A/N: This chapter is brought to you by my unexpected leave of school for the next week or so.
It was going to go a whole other direction but I went and pulled an Eliot yesterday, (got in a car accident, and really how ironic is that) that inspired me to do something happy!

I scrambled my noggin a good one but am thankfully (mostly) okay and wanted to test my bruised brain out so to say.
So here's to me asking you to tell me if I'm making sense (and something else to focus on instead of my ouchies :(

Chapter 32

Tuesday Morning

He didn't see why but Hardison had insisted he and Parker leave the night before which left the house completely silent except for the little noises he was making in the kitchen.

If Nate knew what he was doing he'd probably be pitching a fit but he was thankfully still asleep so his work went uninterrupted.
It was slow going and he had sat through all the prep that was possible but now he was standing, well more like leaning most of his weight on the counter, next to the stove as he tested just how well he moved his left hand with a spatula.

Hardison had spilled the secret last night by wishing them a happy anniversary and informing them they'd be back on Wednesday.
He had felt stupid.
His mind had provided him with that answer over a dozen times yet he refused to believe it.
Why was a question he had spent several hours trying to figure out but the thoughts that came weren't pleasant so he decided it best to leave it be.

Now though he was attempting breakfast, it had been quite a while since he had made anything and the pace was beyond slow but the little ritual brought back a familiar calm, one that brought an absent-minded song with it.

"If I send you roses for no reason at all
If out of the blue, I stop and give you a call."

He had woken to find the room empty, had found the bathroom the same and it had sent Nate on a search.

"Once in a while it's breakfast in bed
And then pull the covers back up over our heads."

Their room was nearly on top of the kitchen so it didn't take him long to find Eliot and he had fully intended on saying something until he actually got a good look at him.

"If I call in sick just to stay home with you
I want you to know why I do what I do
It's my way of sayin' what I can't express
But I want you to know that I'm doin' my best."

Eliot was standing there in some simple sweats, his hair pulled back with a small jaw clip, and if not for the obvious it would almost be like any other time he had woken to find this sight.

He was looking content and was obviously following music only he could hear.
That was okay with Nate though, he liked the soft tone that was flowing into his ears, it was one he didn't get to hear enough and part of the reason he stayed quiet.
Eliot could sing, that was for sure but it didn't mean he would, apart from this time he had only heard him two others.

"... If you should wake up and catch me watchin' you sleep
And I break the silence by kissing your cheek
If I whisper something you don't understand
Don't make me repeat it, I don't know if I can

Oh I'm just a man that's the way I was made
I'm not too good at sayin' what you need me to say
It's always right there on the tip of my tongue
It might go unsaid but it wont go undone

So when those three little words come so easy to you
I hope you know what I mean when I say, me too."

He couldn't help but smile at that chorus, it described Eliot perfectly.
Never had he said those three words in direct context to him.
He had affirmed it once said, questioned it, Nate believed it, but never had Eliot given him a straight and simple I Love You.
Nate had been first to say it and now thinking about it had been the one to give some form every time after.
Eliot?
He had two phrases to answer that.
You know I do or me too, well he was about to steal Eliot's line. "Me too"

Eliot smiled as he felt a chin drop to his shoulder and arms pull him closer. "You're supposed to be sleepin'."

"You're supposed to be on bed rest." Nate reminded as he looked over into the pan Eliot had going. "How long have you been up?"

"Since three." He had gone to bed a bit before two but an off putting feeling had him up a little over an hour later.

Nate was clearly disappointed with that but he didn't comment on it. "What are we doing here?" He instead asked as Eliot dumped a cup of cheese in the skillet.

"Hash. Someone really needs to restock the kitchen." With all the odds and ends he had found hash really had been his only option.

"What can I do?" Nate moved back so that Eliot could move freely.

"It's done." Eliot accentuated that statement by turning off the flame.

That had Nate pulling down plates and eventually dishing out food as Eliot stood with his back to the counter. "Do you want to sit in here or..."

"I'm gonna go sit on the couch." He had been told plenty of times he had a stubborn streak a country mile long and mostly he'd agree but right now he was feeling it.

"You want help?" He wouldn't put an I told you so out there, it wouldn't do a bit of good and it wouldn't change the fact that Eliot was favoring his right leg.

"No" It's in no way harsh just dismissive as Eliot moves from the kitchen and Nate lifts their plates following behind at Eliot's set pace.

It isn't until Eliot's stretched out comfortably and he's gotten himself a cup of coffee that he settles on the other end of the couch with his plate. "Where'd you learn how to cook?" It was something he had always wondered about but had never bothered asking.

"Here and there." Eliot shrugged as he glanced at his plate, he'd wanted to make the food but he wasn't really sure if he wanted to eat it.

"Well now that that's cleared up." Of course he was going to be sarcastic, what kind of answer was that?

"I taught myself the basics.
Learned a little more from my grandparents.
Baking, grilling, Sunday roast, that kind of stuff." He had been teased plenty growing up.
Either he was the weird kid who hung out with the crazy old lady and her flowers or he was the gay kid that baked with his Grandma.
He didn't care, his grandmother made one hell of a brownie and if all he had to do was help her in the kitchen to get one why not.

"And the more advanced?" Nate asked as he swallowed.
With Eliot that could be just about anything.
He had done grilled cheese once, Nate expected american cheese melted in between white, Eliot gave him a seven cheese blend on bread he actually baked with a side of chowder.

"It's a good form of discipline and being in different countries makes it easy to pick up a variety of techniques." Nate actually looked interested which was still strange to him.
If he wanted attention from someone he usually had to demand it, it had been that way since he could remember with nearly everyone.

"So you figured it out by watching others or did you actually get little lessons?"

"A good friend of mine taught me most all of it, he helped me to keep my mind together when everything else had fallen apart, but before that... before him someone else had been trying..." Nate watched Eliot set his plate to the side as he thought of the best way to phrase what he was trying to say. "They attempted to... Well I..." Eliot sighed as he wiped his hand over his face, now wasn't the time for that. "I had a teacher for a few months, I learned pretty quickly." She had tried teaching him repeatedly but despite her efforts he hadn't learned, well at least not about cooking. "Boy did I learn."

"Your foods getting cold." Nate had heard what he was positive to be regret in those last few words and though he was curious he believed a topic change to be in order. He didn't want Eliot simmering in bad memories and prying would most likely end in a fight which was really not something he wanted to happen today.

Eliot took the hint, Nate waiting for him to start eating before he did the same. "Do you dance?" So it was pretty random but Eliot figured why not.

"Do I dance?" Nate waited until Eliot let him know that he had heard right before answering. "I can, formally if need be. Why?"

"I didn't know that." Eliot didn't mind the weird look he was receiving. "There's a lot of the simpler things I don't know about you Nate. After two years of dating someone you should probably know their favorite color."

"So ask." Nate set his own now empty plate down, he could easily claim the same. He was always looking for a way in with Eliot but it seemed that he had forgotten that the littlest details could sometimes be the most important.

"What's your favorite color?"

"Purple" Nate barely finished before Eliot was laughing. "What's wrong with purple?'

"Nothing" Eliot cleared his throat, he really hadn't meant to laugh. "It's a good a color, I was just expecting you to say blue or maybe green."

"Next" Eliot had some issues, there was nothing wrong with purple.

"I know you'll eat just about anything but what's your favorite food?" Seeing as he cooked for him he should probably know that one but he didn't.

"I don't have one, you know I like sweets but nothing in particular." He honestly didn't care if Eliot didn't know his favorite something or other but if he wanted to learn it than he guessed it didn't matter that way either. "And you?"

"Probably ice cream." Maybe he wouldn't admit it but he had a weakness, it was named sugar.

"How can you say ice cream?" Nate moved up on the couch to sit next to Eliot.

"What do you mean?" Eliot set the plate he no longer had interest in back down as he focused on Nate who had spoken in disbelief.

"Never have I ever seen you eat any type or form of ice cream, ever!"

"I don't eat it."

"So it's your favorite thing to eat but you don't eat it?" Nate confirmed. "Why?"

"It's a trick used in training.
You take something innocent enough but common enough that you'll still have contact with it and you cut it out of your life completely.
It tests your discipline and restraint.
If you resist something that you know will cause absolutely no damage even if you do cave it shows that you're taking your training seriously."

"So you chose to give up ice cream and that showed them that you were taking your training seriously?" Personally Nate thought the theory ridiculous but it seemed to have worked on Eliot.

"If you got to choose what you wanted to give up do you think any guy would actually pick something they liked?" He was personally thankful that his item of choice hadn't been worse. "I don't know why but I was assigned ice cream.
That's probably why it's my favorite, you know you crave what you can't have." Eliot shrugged as he pushed some stray hair back. "As for the exercise, if you passed it you showed them that you would seriously take just about any idiotic orders given to you."

"You know what I think?" He was still trying to figure out how that kind of exercise could be considered productive in any way.

"What?" Eliot was starting to think he should have kept his mouth shut on that one.

"I think I need to go buy you a pint of ice cream." Nate didn't like it, Eliot shouldn't have been conditioned like an animal.

"I don't think it would work, it's not even the food anymore it's the mind set." He had left all of that long ago but maybe it was true it never left you, some things were just drilled too deep.

"Maybe a gallon then." Nate smirked jokingly.
It would be easy to just tell Eliot how that training had been wrong but he didn't even know what the training had been for.
It surely wasn't basic but it wasn't his business to judge, besides he had picked up habits that he still hadn't kicked from working insurance and who was he to say that Eliot's were any worse than his.

"A gallon just might do it." Eliot agreed lightheartedly. The idea of breaking the connections that held him back to those days was a nice one but as of right now it wasn't very realistic.

"Is the 20 questions one sided or am I allowed to send a few back?" Nate wondered as he took a swig from his coffee mug.

"You had asked the first one." Eliot reminded. Technically you could say he had asked the last question too, he had received an answer.

"True but that question was pursued in the context of a conversation. I wasn't looking for what has yet to be discovered." He wasn't trying to look eager but this could possibly be a chance to get answers from Eliot without having to snoop or pick his brain.

"What do you want to know?" Eliot cut past all of Nate's reasoning, main point being he wanted an answer to something.

"How many serious relationships have you had?" It wasn't the one he wanted to ask but he had yet to figure how he wanted that one phrased.

"Define serious." Why Nate wanted to know this now he hadn't a clue but he was wondering if the answer would be just for informations sake or could possibly be used against him later.

"One that you actually believed at some point had the chance of going somewhere." He knew Eliot had gotten around but had there really been so many "relationships" that he needed the seriousness of one defined.

"Am I counting us?" Nate had used had which was past tense so it was an honest question since they weren't.

"Do you see us going somewhere?" Nate asked genuinely, Eliot just rolled his eyes.

"Three"

"Three?" Nate was pretty stunned and he couldn't even decide if it was because he thought that number would be so much bigger or so much smaller.

"I'm not one for relationships.
The ones I have had were usually set up solely for beneficial purposes.
The ones that went further were purely accidental, something I stumbled into."

Nate could see that Eliot was looking for his reaction but to what he really didn't know.
Everything that had been said was true.
He already knew it, including the fact they had been very much accidental.

No, what had his mind turning was number three.
He knew Aimee had a spot and he was pretty sure he held the second but that left a person unaccounted for.
One that Eliot had obviously cared for. "So you've never purposely loved someone?" Nate moved as Eliot rearranged himself so he was sitting properly on the couch.

"I don't believe that's possible.
You can love someone with purpose but to purposely love someone? It wouldn't be truly genuine." Maybe he was wrong with that idea but that was how he felt.

"I don't know about that." Nate disagreed as he decided to be open for once. "What I felt for Maggie wasn't anything like the first girl I loved. It wouldn't be right to compare one to the other and I don't think you could. Loving a person depends on them, every time it will be different because the reason you do will be different." With how Eliot described his feelings toward the emotion it didn't sound like he wanted to embrace it and it left Nate wondering how many times he had actually been in love.

"So there's reason behind you lovin' me?
Here I thought you had just lost it." Eliot joked as he moved the conversation back to them.

"There's reason," Nate spoke seriously as he placed a hand over Eliot's knee. "good reason."

"Am I allowed to hear it or are they yours to keep?" Eliot asked as he stared into eyes that couldn't seem to pick a color. Nate's eyes never seemed to be quite the same, some days he'd be greeted with something cool others he'd say the blue took on a near green hue.

"You tell me." He knew exactly why he loved Eliot but the question left him wondering why Eliot thought he loved him.

"I'm supposed to figure out your reasoning?" Eliot's skepticism was clear. If he could figure out how Nate's thought process worked things would surely be simpler.

"What do I love about you Eliot?" Eliot huffed deprecatingly and it was a bother to know he didn't see the value in what he had to offer. "Just tell me one thing, just one of the reasons."

It was a question Eliot had asked himself and one he had yet to answer.
He honestly didn't know.

"Just one." Nate was looking so intense that he knew he wouldn't be getting out of it, but that didn't mean he wouldn't try to go around.

He shifted again so his back was pressed into the corner of the couch but he didn't lose Nate's eyes.
They were eyes that he could lose himself in, ones that he had lost himself in.
They were captivating and the fire in them drew him in, had him drawing Nate closer.

There was a curiousness there as he leaned in just close enough for their breath to mingle, Nate running his tongue over his bottom lip as he waited to see what Eliot would do. Eliot just stayed put, he could nearly taste Nate's breath but it was obvious that he wanted more and eventually he even tried getting it but Eliot kept himself just out of reach.

"I love how you've still managed to keep a good work ethic.
You put everything into getting what you want and you expect nothing less from others." Nate tried again for a kiss but it was once again denied. "How you know exactly when I need a push and when it's best just to let me be." Nate spoke softly as he pulled his feet onto the couch in an attempt to rearrange himself so Eliot couldn't avoid him as easily. "That you don't bother me when I'm reading the paper."

Eliot bit the side of his bottom lip to stop the smile he could feel coming.
It was something Nate did every morning and never had he ever interrupted it.

"I love that." Nate pulled his thumb over Eliot's bottom lip until he reached the part that was still captured between teeth. "You have an obsession with biting my bottom lip and I really do love it." Nate slid a hand to the back of Eliot's neck, not to make him move forward but to keep him from moving back. "It's a near blissful pain." He whispered as Eliot slid forward letting the hand that had been on his shoulder slide down his side and to his hip.

Nate took it as a sign that he could make some advancements of his own and he did as he pushed Eliot to lie back some. "I love this." He murmured as he moved to kneel with one leg on either side of Eliot's thighs. "I love that you don't try to dominate me. That you're secure enough with yourself to just let go." The last two words could have been an order but it wasn't one that Eliot followed as he turned his head.

Instead of where he planned, his lips connected with the jut of Eliot's jaw but it wasn't a deterrent as he trailed wet and languid kisses toward Eliot's ear to whisper more. "I love how I created this whole situation, it's mine, yet here you are still in control of it."

He was nearly lying on top of Eliot, his fingers were exploring the skin that had been bared on his back as he had moved.

Eliot knew those fingers were itching to remove the black tank he wore as Nate's mouth traveled over every inch of skin he could find that wasn't covered.

He wanted to bite the lip that was being pulled teasingly across his skin, wanted to darken the spot that lost color way too fast in his opinion, to leave more so everyone could see exactly where he had staked his claim.

He wanted all of that but even more so he wanted to hear what else Nate had to say. "How easy you make it to forget, how good you make it to feel. That when I'm with you nothing else matters, everything else dissolves and I can just lose myself." He didn't know what Eliot was waiting for but he could feel his resolve crumbling as warm hands pushed his t-shirt up in the back.

He smiled against Eliot's neck when he heard his breath hitch and his shirt was pulled up farther.
He leaned back to remove it and had just managed to do so as Eliot pulled away sitting himself up.
That left Nate with no choice but to move from his legs as Eliot continued rearranging himself.

He watched Eliot bend his leg with a wince and it left him feeling guilty for the unnecessary weight he had put on it but that didn't last long as Eliot gave him a look that he would describe as nothing less than possessive.
He tried moving back toward him but Eliot just shook his head as he pulled his hair down, the only sounds being their mingled breath, Nate's a bit heavier as his hand was pushed away and Eliot pulled off his own shirt, the tease.

He couldn't help but stare at the ribs that still held a variety of color but he wasn't interested in the injury as much as he was getting his hands on this newly exposed skin. It was obviously something Eliot picked up on as he offered a chaste kiss, nothing more than a quick peck and he nearly laughed at the pout Nate gave him, impatient much.

The second was lazy and he broke it before Nate had the chance to change that.

The third Nate had plans for and he didn't intend on letting Eliot change them as he deepened what had been a multitude of dry kisses into a more sensual one.

Eliot was trailing fingers up his right arm and they were leaving bumps as they went.

He had his own hands busy, one over Eliot's cheek to keep him close and the other sitting right above his left hip.
It wasn't close enough though and soon he was pushing Eliot back only he wouldn't go so instead he pulled him forward and with a little bit of adjusting he had gotten what he wanted plus the bonus of Eliot as his personal blanket.

"What else?" Eliot spoke against Nate's lips breathlessly as he felt his boyfriends chest heave.

"I..." He was looking for the words but it was hard to focus with the attention Eliot was giving his throat. "I love how... how you've never tried to change me. That who I am is good enough for you."

"You know what?" Eliot whispered as he ran his tongue down the shell of Nate's ear.

"Wha'?" He dug his nails into Eliot's side as he nipped at his earlobe. He was given another chaste kiss and Eliot kept close. He wouldn't even say there was an eighth of an inch between their noses as he glanced into icy eyes that seemed to be searching.

"I.." but Nate interrupts with another kiss, or four.
Eliot had taken the tone that said he was about to say something serious and why not prolong it a little if it turned out to be news that would spoil things.

"I love you." It was nearly panted and for a second he froze not believing he had heard correctly but soon Nate was grinning like a fool.
A barely heard I love you in a thick southern rasp and he was set.
It wasn't something he had expected but if the smile that kept growing wider was any indication his month had just been made.
He couldn't think of a single thing to say.

He had a sudden urge to laugh and he really didn't know if it was from what Eliot had said or what he was currently doing.
Eliot looked content in his current actions though and he was more than with the attention his naval was getting.
That tongue was one more thing to love, so really why interrupt with words.
Ehhh, he'd say something later.