Title: Two to Tango
Prompt by: Leverageland - dance
Rating: PG-13
Setting: unspecified
Word Count: ~700
"Guys, you gonna have to buy me some time here," Hardison insisted as the computer system blocked him at every turn. "Just keep Clarkson distracted in that ballroom a while okay? Or this plan is goin' so far south, we all be in hell!"
"Bit tied up at the moment," Sophie hissed through the comms as she contorted her way out of the bindings at her wrists - that'd been too close!
"Eliot, Parker. Can you handle it?" asked Nate from the van.
"Sure, we got this," said the hitter with confidence, even as Parker turned panicked eyes toward him from across the room.
Tipping a wink to the orchestra, Eliot then moved across the floor and grabbed her hand. He spun the startled thief into his arms with ease, putting a finger under her chin and raising it until her eyes met his own.
"Don't look down," he told her in a low voice, "and follow my lead," he instructed as he locked their arms into position and began to dance.
Parker didn't argue because she didn't get a chance. Her eyes remained locked on Eliot's own, her feet moving to the rhythm of the music and following the hitter's steps in a slightly awkward tango. Not that Parker really knew what she was doing, she relied on instinct, and Eliot, and her natural flexibility and agility combined, as he spun her expertly around he floor. Low dips, sharp turns, perfectly synchronised bodies, moving as if one. There was no doubt that the dancing couple had everyone's attention, including the mark and his wife, as they etched out their own private dancefloor with every move.
Suddenly, the music ended. Parker found herself hanging mostly upside down in the deepest dip, held up only by the strength of Eliot's arms, as the room erupted into applause.
"That good enough?" Eliot asked Hardison in a low growl through the earbud as he righted Parker, the thief remembering suddenly it was a good idea to breathe.
"Oh yeah," she replied, earning a smirk her partner couldn't help.
"Done and done," the hacker confirmed. "Let's get out of here."
"Okay, back to base, guys," Nate told them all, until Parker squeaked in the negative.
"It's kinda late, can't we debrief tomorrow?" she suggested hurrying out into the hallway.
When Sophie agreed so did the others, but Eliot looked confused.
"What was that all about?" he asked her, as soon as their earbuds were out.
"I dunno," she shrugged, though the look he shot her made it plain he wasn't buying. "Where'd you learn to do that?" she asked.
"Just something I picked up," Eliot shrugged, evasive as usual about anything he had to recall from his past. "Anybody can dance. You kept up..."
"I'm not talking about the dancing," the little thief shook her head, looking as if she was trying to unscramble what the hell she was saying as much as he was.
"Parker, is there a reason you're playin' the 'let's be extra crazy' game right now?" asked Eliot with his usual 'I'm getting annoyed' growl as he stared at her.
"I need to check somethin,g" she said, suddenly rushing him and the hitter barely had a chance to breathe before her lips were on his, kissing him long and hard.
He probably should have pushed her off, told her no, said she was crazy (again!) but he didn't. Beautiful women throwing themselves at him was never a bad thing, as far as Eliot knew, so he went with it for as long as it lasted.
"Hmm," said Parker when she finally moved away though she was still close enough for Eliot to breathe her in, all jasmine hairspray and strawberry lipgloss. "Y'know that expression 'it takes two to tango'?" she checked, biting her lip and smiling in such a way that Eliot would almost think she were coming onto him, if she weren't Parker.
Of course, it seemed even his little thief could be conventional sometimes, as her fingers wrapped around his own and she pulled him towards the stairs.
This could only end badly, but sometimes you just had to go where the rhythm took you.
