Notes: Tag to The Ice Man Job I've had in my head since I first saw it. Works suprisingly well with a detail of The Lost Heir Job.

The Paradox of a Wolf at the Door
Their lives seemed to be a constant string of parallels and paradoxes.

It was ironic really, how their lives seem to constantly be running along parallels or in direct contrasts.

Like Sophie. Hardison remembered when they first got together, first ran a job together, it had been before Sophie. It was only after they almost died in an explosion that they pulled Sophie onto the team.

Was it strange that it was only after Sophie almost died in an explosion that she left the team?

Not left, took a break. Sophie would come back.

And Nate and Sophie too, though things made both a little bit more and a little bit less sense with Eliot and Nate.

Of course, it kinda reminded him of way back when he thought that Eliot and Nate were having their Unsatisfied Platonic Tension and it was Nate and Sophie with the Unsatisfied Sexual tension. Now Nate and Eliot's UPT had been satisfied in the sexual way (and yeah, mentally scaring images were still mentally scaring) while Nate and Sophie had been somewhat morphed into their own UPT.

He wasn't going to get into him and Parker and how they needed their own new category of acronyms to even begin to trying to give a label to how things are going (or not going) between them.

And then of course there was this. Now.

All of This.

Eliot is giving him that impatient look and Hardison moves. Eliot gives him that even more pissed off look and tells him there's something wrong with that and him. Hardison moves a different way.

But even that is another compare and contrast.

Eliot is still saying there is something wrong with them but it's gone from "you people are crazy but Nate says I'm not allowed to stab you for that" to "You people are crazy and I'll stab the first one of you who implies that I don't mind that much anymore".

It also, arguably, is why he managed to hug it out with Eliot earlier without getting his arms broken.

Secretly Hardison thinks Eliot liked it.

But he was going to avoid thinking of possible implications of that. Parker was already convinced there needed to be a threesome between Eliot, Nate, and him at some point and he wasn't giving the girl any more ideas.

Hardison tried something else and for a moment smiles at Eliot's approval before it morphs into that smug wolf-like grin and Hardison knew he'd done something only technically right.

And something about that made Hardison think of another contrast.

For all Eliot had complained and bitched (yes, bitched) about *not* saving Hardison, about Parker making him do it, about how Hardison needed to watch his own ass…

Hardison had never once even thought that Eliot wouldn't have willingly (though, not without bitching about it) laid his life on the line to get Hardison out safely.

The man did it every day of every job and it took something like this for Hardison to even really register it anymore.

Eliot was their protector. It was his job.

And on their first actual job on this team it had been Eliot who had told Hardison that he wouldn't protect them, wouldn't rescue them.

And back then Hardison believed him.

Back then that one moment had cut through all their mutual BS and Hardison had known if they were off the clock and Hardison called Eliot because he'd gotten in trouble Eliot would have hung up the phone on him.

Hardison had known in that moment that Eliot was and would always be the team's lone wolf, the guy who followed orders because it fit his agenda. He had been sure that every single report card Eliot had ever gotten had been marked in big red bold and capitol letters "Does not play well with others"

Hardison had known it in that moment.

Except that on the next job Eliot stayed behind and faced off with the butcher of Kiev because Nate asked and, really, if Eliot hadn't stayed they all would have been in trouble. It was The Butcher.

And then Eliot had sacrificed himself and gotten caught to get Hardison and Nate out and then…

And then the team happened and moments like that stopped being unusual.

Ever since Eliot had started telling Hardison bits and pieces of his nightmares during those 2:30 conversations they still had sometimes Eliot kept mentioning what Zoey back in that first job had said.

"There are wolves in the world." He never added the "but sometimes they're the good guys I guess" Part to the end.

And now? Hardison couldn't help making his own adjustment. There are wolves in the world, and one of them is guarding the door to Leverage Castle.

It was a paradox if you thought about it too hard, but so was everything else in this team really.

"Hardison." Eliot's voice breaks through his reverie. "When I offered to teach ya how ta play chess I didn't mean sit here while you spend the afternoon daydreamin'"

Hardison nods and looks back to the board, murmuring to himself like he was trying to remember which piece did what, listening to Eliot's explanation again when he touched a knight.

He wasn't sure if Eliot knew he actually knew how to play chess and was just humoring him or if Eliot actually thought he'd made it through twenty two years of geekdom without learning how to play.

What he did know was this was another parallel and perpendicular, another compared and contrasted.

Like a team without Sophie or a guarding the door. Past brought to present with another paradox, another logical conclusion.

And one more thing brought full circle.