Leverage Fic - New Beginnings

[mad_madam_m]

Written for the prompt: "Because, you stubborn, reckless asshole, I LOVE YOU!" and originally posted to Tumblr here.

800 words, love confessions.

“What,” Eliot said. He glanced at Hardison, trying to figure out how to phrase I’m not going to steal your girlfriend but she did just say she loved me. “Uh—”

“We.” Hardison put an arm around Parker, looking a little nervous but resolute. “We love you. Dumbass.”

Parker patted him on the chest, a pat that was probably closer to a smack, by the way Hardison winced. “Thank you, Alec.” She turned back to Eliot, her face a cross between an I-told-you-so smirk and a more familiar I’m-going-to-stab-your-kidney glare. “We love you, you stubborn, reckless asshole, so stop doing stubborn, reckless shit!”

Eliot wasn’t sure which made less sense: Hardison and Parker standing there and saying they loved him, or Parker, of all the people in the entire goddamn world, lecturing him on being stubborn and reckless. In the space of four sentences, they’d taken his entire worldview, shaken it up like a snowglobe, and then smashed the whole damn thing on the tile floor.

“What,” he said again, because there wasn’t anything else to say.

Hardison cleared his throat. “What Parker’s trying to say—what we’re both trying to say—is that you are important to us. Not just as part of our team but…as a potential part of our team, you know what I’m saying?”

“That doesn’t make any damn sense,” Eliot said, out of self-preservation more than anything else.

“We don’t just have team feelings for you,” Parker said. “We have romantic feelings for you. And when you do dumb things like fight ten different guys at once—”

“That is literally my job,” Eliot reminded her. At least this was steady ground, so he didn’t have to think about what they meant by we and romantic feelings. “My job is to keep you both safe.”

‘Til my dying day had been the promise, and Eliot didn’t break promises. Not one like this.

“No, we’re supposed to keep each other safe,” Parker snapped. “We’re supposed to keep you safe, too.”

“We take risks,” Hardison said quietly. “We have to take risks. And sometimes, yeah, we’re reckless about it. But they don’t have to be stupid risks. And I know you know the difference.”

Eliot opened his mouth to argue, and then closed it again. Hardison wasn’t wrong, but damned if he’d admit it.

“I’m trying to keep you safe,” he repeated. “If that means I have to take bigger risks, then I’m taking the bigger risks.”

He’d take a lot of risks before he let something happen to Parker or Hardison. And until this moment, Eliot hadn’t really realized what that meant.

“We don’t want you taking bigger risks,” Parker said, with a glance at Hardison. “We want you coming back to us.”

Eliot didn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t really know what to say to any of it. “I—”

Don’t have to listen to this was what he meant to say. But what came out instead was “I don’t want to lose you.”

Hardison took another glance at Parker, and then walked over to Eliot, arms outstretched. “C’mere.”

“What? No.”

That didn’t actually stop Hardison from giving him a hug, or stop Parker from joining him half a second later. Eliot stiffened. He had no idea what to do, but it wasn’t like he could move with them on either side of him and both of them holding him so tight he almost couldn’t breathe.

“We don’t want to lose you, either,” Hardison said into his hair. “You know that, right?”

Eliot did know, but it wasn’t the same thing as hearing it. Wasn’t the same thing as hearing Parker make a soft, pained noise like she’d just pictured losing him. Eliot never wanted to hear that sound again in his life.

Awkwardly, he wiggled one hand free to pat her arm. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You might,” Parker muttered. “If you keep doing things like that.”

Eliot sighed. “Parker. I said I’m not going anywhere. I…don’t want to leave.”

Were those the right words? He didn’t know. Sure, he’d promised to keep them safe but this was more than that. He’d moved out of anything resembling a comfort zone in the past five minutes. He only knew that he loved them and he would do anything for them. Hopefully that would be enough to figure out where to go next.

“You don’t want to leave, huh?” Hardison said.

Eliot shook his head.

“Then stay with us,” Hardison said, like it was the easiest thing in the world.

Who the hell knew, maybe it was.

“Okay,” Eliot said.

They both hugged him harder, and for the first time since this damn conversation had started, Eliot felt like his feet were on solid ground.

Wherever they were going next, they were going together.