geniuswithasmartphone | The New Headquarters of Leverage, Inc, (The Apartment Above Lukes), Monday Morning

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The New Headquarters of Leverage, Inc, (The Apartment Above Lukes), Monday Morning

He was trapped. There was no where to move, nowhere to go, and he could feel the air getting thinner. Each breath was harder to draw than the last and his lungs burned with the effort of extracting what little air was left. The phone glowed blue in his hand, Parker's voice telling him he could do it, he could make it, that she needed him, and Hardison wanted to hold on for her, to prove he could do it, hell, just to see her again and make sure that there wasn't new pain in her eyes, but he knew that they weren't going to arrive in time. He strained his ears to hear the sound of the ambulance, the sound he knew he should make out by now, but they weren't close enough, he couldn't hear anything, not even Parker's voice anymore and the phone's glow died, leaving him trapped in darkness, the scent of the rose he'd been buried with and the varnish they used on the casker mixing in his nostrils and making him ill.

Or maybe that was just knowing he was going to die, all alone, in this tiny box he could never get out of by himself...

Deeply asleep and still trapped inside his nightmare, Hardison thrashed about, whimpering in fear, hot tears sliding down his cheeks.

Coffin nightmares were the worst.

[For the two there with him. Obviously]

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Parker shot him a look of surprise, followed by a scowl, then followed by blankness. She held on to Hardison with both arms and legs, spidered around him in a big hug. But her voice stayed level. "You're here. With me. It's Monday." She smoothed his hair down, and sighed. "You're not in the box. And nobody kidnapped." She frowned. "I think."

Eliot froze at Parker's scowl, then blanched a bit at Hardison's pleading. "Right," he said, scooting back over. "Sorry, I --" didn't know how to do this. "Sorry." He reached over to rest his hand on Hardison's shoulder. "I ain't goin' anywhere."

"Naww, I'm sorry," Hardison mumbled. He still couldn't make himself look at Eliot, not when he was still so open and wounded-feeling. "I shouldn't--it's been years. Shouldn't still be havin' these dreams. Shouldn't still be affectin' me like this. Usually they don't--usually they ain't so bad anymore. But I guess all that..." He gave an awkward shrug, not wanting to jostle Parker any. It wasn't often she was willing to stay in one position the way she was when he had a coffin nightmare. "That stuff from yesterday--sorry. I know it's dumb. Gimme a minute an' I'll be cool, man."

He was used to Eliot thinking of him as physically weak, or all but useless in a fight.This was different. He didn't want Eliot thinking he was weak this way, too. Didn't want him walking away.

If Eliot ever walked away, it wasn't because Hardison was being weak.

He snorted softly, feeling slightly more on even footing, and didn't take his hand off Hardison's shoulder. "You kidding me? You should hear 'bout some of the dreams I still have."

"You mean the ones you get from bein' in mortal peril cause you just, like, coolly walked into some den of kidnappers or whatever an' beat them all within an inch of their lives afore walkin' out again?" Hardison asked, trying to sound light and missing the mark by a mile.

Whatever. Eliot had never been impressed with his grifting anyway.

"As opposed to the ones where you were, you know, kidnapped, taken out by a few hits. Or worse yet, just went along with it, cause you were too stupid to realize you were bein' conned?"

Eliot got that look on his face that usually accompanied ~~a tiny flashback scene~~ him remembering some of his weirder adventures over the years. Like getting tied to a chair while a mobster played Russian roulette on your head. Or working ground-force for NATO's bombing of Belgrade.

"Well, there was that time I trusted Sterling enough to keep drinkin' the coffee he bought me even after I noticed it tasted funny. . . ."

Hardison didn't need to hear the dark stuff, right now.

That coaxed a real chuckle out of Hardison; small, but real. "Yeah, a'ight. That was pretty stupid. I mean, it's Sterling. How long he chase you for before the Nigerian Job? I mean, he weren't no Nate, but still bad enough that no one thought he was trustworthy."

"Actually, he never got assigned to any of mine, that I know of," Eliot mused. "Caught Nate tailin' me a time or two, but Sterling I only knew of by reputation, b'fore we teamed up."

"Really? I got him...twice, I think. I know definitely once for usin' Mick Jagger's identity to rent hotel rooms an'...make friends," Hardison said, clearing his throat and shifting uncomfortably in Parker's embrace.

Look, contrary to Eliot's insinuations, he hadn't actually been a virgin when they met.

"Most of my jobs ran under IYS's radar," Eliot said. "It was only really the dagger and -- hell, that damn monkey." Which admittedly was a job that just kept going, until they went to Japan in their Portland days.

"That damn monkey," Hardison grumbled, feeling himself relaxing, between the idle conversation with Eliot and the warmth of Parker's embrace. "You know them aliases are burning in Japan, right? Probably most of the Far East."

"Yeah, Hardison, I worked that out." Eliot patted his shoulder. "But thanks."

In fairness, Hardison had spent the entire trip home bitching about how much time he had spent crafting them for a bunch of ingrates who liked to spend their aliases like water.

"Well, ain't you just bright an' pretty then," Hardison snarked.

"...Thanks, man."

Hardison, unsurprisingly, reacted best to distraction after a nightmare. Good to know.

"No problem."

"Sorry, yo," he said again, scrubbing his face with his hand. "I just--I guess gettin' kidnapped just brought that all back."

"Yeah." Eliot frowned, rubbing Hardison's shoulder. "Sorry about that."

Since it'd been a hit on Eliot that got him kidnapped.

That got him a look and nudge from Parker, who was too wrapped around Hardison to do anything more physical.

"Not. Your. Fault," she said flatly. "Not your fault either," she told Hardison. "You thought she needed help. And she did. She just didn't know to ask."

"It'd be cool if the next time someone wanted some help from me they didn't ask with a gun an' some rope an' zip ties," Hardison grumbled. "Just sayin'. Might be nice."

Sighing, he added, "Do y'all remember over the weekend? Mentionin' a kidnappin' calendar?"

How embarrassing.

"I mostly remember gettin' yelled at for savin' the day," Eliot said.

"You rushed a gun when you had a gimpy leg! When you should've been hiding, or steering clear of her!"

Parker was grumbling as she squeezed Hardison tighter. "No wonder I wasn't going to get naked in a hot tub with you two. One with a kidnapping calendar, and one with Archie's cane still thinking he could beat up someone half his age."

"Technically," Hardison said, holding up a finger. "I'm pretty sure you only refused to get into the hot tub, like, that one time. An'--" he grinned. "It ain't like we didn't get you outta it anyway."

"Successfully disarmed and subdued someone half my age, thank you." Sure, he hadn't been able to walk away from it without assistance, but hell. That was true sometimes now. "When the hell have you ever known me to hide from someone tryin' to kill me?"

"Never, probably cause you've got somethin' against the smart approach," Hardison argued. "If I remember right-- and the details from before the weekend were hazy "--ain't that how you ended up with the cane anyway?"

Parker was starting to relax as Hardison relaxed, and the bickering pattern settled in. She smiled at Eliot, a smile that actually reached her eyes. "Okay, fine. It worked. I'm just glad that I can still rappel and zipline when I'm fifty or so." And that they were all still together. "... and that Ada agreed to put a tracker in Hardison's shoes."

"Told Kathy it was 'cause I got shot one too many times," Eliot said. "Which, you know, since that usually ends in 'dead', not 'bum leg', I'm gonna take as a mark of pride." He shot an amused look at Parker in return. "And what's with havin' the kids put secret trackers in our stuff anyway?"

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