Beta Thank you many oodles mitchy, sabaceanbabe and raine!
Disclaimer Not mine, no profit, etc
"I am more than enough sumbitch to run my own crew," Hardison assured his empty glass, and then put it with the other three. Sure, chocolate shakes weren't love, but they were at least a high-class escort.
He raised his voice enough to be heard over the sound of the game. "It wouldn't even be hard, because I don't like any y'all." When there was no response, he lowered his voice back to a mumble. "Got to go all dark side with the Jedi mind tricks, is what it is. Then Sophie's acting and Eliot's making me tea and Nate's out there naked with a tuba and -"
Eliot smirked, but didn't take his eyes off the game. "You kiddin' me? You brake for rabbits, Darth."
"I didn't want baby bunny all up in Vera's tires," Hardison protested. "And Parker asked me to," he added defensively.
"I think that would be Eliot's point," Sophie said from her chair at the table, where she flicked through some magazines about shoes. How there could be more than one magazine about shoes Hardison really didn't know and, honestly? He was a little afraid to ask.
"Some people are just natural bastards, Hardison," she said, comfortingly. "You have many other wonderful skills and -" She paused and then her tone hardened. "What do you mean, 'Sophie's acting?'"
Parker leaned across the kitchen bar and awkwardly patted Hardison's hand. "The baby bunnies thank you."
Hardison grinned - like he was ever running over Thumper anyway. That wasn't about bad, that was just about wrong. "And you know they're welcome."
"What do you mean, 'Sophie's acting?'"
"Why'd you want your own crew anyway?" Parker said quickly, and then her eyes widened with sudden alarm. "You're leaving? Why are you leaving? Was it something Eliot said?"
"Trying to watch the game, here," Eliot groused. "Don't bring me into your mid-crew crisis or whatever the hell this is."
Hardison closed his laptop and resolutely didn't reach for the chocolate syrup. He would be strong. "Nothing like that," he reassured Parker. "I'm just planning ahead. What happens when Nate's liver resigns, huh?"
Apparently satisfied, Parker crossed the room and perched on the back of the couch. She ruffled a hand through Eliot's hair until he gave up trying to pull away and then, victorious, draped herself behind him.
After a few minutes of delicate silence, Sophie pursed her lips and then began, "Well, I suppose I would -"
Eliot hit a button on the remote, muting the overly excited commentators and ensuring that his reply would be as clear as possible. "No way, no how. I can say it again. You want me to say it again?"
Sophie stopped with an injured expression. "I thought we were past that: I ran things perfectly well while Nate was away. Nobody died, no one was arrested and your hair's fine, you can barely see the - you know."
Eliot reflexively raised a hand to the side of his head; Parker took the opportunity to slide herself further into his space.
When he was reassured, and three inches to the left, Eliot nodded. "You did good," he admitted. "But we were doing the jobs we all agreed on. You were running comms, not the con."
Sophie looked more amused than hurt now, but that didn't mean much of anything at all. She'd promised not to con her own crew, but by Hardison's count she did it about every third time she smiled.
"Eliot could run the team," Parker said, slightly too loudly.
Eliot shook his head. "No."
Parker frowned and poked him. "Stop saying no."
Eliot tilted his head back to look at her, paused for a pointed two seconds and then said, "No." When he looked back to the television, Parker displaced him another inch.
Hardison was pretty sure no one else had noticed, because he was the only one Parker winked at. "Why not?" he asked the back of Eliot's head.
It wasn't that Hardison particularly wanted to be a part of a crew run by Eliot - although he did great with the whole egg thing and all - but the closed expression on the man's face had made him curious.
That and he figured Parker could use the distraction.
"Because," Eliot growled back, and hunched his shoulders like he did when he was waiting for the good word to come up swinging.
Perversely, Hardison pushed anyway. "Because you can't?"
"No." The growl deepened.
"Because Nate beat you at chess?" Sophie suggested sweetly.
"No." Not so much a growl as a snarl now and right about there, Hardison was going to call it because next it was violence and strong language and no one wanted that.
"Because you're really a woman?" Parker offered and tugged Eliot's hair. Hard.
Eliot turned towards her, losing another four inches in one go. "What the hell?" He'd also lost the snarl, so Hardison stopped trying to calculate a minimum safe distance.
"Everyone else got to guess," Parker pointed out, and then began to put tiny plaits in his hair.
Eliot raised a hand and half-heartedly tried to bat her away. "C'mon, no. It took me hours to pick out the last ones."
"So don't pick them out," she said reasonably, and slid further down until Eliot was forced to the very edge of the couch. "Who's left?"
They looked at Parker; she looked calmly back and then began to laugh. They waited patiently until the laughter turned into hiccups and then Hardison brought her a glass of water. When she'd taken the glass, he threw himself back into the chair next to the couch and ignored the memory of Nana's voice telling him to mind the damn furniture.
Parker shifted upright to drink and now Eliot was two inches from sitting on the floor.Again. Hardison wasn't sure exactly how Eliot didn't notice, but he never did.
Except, that was all kinds of crazy. Of course he noticed. A man notices when his favorite chair gets annexed and Parker probably had a very distinctive kind of drape.
He stared at Eliot and got not one damn thing back.
Hardison abandoned that for a whole other issue. "I'll run the crew," he said, and this time he was kind of worried, because put it like that and it was worth thinking twice - maybe pouring himself a stiff shake.
"If you're actually planning my death, I may have misjudged you," Nate said from the doorway.
Hardison waved a hand. "Nah, man. Just ... eventualities and all that."
"Sure." Nate nodded amiably, the easy side of drunk. He crossed the room and started hunting through the cabinets for a glass not currently covered with a thin layer of chocolate foam.
"Okay," he said, when he finally found one. "So some bad guy takes me down tomorrow and the crew is yours, what-"
"That doesn't work," Parker interjected flatly.
Nate blinked over at her. "Why not?"
"Because there wouldn't be a team left," she said impassively. "Anyone who got to you went through all of us first. Eliot first, then me, then Hardison and then Sophie."
"Protect the king, Nate," Sophie agreed easily.
Nate looked around the ring of faces and for just a second, Hardison saw a flicker of ... oh no. Oh no he did not get to play it stone cold and then make a face like that.
"I saw that," Hardison said, and rolled out of the chair to his feet. He padded back towards the kitchenette.
"Saw what?" Nate hedged, but he'd resorted to the vague tone he always tried when he was trying to dodge questions he didn't want to answer.
Hardison shook his head and grinned again, riding high on sugary goodness. "Oh hell no, Mr. Mind Controlling Evil Overlord of Skull Mountain. You don't get to be all 'Saw what?'"
"Skulls again? This fixation is worrying, Hardison." Nate filled his glass almost to the brim and then began to edge towards the stairs to his bedroom.
Hardison stepped into the way and crossed his arms. "First, I told you it's Skrull - you can speak, like, four languages - you can learn Geek. Second of all," Hardison leaned forward and held Nate's attention. "I saw that."
Nate coughed and then turned into the high beam of Sophie's narrow-eyed suspicion, Parker's confusion and Eliot's slight smile. "Fine. I'm hit by a meteor tomorrow - and I'm already well aware of the odds, so don't start with..." He waved his hand vaguely. "What do you do, Hardison?"
The question derailed him, as Hardison guessed it was meant to do, but he let it. He saw what he saw; he could be the bigger man about this.
"Find a new job," he lied. "Get right up on that horse."
"Uh ... huh." Nate smiled briefly, expression still a mask of sixty-proof amiability. "So you're working this job, whatever it is, and you have to get someone to do something they really don't want to do. You can ask, if you like - they'll say no. They always say no."
Hardison shrugged; played along like this was going any place Nate didn't want it to. "Then I make them do it."
"Do you?" Nate looked curious rather than disbelieving and now Hardison knew he was being set up.
Sheer stubbornness made him say, "Believe it."
"How do you make Parker remove every single lock pick she has? How do you makeSophie stay calm in an enclosed space? How do you make Eliot..."
Nate glanced at the hitter, took in the raised eyebrow and then shrugged, displaying slightly more of a survival instinct than Hardison thought possible. Which was to say, any.
"How do you make Eliot do anything?" Nate compromised.
Eliot smirked and slid the last couple of inches to sit on the floor, then leaned back against the couch as Parker stretched the length of it.
"How do you choose who makes it out?" Nate dropped into the silence.
"My God, you're maudlin this evening. Did they let you drink something Russian again?" Sophie stood smoothly, gathered up her magazines and then slipped her purse strap onto her shoulder.
Nate turned to answer as Eliot raised a hand to his hair and discovered the intricate patterns Parker had woven there. He stood quickly. "Goddamit. Parker!"
An open window and a fading shriek of laughter answered him. Eliot grabbed his coat and ran for the door, Sophie walked sedately after him. On her way past, she stopped and kissed Hardison on the cheek. "Believe it or not," she murmured, "he's trying to be kind."
Hardison made a non-committal sound and waited. When he was sure no one was listening (as sure as he could be, anyhow), he said, "I heard what you said to Archie. We all did. You said you'd die for Parker."
"I would." Nate nodded as he took a careful seat on the stairs; the glass dangled in loose fingers. "But when you're out there you're pawns on a board, tools in the box. Or we don't win - maybe the client dies, maybe you die.
"Dubenich hired me because I'm an honest man, Hardison. Not a good one. That's you, that's the others."
Hardison laughed quietly, sure now. "Bullshit, man. I'm calling bullshit. I didn't like to say anything while they was in here - I know how you like that whole mystique thing no one's buying - but it's just you and me now. Probably."
Nate canted his head back; the smirk was still firmly in place, but it had softened into patronizing at the corners. "Really?"
Hardison slung his laptop bag across his shoulder and then raised his hands. "I get it, you got your angst on and you got your reasons, and that's your thing. But you know why we trust you now? It's not because you're the honest man or whatever the hell that was. It's not because you'll do what it takes to get the job done. It's not even because we know all your passwords and bank accounts
Nate looked faintly pained through the softening haze of alcohol. "All of them?"
"Hell yeah," Hardison snorted. "Who do you think you're working with?"
"Why, then?" Nate asked almost hesitantly.
"Because you'd die for Parker." Hardison reached over and patted Nate on the shoulder. "And you know what? I saw what I saw and don't think I won't use that shit if you make me, because I will."
Nate laughed quietly into his glass. "You'll run a hell of a crew, Hardison."
Hardison nodded. "Yeah I will. But only after you've drunk yourself to death. Parker'd be upset otherwise."
Nate blinked up at him. "That's ... sweet."
"More whiskey?"
"Good night, Hardison."