(More) 2 AM Conversations
After 03x07 (The Gone Fishin' Job)
Hardison and Parker
Alec's POV
It just figured that the one time Alec actually tried to go to bed at normal human hours, after a whole day of running around in the goddamn woods, he couldn't actually fall asleep. Not that he wasn't tired – he was exhausted – he just couldn't make his brain shut down. Normally that wasn't too much of a problem. He just worked or played games online until he couldn't physically keep his eyes open any longer. The problem was, the same issue that was keeping him up was making it impossible for him to concentrate on… anything.
His mind kept going back to running through the trees, dogs on his trail, men with guns hunting him down like a goddamn animal.
It wasn't the first time he'd been held at gunpoint, and it surely wouldn't be the last, what with this crew, but he wasn't… used to it. Before he joined the team, at least eighty-five percent of all his criminal activity took place online – no fieldwork required.
He scratched idly at a mosquito bite – fucking wilderness – he'd have to introduce Eliot to virtual fishing, because there was no way in hell he was going back out to the fucking woods – and reached for his phone with as little thought, scrolling through the contacts before he even realized what he was doing.
There were surprisingly few of them he could consider talking to about this. Nana and his foster-sibs were all right out. He loved them to pieces, but they didn't know about half the shit he got up to, and it was better that way. He could just imagine Nana's response to being woken up in the middle of the night to be told he'd nearly got himself killed by a bunch of redneck terrorists in the woods. He'd probably wish they had got him by the time she was through with him.
Nate? No. Even if he wasn't completely trashed by this point, he was bound to be a patronizing asshole.
Sophie? Ha! Only if he felt like being psycho-analyzed to death.
Eliot had been there, so he should be the most understanding, but Alec knew without even calling that his response would probably be 'suck it up and go to sleep, Hardison!' He had lightened up over the course of the day (okay, once they finally got un-handcuffed – maybe he should take Parker up on that whole learning how to pick locks thing…), but he hadn't been altogether supportive of Alec's freak-out about the having to run for their fucking lives thing. Crazy Rambo motherfucker.
Parker? Maybe. He didn't like the idea of seeming weak in front of the girl he had his eye on, but then, it was Parker. She already probably thought he was a huge wimp for not liking jumping off buildings. And she had gone through something similar, running for her life against the Steranko at Wakefield, so she might get it. If nothing else, she would probably be up and willing to listen to him ramble. Hell, if he was really lucky, maybe they could also talk about "pretzels" – a topic she had avoided at all costs since the first time it was mentioned.
He mass-texted all of her numbers: Hey, what are you doing?
Surprisingly, it was her work phone she answered from – she normally ditched that one before going home, so he couldn't track her down. Testing new harnesses.
Want to hang out? he sent back, then mentally kicked himself. She would probably take that literally.
Sure enough, ten seconds later he got a response: Sure. Come over.
No address or anything, but then, he didn't really need one. When he reached the warehouse she had been living in a few weeks before, he realized why she had her phone with her – he already knew where this place was, and she clearly wasn't sleeping there anymore.
She let him in with a too-awake, too-cheerful grin, as though it wasn't the middle of the goddamn night. "Hi, Hardison!"
"Hey, Parker."
"Come on – I have one you can test. It's good you're here, because it will be different for you… you're so much taller, and your center of gravity is off compared to mine…"
He let her ramble, taking in the space. With all the lights on, instead of just the little island of light in a sea of creepy shadows, it was clear that there was an area for working on vault cracking – a whole series of half-disassembled safes and vault doors, and technology he didn't even recognize; an area for testing rigs and harnesses, with a simulated "rooftop" that was only about twenty feet up, and heavy mats lining the ground beneath it; and what he guessed was an area for practicing airborne acrobatics – hanging hoops, ropes and chains, lengths of fabric falling from the rafters to the floor, a very shiny fireman's pole (Do not think about Parker pole-dancing! he thought, failing miserably), and a lattice of free-standing scaffolding that hardly looked sturdy enough to support anyone, like the world's most insane jungle gym. The bed was gone, along with most of the "personal" stuff that had been in the center of the room – but most of that had been for the Wakefield job anyway, he was pretty sure.
"You're not listening," she said, in a faintly accusatory way.
"Huh? Wha'? Sorry…"
The thief sighed dramatically. "I said you're not listening."
"No, no, I got that part." He wiped a hand over his face. "Sorry, Parker, it's just… it's been a long day. Can we just… sit, or something, and talk?"
She gave him a look that he couldn't interpret, but shrugged and led him to what he had been thinking of as the practice area. A few quick knots and the long silk banner (or part of it, at least) was doubling as a hammock-chair-thing, low enough to the ground for him to get into without hurting himself. By the time he did, she was hanging upside-down from her knees on the scaffolding.
"What did you want to talk about?"
Well, this was harder than he had expected. Partly because she was staring at him, which was not made any less uncomfortable by the fact that she was still inverted. "I dunno. Jus' didn' wanna be alone tonight, y'know?"
She shrugged, which just looked funny, and started swinging slightly. "No."
"You tellin' me you slept easy the night after Wakefield?"
"I don't usually sleep at night," she pointed out. "Besides, what does that have to do with anything?"
He let himself collapse back into the thin fabric, turning it into a cocoon around himself, rather than look at her as he answered. "Bein' hunted – people tryin'a kill you – not so differen' from them redneck bastards chasin' down me an' Eliot today."
The thief hesitated for a long moment before she said, "Um… I still don't get what that has to do with sleeping."
Alec sat up again to see her sitting cross-legged on the floor, much closer than she had been before, staring at him with unnerving intensity, as though he was some fascinating puzzle.
"I almost died, Parker. People huntin' you like an animal, havin'a run for your life – I can' sleep 'cause I can' stop thinkin' about it. It's scary as – I don' even know, man. I never met someone who jus' plain wan'ed a' kill me before, when I ain' even done nothin' to 'em!"
"Well, you did kind of threaten their money…"
"Dammit, that is not the point!"
"Then, um… what is?"
Damn it, Parker! He almost wished that there was some malice in her tone, some reason he could legitimately be upset at her for not getting it, but her confusion was, as far as he could tell, genuine. And he had brought this on himself, coming over here, and then wanting to talk.
He marshalled his thoughts and attempted to explain. "I almos' died today. Not like someone holdin' a gun on me an' jus' like, 'stay still or I'll shoot,' an' I can just stay still, but like, execution-style, ain't nothin' you can do, they' gonna pull the trigger. An' then they chased us – me an' Eliot – hunted us down like – like a gorram deer or somethin', you know what I'm sayin'? An' Eliot, he' all like, 'I've done this before, Hardison, shut up and rub these smelly-ass leaves on yourself.' But I'm like, havin' flash-backs over here every time I close my eyes because ain' never been face to face with anyone who actually wanted to kill me before, you know?"
"Um… no." Alec opened his mouth to say something – he didn't even know what – but before he could, Parker continued, a recognizable look of concern on her face. "Do you know how many times I've almost died?"
"Uh…"
"Eleven."
"Wakefield, um… Dubenich… when else?"
But Parker shook her head. "They don't count."
"They don' –? Parker," he said as sternly as he could. "That mad scientist blight lady and her pet security goon were definitely going to kill you."
The blonde smirked. "The rest of security wasn't exactly going to shoot me in the middle of the hallway, though. I could have got out, but it would have been… messy. There are eleven times in my life where I thought I was going to die. Dubenich, well… we figured it out in time. If I counted all the ones like that?" She made a little pft sound, and shook her head again. "I've… I've spent most of my life on the run, and I was ten the first time someone tried to kill me. Younger, if you wanna count hurting me and not caring if I died. You get used to it."
Alec decided he didn't want to touch the issue of how the crazy little thief thought she would have gotten out of Wakefield, 'messily' or otherwise. He was far more concerned with 'you get used to it.'
"You shouldn't get used to people tryin'a kill you!"
Parker cocked her head to the side, visibly confused again. "It's not that big a deal, as long as they don't actually kill you."
"Yes, it is!"
"Why?"
"Because, Parker," he snapped without thinking. "It's death! It's someone trying to kill you. Wh – I don't even… Doesn't that scare you?"
She shrugged. "It used to, a long time ago, but like I said, you get used to it. Now it's mostly just exciting."
Alec shivered. "Eliot's right about you: you' crazy, girl."
"Death happens to everyone eventually," she defended her perspective, her voice and face devoid of emotion. Then she grinned and added, "If you're not scared of dying, coming close is like jumping off a building or pulling off the perfect crime. Or both!"
"Goddamn adrenaline junkie," he muttered under his breath, trying to pretend her cool acceptance of death as… as a thing didn't bother him. Clearly he had chosen the wrong person to talk to about this. Maybe he should have called Sophie. She had almost been blown up a while back, hadn't she?
Parker didn't seem to be taking any notice of his muttering, though, because she was still talking. "Besides, you didn't like, really almost die."
"What?! Mama, I beg to differ! Were you there? No, you were not! I think I get to say when I almost died, thank you very much!"
The thief just gave him an infuriatingly serene smile. "No, I wasn't there, but Eliot was. He'd never let anyone kill you, not for real."
"Eliot's good, but…" There probably wasn't a good way to say 'but I don't trust him as much as you seem to, which is just weird because you don't trust anyone.'
"Hardison," she said, at least as sternly as he had said her name when he pointed out that Hannity was going to kill her at Wakefield. "Eliot is the best. Just because he doesn't kill people anymore doesn't mean he can't. It's easier to kill than to knock people out. If they got too close to really almost killing you, he would have killed them first."
Alec swallowed his protests that he didn't want Eliot to kill anyone, and that Eliot didn't want to kill anyone anymore either, because there was something about Parker's pronouncement that had a ring of truth. Eliot was his friend and, at least on the job, his protector, as well as one of the most dangerous people in the world. Maybe she was right, and he hadn't really been that close to dying, even if he was sure he was still going to have nightmares about the whole experience.
Unexpectedly reassured, he elected to change the subject. "What do you do with all this stuff?" he asked. "The rings, and like, this thing?" he flicked the edge of his hammock-thing.
Parker's eyes practically glowed with excitement. "Want to see?"
He did, very much so. He could not, in fact, think of a better distraction from thoughts of death and killing than watching Parker demonstrate her ability to defy gravity in increasingly sexy ways. He enjoyed her silent, acrobatic performance far more than he suspected she knew, though given 'pretzels' he wasn't entirely sure. (And as much as he wanted to know what was up with that, he wasn't eager to interrupt the show for another heart-to-heart so soon after the unsettling talk of death.) She might have been showing off for him. Maybe. He preferred to believe that she was, anyway.
He still wasn't eager to go to sleep when his mind finally started winding down, but he thought that, perhaps, if he was very lucky, he would dream of impossibly flexible blonde thieves, and short, gruff-but-protective hitters looking out for him, instead of home-grown terrorists chasing him through the woods.
He certainly hoped so.