn away. And for a few moments, he’d come close to hating Sophie for doing that to Parker. Until he’d remembered how lost Sophie had been as well.
Then there’d been that psychic. Hell, when Rand had ripped the scab off Parker’s soul and left her crying and hurting - bleeding - on Nate’s floor, he’d truly intended to kill the motherfucker. Slowly and painfully, using every torture technique that had ever been tested on him. Because no one, fucking no one, got to do that to the people he-
To his team.
But especially not to Parker. She’s vulnerable in ways no grown woman should ever be, doesn’t understand the world or people and has no real defense against either. She could steal the ceiling right out of the Sistine Chapel, but she has no. fucking. clue. how to talk to people or how to protect herself against them. Hell, she doesn’t even know how to tell Hardison she likes him.
And there’s another can of worms Eliot’s not sure he wants to see opened. Hardison’s just a kid, Parker’s insane-
It’s got “clusterfuck” written all over it.
But as much as he tells himself he should just walk away, avert his eyes and not watch the train wreck happen, he knows he won’t. Knows he can’t.
He’s already got a sister, a real sister, related to him by blood. He doesn’t need another.
But, hell, blood isn’t everything.
And even Parker needs more than just a stuffed bunny to cling to.
*~*~*
He’s nothing like her brother was. He’s growly and grouchy and scowls more than he smiles, he snaps and snarls and cusses at them, and he gets pissy when she pokes his bruises. Or hits him with a crowbar. Or gets him hit by a car. For a hitter, he’s really touchy about getting hit.
Which is strange, because that’s kind of his job, right?
And he’s good at his job. Really good. No matter how big the bad guys are, or how many of them there are, he always manages to take them down, keeping the team safe in the process. Oh, sure, sometimes she or one of the others is there to help out, but he doesn’t really need them. He doesn’t need anybody.
Except … she knows he does.
Like her, he spent most of his life working alone. She doesn’t know exactly what he did, and doesn’t really want to, but she does know it wasn’t always good, and that he’s been hurt because of it. Not necessarily to his body - although there was certainly some of that; she’s seen the scars - but to other parts, the parts that make him Eliot. She’s seen it in the shadows that fill his eyes when a job hits too close to home, when it reminds him of something he did before. And she heard it in his voice when he sang that song in Memphis. Maybe he did used to hurt people, before, but he was hurt, too-
And he needs them to help him heal.
It’s there when he cooks for them, when he slips her pieces of vegetables and bickers with Hardison about … whatever they’re bickering about now … and it’s there when he rushes into a fight to protect them and tends them afterward when they’ve been hurt. He does it not because they need him - after all, they’d looked after themselves just fine before they ever met him - but because he needs them. He needs them to be safe, he needs them to be well, he needs them to be whole.
Because … he needs them to be here. With him. For him. They’re all he has.
And she understands that. She had a brother once, and she lost him. She’d tried to take care of him and failed. She obviously just isn’t any good at that.
But Eliot is good at it. And if doing that gets the shadows out of his eyes and the sadness out of his face-
Well, there are worse things than having someone around who knows how to cook more than just cereal and doesn’t mind punching out bad guys, right?
*~*~*
He rolls his eyes and shakes his head, muttering under his breath as she fires up the taser and grins maniacally. Twenty pounds of crazy in a five-pound bag. But when he starts taking out the thugs who are blocking their access to the stairs, he’s careful to throw one her way. No sense keeping all the fun to himself.
She pokes his latest bruise and mimics him when he growls. Seriously, he needs to lighten up. It’s not like he’s bleeding. Though if he should suddenly start, she’s ready with the Scooby-Doo bandaids she stashed in the van just for him.
He checks her harnesses, makes sure they’re strong enough to bear her weight plus his - not that there’s any way in hell he’s ever using the goddamned thing - and she steals him a few knives from his favorite cutlery store as a get-well present after he’s hurt on a job. And when she goes to check on him that night, breaking into his house, she makes a note of the weakness in the security system and vows to tell Hardison about it later. Then she tucks Bunny into bed with him and slips away again into the night.
They don’t need siblings.
But they do need each other.
And, really, that’s all it takes to make a family.
The End