Archive of Our Own

It's not the length thing. He's had it long for most of his life now. Messed around the jungle gym with a mop of curls that always seemed overgrown. There was the rat tail from age seven to eleven. A mullet past that until his coach got sick of his hair catching in his helmet. The buzz he had as a recruit. Early in his career he kept strict regulation, but no one gave him shit after that first capture, when trimming his hair wasn't a priority amongst all the torture. He could barely wash and comb his own head without remembering hands guiding him into a bucket of water, and fuck if he was gonna have someone else touch him, let alone come near him with a scissor. As his waves curved down his cheek, his unit teased him with their Lionhearts or Baywatchs or the stray Rapunzels but the US government wouldn't dare mark him for it; he was a ghost in the system then, and they didn't want to deal with blacking out the paperwork needed to enforce a cut.

—

It's not a length thing, because by the time he first met Moreau, his hair swept his shoulders. Moreau delighted in the brazenness of a man in Eliot's position with so obvious a vulnerability. The confidence. He stepped close enough Eliot could smell the champagne on his breath, and he even slipped a middle finger into a spiral. Not so much twirling it but just… a movement with a promise Eliot didn't know to read until later. On his knees. The same finger making way. The other hand clenched in Eliot's hair.

By the time he left Moreau, come out the shower his ends hit the shadow crease of his crack, but the wetwork he'd done trailed like a veil behind him.

He got a cheap thrill the first time he used a bar of Irish Spring to clean his scalp instead of the delicate and prim products Moreau supplied him for so many years. He used whatever nondescript two-in-ones hotels had put out for guests. Twice he washed with Fast Orange in a pinch—a horrible idea, but even if the pumice left his hair like straw for weeks, he delighted in its destruction.

—

In the mood for a cliche, Eliot cut his hair into a messy bob the evening he woke up from a night terror with just enough time to vomit onto his (un)fortunately open luggage instead of the bed. He dragged the ruined suitcase and all his shit into the shower, ran water over it to cover some of the smell, and then rinsed off to rid himself of the sourness of his sick. As he pushed the limp wet drape of his long hair out his eyes, he caught himself in the pallid face in the mirror haloed by the cherished reminder of just how long he'd been with Moreau. Eliot gagged at the sudden memory of a ghost pull of his scalp, imagining Moreau hanging his palm with a noose wound with Eliot's curls.

Later, the bad breakup bob sprung up into an unruly cloud. It got into his eyes as he fought, blinding him, making him sloppy, leaving him with injuries he didn't need to accrue but that he deserved.

He learned to account for shrinkage when he cut his hair.

—

It'd been a spontaneous decision, the first time he took a flat iron to it at a cheap motel that had a separate fleet of rooms devoted to hourly bookings. He needed a place to wash up after an unexpected brawl with a goon ruffled the professor get-up he needed for the next part of the job. The clerk looked him over, decided he must have enough of a look to not even ask if Eliot was sure about the room, and gave him the keys. Unlike most every hotel room in existence that got cleared between using, this one's bathroom came supplied, the sex workers who frequented the place clearly deciding to take over. Piled in a corner of the vanity were a ton of used makeup palettes in every shade, brushes, a comb that definitely hid a switchblade. Hairspray. In a drawer, two boxes of condoms, a couple dams, tampons, and business cards for a nearby Planned Parenthood with instructions to call them with the room number if any supplies were low. The drawer next to it had four sealed clean needles, a Narcan spray, another few business cards, and, of course, the flat iron.

The spread felt inviting, both comfortable and knowing, and maybe that was why he went for the flat iron. Eliot had seen women he'd slept with use it before, as they got ready for the day before shooing Eliot out the door. He figured it couldn't be too hard.

He singed his hair. Bad. He had to cut it an inch with the comb-knife to hide his fuck up.

Even with the failure, Eliot looked in the mirror and… he saw someone he nearly didn't recognize, if only for a moment. A man—a boy, really—with god in his heart and the stars and stripes on his shoulder.

It became an addicting feeling, attempting to see that boy again. Split ends forked his hair for the first time Eliot could remember. He never could get the whirl at his right temple to lay down right, especially once a lucky hit with brass knuckles dug straight to his skull there; he had to ignore the perpetual funkiness of his hairline. He did his best with it, including throwing his hair up into tight ponytails which had him adjusting every grift to someone a little more casual, a little more rough-around-the-edges.

He took to wearing hats.

—

—

He chased that dissonance, but he never achieves it quite again.

Years into the habit, now, Eliot doesn't stop. He knows it will not take, but Eliot passes that heat over his hair again and again and again anyway. Because it was never about the length, but the curls. The waves. The unruly mess of his life he could control just this once, in this one way.

—

—

It ain't exactly a secret he straightens his hair, but the first time it really hits his crew—his one-day family—that his hair looks different is in a dim hotel room in Omaha.

The revelations start at the ring. "Kid Jones" stopped training two hours ago just before the gym closed for the night, but Eliot went back to the ring to box shadows even past his muscles first seizing. He hasn't stopped since. Sweat falls from him in rivers, drenching his clothes and slowly but surely undoing all his work on his blow out from that morning. It's only when Sophie comes by to remind him he has options that it hits Eliot: there ain't no way to hide his curls at the match, not with how the heat and the activity drenches him wet. He turns away from her to keep punching air to hide how the realization stole all of his out his lungs.

The day of the match, Eliot doesn't bother with straightening. He joins the team meeting with his hair natural like it hasn't been in front of other people in a very, very long time. Sophie and Nate don't react—their minds concerned with the fight, chatting about the dose of succinylcholine to be used on Tank because they don't actually intend to kill the man. Parker and Hardison, though… Eliot can't stomach the flash of keen interest in Hardison's eyes (god he was so young then). At least Parker's curiosity is near academic instead of burning with a heat Eliot can't untangle from cigars and million count sheets and orders whispered into his ear like calls to supper.

Parker saddles up next to him with two packs of to-go cereal from the breakfast bar. She means to touch him, he knows. Means to investigate his curls the same way she jabs at his injuries, but this is one bruise he can't let her poke. "Hair's off limits, Parker." She gives him a contemptuous look, put out to have been called out on her intentions. "I mean it."

She squints at him, accessing. "Fine," she says, bouncing off in flippant and careless agreement, but that's as much as he can expect from her, at least then.

—

(Later, the reverence she will show him for his every defined limit will never cease to stun him in love. But then, then in a dim room in Omaha, she didn't know he needed that reassurance and he—well—he was used to taking what he could get; been too long since he could remember a boundary made that went respected. Why bother?)

—

He fights. He "gets fucked up" and he "is drugged" and he "loses it" and he "kills" a man.

Eliot drops into bed that night still coated in blood and sweat and the pounding memory of flesh on flesh. He avoids the mirror.

—

His hair is his hair is his hair. Sometimes he doesn't go quite as hard on the blow out when he knows he is gonna be particularly active.

And even though Sophie suggests letting it curl once or twice for a grift, Nate himself never directs Eliot's hair. Eliot appreciates it beyond what words can ever express, even if the accommodation almost definitely comes from complete disinterest rather than offering any kind of true support. Eliot'd confronted Moreau and picked up a gun again and killed again and carried out dangerous alcohol-fueled plan after dangerous plan for that mastermind of theirs, for the whole team, but… This is something else, made evident when Moreau's petty comment about liking his new style finally hits Eliot. It takes months, his heart still reeling from the warehouse massacre, but when it does, he shakes and shakes and thinks about shaving his whole head. But he stills his hand, not willing to give Moreau this influence over him. Not willing to change himself for a man abandoned in a tiny cell on a tiny island, locked away and inconsequential. And… Eliot pushes out a gasp, again and again, until he lets himself believe a truth he tried to burn out with every pass of his flat iron: maybe, just maybe, it didn't matter what his hair looked like. Maybe Moreau would have found another focal point because Moreau simply wanted the idea of Eliot Spencer, a lethal weapon so ready and willing to bend to his whims.

—

Eliot wishes he can say he isn't that man anyone. That maybe he'd gained some fortitude and resilience. That he can now say no.

He instead learns don't ask me that and never do that again, don't do that again brushing dirt from Hardison's suit and he's leaning into a hug with Hardison wherever he can justify it, making sure to push the man away after a beat taken too long. Every liberty he gives them—how he avoids abstract phrases or obscure innuendos that might trip Parker up; how he includes more citrus tones into his recipes to account for Hardison's taste—he digs deeper into a familiar tread.

Eliot finds out how far he has fallen days after that stupid gold job that Hardison flubbed up with all his game theory woohaa, of all things. Eliot is washing up after fixing the crew a late night three-course using the shit in Nate's fridge that hadn't gone off during their Portland trip. The rest of the crew trailed off afterward, full and happy and tired from researching the juggle of potential clients they had lined up. Or—Eliot thought they'd gone home (or, in Nate's case, gone with Sophie) until he hears Hardison's footsteps in the hall. The door opens. The man joins Eliot at the sink, checking a hip against the counter.

"You gonna help me or…?"

"No, no, I got this sensitivity… in my fingers? Can't have them pruning; won't be able to type for days if I do, I swear it." Eliot hums his skepticism but continues the smooth and clean ritual of washing. (There's a dishwasher. There's a dishwasher that could do this all minus a pan or two in one go. Eliot stays scrubbing.)

Only the last few spoons wait for his attention before Hardison breaks.

"I just want to thank you, man. For your feedback."

Eliot's lip twitches his discomfort. He'd been quiet for most of the mission—eyes flickering back to Nate expecting his scheming, heart full as Eliot sees Hardison push himself in a way Eliot never considered to take up. Yeah, he may play along with Hardison's attempt at masterminding, he'll fill out the damn paperwork, but he doesn't need to be reminded he indulged Hardison. "T'was nothing."

"Yeah, yeah, Mr Punchy is too cool to be seen as a team player. I see you. I hear you. But… I… I got you something." Hardison draws out from his back pockets four thin bottles, which he places on the corner as carefully as he would a bomb. He's not far off given the explosion in Eliot's chest reading the labels. Oh… oh, goddammit, Hardison—"I didn't know what to get you, but… I did some research. I know you think you can get by with them nasty off off brand products, and yeah, it's worked surprisingly well actually? what with the floof and the bounce and the shine… Thing is, I don't know nothing much about white people hair, but I've seen the work a hot comb can do to a person, and if you're out here doing god knows what to your hair as much as you do, you're asking to be bowling ball bald within five years. Ten years, tops."

Eliot scans the bottles. There's a strengthening shampoo, a smoothing conditioner, and a deep conditioner. In a bottle with a slightly different cap—a heat protector spray.

He picks up the shampoo like it's made of glass. He clicks the tab open, and the smell of honey and a scrape of peonies sketches the coconut base with lightness. It's not cloyingly saccharine nor is it the kind of chemical warfare that was walking by a Bath & Body Works in the mall as a teen. Eliot guesses this will smell nice out of the bottle but will settle into a gentle fragrance once washed out.

Eliot ticks the tab closed.

Probably nervous at Eliot's silence, Hardison rambles on. "They've family-owned, humanely tested, fair-trade, ethically sourced, and not that fake organic greenwashing swill. The containers are all compostable plant-based material which they released as an open-source design. They've done some good work. And these, they're just sample sizes, to see if you like them, but I can hook you up. Maybe get you a subscription? There's other products, too, but didn't wanna overwhelm you if—listen, if you don't like it, my bad. Just thought I'll do something nice but if my effort isn't appreciated then—"

"Why're you doing this?"

Eliot looks up from the bottle. Hardison has his arms crossed tight against himself—he means serious business. "Sometimes you can treat yourself to something nice, y'know, and if you aren't going to, then maybe I can? when you help a brother out?"

"No, not what I meant. Why…" Eliot's mouth feels packed with sawdust, his tongue laboring past a sudden acrid dryness to contort all the stray observations he's noticed into a coherent thought. Right about now he'd usually grumble and storm off at his own inability to verbalize something so simple as… But Eliot wades through his frustration because Hardison waits for him. Eventually, Eliot defines the totality of the last few weeks with two details: "Parker's sitting too close to me again. And you bet with dinners you know I'd cook for you anyway, even if you win. Even if I win. With or without the bet. I'll fed you."

Hardison smiles down at him, a secret little thing that is more grift than not. He reaches out. Cups Eliot's elbow. "This is just a thank you. No ulterior motives here."

Eliot should let this shit go. He should just accept the bottles and abandon them in the back of his bathroom sink. But the urgent warmth in his stomach thinking about smelling like Hardison wants him to smell, to be marked by the man, to let himself be taken care of (again? for the first time?) and to be spoiled and to not have to have the ends of his hair feel like rakes against his neck. Eliot does not need to and should not push. But he does: he returns the bottle to the line up before telling Hardison the truth that long has been between them three. "But there are ulterior motives. Elsewhere."

Hardison's eyes go wide, him like Eliot himself not anticipating such a bold call out. His tongue pokes out his mouth, licks up all the secrets he's got on the ready. "My man, it's not like—"

"Please, Hardison. Tell me."

Now Eliot is patient in the way Hardison was for him. He can see Hardison calculating his options in his head like when he gets all savant genius number brain when cornered. Eventually, Hardison (so brave, so sincere) sighs out, "I told Parker you got her that plant, not me. She loves it, y'know. Named it Eli." Eliot wants to growl at Hardison ruining his gambit, but Hardison leans ever so closer. Eliot can see the wet of spit on Hardison's lips. "Me and Parker, we got our fragile baby bird thing going," Hardison's voice hushes. "But one thing we do know is your place at our side. Like we have our dates and don't get me wrong, I love them. But when we can loop you in? Those nights… I love spending time with you, Eliot. I think about you. We talk about you. I want you. Hell, I may have intricate-rituals-to-touch-another-man'd you with that fist bump. And Parker? I'm pretty sure she loves me 'cause of you. The things you tell her. We ain't us without you. And not just in the, oh you keep us alive way. Not even only in that, oh we wanna ride your saucy goddamn mouth like filthy animals way, though trust, you better prep your neck for the sitting that'll be done on your face if… But, ha. What we really want? We want you in the we want you on all our dates kinda way. In the we want you in our bed and life forever kind of way. In the—" Hardison suddenly snaps his mouths shut, alert and embarrassed.

"What?"

"I shouldn't—"

"Please." Eliot's begging a lot tonight, but he will not (no—cannot) leave this conversation without hearing the end of that sentence. He ain't breathing until he knows.

Hardison must mean to tear Eliot to his very foundation when he confesses, "Eliot, Parker—sometimes, sometimes she'll open me up but won't get her strap and I know, I know it's for you."

Heat.

Heat and need and hunger.

Heat, hunger, and the brush of his eyelashes flickering closed. Shuttering his vision ain't do much hiding from Hardison just how much his words take out of Eliot—or, maybe, how much he's poured into him. At least Eliot can't see it—Hardison's heat. His need. His hunger.

"Fuck," Eliot punches out.

Fuck.

He grabs onto the sink to hold himself up. Hardison slips his hand from Eliot's elbow to the small of his back, getting ready to catch Eliot if he really falls to his knees instead of just metaphorically. (It's a close thing.) Eliot is just happy he put down the shampoo because the thing would have exploded in his too tight grip.

"Hardison, that's—"

"Too much." It's not. It's not, 'cause it's everything Eliot could have ever dreamed about, it's perfect, it's home, its—"It's… weird. Sorry. I'm sorry."

"Don't be, I asked, just—"

They are both flailing. This is humiliating.

"Was tryna be assertive, you said…"

"I was talking about Parker."

"Well, you also said you don't think about me and her, which…"

Eliot remembers Moreau and his glass vials and perfect crystalline toppers and gels that contain at least one endangered species each in their lists of ingredients.

He opens his eyes.

There's four products curated to exactly how Eliot wants his hair in four bleeding heart compostable tubes.

"If I overstepped, or, or if there's a different smell (flavor?) you would prefer, I can—" Hardison goes for the bottles.

Eliot grabs Hardison's wrist. Too tight. (Too desperate.) He loosens his hold but doesn't let go. "No, its fine."

"Really?"

"I'll use it."

"Hey."

Hardison goes in for one of his side hugs. Their bodies twist awkwardly around hand on wrist. Eliot tucks into Hardison's neck, and Hardison bumps a cheek to Eliot's temple. Awkward, but hot breath sweeps Eliot's hairline, which jumps his pulse high despite all of his years of training.

Hardison holds on too long. Eliot lets him.

A minute shift, and then Eliot is sure he can feel the crook of a smile on his skin. Not so much of a kiss but—the promise of one, maybe. Eliot's too raw and wanting for a maybe, so he doesn't chase Hardison as he pulls away. As Hardison walks away. He's nearly out the room when Eliot calls out with a surety he likely absorbed through that hug, "Alec." Hardison turns to him, eyes soft and nearly wounded. "Let's get that baby bird of yours out its nest and flying. Then… then we can talk."

Hardison rubs his hands together, but a shiteating grin doesn't cross his mouth as one usually does to accompany such an action. He nods and leaves Eliot alone with four thin bottles, a couple of unwashed spoons, and most damning of all, hope.

—

Eliot doesn't use the products right away. He puts them into his shower, he stares at them, and he packs them in his every to-go kit, taking them with him to Boston, DC, Ukraine, New York, and any of the dozen places Eliot finds himself in once Nate asks for some time so he can fuck off to play at sea captain while he grieves. The thin bottles follow Eliot across the world biting at Vance's heels for a government contract. He uses them then, for the first time, sluicing clots of carbon ash and dirt from his scalp. He drowns in the coconut, the honey, the scrape of peony… and he grasps his dick wet with the knowledge Hardison chose this for him, that Hardison went out his way to research such inconsequential yet intimate items. Eliot wrings himself out to the question of if Hardison checked in with Parker about the gift. Decides Hardison must've. They thought about him—Hardison said. They thought and talked about him, and Parker… Maybe Hardison ordered a sample of each scent, and he had Parker share her favorites; she was sensitive to smells, after all. She'll need him smelling tolerable if she ever… fuck, if she ever takes that strap to Eliot, her face tucked into the nape of his neck and with Hardison kissing his temple as Eliot moans like he's moaning now—

Cheeks flushed from his orgasm, Eliot's hair isn't even dry before he pulls up the website and orders the whole honey-peony line in bulk.

—

Eliot finds out his guess at Parker's involvement in selecting the products is correct during that first job out of Portland. Teddy bear secured, they get back to Eliot's Challenger so they can pull in closer to the rest of the crew. Hardison told him and Parker that they ain't in no rush, now that the mark's been secured and will be taken out soon; still, best to group up, just to be sure.

Eliot's turning on the ignition when he sees movement in his periphery. It's Parker getting close to him; he knows it's Parker, she's not a threat, no need to react, she's…

Parker comes in close, real close. Hand on the gearshift, leaning over until he can feel her nose brush the crow's feet starting to dig in at his right eye.

Then she sniffs him.

As her face twitches like a goddamn rabbit, Eliot gives himself permission to react. He won't lay a hand on her to push her away, so he twists to sit back against the car door. She follows him. "Your nose is in my damn hair, Parker."

"I didn't touch it," she says at his indigence. Her sharp tone catches Eliot off guard. "You said not to, so…"

"What're you talking—when did I tell you that?"

"The job with the hick and the boxing. You killed a guy."

It takes a moment for Eliot to place the job. "That was three, three and a half years ago; I ain't here remembering what I said. And it was MMA. Also, I didn't kill him, y'know that right?"

"Sure. Well, at least then, you said not to touch your hair. So. I haven't."

Parker has long invaded his space with the poked bruises, the standing too close, locking elbows together; when they were still using couches, he started sitting back in his chair specifically to account for her weight on the armrest. She jumps and expects him to catch her. And even as she's taken up more normalized patterns of interaction with near everyone else, especially as her grift improves, she still remains weird with him. Or… Not weird. Or not just weird. She's intimate with his body in a way that thrills and entices and (once) worried him when he thought he was crushing on a no-fly-zone of a colleague, another colleague's crush/maybe-girlfriend, and whatever counts for twenty pounds of chaos in a five-pound bag. But maybe… maybe he's weird with her, too. How he tracks how and when his body touches her, in a way he doesn't with Hardison, and certainly not with Nate or Sophie or any of their marks.

He ain't got a single memory of her fingers in his hair other than a glancing touch; hell, he's pretty sure most of the times she's slung her arm across his shoulders was when he had his hair up in a ponytail. Either way, he can imagine how any brush of his hair against her was engineered as incidental and not her intention to play with it, despite (as mentioned) her flagrant invasion of his personal space otherwise. As such, Eliot believes her that he once told her that and believes her seriousness and believes she's kept to a boundary he doesn't remember establishing all these years.

Still. He feels… unmoored.

Touched, and touch starved.

"Oh, yeah," he says. "Thank you." She smiles a told you so at him.

God, he loves her.

She goes to sit back in her seat so now, he does reach out to her. Her shoulder. More a tap than anything, but she stops like he yanked her. "Listen. I appreciate you being respectful. But—you can… if…"

He's fucked plenty of people over the years who go for his hair, whether it was curled or straightened. Sometimes he'd find other things for his partner's hands to do. Other times, he swallowed the discomfort until sheer exposure deadened the trigger pull of a memory that should've been long past him. He's had his hair touched plenty of times. But he's never given explicit permission. He chokes on it.

Parker makes sense of his trailing off. Her eyes don't leave his as she taps on her earbud. She listens for a moment, and likely not hearing anything of concern, she taps it off again. She lays the palm of this same hand to cover his heart.

"Eliot." She hasn't quite crawled over the gearshift but it's a close thing as Parker pulls closer still. "Can I touch your hair?"

He means to say yes, and he does. "Yes"—but not without adding a desperate—"darlin'."

Parker isn't greedy with his permission in the way he expects. (Hopes?) She clearly telegraphs her movements as she slips her palm up his chest to drag along his jaw before cupping his ear, fingers easily slipping between strands. She holds him there as she ducks her head to his other ear. Now her nose is actually in his hair. She hums her glee.

Eliot's pulse races faster than when he was taking on Roemer's security squad.

"Hardison was going to get you sandalwood, but I knew it would be too butch. The honey would work best, I told him, and of course I was right because you smell so sweet." He tries not to show how that guts him down to the core of him, but she's right there. She must feel more than hear his suck of air. "Do you like being sweet for me?"

There is no answer he can give her that she doesn't already know. Her nostril grazes the lobe of his ear.

She draws back slightly to catch Eliot's eyes again. "You smell like a chapstick cocktail. Also kinda like sweat. But you're always kinda sweaty. In a good way. All in a good way. Kicking bad guys' asses kinda way." She rambles on a bit further, something about Hardison obsessing over whether a coconut or avocado oil base would be kinder for Eliot's heat-damaged hair. It's nice to hear the deep thought that went into the selection process for his gift, but Eliot misses most of it as he loses himself in her skilled fingers lightly petting whatever strands of his hair are in reach.

"We should be getting to the others," she says eventually but doesn't yet abandon him. Her lips are so close to his he can taste her words.

She's right. He's a professional. He knows better.

But Eliot doesn't want this moment to end.

"You and Hardison. Dating. Figured yourselves out, huh?"

Her thumb rubs an absent circle into his cheek. "Unlike the Goose, our bird has achieved liftoff. Well, we've also technically fallen. But only controlled falls with properly tested equipment because Hardison is a wuss." She tucks some hair behind Eliot's ear. "Not quite figured out, though." The same hair curtains back forward. She tucks it back again. "Think we're missing something. Someone?"

They've been playing around this for how long? Longer than Eliot knew, and longer than Parker and Hardison's thing was a thing, and maybe longer still, right up on the roof of a building on a job they didn't know would change their lives.

"If you don't kiss me, right now, Parker, I swear to god," Eliot growls a threat without any bite or substance. Parker giggles at his phrasing and closes the inches between them.

Unlike with Hardison, and hell, with Sophie and Tara (but never Nate, for all their sanity's sake), Parker has never kissed Eliot on a grift. They play off as wrestling rowdy siblings if they need a distraction. And even now, she does not find Eliot's lips, not exactly. Her hand angles his head until she reveals the left side of his face more clearly. Her lips track the scar riding up from his mouth. That is where she leaves her kiss, a tender whisper of all the disconcerting, disorienting intimacy she's filled his life with for four years now. She kisses him there, slow and like there's Celine Dion crooning a ballad during a movie's climax as skin touches skin. Eliot's gut falls in senseless eroticism feeling his exhales hot on her chin; he mostly keeps still for her exploration, but he dares to purse his lips enough to return a touch.

Eliot lets her and lets her teeth catch his upper lip for a brief but achingly sharp grasp before she leaves Eliot desperate yet fulfilled in a way he ain't never known before.

"Delayed, but see you in five," Parker alerts the rest of the crew as she finally returns to her seat. Eliot glares at her timetable but does his best to pocket the need rushing through him. At least, for now.

—

Nearly two weeks later, Eliot stalks into the back of the brewpub and up to Hardison plugging away at his computer. He swings around Hardison's stool and crowds the man sputtering from being cut away from his orc brawls.

"Respect the game!"

"The teddy bear was on the dash."

"Okay?"

"It was still recording, wasn't it? Recorded me and Parker, didn't it?" The guilty expression on Hardison's face tells Eliot exactly what he needs to know. "You watched it?" A deeper frown. Eliot menaces over Hardison as he sinks deeper into his chair. "You better have not added it to your spank bank."

"I was planning to delete it, I swear, but you have to understand, it made for a very pretty pictu—"

"I'm going to end you," Eliot threatens.

Hardison pulls one of his exaggerated winces and cringes out, "Only with a little death, right?"

Eliot blinks at the overt double entendre and… they're really at that stage, huh? Flirting with purpose. Flirting that may actually mean something. Maybe one day, sooner or later, almost an inevitable at this point—they were going to sleep together. Eliot laughs, sudden and easy and heart bursting at the stupid joke. "Really? La petite mort?" He falls into the chair next to Hardison, shaking his head.

Hardison shrugs, rolling with Eliot's mood shift as humor replaces his own embarrassment. "Once I realized what was going on, like hell was I turning away. Can you blame me? Seriously, y'all two together are what dreams are made of. And I know, because I've had said dreams."

A knot unfurls in Eliot's chest. A knot that must've tied the moment he realized that not only was he and Parker's… moment captured, but also that Hardison was going to see it. He figured it wouldn't be a big deal; Hardison had to know that if they were gonna let Eliot sleep with them, that Eliot and Parker occasionally might pair off. Still, a terrifying burst of doubt and remorse lit a fire under Eliot's ass and brought him to hunt down Hardison. Now, Eliot just feels like a jerk for his misreading of the situation.

He decides not to confess any of this to Hardison. Best not let the man know how much of an insecure brain-bruised (not yet -damaged) nutcase Eliot is before they solidify anything.

"Did you really jack off to Parker smelling my hair?"

"Nah. Cried though." At Eliot's eyebrows shooting upward, Hardison rushes to elaborate. "Y'all two, seriously, make a real pretty picture. And alone you're so sweet to her, and she's so… Parker with you. Earnest. I wanna be a voyeur to your every conversation even though I know it'll be different with me there. And maybe…" Hardison smiles a smile Eliot can't quite read. "I was jealous of her. A little. A lot."

"At what?" Eliot asks, ignoring the blush rising up his cheeks at Hardison's description of him and Parker's dynamic.

The prompting for clarification looks like it blisters Hardison in a way Eliot doesn't understand but is sure he doesn't like. He considers doubling back before Hardison answers, wistful and with too much of a droll roll in his tongue to be sincerely amused. "I mean—it's fine. We will be different things for each other, and maybe attractions aren't perfectly aligned. Our triangle doesn't need to be equilateral. We'll need to remind Parker of that, 'cause apparently she thinks that permission is passed through osmosis if we're sharing all things otherwise. But that ain't necessarily the case. I read the polyam books; I'm hip to it. I know, and I've processed and accepted—"

Eliot interrupts—"To the point, Hardison"—with a snarl.

"Man, it's just so easy for her to touch you. You let her, but not—and it's cool, I promise. I—"

The raw pain in Hardison's voice destroys any sense of decency Eliot didn't know he has left. He feels like a fucking melodramatic idiot, but he still nearly topples over the bolted down stool to get to Hardison. Hardison doesn't flinch (they ain't scared of him), but he does wilt under Eliot's consideration.

"How you want to touch me, then," Eliot taunts. This is not a question but an order. He shouldn't be so aggressive. Maybe that's the point of Hardison's hesitation, the different approaches Eliot has taken to his friendships with Hardison and Parker… (Eliot's internal calibrating dialogue goes into panicked overdrive: did he mean to treat them so different? No, it had to subconscious, right? One was a man and the other… Parker, so was it gendered? or damn, racial? or internalized homophobic shit? something else? Fuck, fuck, this is a goddamn mess but…) He shouldn't be aggressive—but he is because Eliot cannot breathe past the shame that he let Hardison think for a second, he doesn't have access to Eliot's affection.

He shouldn't be aggressive, mainly, because Hardison cows under the demand in Eliot's voice. "Eliot, you got nothing to prove."

"I do, sweetheart," Eliot pleads, trying to temper his voice even slightly. He fails, but the endearment lands the way it's meant to judging by Hardison's wet smile. "I gotta, if I let you think my body ain't here ready for you in whatever way you'll have me."

A million possibilities run through his head at what Hardison may take from him, as Hardison brings up shaking hands. Eliot will give anything. Take anything. He prepares for the best and the worst and the rough and the violence and the dismissive and the lewd and the objectifying and—

He was not prepared for the familiar. Or at least, the recently familiar.

Hardison pulls at the elastic holding up Eliot's hair in a ponytail. He tuts at how tight Eliot has it; mumbles something about it messing with effectiveness of the products. Eliot's hair falls to curtain his ears; he shakes it out to have it slip farther forward. Hardison lays a palm over Eliot's heart for what feels like an entire, long, long minute before slipping it up Eliot's chest. The wide L of thumb and index drags along Eliot's jaw before cupping his ear, fingers easily slipping between strands. Hardison guides Eliot down so he can tuck his face into Eliot's hair by his other ear.

Hardison sighs, trembling.

—

With Parker, Eliot doesn't really remember doing anything with his body. He just sat there for her, holding position, just receiving Parker's studious attention. He didn't really want to squirm closer, because he was just the platform for her discovery; he gave and gave her what she sought of him. Now, Hardison animates Eliot. He steps in between Hardison's thighs and clutches at Hardison's waist. His spine feels electric.

Another difference: Hardison ain't here to sniff. Instead, his lips quickly find Eliot's stubble. Hardison kisses along Eliot's jaw, dipping down his neck to tease at the thin skin with snips of his teeth. His nose never quite abandons whatever honey-peony-coconut lingers, but the way he journeys across so small an area makes it clear scent is not Hardison's priority here. He trails his lips in short presses, and when he finds the perfect dip for his mouth on Eliot's neck, he sucks. Not hard enough to bruise, but hard enough to make Eliot knows he's holding back.

Eliot hugs Hardison close and groans, "Go on, sweetheart. Ain't no nanny cam for Parker; gotta record this for her somehow."

Fingers tighten in Eliot's hair as Hardison whimpers and, without any more convincing, he goes to do just that. Seemingly because he's been given permission and reason, Hardison bites his lust and affection with an enthusiasm that rocks Eliot. Literally. Eliot sways on his feet as he feels the small bruise blossom, and he just accepts and accepts and accepts all Hardison gifts him.

—

After the archive of the moment has been built on a tender circle on Eliot's neck, Hardison doesn't deviate further from the script set by Parker in Eliot's car. Fingers trace whispers in Eliot's hair, and a kiss to the scar above Eliot's mouth punctuates the last of Hardison's touches, for now.

Eliot can almost see the debate in Hardison's eyes as the man reigns in his urge to follow up with another kiss.

Too long a moment passes, and too long does Hardison have to process the intimacy they just shared. Emotions flicker over Hardison's face in such rapid succession Eliot can't catch all that's going on. There's so much history between the two of them, the three of them… Seeing Hardison's lips kiss swollen fucks Eliot deep and troubled and ready, but there's something in Hardison's wide eyes that snaps at Eliot's protective instinct.

"I think—" Hardison starts, suddenly blinking wildly. Eliot releases his grip on Hardison's hips when Hardison sinks back into his chair. "I think I need to be alone right now."

Eliot wants to know what's going on in that genius brain. He could ask. Maybe Hardison would answer, but Eliot is feeling too raw to deal with maybes.

He steps back. "I'm here if you need me. Just call."

Hardison nods. Eliot doesn't push him again for a confirmation. Not that he would get it: even with Eliot crowding him, Hardison twists in his chair to go back to his computer. His avatar has died because of the negligence Eliot caused, and the orc now hangs out in a graveyard. Eliot stands there at Hardison's back for a minute too long, before he slinks off to wonder where he went wrong.

—

Hardison doesn't call. Eliot does his best not to let that sting. At least Parker sees the hickey ('cause that's what it is, as embarrassing it is for a grown ass man like Eliot to admit), and she pinches it so sharply that the skin twinges for the rest of the day.

—

It's a week later, and Eliot's had most of the bottle of wine he set out for dinner, and Hardison is standing next to him drying the pans Eliot hands him, needling Eliot for information on some military ciphers he recently came across, and Eliot looks over and... Hardison speaks with so much passion. He is gorgeous in his brilliance and humor and the way his mind unfolds problems into moments of potential to strut his genius.

Fuck, Eliot admits to himself for the second time in under a month, he is so in love.

"Hey," Eliot says, the flush of alcohol and the warmth of a good meal loosening his tongue. Hardison blinks at him. "I'm sorry for making you feel lesser in this—" Eliot gestures between them with his soapy sponge. "I—" Feeling ridiculous, Eliot drops the sponge, turns off the water, and wipes his hands on his shirt. He stands up straight and turns his whole body to face Hardison, open and vulnerable, and as solemn and serious as he has ever been. "I swear to do better by you."

Hardison's eyes go wide and wet. "Thank you," is all that Hardison manages; he looks like he wants to say more but can't quite find the words.

Eliot reaches for Hardison then, drawing him into a hug. Hardison trembles in Eliot's arms.

For once, Eliot isn't the first to let go.

—

They run their cons.

They take down bad guys.

He teaches Parker how to like things.

He gets Hardison's stupid(ly awesome) Lucille jingle in his head.

And sometimes when he's hanging out with Hardison and Parker, he gets it. When Hardison hugs Eliot and flirts something silly with him, things easier now without the barrier of a subconscious no homo strangling their every interaction. He gets it when Parker finds reasons to run her fingers in his hair. Or when Nate and Sophie start to tune them three out when they start riffing too hard off each other's turn of phrase—he gets it then. He sees it. He feels them. The three of them. Together. (The honey-peony-coconut blend doesn't fix years of damage in a few washings, but Eliot feels it start to strengthen his hair. Less hair comes out when he takes out his hair ties, especially once Hardison gets Parker to steal all his elastics and replaces them with soft scrunchies.)

Other times, though, he ain't never been further away now that he's got the memory of their mouths on his scar imprinted on his skin. They don't go for kisses on (or near) the mouth again, for all the ways they enter his space, his privacy, his life. They're letting Eliot set the pace; this, Eliot can bet his life on. They're treating him with kid gloves, and they're being gentle with him, and they've giving him a wide, wide berth.

And he's drowning in the distance. It makes him…

(Unmoored. Touched, and touch-starved.)

Once, Eliot asks a girl to dinner because Hardison and Parker got their honeymoon eyes ogling each other hard, and Eliot never promised them nothing anyhow.

She's a nice girl. The kind of small town girl one settled down with in a converted farmhouse that needed a little TLC. An Aimee kinda girl, but without the firecracker snap of that lady's fox eyes and wit. Kinda boring—uncharitably, he thinks of the other nice girls he's been with who ain't never even been eaten out, so he imagines having to teach her how to fuck him mean like he needs it—but at least she's got a good laugh. He imagines introducing her to his daddy and sister and nephew, his uncles and aunt and cousins, maybe even his ma and her new family two states over from Eliot's hometown. It's an easy fantasy. They'll be dead to rights surprised Eliot ain't buried under a clean white military gravestone or that he's not collecting cans for their deposit like most folk come back to war they know; but they'll like the girl. Someone—specifically, his uncle's wife Kaylee because even married into this family for four plus decades she never felt quite like blood—will sneer something under their breath about how nice it was he found a cunt good enough to whip his crooked switch straight. Eliot's daddy'll make excuses (it's the drink, bless her) but there'll be an edge of relief only Eliot will pick up on. Thank god, he will hear, that my son ain't a faggot. Really did beat it out of him after catching him with the teacher's son. Made him high tail to the army, sure, but nothing a firm hand can't fix, huh? Thank god, thank Jesus freaking Christ.

When the question of when Eliot Junior will be reared, his family will press and press. They'll refuse to let it go until Eliot quietly reveals he likely can't have kids of his own. A war injury, he'll claim; he got the equipment (he'll be sure to clarify with a smarmy smirk) but he's shooting blanks. At least it's that rather than his legs like the fella two seats over in the RV that blew up. (His cover ain't too far off from the truth: enough internal scar tissue built up after one too many hits to the groin'll close up that shop right quick.) But Eliot'll be sure to add, eager to please, maybe, maybe they can foster. Or maybe the girl'll make him adopt, but he'll always argue for the importance of being there for when a kid needs it, even if it ain't forever. He wants to think he'll be a good foster dad, if given the desire and chance.

Shame they won't get your hair. Your real hair, not this metrosexual nonsense you got growing out your scalp, is all his daddy'll say on the matter before his voice turns soft and nostalgic. That's how I knew I met my soulmate. Your mama, even if she's still not knowing it like I do. Walked by me like a cloud and took me to air right with her. Did I ever tell you the story of—

If it was Parker, they'd laugh at her until they pull a version of Alice White from her that's all doll and no substance. He can almost hear her voice shaking on the phone to Sophie behind a closed bathroom door. She'd ask, porcelain cracked, what she's got to do to be better. Be normal. Why don't they like me, Sophie? And if he tried to show up with Hardison on his elbow, well, they'd be run out of town. Predictable. Horrendous. He thinks back not to those paramilitary survivalists out in the woods but the debrief afterward: Hardison's voice as he tells Nate—they were gonna kill me first—with a fright that Eliot didn't connect with when they were on the ground. He heard it then. He felt it then. Realized then he contributed to it. He tried to reckon with Hardison the harm he'd done, but there was no amount of apologizing he could do to unmake Hardison's experience. But at least Hardison laughed for the first time in days at the fishing game set up Eliot put together for them. He laughed harder still when he checked the session's records and saw Eliot's biggest catch: a measly two-pound guppy.

Eliot's family weren't white supremacists but a punch in the gut from a racist versus a homophobe ain't much different. And in the heat of the moment, there's no telling what slurs they would spill.

Eliot's mind wouldn't even consider what it would be like bringing the two at the same time.

The nice girl, though, they would get. They would love her.

Head resting on the steering wheel of his rental in the driveway of a man he is still tryna prove something to even after all this time (the fuck is wrong with Eliot), Eliot cancels on that nice girl in that nice small town. Feels like a scumbag about it. Is a scumbag for doing it.

She doesn't reply back. He wonders if she expected this text to come her way. Maybe he looks like the kind of man not worthy of expectation.

—

(He wonders what Hardison and Parker see.)

—

After that job at Value!More, Eliot stops trying to set up dinners with pleasant women. He stops looking with interest at any stranger with a nice enough smile. He spends even more time at the brewpub. Doesn't even bother getting a place off-site like he did in Boston; he permanently settles into the studio next to Hardison and Parker's apartment. Hardison kindly had set that up for him as a stopgap, but there's no point in getting something else when he's always at theirs. He cooks for them in their apartment when the brewpub's closed and already wiped down. He keeps his eggs in their fridge.

This, he realizes on no special night a few days after they get back from job with the vintage Packard, is his family now.

This isn't the retirement he and Sophie were talking about, but it's a life. It's a living. It's a reason to go on. He was right saying he'll probably spend his days keeping Hardison's business from going under. He will clean up their every mess if he needs to. He will follow them anyway, through disaster and triumph and everywhere they may lead him. It's just… a love set in the stone of his bones.

It continues to not be any kind of special night when Eliot gets out of a post-workout shower and decides: enough.

Enough.

The decision feels monumental. Catastrophic. Consuming. Limitless.

He does not blow dry or iron his hair. Instead, Eliot squeezes water from it into his sink and tosses it loosely in a hand towel. He doesn't look at the mirror. Instead, he drops the towel once he's satisfied he's wrung enough water out, and he sits down on his toilet, naked as the day he was born, and holds his face up with clenched fists, elbows digging into his knees. He feels every drop of water cascading rivers down his back, but they just wrapped up a case; he's got nowhere to go except down to the brewpub or next door—wherever Hardison and Parker are.

He breathes through the panic riding through him. Breathes through the excitement and the mesh of desires—past, present, potential, and speculative—flashing images of all that could and would and wouldn't be.

He's not sure how long he's been sitting there, but long enough that his hair dries completely. It must be late, but not excessively so. He still won't look into the mirror, but against his cheeks and the back of his neck, he can feel how his hair frolics in the loose waves and curls he's spent so many years fighting against. With the constant straightening and Hardison's products, the curl pattern isn't as tight as it can be, but it's doing its best to spring up. At least his hairline rewards and betrays him by understanding how to lay with his natural hair better than it ever did with what he's tried to do with it the better part of the past decade. This hair will work. This hair will be special and good for them. He knows Hardison finds his curls hot, and Parker would love something new to play with, and even if Moreau said he likes the new straightened look, Eliot's got years worth of lyric the man hissed into his ear about the beauty of his ringlets.

Eliot's hair looks good this way.

He even feels more attractive. Or maybe just… different. Weightless on a cloud. Endless. Maybe also kind of wrong. Wrong, but not like himself, at least. It's good not to be him, he thinks.

He should probably call Sophie or Nate or maybe even the VA hotline. Quinn. Shelley or the other men he served with. Toby. Aimee or her father. Fucking Hurley. Fucking Sterling. Anybody who would hear his voice and know, shit. Something's fucking off, and they ain't have the same skin in the game to let him get away with his bullshit.

Instead, Eliot finds a pair of sweats and the first tank he finds (not even sure it's clean), and he pulls on an emergency scrunchie around his wrist, unable to quite give that up. He swallows deeply and slips two condoms deep into a pocket, just in case. He pads over to the neighboring apartment. He doesn't even bother with shoes or socks or any one of the pairs of house slippers Hardison keeps leaving for him in hopes Eliot'll use them. No. He's barefoot as he opens Hardison and Parker's. Barefoot as he catches them on the couch in the dark, cuddled up under a blanket with a bowl of the leftover caramel popcorn Eliot made for them two nights ago sat between them. Eliot doesn't recognize the movie they got blaring loud enough he's surprised he didn't hear it next door, but it's some nerd nostalgia bomb shit judging by the awful alien makeup and costuming. A couple of their beers (disgustingly awful prototypes, likely) stand open and empty in front of them. Not enough to get them drunk but enough, apparently, to cause some silliness.

"Eliot!" Parker cheers from her blanket cocoon, waving him over even as neither she nor Hardison look over to their front door. Apparently, it's a good movie if it's even caught Parker's attention this firmly.

"Hey."

"You're late! Sit by me!" She scooches over closer to Hardison to make some space.

"Woman! he can sit where he wants, but Eliot, I'm just saying, I got big strong arms and"—Hardison tries to nudge Parker back to her spot, to make room for Eliot on his other side.

Their playful bickering overwhelms Eliot. (Enough, he reminds himself. Enough.) Eliot pushes his cheeks up to draw what he hopes reads as amused wrinkles creasing the skin around his eyes. He walks over to them, but behind the couch. He leans over. Kisses Hardison's forehead. Kisses Parker's.

Eliot doesn't catch the moment Hardison realizes Eliot's hair has got its curls, but as he draws back, the television illuminates his surprised expression with a blue light.

"Think I wanna just lay down," Eliot says using his flirty voice, the voice he knows he uses for them nice girls. It works well for them, and right now he needs to draw on his every trick. "Mind if I park my head on your pillows?"

"Of course. Sure. That's cool. Mi casa, su casa, yeah," Hardison sputters, admirably trying to play it cool and obviously failing miserably.

That vocal clumsiness brings an actual bit of levity to Eliot's heart. Calms him down, if only slightly. He leans down again but very, very slowly this time; he brings his lips within two inches of Hardison's. Eliot pauses, seeking permission, which Hardison gives by closing the distance. Eliot enjoys the caramel and salt on Hardison's gorgeous (fuck, so fucking gorgeous) full lips for far shorter than he'll like, but Hardison had reached up to tuck his hand into Eliot's hair and Eliot doesn't mean to... but... He flinches back. Not a huge flinch. Maybe they won't notice. But it's there, and he pulls back.

"Join me when you're done?" Eliot looks over to Parker. "Or sooner?"

She tilts her head with a squint he knows means she's trying to drill into his mind like a vault. She doesn't push him though. She won't, not immediately.

"Maybe," she says.

Before Eliot walks away, there's a shot of a swirling galaxy, huge and infinite and both full and so empty, on the screen. He tries not to overthink coincidences.

—

Eliot's laying in the middle of Hardison and Parker's giant bed without his tank on and in his ratty sweats and with two condoms in his pocket (just in case) and his hair pools around his head on their pillow and he's got an arm thrown over his eyes. With the other, he's got his palm across his forehead. He's breathing at a meditative pace and depth, as if that alone will be enough to keep him from floating away on whatever's pulling his chest wide and expansive.

He hears the movie stop not five minutes later, right in the middle of dialogue. Eliot imagines the two are talking about him.

He inhales. Exhales.

He does drift off.

He wakes up to weight coming down on one side of the bed to his left and then more weight coming down on his right. Eliot both is and is not surprised he didn't jolt up to them entering the room or even them approaching the room. He knows their steps, even in his sleep, like he also knows it's Parker on his left and Hardison on his right. Parker is sitting straight up, but Hardison is mostly on his side.

"Hey there," Parker whispers. Everything is quiet and muffled.

"Got bored?"

"We can always watch it later."

"It'll be better with you," Hardison adds. "Not the same without your combat commentary. The fighting's pretty spectacularly glorious in this one. The body double's wig is magnifique."

Eliot grunts.

"Do you know what's going on?" Parker asks. All gentle like.

"With what?"

Parker makes an ambiguous sound. "Eliot, I think you might be… not okay right now. I want you to be okay."

Eliot won't confirm or deny that there is, in fact, something wrong (with him, it's him, he's wrong… don't they see that, after all this time? Eliot forgets, nowadays, but they shouldn't, don't they see?) but he can agree to one thing. "…I want to be okay, too."

Hardison asks, "Can I touch you?"

"Course. Told you that already—"

Parker interrupts. "Eliot, think. Can he touch you without you feeling like you need a stabby fork? Right now. Not usually. Just right now. Can he?"

"I said y—"

"No. I said to think. He almost touched your hair in the living room, right?"

Eliot clenches his jaw. "Right."

"I don't think you would have liked that."

"I…" Eliot struggles to explain. "I don't like my hair like this."

"So maybe you don't want your hair touched right now. Cool, totally cool. So, now, think. Can he touch you? Or maybe—Eliot, is there somewhere Hardison can touch you?"

Eliot exhales slowly. He pictures Hardison's touch on him on various parts of his body, and he lets himself really imagine it. He holds back his shivers. Reckons Parker's got a point. "My stomach. My stomach should be fine. Either of you. But…"

"But?"

"Only one at a time. I think."

"Thanks for telling us," Hardison says as his fingers lightly brush by Eliot's belly button. Eliot's stomach pulls in with a quick twitch, but as Eliot breathes in and out a little longer, he settles into the touch. More and more of Hardison's skin comes down to lay on Eliot until Hardison's got his whole hand on him. The heel of his palm hits the trail of Eliot's hair that scatters down to his groin.

Back to Parker, who apparently is the interrogator—no, interviewer? soother? in this here situation: "Can I ask some questions, or would you like some more quiet? We can be quiet, too."

Eliot thinks. "Ask. May not answer."

"Do you feel comfortable right now?"

"Yes."

"Would you feel less comfortable if I asked you to look at us?"

"…yes. Right now. Maybe… in a minute."

"Okay. So, I won't ask."

Grunt.

"Was there something you wanted when you came over tonight?"

Eliot can't answer the hugeness of his affirmation. He stays silent.

"Hm. Did you have a plan?"

"Not really. I mean, maybe, but—"

"Hm?"

Eliot considers not answering. He could leave it there. But… he wants them to know. This is one of the things he wanted. One of the things he wants. And with these two? All or nothing: "Condoms. In my pocket. Just in case."  

Hardison whines, "Eliot!" It's involuntary, likely, because that's not part of whatever talkdown strategy they've got going on. The hand on Eliot's stomach presses down hard for a heartbeat. Eliot imagines it has slipped down a few fractions of a fraction of an inch. Part of Eliot wants Hardison to keep pushing downwards, but that would likely result in, as Parker described, stabby fork feelings.

He feels pathetic, but the desire in Hardison's voice buoys Eliot as much as his cheeks burn bright. "Sorry."

"It's okay." Parker, again, neutral in a way Hardison's exclamation was not. "Sounds like you had a fun plan—sorta plan?—for us. Right now, though, I think—"

"Didn't know if y'all had them on hand." The sense of doom and drowning escalates quickly in his lungs. "Wanted to be sure. In case. Because…"

"You don't have to explain," Parker says. Hardison agrees with a slight rub.

Eliot's hands clench, his fists pulling slightly on his hair. "I do… I do 'cause you should know…" (The curls feel weird and strange under his hand.) "I'm not…"

"Hey," Hardison cuts in. "We ain't having sex tonight, so we can talk about this later."

Eliot's stomach swoons, overcome with his failure at coming onto two people he loves so deep and goddamn true. He must make an indication of his upset, because Parker's tone becomes decisive. "I promise, Eliot: not now, but we'll talk more. It's gonna happen, but not now. I'm happy you are ready and you tried to show us."

"Want you both so damn much. Didn't know how to... Wasn't sure how to reach out and—" Eliot is a fucking grown ass man, yet right now he feels as wounded and vulnerable as a snotnosed kid. The humilation suffocates him.

"I know. I'm sorry, Eliot. I thought that 'cause pretzels were patient and quiet as they were coming together, maybe sandwiches and spring rolls should be too. But they're louder. Or maybe it's Thief Juice, right? There's one-on-one, but also, like, three?"

"Girl, don't confuse him!"

Eliot lets out a long and disgruntled sigh, his brain too fuzzy to follow what the hell Parker was saying, but there's something… that opens in him at the familiar emotion. It makes him notice that his scalp hurts from his pulling. He forces himself to release his grip. It takes all the energy he has left in him, but he drops his elbow from his eyes. He lays his palm over Hardison's on his stomach. He peeks over to Parker, who is sitting cross-legged next to his hip. "I'm not Thief Juice nothing."

She's smiling down him. Sad and worried, but pleased, also, at his newfound responsiveness. "How about donuts? We can be donuts."

He rolls his eyes and feels his joints unlock at the silliness of her comparison, and he decides he no longer wants to lay down like dead weight in the middle of the mattress. "Come here. Lay down with us." Parker listens, making sure not to touch Eliot. And that… won't do. He uses the scrunchie he had on his wrist to approximate a bun while rolling over under Hardison's arm, tucking his back into the man's body so he can face Parker. He guides Hardison's hand upward, to hug him around his diaphragm before his fingers accidentally slip down any farther. "If y'like, you can hold me tighter." Hardison does nudge himself forward, but Eliot feels his hesitation. "Come on, man. Do I need to show you how to spoon a guy?"

"Oh, oh are you talking to me? Me? Oh, I'll show you spooning." Hardison clambers behind Eliot, growing more comfortable as Eliot sinks back against him until he's got an octopus grip around Eliot. He does an impressive job considering he's absolutely avoiding disrupting Eliot's bun. Eliot makes a decision and, taking a deep breath, he sinks back so he's got some of Hardison's face in his hair. He can practically hear the appreciation in Hardison's rambling. "Question my cuddling. I'll question your face—"

"Parker, do you want to touch me?"

Recognition sparkles in her eyes. "Yes, please."

"I'm yours, darlin'."

She snuggles up into Eliot, slinging her arm across both her boys. She kisses his scar again, but this time, Eliot slides the kiss up to align their mouths. They kiss, airy and without any pressure, and Hardison embraces him tighter still.

"So," Eliot laughs into Parker's mouth. "Donuts. Let me guess. The ones with cereal?"

"Oh, yes!"

Eliot sighs again.

—

They are about to fall asleep when, drowsy, Eliot whispers to Parker. "Was stupid tonight."

"Why?"

"Thought you might like my hair curly. Got myself worked up over it because I really, really don't like my hair natural."

"You're right. That was stupid. I don't care what your hair looks like. You're hot either way."

Hardison groans to signal, yes, he is in fact still conscious. He tacks on an incredulous: "I bought you products for straightening your hair. I may be a genius, but I don't think it takes a mind of my intellect to guess, hey, maybe Alec also likes his big buff guys with straight hair. Or that I at least respect your bodily autonomy to make your own damn styling decisions. I let you walk around with those tiny, tinted glasses don't I? You do you, Eliot. Let's just try to avoid split ends, aight? Now, sleep? Please?"

—

"…What's wrong with my glasses, huh?"

A loud, fake snore answers him.

"Parker?"

A second snore joins in concert.

"Hm."

—

"Still awake?"

"Yeah."

"I love you."

"I love you too, Eliot."

Kiss.

"Go the goddamn hell to sleep. It's been a very emotionally tolling night on my weak, weak nerves and if I must, I will kick your asses out to the street. I am the owner of this brewpub and if you—"

"You got the brewpub for Eliot."

"…That may be so, but my name? is on the lease and—"   

 Kiss.

"Mmgmgmmm—no, you don't get to distract—"

Kiss.  

"Thank you. Love you."

"Yeah, yeah. Yeah… I love you, too."

"And I love you, Hardison!"

"I swear to—"

—

Sophie comes by the brewpub without warning for a snack. Apparently, her students had a major breakthrough today during something called a wandelprobe, and it took everything out of her. She and Nate have dinner planned later, but oh, Eliot, my dearest, don't you have anything I can nibble on until then?

Eliot has her sit in a quiet corner booth and sends Amy to serve Sophie a nice red vintage he's got tucked aside for her. Nothing on the menu will do, he decides. He preheats the oven and then runs upstairs and raids the two fridges and pantries he has access to, mentally changing out his recipe for tonight's dinner to account for the bone he's taking down. (Maybe something grilled instead of a stew.) Ingredients in hand, he seasons the bone cut to expose its marrow and tosses it into the oven. The rest is mostly washing and drying and cutting and organizing. Aside from simmering some red wine, sugar, and vinegar then adding a bundle of herbs from his roof garden and some shallots for a quick pickle, of course. Within twenty-three minutes of her request for food, Eliot comes out with her small plate. Sophie isn't surprised by Eliot giving her something so off menu, and he loves her for the grace of her expectation.

"And what are we having today?"

"Bone marrow with pickled shallots on grilled crostini, paired with an heirloom tomato salad featuring whipped ricotta, local black plums, and a sherry vinaigrette."

Sophie makes a pleased sound at him and takes a bite of the salad. "Oh yes. Exactly what I needed."

"Bon appétit, ma'am," he bows with a wink. He moves to leave.

"No, no. Sit. Please." Eliot doesn't fight a determined Sophie. She looks around, catching Amy's eye. She beckons the girl, who beelines to them. "Eliot here is needing a drink, I think. The same or…?"

Amy glances over at Eliot, not wanting to upset the guy who's not the chef but also designs their menu and sometimes takes over the kitchen but also might be their boss and his girlfriend's pet ex-felon? (They have a bet going on what his role is, and he likes keeping the staff on their toes by dropping red herrings every once in a while. Lately, the bets have been slowly converging, which has somehow made them more accurate?)

"A Melon Drop's fine. Thank you."

By the time Amy comes back with his beer, Sophie has managed to get Eliot to eat a crostino. It is, in fact, delicious.

"Good. I hate eating alone if company is available." She waits until he's had his first sip to speak again. "I know I've been busy with the theater."

"Seems you're doing good work with them."

"Yes. But that means I am not around here as much to see how things are going on. I don't mean to be neglectful, but—"

He squints at her. "Nate sent you?"

"I am offended. I can be just as vigilant about you as—" Sophie slinks into her seat. "Yes, Nate sent me. But that doesn't mean I don't want to know if you're okay or happy or… punching… good? Whatever makes you feel fulfilled. Because no matter what happens…" Her lip twinges. A tell she's said too much, but it's a tell she wants him to see. "I will always care for you. So I ask: how are you, Eliot?"

Eliot's eyes trace the softness of Sophie's smile and the way she's glowing. The way he can read her and trust his analysis is as close to the truth as one can gauge without being Nate. He knew she was a powerful woman when they met (er, met for the second time). Now, she's truly divine. Grounded, in some ways, but a goddess among them. He cares for her too, in a way he could never have expected. He maybe could find a knockoff for the kind of love he's got for Hardison and Parker (a feeble thing in comparison, but something of a kind), but the familial connection he's got with Sophie and Nate… He's never had that before. He will always, always love them.

It is with all the respect he has for her—and by extension, Nate, since she will be reporting back—that he really thinks considers question.

He takes a long chug and thinks of… inside jokes.

Of permission requested and permission granted.

Of longing and wishing and secrets shared and kept and guarded.

He thinks of Parker's goofy laugh and Hardison's voice pitching high when he gets excited.

And he thinks of the tender meat of a coconut once its hard husk's been split and of the brush of peony petals across knuckles, the cup of its body falling open startling with its straightforward welcome. And honey. The pulling drip of honey—sweet and sticky and the subtle secret ingredient behind all his favorite dessert recipes. 

He doesn't know how to share these things. He ain't armed yet with the words for the art and the scent and touch and taste of his love.

But he is learning those words, now, but maybe he's also been learning that language for years now. He learned a little bit of it up on a mountain and on a Memphis stage. In an Irish bar and on planes and boats and a carnival screaming colors at him. In Lucille. In every kitchen he's cooked in and in MC Hammer's old living room. And...

In a ring in a gym in Omaha hours after it had closed for the night.

He remembers that man fighting shadows, his air struck from him with realization that he will be known in a way he can't control. And Sophie said something about options, then. Later, he thought he was making a functional choice when he walked into that dim hotel room accepting the futility of a straightening. Now, he thinks he was choosing something else. Vulnerability.

Eliot pulls a thread of a conversation he can't recall other than as a tremble in his heart. "Listen. I got options in a way I never had, never thought I could have. Should have. And out of all I could be doing right now, I am exactly where I need and want to be. I'm happy, Sophie. Real happy."

There are still tears in Sophie's eyes even after he nudges her elsewhere with the question of what the hell a wandelprobe is. He is sure to finish his beer and stay with her until Nate drops by to sweep her off her feet, as always.

—

They run their cons.

They take down bad guys.

They make a vow—of a kind.

They notice Eliot's hair has finally starting to come in healthy again. He cuts his hair so it swoops one long curve by his cheeks. He feels good. Real good.

They save DC.

And sometimes, a lot of times, they kiss—him and Hardison and Parker. Quick pecks and brushes of lips against temples and drawn out frenches and stolen moments of intimacy (the best kind). No rhyme or reason to when they will find each other. They kiss and they kiss and occasionally Hardison bites Eliot just right. Parker trains herself to find even the barest suggestion of a bruise on Eliot's neck and shoulders; and she'll poke it like always but this time with her tongue, like licking at his pulse can draw up every one of his secrets.

They kiss and kiss and kiss and kiss, but they don't fuck. Granted, when wandering hands get too frisky, there's more than a few quick exits than should be permitted for people their age; Eliot'll be lying if he didn't once shoot his shot into their toilet, unable to make it to the privacy of his studio to take care of himself.

Still, he feels swollen with anticipation, joints aching when he lays down to catch whatever sleep he can before a nightmare gets him. He wants them. Badly. He teaches them how to tug his hair without triggering… without an issue. Hardison lets slip dirty details of what he and Parker like and how they are with each other. Parker… Eliot can taste how wet Parker gets lately as their make outs get longer and longer; he's pretty sure she hasn't actually orgasmed on his lap, but he couldn't blame her if she had. He has also felt the building heaviness of Hardison's cock as he stiffens against Eliot's thigh. And Eliot is pretty sure that when he chooses to leave for his studio to cool off, the two of them have sex without him.

If Eliot asked them to, he's sure Parker and Hardison would sweep him up to their bedroom. But he doesn't ask. They don't either.

Instead, they kiss and they kiss and they kiss and they talk. Eliot has never talked so much about his feelings before. His lips are sore with the depth of their everything—physical, emotional, professional, and anything in between.

It's an intimacy built—

("I get scared, sometimes, during sex. But I also like to be rough. Sometimes it can be hard to tell if I'm pushing because I don't like something or pushing because I like shoving people."

"The woman really, really likes her pushing, Eliot. Not only off roofs but into walls. Lots and lots of walls."

"I'm aware. I don't mind any of that. Prefer a little roughness, myself. But even if you're doing it vanilla, it can help to have safewords. Tried them yet?"

"Oh, a safe is involved? I like this already!")

—conversation—

("You gotta understand. There's a lot of blood in my line of work, and a lot of chances for accidental exchange if my knuckles rip open on the wrong smuck's broken nose so"—"God, Eliot"—"No, listen. I need… Don't stop me. Need you to understand… I'm not… I get tested like clockwork, even when I ain't seen blood for months, and I'm on PrEP. Have been for years. Before it got on the market kinda years. And I would never tell another person what meds they gotta put in their body; I'll never force you into nothing. But there's a lot I won't do if you ain't both also on some kind of pre-exposure. I'm sorry but—if you don't, it'll be fine; I'll make sure it's fine because… even with my parts out of play, it ain't never stopped folks from enjoying being with me before. If the timing's right and tests keep coming negative, I've gone without rubbers with what counts for long term with me. Once even when only I was just on PrEP—" That was Moreau. Always the exception. Moreau got side effects. Dry mouth, mostly, and so just stand farther away when you shoot them. Don't be silly, Spencer. "But I would prefer…" Eliot gnashes his teeth. "I can be good whatever way, I swear; I—I got a good mouth. I—"

"Ah, hell no—"

"That's enough, Eliot. We understand why it's important. We will check it out."

"Right now, we need you to breathe. Baby, like when Parker called me and talked me through breathing real slow. When I was…"

"Come on, El. In and out.")

—after—

("I don't want kids. I'm not a baby-making machine, and I don't want to be responsible for a human for the rest of their life if I didn't choose them. I chose you. I'm going to keep choosing you, and I will keep choosing Alec too, but you can't do that with a child. You shouldn't. They did that with me and"—"There's nothing wrong with you, mama"—"I don't even want you to have kids that I'm adjacent to. Because what's yours will be mine, and I just can't imagine being tethered down for forever like that. Maybe it's not fair to demand this? To come in and dictate something so big without, like, input when you gave us options for the protection stuff but—"

He doesn't mention his sterility. It's not the point. He gets a vasectomy to match Hardison's. He chooses them, always, and his life is full and good.)

—conversation—

("We know about the warehouse, Eliot. The fire did a lot of the work but there were too many loose ends. I covered it up. Parker stole files. Records. Evidence. I saw… I am not scared of you, man. You did what you had to to walk outta that kill box and back to us, but it's scares me what I'll do for you. I'll do the same for anyone in the crew, but you're the one who most likely would do something to require that and… I know you've changed but, please, don't make me do that again. I don't wanna see you like that again. Please…")

—after—

("I love you, Hardison.")

("I love you, Parker.")

("I love you, Eliot.")

—kiss—

("God, love you. Love you both so much.")

("I've got a demon in my brain. Not like Craig Marko, but…")

("I got you.")

—kiss—

("Love you.")

("Need you here!")

("Hell yeah, you saw that? Ha! Ha! Yes, put it here. Yes!")

—kiss—

("Location?")

("He was Damien to me, once.")

("I miss my family. Not like the crew is family but, like, my Nana. I can't draw attention to her or the sibs, so I don't see them enough but… Sometimes I say something, and you don't get the reference. Sometimes you say something and don't realize it's fucked up. And I miss them then. My siblings, and Nana, but also my neighborhood. My friends. My neighbors. Strangers, even. My barber. Temple, and my old rabbi—he stepped down after a bad fall few years back, but he's always up for a chat even with the kinda distractable ger who had been too busy breaking into the NSA to practice for his aliyah. Portland ain't Chicago, and this is my home now but… I miss 'em.")

—kiss—

("Alice White isn't me. She's not. She's… a lady. She likes being a woman, like how Sophie likes boots liking being a woman. I'm not her. I'm a woman, too, I guess, but mostly just a Parker. So. You have to stop saying I'm her. I'm not.")

("I don't like that I'm starting to see you two like Nate sees you.")

("This tastes so good! Put it on the edible, yes, I said it: edible menu!")

—and

—

It's not a length thing. He had an unruly mop round the jungle gym then a rat tail then a mullet. He sheared his hair to appease his coach and his sarge, until the trauma of touch burned his scalp for years. He grew out his hair. He met a man who slipped into his curls and truly had Eliot wrapped around his finger for far, far too long. Then. There was a flat iron. Then. The kindest gift he'd ever been given. Then…

Eventually they sleep together. Him and Hardison and Parker. Eventually he moves in, though they always keep a separate bedroom ready for when he anticipates the night terrors will get him mean and ugly. Eventually Leverage International gets its first few official offshoots. Eventually there's a lot of things.

Eliot's hair grows longer, and he cuts it, and he styles it a million different ways, and he changes his products every once in a while, when one line goes out of business or when it becomes less effective. Hardison finds him the right one to use, always. Sure, they have arguments about this hair, him and Hardison, about the whirl and the scar at his hairline. No, it is not a cowlick and no, he is not losing his hair; do you know what it's like to see your own skull? Eliot can make that happen. No? Sure? Yeah. Thought so.

When his hair starts going grey—really, a truly shock silver—it comes in coarse and in loose waves. By then, Parker decides to french braid his hair every morning they wake up with Hardison usually still asleep between them. A new habit, a new look, a new way to be, born not out of vanity or the running away from something but because he no longer has the dexterity to manipulate flat iron and comb. Parker doesn't admit that's the reason, but he knows.

There's history in his hair. His curls. But there's history in his every scar, too. And in the crook of his eyebrow. In the way he walks. In the way he fights and fucks and loves. In the pain that steals his breath away, some days. (Many days, eventually. Most days, at the end.) There's history in however he wants to tell his story. But the true archive of his life can be found in something too intangible for touch. Too nebulous. Infinite. Definite, too—caught in every bite to his neck and tug on his hair and kiss to the scar riding his mouth—the favorite of his partners. It's numerical—the money they steal, the jobs they tally up to their name. Every way to record and measure the length of his life, now, it begins and ends here. Chasing after Hardison and Parker, making sure their dreams don't fail but also, being a part of those dreams from their very inception.

He imagines introducing them two as his partners in crime and in life.

And he does, proudly, always with a cheesy wink and a pleased blush high on his cheeks.

—

kiss—

—kiss—

—kiss—

("Til my dying day.")

—kiss—kiss—kiss: