Parker's like a three-dimensional octagon; eight sides with eight sharp angles, doubled, so there's sixteen different facets and sixteen ninety-degree positions. She's not perfectly square or quite circular, and she's actually quite skewed, and actually she shouldn't be, because right angles can't be skewy, but it's Parker, so all the rules are changed. At least, that's what she tells Eliot.
He just shakes his head at her and mutters something about crazy bags, and she's not listening anymore, because she's too busy trying to twist her body into the shape of an octagon.
When she succeeds, she grins at Eliot, who raises his brows and says, "There's something wrong with you…"
And she doesn't bother to point out that he said that earlier that morning, passing it off as a normal person thing and filing Eliot away amongst the list of mean men in her life, like her father and every foster parent since him except for that one junkyard owner who was too busy muttering about aliens and invasions to ever be home to tinker with the stove and make it work and cook food for her.
Of course, Eliot's not as bad as some of the men; he just tends to say not-nice things, so she doesn't think too much about it.
"Nope," she huffs, pulling herself back into an upright position, "Nothing wrong there." She grins as she shrugs her shoulders, referencing her body's flexibility.
There's the swoosh-crackle-glug-glug-glug sound of a soda bottle slipping from clumsy fingers and hitting the ground, and looking over, sure enough, Hardison's lost his orange squeeze all over the rug.
"Dang it! I just- I can't- you just…ignore…I got…" Hardison's clearly flustered by his gracelessness, ducking his head as he frantically reaches to save some soda.
Eliot walks off with an eye roll and mutters about how he never should've taken this gig because he has every reason to work alone right there in front of him.
"Bye," she chirrups brightly.
-0-
Eliot's the iceberg, Parker decides. She's scared of him, because icebergs sink the unsinkable, but icebergs are also pretty, and she kind of wants to see one someday. All of their secrets are underneath the surface, and that makes them kind of like her, because she's just fine above the water, but the bulk of her is drowning beneath.
But if the scary guy is the iceberg, does that mean she's the Titanic, and he's going to bring her down?
She's the water, she decides. She's clearly the winner in that equation, because she's everywhere, inescapable, and a force to not be reckoned with, in any case.
Icebergs can't sink water.
Icebergs are also not what they appear to be, and hey, Eliot's dangerous and not to be trusted, but he hasn't killed anyone yet and that has to count for something, she supposes.
She's the water, not the Titanic, so she supposes she can put up with the iceberg a little longer.
Maybe he'll just melt and she can poke ripples in his water.
Or maybe he'll be oil, and they won't mix, but it won't matter because ripples or explosive material, this gig's going to be over soon, and she'll have her money and he can be all iceberg in someone else's pond.
