AN: Yes, it has been eons since I've updated. *hangs head in shame*
I wish I had a decent excuse to use, but really there isn't one.
So if anyone is still reading this story, or even cares about what happens next, here's another chapter.
Enjoy!
Parker skips going back to Nate's apartment in favor of going straight to Eliot's house. She has more important things to do than go listen to Hardison and Sophie argue about things they have no business arguing over in the first place. Why do they care where she lives? It's not like either one of them offered to let her stay with them. Hell, they didn't even know where she was living for the three years they have been a team until they had to come track her down.
Parker slips through her window and heads towards her closet. Eliot keeps telling her that she should start using the door when she comes home, he even gave her a key, but to her it just makes more sense to enter her room directly instead of having to go through the front door then walk all the way through the house. She crouches down and digs around in the back of her closet, looking for a bag she had hidden earlier.
Aha! Found it. This bag is going to be the undoing of Eliot. There is no way for her to lose with this plan. The best part of her plan… it's subtle. Deliciously subtle. He won't even know what hit him because he doesn't think subtle is in her arsenal. Well, Eliot is wrong. Hers is a plan best executed slowly, so she better get started. Step one, destroy something Eliot loves.
Eliot leaves Nate's and spends the afternoon visiting all of the places Parker has been known to haunt.
Not having any luck in finding Parker, Eliot returns to his house.
When Eliot unlocks his door, his instincts go on high alert. There is someone in his house. And from the smell of things, they have started a fire… in the kitchen. Oh God, Parker is going to burn his house down. It has to be Parker, right?
"Parker? You here?" Eliot tentatively calls out as he makes his way to the kitchen.
"In here!" comes a very distinctive voice from, you guessed it, Eliot's prized kitchen.
Anticipating the worst, Eliot rounds the corner to what can only be described as a war zone. There is white dusting of flour all over everything. Food is littering the floor like spent grenades. Pots and pans are piled up in the sink and one of them appears to be smoking. Smacking a hand against his forehead, Eliot catches sight of something that vaguely resembles arterial spray on the ceiling. How in the hell something like tomato sauce got on the ceiling is anybody's guess. To top it all off, standing in the middle of the kitchen looking like she has just endured WWIII is Parker, holding a spatula and grinning from ear to ear.
With a sigh of trepidation, Eliot asks Parker about why his kitchen is suddenly her playground, "Parker, what's goin' on here?"
"I'm cooking!" she replies, "I realized that you always make dinner. I was going to surprise you, but your kitchen doesn't work right." She stops to glare at the pile of dishes in the sink as if they personally insulted her. "Everything is out to get me."
Not quite sure why Parker was attempting to make dinner, but finding that it was rather nice to actually know where the little thief was at and that she hadn't destroyed his house (unless you count the destruction of his kitchen) in a fit of anger, Eliot breathed a sigh of relief. He was a little worried that he would make it home to find the place burnt to the ground, or at least that Parker had vacated the premises.
Eliot shakes his head and looks around the kitchen a little more closely, surprised to find that he wasn't upset. He was actually… amused? Where is that coming from?
"I don't think it's the kitchen that's got a problem here. How about we get this cleaned up, and we'll go out for dinner tonight? I don't think either of us is gonna be up for cookin' by the time we're finished with this mess."
"Okay. Sounds like a plan to me," Parker nods, pulls a broom out of nowhere and hands it to Eliot. "You get the floors, I'll get the ceiling."
Not one to argue with logic, Eliot starts sweeping. The pair fall into the easy pattern that they have developed from all of the time they spend working together, making even the chore of cleaning look something more like a delicately choreographed dance. Without words, they seem to know what the other needs and smoothly hand cleaning supplies back and forth all the while never stopping in their designated chores.
Roughly two hours later, Eliot places the last of his pans back in the cabinet as Parker hops onto the counter in what has become her spot. The kitchen is clean, but the hitter and thief look a little worse for wear. They have both acquired a dusting of flour and look as if they have been in a middle school food fight.
Parker leans back against the wall and lets out a sigh.
Turning towards the sound, Eliot raises an inquisitive eyebrow. "What?"
"I don't want to go out for dinner. I'm too tired. Can't we just order in instead?"
"Whatever. That's fine with me. What do you want?"
"I was thinking… pizza."
"That works. You call it in, I'm gonna go take a shower real quick." Eliot turns and starts down the hallway towards his room while unbuttoning his shirt.
While taking advantage of the opportunity to watch Eliot rid himself of his button down leaving him in just a muscle shirt, Parker calls out, "You want the usual order?"
"Sure." Eliot yells from his room.
After calling in the Pizza, Parker hops down from the counter and heads to take a shower of her own. Seducing Eliot is hard work, and she needs to clean up before she can move on to step two.
While in the shower, Parker smiles to herself and checks step one off of her mental list. Since she has managed to destroy something Eliot obviously cares about without bringing his wrath down on her, she feels confident in moving on to the next part of her plan. This is where the subtle part comes in. She wants Eliot to take an interest in her, but she doesn't want to change her actions that he notices something is off. Precision. That's the name of the game.
