AN: This is the sequel to Blue Bonnets Don't Grow In Calfornia and is also payment to Pldjumpr6 for visual adies hope you like it! This is based on Everything's Gone By Randy Houser! Thanks to Vicky for the beta! Please Review!-Meg
Before Parker could apologize for snooping they were blowing up the offices and going thier their seperate separate ways... but now she planned to fix it...
-/-
He's in that sleep hazy place where he knows he's dreaming as he chases her through the barn, her white sundress and dark hair billowing out around her. Her laugh carried to him on the air. He can't find the want to wake up even though he knows what's coming. As he hears the screech of tires and the barn drops away and he's on that road watching himself kill the girl he loves,. he wakes screaming. This is why he only sleeps ninety minutes a day. He waits until his heart slows from its rapid rhythm before he gets up and washes away the sweat that smells of fear.
He's only in Mcrory's Bar because she's gone and has been for years, but on these nights she haunts him, he needs a nameless faceless girl to fall into and some alcohol to blur the edges of the sharp stinging creature called grief that lives in his chest just behind his heart. He smiles at Cora or tries too but judging by her expression he's missed the mark. He slides onto the bar stool. "Cora, Got a beer with my name on it?"
"Sure, Eliot you okay?"
"As I'll ever be." he nods his thanks when she brings his beer,. raising the cool glass bottle to his lips. "To Aubra." he whispers and swigs
-/-
Parker feels bad, she shouldn't have snooped but she was curious and now he's sitting there all hunched over, hair in his face, still wearing yesterday's clothes and looking so broken, So un-Eliot she thinks she might cry.
He sees her in his perpherial vision before she touches his shoulder.
"I'm sorry Eliot I didn't intend to hurt you I just wanted to know who it was that made you make that face."
"You didn't hurt me. What face?" he gulps more beer. Finishing off the bottle he taps the bottle on the bar to signal Cora for another.
"The one that says you loved so deep it broke you, the one that makes you use your hair as a shield." She brushes some hair behind his ear and he's shocked to find himself thinking of letting Parker be the warm and welcoming body in Aubra's place tonight. He needs to back away, he needs to leave. There's more than just the fact the Parker's hair and eye color are all wrong to be Aubra, its that she's fragile and child like in her sweetness and he can't fuck that up which is why he's fought an attraction to her up to this point.
"What's it like to love someone like that?" she asks leaning on the bar facing him. He notices she's wearing black leggings and a blue men's shirt her hair falling on her shoulders.
"A lot of trouble." He smirks sadly.
-/-
He was smashed. Parker was still stone cold sober.
"Come on Eliot lets get you home." she manages to get him standing with some grunts of frustration and heavy breathing.
"You don't know where I live."
"I know where I live."
"You could leave me at Nate's."
"Drunks of a feather and all that… I'd rather not thanks."
Sshe walked him toward the door.
-/-
He leaned on the wall of her dimly lit hallway. Half asleep he heard her keys jangling as she unlocked her door. Then she woke him from his twilight like slumber by kissing him lightly on the mouth, his eyes popped open as she backed away, his blue eyes revealing his pain and alcohol dulled half awareness to her.
"Parker, we're fine. you don't have-" She kissed him deeper her tongue snaking into his mouth. He kissed her back on reflex.
"I'm not sober enough to be a gentleman about this Parker." he murmurred against her lips the kiss relaxing him further.
"Everyone thinks I'm not normal, but even I understand needing to get lost in someone and I'm here Eliot." She backed away looking him in the eye.
This time he kissed her. Stumbling into the apartment they tripped over her harness. stumbling the righting themselves. Clothes littered the floor and they fell into a surprisingly soft bed. He kissed whatever skin he could reach. Sliding himself into her, the part of himself he keeps cold aloof, all those pieces that belonged to Aubra, warmed in a way that he'd forgotten was possible., Maybe Parker was the right one to fall into, maybe...maybe he'd always known it and it's why he'd kept his distance. Setting their pace her little growlish sighs rumbling in her throat vibrated against his lips. It was over before he wanted it to be as they pushed toward their climax. He reached between them, finding her core with deft expertise pushed her over the edge, he soon followed.
-/-
He woke with a headache and sense of dread. He'd done what he said he'd never do. He was intimate with someone and the worse part was, typically he usually didn't know the women's names and as much as it shames he likes it that way. But now... he sits up and looks around for his pants. He looks over and sees what he missed the night before there on Parker's hip L.P. is tattooed.
He gets up and dresses and longs to leave but somehow he can't make himself, he finds that in of itself unsettling because it means he cares for Parker. He wonders into her kitchen to make some breakfast.
-/-
Eliot had expected some awkwardness but thiere wasn't any. Parker was back to being Parker. She sat on the barstool. In her shirt from the night before.
"I read somewhere once that in native american culture they grow their hair long when grieving and only cut it when they are finished mourning. Is that why you keep your hair long? You're in a constant state of grief?" he smiles at her quick and sharp and then looks back down continuing to beat the eggs for the omelets, he smoothly changes the subject.
"Who's L.P.?"
"Me."
"You tattooed you're own initials on your body?" She nods and he gave up trying to figure her for like the hundredth time.
-/-
All of their reactions were different. One day randomly Hardison murmured "Real sorry about your girl man." Eliot grunted a thanks and Hhardison went back to hacking and sipping soda. Sophie offered an ear to listen whenever he needed. He just nodded wordlessly. Nate avoided the whole thing since it hit to close to own sore spot and Parker still provided a warm shelter from the demons now and again. Like now, he brushed his thumb across her tattoo. "What's the L stand for?"
"My Name's Lisette." She whispered in sex induced sleepiness.
This was different now. It wasn't just some woman to use , it was Parker and she had a name and face he'd come to love, he cared. As it turned out blue bonnets didn't grow in Boston either but something wilder and definitely crazier was growing here and it scared him but somehow he liked it. Everything Aubra was is still gone, but it was ok to like something new or at least he hoped it was.
"Lisette… it fits you." and he kissed her softly.