Title: The Annual Job
Rating: PG
Summary: Eliot's old partner shows up one day, in his customary manner.
[*]
Eliot shakes off the last of the afterglow, scowling as he runs his fingers carefully through his tangled hair in a futile attempt to remove all the shards of glass. "A katana?" he growls, throat tired. "Seriously? You even know how clichéd that is?"
Hart- not his real name- grins at Eliot from the other side of the demolished coffee table. "I knew it wasn't going to be a gunfight."
The scowl deepens. Hart is buckling his gunbelt back around his hips, which have been covered up once again with those oh-so-tight jeans. He hasn't put his t-shirt back on yet- thank God, that thing looks like it's been buried underground- so the deep red crescent marks from Eliot's frenzied biting earlier are still visible, trailing up his pectorals and neck.
Hart purrs at him, realizing where his attention has gone. "Yeah, you were randy today. That lovely team of yours not putting out?"
Eliot stands, glass and wood splinters falling to the floor around him. Even naked and covered in Hart's scratches he knows he's intimidating. "You stay away from them." There's no need to say 'or else.'
"I've no intention of touching a hair on their pretty little heads." Hart's voice is like honey- smooth and sweet and often synthetic. He gives Eliot an innocent look that the retrieval specialist immediately distrusts. "Not unless I was invited. And this century doesn't have many people creative enough to hold my attention." One hands reaches out to trail down Eliot's body, touching the scars that no one besides the two of them could identify. His eyes burn like the desert sun and pin Eliot in place. "Same time next year?"
If we're both still alive, Eliot knows. Still, he relaxes, the crisis- his new life intersecting with his old one- averted. He even smiles at his old partner. "Try to wait more than a half hour before jumping forward. If I've got to give you time to recharge after waiting a year I'll have to beat you with your own Vortex Manipulator."
"Already counting the days before you see me again," Hart simpers. "How sweet." He opens his wriststrap and opens a portal to the Vortex. As he walks into it, he looks back, and then Eliot can see the honest friendship in his eyes, one of the few true bonds he'd had with anyone back then. "You never should have left, darling."
"The Agency was never the right place for me," Eliot says firmly.
Hart shrugs, his expression is one of agreement. He always was sentimental. He leaves, and the Vortex closes moments before the door to Nate's apartment opens.
A gasp from Sophie, a wide-eyed, quickly becoming murderous look from Nate at the state of his apartment and Parker's interested head-tilt (and maybe Hart was wrong, because no one in this century should be giving him a look with that much intent when they've got a boyfriend) are all drowned out by the sound of Hardison's not-manly-in-the-slightest shriek.
"My flatscreens!" The hacker looks like he's about to burst into a Big No and prostrate himself before God. Eliot looks at the televisions, melted beyond repair by Hart's sonic blaster. "I can explain," he says as he covers himself with a torn pillow.
Even as the team regains their composure and begins to shout at him, Eliot glances at the spot Hart left and has to smother a 51st century grin. Worth it.