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]

"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."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"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.

[vdistinctive]

"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.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"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."

[vdistinctive]

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

[geniuswithasmartphone]

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."

[vdistinctive]

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

"No problem."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

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

[vdistinctive]

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

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

[whoisalicewhite.livejournal.com]

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."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"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.

[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."