Title: Not-Jealousy.
Author: emily64cooper
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairing: Parker/Hardison
Summary: "Well, I uh, you know, I mean, It's not that I'm jealous, Alec Hardison does not get jealous."
Written For: Challenge #2 - Jealousy, at Leverage500 on livejournal.
Author's Note: I've been doing a lot from Parker's point of view lately, so I figured I'd give Hardison's a try. The italics are voices heard through the earbuds.

"So, is Agent Hagen still your partner?"

Hardison had to consciously keep his head from dropping in annoyance. This is why he absolutely did not want to work with McSweetheart.

"Hagen? Yeah, we've been partners about four years now."

"So is she going to be uh, coming by at all? Here, to where we are?"

Hardison scoffed. In favor of the con, he ignored his finer instincts (to tell McSweetie no, she wasn't coming by at all, because she wasn't interested), and replied, "yeah, she, uh, she had to run out and get coffee. Agent Hagen without coffee, it ain't pretty, man. It just ain't pretty."

If he had to work with McSweeten, at least he could try to make him like Parker less.

"Oh, I doubt that."

…Or not. Hardison grumbled under his breath and shifted some papers around on the table.

"Hardison," Nate warned through the comms.

"So, uh, Agent Hagen, is she um, seeing anyone?"

And, if Hardison was being completely honest with himself, which he usually was, this was the real reason he didn't want to work with McSweeten. Hardison knew he was going to ask about Parker's love life; he just didn't know how to respond.

Sure, Parker had said that she was in the mood for pretzels. And yes, they had been getting a lot closer recently. And he would love to consider Parker his girlfriend. He just didn't know if she considered him her boyfriend.

So he chose not to respond.

"Ya know what, man, my phone is going crazy. You know, on uh, vibrate, so… I gotta take this. But I'll answer that for you when I get back."

Hardison slipped out of the room, put his phone away, and put his hand to his earbud.

"What do I tell him?"

"Tell him what he wants to hear," Nate replied.

"And that would be?"

"Say no," Parker replied. He could imagine the face she was making; it very clearly said "duh".

Even though it was just for the job, Hardison couldn't help but be a little disheartened. If Nate had told him to say no, that Parker wasn't seeing anyone, it wouldn't have felt as bad. But coming from Parker herself, even though it was just for a job and he knew she wouldn't understand that it would hurt him, it hurt. It hurt a lot.

"Yeah, right. Single. Parker is single. Not seeing a soul."

Through the comm, he could hear Sophie chuckle at his not-so-subtle discomfort .

"Agent McSweeten," Hardison called, walking back into the room, "that was Hagen, she'll be here soon. She is single, by the way…"

He was getting ready to go to bed, at his usual 4:30 A.M., when she appeared, perched on the arm of his couch, eating a bowl of cereal and watching God only knows what.

Three years ago, Hardison might've (read: would have) been startled by this. Now, he simply glanced between her and his bedroom door, and sat down beside her.

"Hey," she said around the mouthful.

He nodded in response, barely suppressing a yawn.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched her set the bowl down and look forward. Her mouth pursed and her tongue ran over her teeth in that Parker-wants-to-discuss-something-important-but-doesn't-know-how kind of way.

"Something bothering you?" he asked, shifting to face her.

She snapped her head to look at him, and her gaze softened a hair. Hardison liked to think that a lesser man, McSweetheart, for example, wouldn't have noticed and decoded such a subtle thing. (Even though, he rationalized, Parker was about as subtle as… something that's not subtle. But still. McSweeten would not have understood.)

"Were you angry about what I said?" Parker asked quietly, shuffling her feet.

He instantly understood that she was asking if he was mad that she had him tell McSweeten she was single. "No, Parker, no, it was just for the con, I know that."

She looked at her shuffled feet, then looked up at him. "Sophie told Nate you were upset. I don't think I was supposed to hear that." She got a funny look on her face, as if she was trying to make sense of her own words, but it left almost as quickly as it came.

"Parker, I'm not mad at you," he took a deep breath, pausing partially to let the message sink in and partially for dramatic effect, because he was all about the dramatic effect, "I, uh… you know, I really hate him."

"Why?"

"Parker, McSweeten likes you," Hardison said. He knew what he wanted to say, he always knew what he wanted to say; he just never knew how to say it.

"Oh," she paused, trying to sound like she knew what he meant by that (and failing miserably), and continued, "I'm confused. Didn't we already know that?"

"Well, yeah."

"So why do you hate him?"

"Well, I uh, you know, I mean, It's not that I'm jealous, Alec Hardison does not get jealous," he flailed, "I just, when you and him are together, and he thinks you're not in, you know, he thinks you, uh, aren't with anyone… I don't like it."

Parker giggled then, which was plain freaky. Parker didn't giggle. She laughed, she snorted, and she did not giggle. End of story. Plus, that wasn't exactly the reaction he'd been expecting (then again, this was Parker, and when did she ever act the way anyone expected?).

He'd barely noticed that her giggling fit had subsided when she flung herself at him in a giant hug.

"So," she said, pulling away, but still sitting on his lap. He moved his arms around, not knowing where to put them, until she placed them at her waist. Then she continued, "You weren't jealous of McSweeten just like I wasn't jealous of Strange-Teeth-Ashley."

Hardison chuckled, then smiled at her. "Right."

Parker smiled back and crawled off of him, going to retrieve her cereal. Then, she placed herself next to him on the couch, leaning into him ever-so-slightly (a phrase that he had never used before and planned to never use again), and returned to watching her cartoons.

An hour later, he began to doze off, but wanting to stay with Parker, he tried to fight it, and hoped it would just be one of the many things she didn't pick up on.

She did.

"You can sleep, you know," Parker chimed from somewhere next to him. The drowsiness was making it hard to judge much of anything, except the weight of her body against his.

"Will you still be here when I wake up?" Hardison could barely keep his eyes open, but he knew he wouldn't sleep until heard her answer.

"I… yeah, I'll stay," she said with a smile, settling into him.

Hardison managed to smile back. His last thought before sleep overcame him was that he didn't have to be jealous; he had Parker.

He'd let McSweeten be the jealous one.