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gilascaveTitle: If you should prick me, will I bleed
Author: james
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~3,000
Pairing: pre-Parker/Eliot/Hardison
Disclaimer: not mine, no profit made
Notes: written for hc-bingo, square 'self-harm'
Summary: Eliot has trouble dealing with the fact he isn't human. Luckily, his friends know how to deal with freaks.
Eliot stood in the bathroom, staring at himself in the half-mirror hanging above the sink. The bruises along his left cheekbone were starting to purple; the thin line from a cut lip was almost gone. He tilted his head slightly to the side and saw the second array of bruises on his neck, finger-shaped impressions where one of the thugs had tried to strangle him.
He rubbed one hand against his neck, but the stiffness was already gone. Nothing but the visuals to let him know there had been a fight and soon even those would be gone. No deep cuts or burns or other injuries that would need scarring.
Examining his bruises, Eliot caught his gaze in the mirror; for a moment he stared. He'd had a girlfriend once who swore she could see people's souls in their eyes. She'd laughed when she said she could always tell when a guy was listening to her and when he'd started thinking about something else just by his eyes. He'd never had the guts to ask her what she saw when they had sex; he generally made sure her attention was firmly on other things.
He couldn't see anything in his eyes but irises and pupils, corneas and conjunctivas. However, he admitted he had nothing to compare them to. He'd never tried staring into someone else's eyes to find out if he could see a soul behind them; he laughed at the thought of trying. Hardison would call him a freak, Sophie would put on a mask -- if she wasn't already wearing one. Nate's eyes might not even be focused enough to see a thing and Parker -- well, she'd stare back and they'd end up staring at one another for hours. Eliot had a feeling she could go without blinking as long as he could, if only because it was a freakishly abnormal thing to be able to do.
He liked that Parker was freakishly abnormal, liked seeing how the others seemed not to mind too much, and liked how sometimes he got the impression that they considered her a friend. Eliot stared down at his hands and knew it would be too much to expect they'd extend the same favor to him if they knew.
When he glanced up the bruises along his cheek were fading to yellow; the line of bruises on his neck were nearly gone. He'd have to stay home, out of sight for a day or two, then no one would notice his unmarked skin showing no sign of the beating he'd taken.
He scowled suddenly and raised his hand, made a fist and threw a punch into the wall beside the mirror. The mirror shook and the echo of the slam reverberated for a moment; toiletries on the counter rattled and fell over and Eliot looked at the skin of his knuckles. They were scratched a bit with a few drops of blood seeping out. Even as he watched the skin started to smooth over.
He pounded the wall again, over and over, grateful in the veery back of his mind that his house was sound-proof. No nosy neighbors wondering what the hell was going on as Eliot slammed his fist into the wall over again. When he stopped and looked at his hand, the knuckles were torn and bleeding and the unbroken skin was angry red. He flexed his fingers and felt that nothing had broken. But there was no pain, and when he wiped the blood clean he could see the cuts closing.
Eliot looked at the floor. Everything on the counter was knocked over, the toothpaste fallen to the floor. He didn't need toothpaste, but he kept his bathroom looking normal as he could -- especially now that he had teammates who knew how to break in and would do so without asking whenever the mood struck. Toothpaste and toothbrush sitting by the sink, and he was careful to use them twice a day so everything looked worn down and used.
He cleaned up his mess, washing his hands and watching the pink-tinged water drain away, the only sign of the damage he'd inflicted. He clenched his fists again, fighting the urge to find something harder -- cement or brick -- and pound his fists against it until something broke.
Instead he tossed the dirty hand towel into the hamper and left the bathroom. He needed to sit and rest, let his body recharge. A glass of water and some protein and everything that had rebuilt itself would be replenished and Eliot would be back to normal.
Freakishly abnormal, freakishly wrong. No matter what they'd told him, his ecstatic creators when he'd opened his eyes after absorbing the final downloads and he'd recognized the room and the faces staring at him. One day old and he'd raced through the tests they'd laid down for him with flying colors -- hand-to-hand combat and disassembling every weapon they set before him, the lexicons of thirty languages in his brain let him breeze through the comprehension tests and the only thing they'd forgotten was to make him care about them.
Six months after working for his creators he'd killed them and run. He built a life for himself as best he could, cobbled together from bits and pieces of human remains; they'd given him the face of a dead soldier and when he'd tried to steal the man's life as well he'd found the girl who loved him and had to run again.
He had managed to survive, day by day, until now when he'd found himself enmeshed in a world with teammates and co-workers and friends. Every time Eliot looked at himself in the mirror and could no longer see the bruises that should have been there, he knew. If they found out they would use him: take him apart and wield him like a tool as his creators had tried to do, and despite their acceptance of Parker she at least was human. Eliot knew better than to expect open arms if they saw inside him; Hardison would dissect him faster than Eliot could slice the throat of a dozen Yakuza.
He sat on the couch and stared at the far wall, not bothering to turn on the television to distract himself with fantasies. He slammed his hand down on the couch cushion, then reached into the sheath at the small of his back and withdrew the short knife. It was sharp and thin; he drew it across his forearm and watched as the skin split apart and the blood flowed free.
He twisted his wrist, making the skin gape more and the blood spilled down his arm and dripped onto his thigh. The ends of the cut were knitting closed, and Eliot pulled at the skin again, keeping it open. More blood flowed, but the skin was repairing itself and even when he pressed on the wound he could feel nothing.
He slammed the tip of the knife into his forearm and left it there, buried in his arm. He could feel the tip of it scraping the bone, though the knife wasn't big enough to do any damage there. But the muscles he'd cut were mending themselves around the metal blade; he knew once he drew it free the flesh would feed itself into the hole, repairing it until the wound was completely gone.
Eliot tugged the knife out and sat back, not watching as his arm healed. He flipped the knife in his hand, looking idly for something to throw it at. It wasn't weighted properly for throwing, not really, and the only decent target within sight was the wooden frame of the kitchen doorway.
A second later Parker walked in through that doorway, carrying a bowl. Eliot smelled the popcorn, wondered how the hell she'd made it without him hearing the microwave. The second whiff of scent answered that question; it was cold, and over-salted, which meant she'd bought it from the corner market down the street and carried it in with her as she broke in through her favorite entry, the utility room window.
He didn't say anything as she crawled over the back of the couch and sat beside him. She leaned against him, holding the bowl out before simply resting it on his leg. Eliot opened his mouth, though there wasn't a thing he could think of to say. His arm was still healing, the blood more than obvious and he had no idea how long she'd been there and what she had seen.
The doorbell rang and a second later a key turned in the lock.
"That's Hardison with the movies," Parker said.
"Why ring the doorbell if you're gonna just let yourself in?" Eliot didn't move, didn't try to hide his arm or ask what the hell; he didn't really know how he'd managed to talk at all, except there was a continually running program that took care of things like 'distract the enemy' and threat assessment. His threat assessment algorithm was more concerned at the moment with the blood stain on his jeans than the two people in his living room.
"My Nana raised me to be polite," Hardison said as he came into the living room, carrying some DVDs in one hand and a bag in the other. There were two liters of soda in the bag, one orange and one dark brown -- Eliot guessed it was the Cherry Coke that they'd discovered he liked to drink, despite his usual disgust with the entire concept of drinking sugared, carbonated, colored water.
Eliot just stared as he walked over and plunked everything down on the coffee table; then Hardison pushed past Eliot and Parker to sit down on Eliot's other side. Eliot twitched, knowing he should be doing something to hide, thinking of some way to explain away what they could not possibly have missed seeing.
"Go change, man," Hardison said quietly, and Parker just shifted slightly away from him to let him stand up.
Eliot stared at him, but Hardison was focused on finding the remote to Eliot's TV.
"Seriously," Parker said. "It's gonna stain, and these are my favorite jeans." She grinned at him, then leered at Hardison. "There's a worn spot on his back pocket."
Hardison grinned back. "I know." He gave Eliot a wink, but Eliot just kept staring.
His arm was almost completely healed. He flinched when Parker touched him, her fingers running lightly over the white line of a scar that would soon be completely gone. He looked at her, looked back at Hardison, and then down at the knife he still held in his hand.
"You can't possibly--" he began, then stopped. He glared at Hardison. "Why aren't you asking me a million questions?"
The look he got back was almost pity, but it faded as Hardison shook his head. "Man, I want to know everything in the world about you. But I wanna know what kind of sashimi you hate and whether you think Glenn Ford is better than John Wayne, and if you seriously think the Red Sox can pull it off again, like, ever."
Eliot frowned at him. "That's bullshit."
Hardison opened his mouth, but before he could respond, Parker said, "I want to know why you don't have Jell-o."
Eliot and Hardison both turned to look at her. She looked back, then shrugged. "You never have Jell-o, but you talk about salad being an important part of every meal. Jell-o salad is a salad, but you never have Jell-o in your kitchen."
"She has a point," Hardison said. "With those little marshmallows and--"
"I know what Jell-o salad is!" Eliot snapped. "I'm not fucking making-- what the hell are you two doing?" He jumped off the couch and practically ran halfway across the living room, then stopped and forced himself to turn back around.
He didn't have a clue what to say, even if he could have said it in Sanskrit or Inuktitut or French. He flexed his hands, remembered he was still holding the knife and he made himself slip it back into its sheath. Parker and Hardison were still both looking at him, pity on their faces and Eliot wanted to scream at them.
Although the expression on Parker's face wasn't quite pity, but sympathy, and Hardison just kind of looked sad.
Frowning again, Eliot said, "I don't understand."
"We want to see you naked," Parker said. Eliot blinked at her, and Hardison took a moment to let his face fall into his hands.
Then he looked at Eliot. "You think we don't notice? Freaky super-fast healing and able to move faster than Superman and you fucking recharge in the sunlight." Hardison looked momentarily guilty and said, "I did hack into the Project's files. Learned a lot more than I think I wanted to know. And yes, I showed some of it to the others. That was last year, man. And you're still completely clueless."
"I'm...what?" He hated feeling out of his depth. It hardly ever happened, and only did happen when he was trying to pass for human in some social situation. Give him a fight, or a building to infiltrate, or a fridge full of ingredients to turn into a meal and he was fine. Navigating a conversation always made him feel...like he would never be human.
Hardison just gestured at the coffee table with its movies and snacks and gave Eliot a single raised eyebrow. Eliot knew that look, it meant he was supposed to be smart enough to figure it out. Had he truly been human or had they still suspected he was -- this would have simply been a--
We want to see you naked.
Eliot felt his eyes go wide, and Parker suddenly smiled and clapped her hands together. "He gets it! Maybe we can have sex tonight after the movie!"
Hardison was grinning a little, but Eliot shook his head. "You said.. you know what I am."
"You're a freak," Parker said calmly, eating her popcorn. "I'm a freak, too, and you've always treated me like a friend. Hardison's a geek, which is like being a freak, and it means he knows how to hang out with freaks."
"I'm not a freak," Eliot said, determined to make them understand they didn't have a clue what they were doing. "I'm not even human, I'm a fucking machine!"
"Technically they used 62% human DNA to make you," Hardison said coolly. "And 2% feline DNA, and about 1.7% shark DNA which is just damn cool. That makes--"
"I can do math, Hardison," Eliot interrupted. He'd seen his files, he knew what was in them. Knew what was in him. He didn't need Hardison to prove he'd looked at them as well and knew what Eliot was.
But Hardison was still talking like Eliot hadn't said a word. "So you're 34.3% artificial, which is the definition of a cyborg, not a machine."
Eliot glowered, waiting to see if Hardison was done. Hardison and Parker were just sitting there, staring at him, not looking at all disturbed. Finally Eliot said, "How the hell can you sit there and act like this is just...." He didn't know what to call it. A seduction? Did they want to find out what sort of inhuman, freaky things he could do in bed?
His realization must have shown on his face, because Hardison was up and coming over, and grabbing onto Eliot's arm. "Don't you dare even think that," Hardison said. "I brought over a stack of Clint Eastwood movies, and Parker brought her own popcorn so you can't complain that she uses too much salt, and we haven't pushed you into having sex with us before now because we've been fucking waiting until you liked us. Do I need to use smaller words?"
Eliot glanced towards the DVDs. They'd argued long and often about Westerns as a movie genre, disagreeing on practically everything about Eliot's favorite type of movie except one: they all liked Eastwood. Parker was almost finished with her popcorn, the bowl now propped between her knees as she watched them like they were the movie.
He understood it, but he wasn't sure he could believe it. He looked at Hardison again, and shook his head, unable to speak.
"Come on," Hardison said, tugging Eliot towards the couch.
"What are you doing?" Eliot asked, hating how confused and floundering he sounded.
"We're gonna sit and watch a movie and we're gonna eat popcorn and make fun of the old-fashioned special effects."
"And after?" Eliot frowned, reluctantly letting Hardison pull him closer to the couch.
Hardison just gave him a look. "After, we go home. And next time, maybe we'll watch some classic science fiction and Parker can ask about real aliens and we'll make shit up about Martians and we'll have chicken wings and beer. And next time Parker picks the movie, and sometime after that, when you're ready for it, we'll spend the night."
Eliot just bit his lip, worrying over it until he tasted blood; he snapped his mouth closed and wished he could hide it until it was gone so they wouldn't see. Parker reached over and grabbed his hand, and yanked him down to the couch. She shoved him until he was sitting beside her, then she leaned up against him and nudged the DVDs and held out her empty bowl to Hardison. "I need more popcorn."
When Hardison took the bowl, she slipped her hand into Eliot's, and said nothing. Eliot didn't move as they waited; finally Hardison returned with a bag of freshly popped popcorn and put a movie in the DVD player. Then Hardison sat down on Eliot's other side, leaned forward to grab his soda, then settled back. He had left an empty cup on the table for Eliot to pour his soda into, and both he and Parker were staring at the TV screen as the DVD menu appeared on the screen.
As Hardison began clicking through the options to adjust the sound, Eliot stood up. He didn't look at them, but could feel their tension and worry. As he stepped away from the couch he just said, "I need to go change my jeans."
the end
Author: james
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~3,000
Pairing: pre-Parker/Eliot/Hardison
Disclaimer: not mine, no profit made
Notes: written for hc-bingo, square 'self-harm'
Summary: Eliot has trouble dealing with the fact he isn't human. Luckily, his friends know how to deal with freaks.
Eliot stood in the bathroom, staring at himself in the half-mirror hanging above the sink. The bruises along his left cheekbone were starting to purple; the thin line from a cut lip was almost gone. He tilted his head slightly to the side and saw the second array of bruises on his neck, finger-shaped impressions where one of the thugs had tried to strangle him.
He rubbed one hand against his neck, but the stiffness was already gone. Nothing but the visuals to let him know there had been a fight and soon even those would be gone. No deep cuts or burns or other injuries that would need scarring.
Examining his bruises, Eliot caught his gaze in the mirror; for a moment he stared. He'd had a girlfriend once who swore she could see people's souls in their eyes. She'd laughed when she said she could always tell when a guy was listening to her and when he'd started thinking about something else just by his eyes. He'd never had the guts to ask her what she saw when they had sex; he generally made sure her attention was firmly on other things.
He couldn't see anything in his eyes but irises and pupils, corneas and conjunctivas. However, he admitted he had nothing to compare them to. He'd never tried staring into someone else's eyes to find out if he could see a soul behind them; he laughed at the thought of trying. Hardison would call him a freak, Sophie would put on a mask -- if she wasn't already wearing one. Nate's eyes might not even be focused enough to see a thing and Parker -- well, she'd stare back and they'd end up staring at one another for hours. Eliot had a feeling she could go without blinking as long as he could, if only because it was a freakishly abnormal thing to be able to do.
He liked that Parker was freakishly abnormal, liked seeing how the others seemed not to mind too much, and liked how sometimes he got the impression that they considered her a friend. Eliot stared down at his hands and knew it would be too much to expect they'd extend the same favor to him if they knew.
When he glanced up the bruises along his cheek were fading to yellow; the line of bruises on his neck were nearly gone. He'd have to stay home, out of sight for a day or two, then no one would notice his unmarked skin showing no sign of the beating he'd taken.
He scowled suddenly and raised his hand, made a fist and threw a punch into the wall beside the mirror. The mirror shook and the echo of the slam reverberated for a moment; toiletries on the counter rattled and fell over and Eliot looked at the skin of his knuckles. They were scratched a bit with a few drops of blood seeping out. Even as he watched the skin started to smooth over.
He pounded the wall again, over and over, grateful in the veery back of his mind that his house was sound-proof. No nosy neighbors wondering what the hell was going on as Eliot slammed his fist into the wall over again. When he stopped and looked at his hand, the knuckles were torn and bleeding and the unbroken skin was angry red. He flexed his fingers and felt that nothing had broken. But there was no pain, and when he wiped the blood clean he could see the cuts closing.
Eliot looked at the floor. Everything on the counter was knocked over, the toothpaste fallen to the floor. He didn't need toothpaste, but he kept his bathroom looking normal as he could -- especially now that he had teammates who knew how to break in and would do so without asking whenever the mood struck. Toothpaste and toothbrush sitting by the sink, and he was careful to use them twice a day so everything looked worn down and used.
He cleaned up his mess, washing his hands and watching the pink-tinged water drain away, the only sign of the damage he'd inflicted. He clenched his fists again, fighting the urge to find something harder -- cement or brick -- and pound his fists against it until something broke.
Instead he tossed the dirty hand towel into the hamper and left the bathroom. He needed to sit and rest, let his body recharge. A glass of water and some protein and everything that had rebuilt itself would be replenished and Eliot would be back to normal.
Freakishly abnormal, freakishly wrong. No matter what they'd told him, his ecstatic creators when he'd opened his eyes after absorbing the final downloads and he'd recognized the room and the faces staring at him. One day old and he'd raced through the tests they'd laid down for him with flying colors -- hand-to-hand combat and disassembling every weapon they set before him, the lexicons of thirty languages in his brain let him breeze through the comprehension tests and the only thing they'd forgotten was to make him care about them.
Six months after working for his creators he'd killed them and run. He built a life for himself as best he could, cobbled together from bits and pieces of human remains; they'd given him the face of a dead soldier and when he'd tried to steal the man's life as well he'd found the girl who loved him and had to run again.
He had managed to survive, day by day, until now when he'd found himself enmeshed in a world with teammates and co-workers and friends. Every time Eliot looked at himself in the mirror and could no longer see the bruises that should have been there, he knew. If they found out they would use him: take him apart and wield him like a tool as his creators had tried to do, and despite their acceptance of Parker she at least was human. Eliot knew better than to expect open arms if they saw inside him; Hardison would dissect him faster than Eliot could slice the throat of a dozen Yakuza.
He sat on the couch and stared at the far wall, not bothering to turn on the television to distract himself with fantasies. He slammed his hand down on the couch cushion, then reached into the sheath at the small of his back and withdrew the short knife. It was sharp and thin; he drew it across his forearm and watched as the skin split apart and the blood flowed free.
He twisted his wrist, making the skin gape more and the blood spilled down his arm and dripped onto his thigh. The ends of the cut were knitting closed, and Eliot pulled at the skin again, keeping it open. More blood flowed, but the skin was repairing itself and even when he pressed on the wound he could feel nothing.
He slammed the tip of the knife into his forearm and left it there, buried in his arm. He could feel the tip of it scraping the bone, though the knife wasn't big enough to do any damage there. But the muscles he'd cut were mending themselves around the metal blade; he knew once he drew it free the flesh would feed itself into the hole, repairing it until the wound was completely gone.
Eliot tugged the knife out and sat back, not watching as his arm healed. He flipped the knife in his hand, looking idly for something to throw it at. It wasn't weighted properly for throwing, not really, and the only decent target within sight was the wooden frame of the kitchen doorway.
A second later Parker walked in through that doorway, carrying a bowl. Eliot smelled the popcorn, wondered how the hell she'd made it without him hearing the microwave. The second whiff of scent answered that question; it was cold, and over-salted, which meant she'd bought it from the corner market down the street and carried it in with her as she broke in through her favorite entry, the utility room window.
He didn't say anything as she crawled over the back of the couch and sat beside him. She leaned against him, holding the bowl out before simply resting it on his leg. Eliot opened his mouth, though there wasn't a thing he could think of to say. His arm was still healing, the blood more than obvious and he had no idea how long she'd been there and what she had seen.
The doorbell rang and a second later a key turned in the lock.
"That's Hardison with the movies," Parker said.
"Why ring the doorbell if you're gonna just let yourself in?" Eliot didn't move, didn't try to hide his arm or ask what the hell; he didn't really know how he'd managed to talk at all, except there was a continually running program that took care of things like 'distract the enemy' and threat assessment. His threat assessment algorithm was more concerned at the moment with the blood stain on his jeans than the two people in his living room.
"My Nana raised me to be polite," Hardison said as he came into the living room, carrying some DVDs in one hand and a bag in the other. There were two liters of soda in the bag, one orange and one dark brown -- Eliot guessed it was the Cherry Coke that they'd discovered he liked to drink, despite his usual disgust with the entire concept of drinking sugared, carbonated, colored water.
Eliot just stared as he walked over and plunked everything down on the coffee table; then Hardison pushed past Eliot and Parker to sit down on Eliot's other side. Eliot twitched, knowing he should be doing something to hide, thinking of some way to explain away what they could not possibly have missed seeing.
"Go change, man," Hardison said quietly, and Parker just shifted slightly away from him to let him stand up.
Eliot stared at him, but Hardison was focused on finding the remote to Eliot's TV.
"Seriously," Parker said. "It's gonna stain, and these are my favorite jeans." She grinned at him, then leered at Hardison. "There's a worn spot on his back pocket."
Hardison grinned back. "I know." He gave Eliot a wink, but Eliot just kept staring.
His arm was almost completely healed. He flinched when Parker touched him, her fingers running lightly over the white line of a scar that would soon be completely gone. He looked at her, looked back at Hardison, and then down at the knife he still held in his hand.
"You can't possibly--" he began, then stopped. He glared at Hardison. "Why aren't you asking me a million questions?"
The look he got back was almost pity, but it faded as Hardison shook his head. "Man, I want to know everything in the world about you. But I wanna know what kind of sashimi you hate and whether you think Glenn Ford is better than John Wayne, and if you seriously think the Red Sox can pull it off again, like, ever."
Eliot frowned at him. "That's bullshit."
Hardison opened his mouth, but before he could respond, Parker said, "I want to know why you don't have Jell-o."
Eliot and Hardison both turned to look at her. She looked back, then shrugged. "You never have Jell-o, but you talk about salad being an important part of every meal. Jell-o salad is a salad, but you never have Jell-o in your kitchen."
"She has a point," Hardison said. "With those little marshmallows and--"
"I know what Jell-o salad is!" Eliot snapped. "I'm not fucking making-- what the hell are you two doing?" He jumped off the couch and practically ran halfway across the living room, then stopped and forced himself to turn back around.
He didn't have a clue what to say, even if he could have said it in Sanskrit or Inuktitut or French. He flexed his hands, remembered he was still holding the knife and he made himself slip it back into its sheath. Parker and Hardison were still both looking at him, pity on their faces and Eliot wanted to scream at them.
Although the expression on Parker's face wasn't quite pity, but sympathy, and Hardison just kind of looked sad.
Frowning again, Eliot said, "I don't understand."
"We want to see you naked," Parker said. Eliot blinked at her, and Hardison took a moment to let his face fall into his hands.
Then he looked at Eliot. "You think we don't notice? Freaky super-fast healing and able to move faster than Superman and you fucking recharge in the sunlight." Hardison looked momentarily guilty and said, "I did hack into the Project's files. Learned a lot more than I think I wanted to know. And yes, I showed some of it to the others. That was last year, man. And you're still completely clueless."
"I'm...what?" He hated feeling out of his depth. It hardly ever happened, and only did happen when he was trying to pass for human in some social situation. Give him a fight, or a building to infiltrate, or a fridge full of ingredients to turn into a meal and he was fine. Navigating a conversation always made him feel...like he would never be human.
Hardison just gestured at the coffee table with its movies and snacks and gave Eliot a single raised eyebrow. Eliot knew that look, it meant he was supposed to be smart enough to figure it out. Had he truly been human or had they still suspected he was -- this would have simply been a--
We want to see you naked.
Eliot felt his eyes go wide, and Parker suddenly smiled and clapped her hands together. "He gets it! Maybe we can have sex tonight after the movie!"
Hardison was grinning a little, but Eliot shook his head. "You said.. you know what I am."
"You're a freak," Parker said calmly, eating her popcorn. "I'm a freak, too, and you've always treated me like a friend. Hardison's a geek, which is like being a freak, and it means he knows how to hang out with freaks."
"I'm not a freak," Eliot said, determined to make them understand they didn't have a clue what they were doing. "I'm not even human, I'm a fucking machine!"
"Technically they used 62% human DNA to make you," Hardison said coolly. "And 2% feline DNA, and about 1.7% shark DNA which is just damn cool. That makes--"
"I can do math, Hardison," Eliot interrupted. He'd seen his files, he knew what was in them. Knew what was in him. He didn't need Hardison to prove he'd looked at them as well and knew what Eliot was.
But Hardison was still talking like Eliot hadn't said a word. "So you're 34.3% artificial, which is the definition of a cyborg, not a machine."
Eliot glowered, waiting to see if Hardison was done. Hardison and Parker were just sitting there, staring at him, not looking at all disturbed. Finally Eliot said, "How the hell can you sit there and act like this is just...." He didn't know what to call it. A seduction? Did they want to find out what sort of inhuman, freaky things he could do in bed?
His realization must have shown on his face, because Hardison was up and coming over, and grabbing onto Eliot's arm. "Don't you dare even think that," Hardison said. "I brought over a stack of Clint Eastwood movies, and Parker brought her own popcorn so you can't complain that she uses too much salt, and we haven't pushed you into having sex with us before now because we've been fucking waiting until you liked us. Do I need to use smaller words?"
Eliot glanced towards the DVDs. They'd argued long and often about Westerns as a movie genre, disagreeing on practically everything about Eliot's favorite type of movie except one: they all liked Eastwood. Parker was almost finished with her popcorn, the bowl now propped between her knees as she watched them like they were the movie.
He understood it, but he wasn't sure he could believe it. He looked at Hardison again, and shook his head, unable to speak.
"Come on," Hardison said, tugging Eliot towards the couch.
"What are you doing?" Eliot asked, hating how confused and floundering he sounded.
"We're gonna sit and watch a movie and we're gonna eat popcorn and make fun of the old-fashioned special effects."
"And after?" Eliot frowned, reluctantly letting Hardison pull him closer to the couch.
Hardison just gave him a look. "After, we go home. And next time, maybe we'll watch some classic science fiction and Parker can ask about real aliens and we'll make shit up about Martians and we'll have chicken wings and beer. And next time Parker picks the movie, and sometime after that, when you're ready for it, we'll spend the night."
Eliot just bit his lip, worrying over it until he tasted blood; he snapped his mouth closed and wished he could hide it until it was gone so they wouldn't see. Parker reached over and grabbed his hand, and yanked him down to the couch. She shoved him until he was sitting beside her, then she leaned up against him and nudged the DVDs and held out her empty bowl to Hardison. "I need more popcorn."
When Hardison took the bowl, she slipped her hand into Eliot's, and said nothing. Eliot didn't move as they waited; finally Hardison returned with a bag of freshly popped popcorn and put a movie in the DVD player. Then Hardison sat down on Eliot's other side, leaned forward to grab his soda, then settled back. He had left an empty cup on the table for Eliot to pour his soda into, and both he and Parker were staring at the TV screen as the DVD menu appeared on the screen.
As Hardison began clicking through the options to adjust the sound, Eliot stood up. He didn't look at them, but could feel their tension and worry. As he stepped away from the couch he just said, "I need to go change my jeans."
the end