Summary: Eliot and Parker have a cute squabble. For my E/P people. :)
(This story is in this collection because 25 - 0.25 - quarter[coin])
AN: Wow, so people are actually reading this...That's nice to know. :D Thanks!
Quarter For Your Thoughts
Eliot doesn't jump when a hand darts out and slams something small and metallic onto the tabletop in front of him. (If he wasn't Eliot and thus trained in countless defense techniques, he may very well have, though.)
Only one person in the world can sneak up on him like that.
"Dammit, Parker!"
Parker comes around from behind him, brushing by very close to him as she does so, and lifts her hand from the table, smirking at being able to almost startle Eliot. On the table remains a coin.
"Quarter for your thoughts?" she asks with a Cheshire Cat grin.
Eliot stares at her blankly (although 'blankly' can usually be a synonym for 'angrily' with Eliot). "It's 'a penny,' Parker," he finally says.
Parker squints down at the silver coin on the table. "Nooo," she says slowly, as if to a child, "that's a quarter."
Eliot rubs his face with his hand. "'Penny for your thoughts,' Parker, not quarter."
"Oh," Parker says, and Eliot can almost see her crazy brain processing this information. "I can exchange it, if you want," she says putting her hand on the coin to pick it up.
A bigger, callused hand drops down on top of her whiter, slender hand. "Nah, quarter's fine," Eliot says with a grin of his own.
She returns the smile and puts her other hand on top of his, making an Eliot hand sandwich. "So that means that you have to tell me your thoughts with interest, right?" Her sweet smile turns sneaky.
Eliot tries to tug his hand out from between hers, but even someone who hits people for a living would find it difficult to free his hand from the grip of someone who hangs off of buildings with her bare hands for a living without actually hurting her.
"Parker..." he warns, standing up, but it's merely to cover up the fact that she has won and he doesn't want to admit it yet.
She blinks up innocently at him. "Eliot..." she says back to him in the same tone.
Eliot sighs, defeated. He tries another tactic instead.
He gets close to her, so close that his breath moves the fine strands of her hair. He uses his free hand to cup her cheek in his palm, and...
Parker giggles and scampers away a little ways around the table, still holding his hand captive.
"Nuh-uh," she says, laughing. "Sophie told me about this one, remember?"
Still, he's got one free hand while both of hers are busy keeping his other one under guard, so this time he's got the upper hand, so to speak.
How he uses that hand, well, he can be creative, and she's soon giggling more from being tickled than from mischievousness.
As she laughs, he's yet again struck by how beautiful she is, and so he kisses her because, well, because he can. (And by 'can,' it most definitely means that he's the only one allowed to.) He kisses her, and because he is Eliot and not some other schmuck, he kisses her soundly.
She, of course, responds, and because she is Parker and not some other airy-headed female, she doesn't relinquish her hold on his hand or the quarter, and instead manages to even get her hand into his pocket. (She does this by slipping the hand holding the coin out from under his. This, while still kissing him, of course.)
Feeling her hand in his pocket, he chuckles against her lips, and pulls away enough to say breathlessly, "Ya gonna give me a quarter's worth of thoughts for that, hun?"
She growls at him and pouts, but a clink of metal in his pocket tells him that she has put the coin back where it belongs.
...Or has she? Was that two clinks?
He narrows his eyes at her twinkling hazel eyes, and digs his free hand into his pocket to check.
"Quarter for your thoughts?" Parker laughs at his expression, "That's twenty-five times one penny-thought, Eliot."
He growls and grabs her close again to kiss her. "Ya wanna know what I'm thinking? I'm thinkin' that I love you, Parker. That worth a quarter to ya?" he says.
She makes a happy sound and throws her arms around his neck. "I think I owe you change," she whispers with a content smile.
