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

[geniuswithasmartphone]

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]

Comments

[vdistinctive]

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

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"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."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"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."

[vdistinctive]

"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?"

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"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?"

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

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."

[vdistinctive]

"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?"

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"What?" Hardison craned around to give Parker a look. "Woman, you had our kids trackin' our shoes? What--why--are there trackers in all our stuff already?"

Great. Now he was going to have to take apart every electronic in the house to make sure Parker hadn't decided to bug them for giggles.

"I'm the one who puts trackin' devices into things! Me! Otherwise, who knows who'll be able to hack into the system and use that information against us?!"

Beat. "Umm, also, privacy an' junk." Yeah, that was entirely an afterthought. Hardison sometimes slept with his earbud in.

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

Parker was close to giggles as Alec ranted. (Alec, when he was upset, getting over being upset, and so she never ever called him that out loud unless it would help which was almost never.) Yay. Better.

"You were hiding them from me! I think." She paused, considering. "And you had a kidnap calendar." That kinda said it all, didn't it? And got Hardison another hug.

Now, with twenty years to figure out how to keep Eliot from being shot in the leg, maybe she could figure out a way to stop that too.

[vdistinctive]

Thirteen. Old!Eliot had said it happened about seven years ago.

"She's got a point, man."

This was easy for him to say. As far as he knew old!Parker hadn't conspired with their kids to bug his stuff.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"You're just sayin' that cause she ain't bug your shoes," Hardison grumbled. Because he knew Eliot and the way Eliot's brain worked. "Bet she had an' there'd be a lotta angry cookin' and stompin' around yellin', 'Parker!' an' 'Hardison!' like somehow I was to blame."

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"Maybe he yells 'Ada' now more often," Parker offered. "And I would bug... something else of his. Not the shoes."

The can, probably. Or a hair tie. Heh.

[vdistinctive]

"Wouldn't be surprised if she had Archie's old canes bugged," Eliot said, because, yeah, they all knew each other pretty goddamn well now. ". . . You two ain't putting bugs on me now, are you?"

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"What?" Hardison put on his most 'contrived innocence' face. "No. Of course not. That would be wrong."

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"So wrong," Parker echoed. Look at that face! That face has never heisted anything! (She honestly had no idea, but hey. Back-up was back-up.) "And also, a little creepy."

[vdistinctive]

"Man, now I gotta replace my entire wardrobe."

Eliot didn't take well to being secretly tracked.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Yup," Hardison said, nodding. "You should. It's all bugged, man. Your drawers, your bandannas, those tank tops you like so much. All of 'em."

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

"Especially that one black cap."

It was a stupid cap.

[vdistinctive]

"You realize I'd just replace it with an identical black cap."

Eliot was quite devoted to his 'dress like a hobo' ways.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"We also put trackers in all your straightening irons," Hardison said. "I mean--didn't We didn't put trackers in your straightening irons."

PLEASE LIKE HARDISON HAD ENOUGH TIME TO PUT BUGS IN ALL OF ELIOT'S BANDANAS AND STRAIGHTENING IRONS. THERE WERE ONLY 24 HOURS IN A DAY.

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

Now Parker was just snickering into his ear and grinning at Eliot. Good luck figuring out where she put any extra tracking devices.

[vdistinctive]

"I don't carry straightenin' irons around with me," Eliot pointed out. "Though . . . they would make decent weapons. . . ."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Hardison was going to be so screwed if Parker really was putting trackers in Eliot's stuff, because after this conversation there would be no way he could convince anyone he hadn't known all along.

"See, an' that's exactly what we knew you would think," Hardison said, nodding sagely. "Which is why they're the perfect item."

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

Parker nodded cheerfully, wiggling her toes, and poked at Eliot's thigh with one foot. "Don't worry, they'll still work. Hardison's the best, remember?"

[vdistinctive]

"I hate you both," Eliot said with a long suffering sigh. "You know that, right?"