A/N: Uh, yeah I insult strippers a bit in this. But I've been a stripper for three years, so I think I'm allowed. Feel free to yell at me if you're offended though. It's all about perception, and how other people view them.
CHAPTER NINE
New York
"You two just going to lie around all day like that? Come on, I'm finally out, let's go hit a party or something. Hell, let's throw a party… half a dozen strippers..." the man across from Parker smirked, then noticed Parker's look of disapproval and said, "Sissy, I know you hate hotel parties but… actually, we could go house shopping for one. How much are houses going in New York now?"
Parker lay in Justine's arms, sprawled out on to the couch, her head lying on her breast as Justine ran her fingers through it. Parker liked lying with Justine like this, it made her feel special, even for a little bit. Like her whole body was warm, even though it was cool in the hotel room. "Why do you always want whores?" she asked him. She looked out the hotel window, out at the falling rain drops outside.
New York. She only lived her with her mother, her real mother, so many years ago… but she still remembers it. But it's too close, too damn close to reality and what used to be, so she can't wait to leave it. They weren't going to stay there.
"I said strippers, not whores," Jake corrected, and threw a pillow off of his chair at Parker, she squealed and ducked, but it hit Justine in the face.
"Hey!" she exclaimed, and picked it up and threw it back at him. She missed, and Jake smirked.
"You said we were going to go to Europe," Parker reminded him. She was excited about Europe; she had never been there before. Plus, with Jake being wanted for escaping a federal prison, and Parker's face being splashed all over the news as a known accomplice, they needed to leave soon. She didn't want to go to prison; she doesn't think she'd make a good prison bitch. Plus, she's always dropping the soap in the shower cause it's always so slippery… or wait, did that only apply to male prisons?
"Yeah, yeah. I just meant something temporary. Just for the night, you know? Be fun."
"It'd be stupid," Parker corrects, and Jake shrugs. He knows she's right, but Jake always wants to party. Parker's never really been into that, all the people, all the loud music, all the escape routes blocked by drunken half-wits. She liked the money, she loved having it, looking at it, touching it… but Jake liked to spend it. She never really understood why, money was one of the prettiest things she had ever seen in her life. It had potential, unlike strippers.
"Hey," Jake said, and nodded to Justine. Justine looked up from Parker to look at him and he said, "Thanks… for helping her get me."
"I was just the lookout, the girl wouldn't let me anywhere near the joint," Justine replied, and brushed it off.
"Still. San Francisco prisons…"
Justine shrugged again, she wasn't ever really good at platitudes, but neither was Parker. They both talked once about how they find it weird that other people don't get awkward when they get thanked for something, and why they think they might. They never really came to a conclusion. "My girl said she needed ya… ain't nothin' to think about."
"Which…" Jakes said, and leaned back in his chair, his smirk growing larger as he pointed between the two women. Parker rolled her eyes; she already knew what was coming. She's seen the internet. "When did this happen, exactly? You never told me you had a thing for the ladies, Sissy…" he made an hourglass shape with his hands. Parker flipped him the finger.
"Don't get all pervy," Parker told him, but couldn't help but smirk too. But then she shrugged and chewed on her bottom lip a bit. "It… just… did. I dunno. Like a couple months ago. There wasn't a sign up sheet or anything." Both Justine and Jake dismiss her sign up sheet comment, even though she's sure both of them don't know what she means. But they know how she is.
Truth was, she didn't know how exactly to explain it. But what she meant was that it wasn't like something came out and was like 'please sign your name on the dotted line if you'd like to be a lesbian now'. It just happened, and it felt good. It felt really, really good, being with Justine. She's never had anyone like her like this before… and it was… good.
"Why do you call her Sissy?" Justine asked as she ran her fingertips lightly down Parker's pale skin. Parker brought her hand up and laced their fingers together. She wanted to close her eyes and just fall asleep, but Jake would have none of that. It was his second night out of prison, and since last night consisted mostly of being on the run, this is their only chance of hanging out before they have to fly to Europe in the morning.
Basically, he'll tell her to sleep on the plane.
"My sister," he said, and pointed at her. Parker smiled. She liked having a sibling, even if he wasn't really her sibling.
"Seriously?"
Jake laughed, "No, not really. Just what I call her."
Parker remembers that night as she's sitting in their hotel room in the middle of New York. She remembers her friend… her friend that died only two years later in a police shoot out. She remembers her girlfriend, her only real girlfriend she's ever had, who left her a year after that because she didn't want to be mixed up in Parker's lifestyle anymore. She remembers New York, she remembers her mother, she remembers it all.
She hates New York.
"You put the tracking on his cell, Parker?"
It's been seven, almost eight years since that conversation, but she still remembers it. There was nothing special about it, and yet she could remember every detail. She remembers the way Justine would look at her, kiss her, touch her. She remembers how Jake would smile, pull her into a bear hug, play fight with her… teach her stuff. She loves them both, even now.
"Parker… the cell phone?"
She visits Jake's grave every year on the date that he died, if she can. Sometimes going back into Rome is a bit risky, even for her. She's wanted all over Italy. Okay, if she's to be fair, she's wanted in about seven different countries, so still. She hasn't seen Justine since she left her, but she knows she's living in Bristol and has a new girlfriend. She wasn't stalking or anything she just... she wanted to know. Maybe people might think that's a little weird, but she wanted to know where the only person she's ever loved like that… where she went, what she's doing.
"Parker! Hello, PARKER!" Someone's snapping their fingers near her ear and she breaks out of her thoughts to look at Nate, who looks disgruntled at being ignored. "Cell phone."
"Yeah, I did," Parker says, and turns back to looking out the window. Nate sighs and walks away from her. She looks back into the darkened sky, watching the snow fall to the ground and she presses her hand up against the cool glass. Sometimes she wishes she could run away, but then she realizes she's been doing that all her life. She'll always be running.
Sometimes she wishes she could go back in time. Change the past, so she doesn't have to run anymore.
"Alright, so. His plane isn't leaving until tomorrow night and the money is in London already," Nate says out loud, to himself again as he paces. After Hardison had run a very complicated looking search on his computer (or at least it looked complicated to Parker, with all the windows and the numbers and whatever else), they had found out he had an accomplice. Well, actually they found that out by accident. When Parker went to put a trace on his phone she had to actually wait to lift it because he was using it already. Hardison traced the call and listened in, and they had found out the money had gone on ahead.
Accomplice was actually a bad word to use. The mark was actually blackmailing this other guy with what apparently were 'very alarming photographs'. Parker didn't understand why the accomplice didn't just run off with the money as soon as he hit London until she found that out. Though she was kind of curious to see what kind of photographs. Considering the man had mentioned a dog, Parker was a bit creeped out but yet at the same time morbidly fascinated. Sophie, however, jumped up and yelled, "That's disgusting!" and proceeded to rattle on about animal rights.
Though Parker isn't sure why she cares about animal rights when she's always wearing fur.
"Hardison, see if there are any flights going out to London in the morning," Nate said, and pointed to the computer before he continued pacing, mumbling a bit to himself.
"But the mark's here," Eliot told him.
"Yeah but the money is in London. Hold on, hold on," Nate said, waving his hands at him. He clearly didn't want to be disturbed while pacing. Parker was watching him through the reflection on the window. His hair was sticking up a little.
"The snows coming down too hard, Nate," Sophie told him, pointing outside. "No way we're going to get out of here early in the morning."
"No, no, wait…" Hardison said, staring at his computer. "There's one cargo flight still scheduled to take off to London before dawn."
"Yeah, a cargo flight that needs to leave during a snow storm? That says smugglers all over it," Eliot told Hardison, like he was being stupid for even suggesting it.
"We have to get there before he does…" Nate said, still mumbling to himself, and Eliot whips around to look at him. Parker stares at his hair when he does that, because it's pretty. Spins around like a dress… on his head.
"I am not going on a plane with pirates!" Sophie protests loudly. She even added a little 'hmph!" at the end of extra measure, and a little stomp of her heel.
"Pirates are on boats, in the sea," Parker tells Sophie seriously, but Sophie ignores her. She's too busy staring at Nate like he needed to tell her that there was another way. "They have eye patches and a wooden leg. And a parrot." Then she frowned, and looked at herself in the reflection of the glass. "I miss Clyde."
But no one was paying attention to her, everyone was staring at Nate. "Then we'll have to delay him from getting on his flight… and we'll go in his place." He was still thinking though, his face all scrunched up and a knuckle tapping his chin lightly. Finally he looked up. "Okay, Parker, Hardison, you stay here."
Parker felt her stomach drop six feet into the ground. She might as well bury it and pronounce it dead. Give it a funeral with doves and…
"Sophie, Eliot, and I will go to London, get to the money before the mark does. Just… delay him a couple days," he told Hardison, and the hacker nodded, but not before looking at Parker. But Parker felt like she was going to throw up again. A couple whole days alone with Hardison?
Hardison must have realized her weird look again because he narrowed his eyebrows in concern, but turned towards Nate. "Yeah, I can mess with the flight logs… or mess with his reservation, whatever. We'll figure it out."
"Alright good," Nate said, and turned to Parker. He looked like to ask her if she was on board, but ended up staring at her. "Are you okay?"
Parker tried to say yes, but now Hardison was looking at her. Hell, everyone was looking at her, but all she really saw was Hardison. Her stomach was bubbly, her senses tingly, and she… she needed to throw up. So she ran to the bathroom and shut the door.
She didn't actually throw up, but she could at least breathe a little better in there. She leaned against the door and took a couple deep breaths. "You're okay," she told herself under her breath. "He's just your friend, Hardison your friend. Just a friend. You're okay." She took another deep breath and closed her eyes. She needed to stop being such a spaz. Just because it was something she's never encountered before, that doesn't mean she should try to run away from it.
When she meets this high tech "impossible to break" security system, does she run away from it? No. She relishes it, enjoys it. It's what she lives for: the adventure, the thrill, the challenge, the success. So why can't she just tackle Hardison head on like those security systems? Well okay, maybe not tackle, though she can take Hardison. Put him in that clamp… claw… whatever it was that Eliot called it. That foot thing that had his neck all pressed into her…
Between her legs. God, what is it with her lately? Why does she keep thinking about all that…? She didn't even finish the question in her head, just thought about how it just makes her even more freaked out. But that was her, wasn't it? Obsessive over stuff she's never done, though she now sees that some ways are very different than others.
She hasn't even thought about sex much. Not really, and not lately. Not since the last time she did it, which was like three years ago. Just a little thing that happened in Barcelona with this girl she met at museum she was casing. She doesn't even remember her name, which was probably bad. But it was one of those foreign names that are just complicated and confusing. Sex just wasn't one of those things she needed. Yeah she liked it, it was fun and enjoyable and all these things in between, at least when it wasn't getting forced on her.
But that's why she was scared of Hardison. Not that she thought he would do that, she knows he never would… but every experience she ever had with the opposite sex was… it was… Parker sighed and slumped down on to the ground against the door.
It was traumatizing.
But Hardison was her friend. Hardison was the closest person to her that she's had in almost a decade. So if she was going to like someone, she figures it might be a bit obvious that it would be him. But what if she took one look at his penis and screamed? That could happen, they've always kind of scared her. And then what? She'd hurt his feelings, and she didn't want to do that. Or worse, she'd have to explain why she screamed, and she didn't want to do that either.
But he was her friend, first and foremost, and she didn't want to screw that up. Hardison is the only one who really gets her, is really nice to her, kinda understands her. She doesn't want that to go away. So… so she needs to get up, suck it up, and be okay. It might even be fun, being with only Hardison for a couple of days.
Parker took another deep breath and picked herself up off of the floor. No more Spaz-Parker. Now it's time for Normal-Parker. It was all going to be okay. She's probably making this out to be a trillion times scarier than it really is anyway, right? She'll be okay, and they'll have fun. They'll frolick in the snow and delay flights.
And they did have fun… but that's not all they had.
TBC…
