He knew that most people thought he woke in bolt of movement but on lazy mornings he preferred the slow wake up. Had there been someone in the bed with him he would have pulled her closer, snuggled his nose into her hair and drifted off again. As he was alone he substituted a pillow and buried his face into the soft material of the sheets in Parker's guest room. After dinner they had settled in for a movie and upon its ending he had stood to leave but Parker simply rolled her eyes took his hand and led him to the guest room. She had left the room without a word but her glare and the fact that she had taken the car keys made it obvious she expected to find him there in the morning. He heaved a sigh and looked over at the clock on the wall noting that it was ten in the morning a much later then he usually managed to sleep but between the fight with Nate and the run they had taken he was unsurprised.
As he got up he didn't bother trying to find Parker, she was rarely awake before noon mainly because she was rarely asleep before the sun rose. Her job required odd hours and even though they worked during the day now she stayed on her thief schedule, often to the point of not sleeping for days when they were on a job. He stretched out and slowly pulled back the covers on the bed, he pulled on the clothes he had worn yesterday grimacing a bit at the thought. On a con he didn't mind wearing the same clothes and when there was no other choice there was no other choice, but when he was on a break he was secure enough to admit he liked nice clean clothes.
He went downstairs slowly knowing that his host was a soft sleeper and unwilling to wake her before she was ready. Once on the first floor of the house he felt more comfortable and walked a bit easier, the staircase led him into the living room which he gave a cursory once-over to make sure nothing had been moved or taken. It was a habit he learned one afternoon when the only clue to a bomb planted in his kitchen had been the flour canister moved a half-inch to the right. Since that day when he had barely escaped alive he had begun taking mental pictures of rooms before he left them, anything not just how it was left got checked.
After he was satisfied as to the state of the room he decided to take the opportunity Parker's absence gave him to look around her house. He had already seen the second and third floors thanks to their game of hide-and-seek earlier but the rest of the first floor was still a mystery. He took the hallway that led past where he had showered the day before. The first door he opened led to a coat closet that seemed to be overflow from the closet in her room if the bright colors were any indication. Uninterested he continued down the hall. He found a laundry room and a broom closet before he got to an archway at the back of the hall. A step down led him into a large room painted a deep red color that was barely visible due to the bookshelves lining every wall from floor to ceiling.
He gasped lightly at the sheer amount of books, they were not all hardcovers or there for show like most in the homes they entered on a regular basis. The look of the spines and the sagging shelves made it clear that Parker had read every novel in the room some more than once. A closer look made it obvious that Sophie had nothing to do with this room other than the color of the walls and the large comfy looking leather sofas centered around a beat up coffee table. The shelves were mismatched and most were not in good condition sagging in the middle under the weight of the books. In the corner of the room was a pile of plywood on top of a baby grand piano that was in what appeared to be worse condition than anything else in the room. Eliot stepped over to it and noted the shelves on either side were new and clearly made by Parker from scratch.
He reached out but before he could test the strength and durability of what were clearly poorly made shelves his phone beeped indicating an incoming text message. Eliot was not surprised to be receiving a message he was surprised instead that he had gone so long without one. He checked his phone and found it was from Hardison Nate's one hour. He sighed, put his phone away, and made his way out of Parker's makeshift library into the kitchen. It took him only a few moments to get together the ingredients for pancakes and he had already started blending the ingredients when Parker bounded down the stairs.
She had clearly made an extra effort to make noise which he appreciated as she entered the room pulling her long blonde hair back into a ponytail. "Did you get it?" she asked as she pulled a coffee maker out of a cabinet by the fridge that he hadn't noticed.
"Yeah. I was actually thinking I was surprised I didn't get a bunch of texts and phone calls before now." He answered pouring batter into a skillet as Parker prepared coffee trying her best to hide a yawn, "What time did you go to bed?" he asked noting that it was only ten thirty.
"Six-ish." She answered slumped against the counter.
"I know it's not the nice thing to say since we're supposed to be the good guys and everything but I really hope this isn't about a job." Eliot told her as she hopped up on the counter cup of coffee in one hand and another placed next to him.
"Would you quit?" she asked leaning over to watch him flip the pancakes and muttering something about them being brown not black.
"Quit working with Nate?" he shrugged his shoulders noncommittally hoping that would get him out of answering the question. She simply continued to watch him in that unnervingly observant way of hers. He knew they all thought she was socially inept and in some ways she most definitely was but Parker noticed things. To Eliot it seemed like she saw the average person as a doll, a plaything for her amusement but when it came to the people she cared about like the team and Alice Whites friend… when it came to people she liked Parker noticed. "No… I don't think I would, kind of seems like it would be just as bad to go back as it was last time remember."
"I meant still helping people but maybe not when it got you so mad." She said as they moved to the counter.
"You're worried about me." He observed while she turned slightly red at being so obvious.
"I'm worried about everybody." She answered keeping her head down and her focus on her plate. "If you and I are tired the rest of them must be like super tired."
"I'm worried too." Eliot told her. He didn't reach for her hand, he didn't try to hug her he simply nudged his chair a bit closer. It wasn't close enough to touch but instead close enough that she could borrow some strength and resolve from him. They weren't touchy feely people he had been years ago and he wasn't sure she ever got a hug from someone who honestly cared but today wasn't the day to find out.
They finished eating in silence and while she cleared the table he couldn't help but notice a very slight glitch in her movement. It would have been invisible to anybody else but suddenly her allowing him to drive and being more stationary then usual the night before made sense. He felt a wave of guilt wash over him as he realized her leg was still hurting her from their run the night before. He said nothing, it wasn't how they interacted, and he trusted her enough to tell him if it became a serious problem but still he made a mental note to look into her type of injury. Perhaps there had been some medical accomplishment that she didn't know about or simply hadn't been able to afford at the time to solve her problem.
"Ready?" she asked un-necessarily as he had already stood pulling his jacket over his broad shoulders.
"Can I drive?" he didn't mention the leg didn't even let his eyes drift down but he did see the slight sag of her body that indicated relief.
"If you have to." She tossed him the keys and followed him out of the house punching in her security code as they went. "Can I ask a question?" she inquired once they were inside the car and on the move.
"If I said no would it stop you?" he shot back allowing a small smile to grace his features so she would know he was joking.
"How come you've seen both of my places but I don't know where you live?" she asked ignoring his joke and staring out the window to avoid looking at him.
"To be honest mine kind of sucks, but if you want to see it we can go once were done at Nate's." Eliot told her, he had been planning on stopping at his place anyway he wanted to pick up some tools to try and make her shelves that wouldn't collapse if she pulled the wrong book.
"Don't you mean when we get back from whatever job he's sending us on?" Parker asked her fear of him leaving the team returning though she hid it well.
"No Parker." They had arrived in the underground lot beside Nate's building and he turned off the car twisting in the seat to face her. "I'm not doing another job right now; the fact that we can't even have twenty four hours to ourselves isn't healthy. Not for you, me, or anyone else. I have enough trouble trusting those three when were on the job let alone when everyone is too tired to function properly."
"I thought you did trust them." She said after a moment of reflection on his words.
"Most days." He replied getting out of the car he tossed the keys back to her and with a hand on the small of her back guided her down into the bar. She moved toward the stairs but with a gentle nudge from Eliot he had her at the elevator waiting for the car to descend.
"Good morning all." Sophie announced her presence from behind them. Eliot turned and nodded a greeting and Parker chirped a hello. The silence between them was as much comfortable as it was necessary, none in the room had the energy for a long drawn out conversation about the weather. The only other thing to talk about was Eliot's outburst from yesterday and his and Parker's subsequent departure from the apartment and he knew Sophie would not want to bring that up fully aware it would be discussed upstairs.
"Finally." Parker huffed so only he could hear when the elevator doors finally opened. Eliot held back a chuckle placing an arm across the doors and allowing both women to brush past him into the confined space. The ride up to the fourth floor was short and also silent though Parker kept up a litany of eye-rolls and funny faces to keep his mind off his claustrophobia. Adrenaline helped him keep the feelings in most days but he had been forced to reveal his fear to Parker when a plan she had drafted involved both of them crawling through an air duct. Neither had mentioned it since but he had been comforted by her small attempts to distract him any time they were in an enclosed space together.
Nobody bothered to knock simply entering Nate's apartment to find both him and Hardison standing before the wall of death as he had taken to calling it in his mind. Nate's eyes were immediately on him, Sophie took her usual spot but Parker seated herself beside him on the arm of the couch, her warmth a source of strength for a confrontation the he was sure would hurt what he had come to view as a very good friend.
"There is no need for rehashing of what happened here yesterday." Nate began looking away from Eliot to survey the rest of the team. "As I began the Johnson family-"
"No." Eliot cut Nate off with the quiet word. It was not shouted or demanded but rather stated as fact.
"Eliot." Nate began but stopped when the hitter took a step forward.
"If you conduct this job you should be fully aware that it will be without me. Look at your team Nate they are exhausted. Every one of us has beaten ourselves into the ground for you and come through every time you've needed us. Now we need something from you." Eliot reached down and placed a hand on Parker's shoulder. "I'm going home." He said. Though the comment was thrown out into the room it was clear that it was only directed at Parker. She rose without a word and as one they left the apartment, they had barely made it into the hall when they heard Sophie start in on Nate.
A few seconds later Hardison scurried out with his keyboard under his arm and darted into the elevator doors that had just opened. "Month off." He said clearly still frightened by whatever Sophie had said or done to Nate. "If something that needs immediate attention springs up he'll call… later!" Hardison ran off as soon as the doors were open clearly wanting to get as far away as possible before Nate changed his mind.
"So" Eliot said rocking back and forth from heel to toe. "Still wanna see my place?"
"You drive." Parker handed him the keys and they walked out of the bar into the sunlight of an entire month off.