Open Roads and Kind Fires

Sophie is busy with the mark, and Hardison is ordering dinner, so she does the only thing she can think of and shuts herself in the pantry to call Eliot.

“What's up?” he asks as soon as he answers, and a door shuts behind him like he's already on the way in case they're in trouble.

“I'm having an Alice problem,” she says, because that's what it is at heart and he'll know what to do about that.

Sure enough, he heaves a sigh, and a second later, his side of the line gets quieter. “You couldn't call Sophie?”

“She's with Markham.” Parker sits down on the pantry floor. It's dark and cozy and smells a little bit like food because Eliot stocked it for them and he thinks they know way more about cooking than they do. Or he just wants an excuse to cook with all of it when the job is over. With that thought in mind she starts inspecting the shelves, wondering what he's got planned and if it's going to end up on the brewpub menu. “How do I be married to Hardison?”

“You've done it twenty times, Parker. What's the difference now?”

Parker waves a hand. “It's weird! I don't know! We're dating now, I don't know how to be married to him and date him at the same time.”

“You just do what you've done twenty times, and also do whatever you do now.”

“But some of it's the same!”

Eliot sighs again, but he sounds less confused now, at least. Eliot doesn't always understand her, but there are times when he does more than anyone else. “Parker, the Alice problem is always that you don't think your aliases are you, which they are. Some of it's the same. He doing anything you don't want him to do?”

“No.” Hardison never does. There are things he doesn't get about her that Eliot does, but he doesn't ever push.

“Then you're fine.”

“I'm not! I don't like it feeling fake when it's not!” She freezes, wondering how soundproof the pantry is, but Hardison doesn't come knocking, so she's just left wondering what Eliot is going to say.

Eliot doesn't answer right away. He's good at quiet. He's the only one of all of them who is, really. “You and Hardison aren't a con. He knows that. You know that. So you do the con, and you date, and if you do the same things sometimes, it's because sometimes maybe you do things that normal people do.”

Parker wrinkles her nose. “I don't know how to do that, either.”

“Yeah, you do.” Eliot shifts around. He must have found somewhere private and quiet, because she can hear his clothes rustling when he moves. “Is the problem the con, or the dating?”

She wants to say both, but she knows that's unhelpful. “I don't know. I could pretend to marry him when we weren't dating but now I don't like it.”

Eliot doesn't give advice the same way Sophie does. Sophie would probably make sympathetic noises and then she'd blink and she'd be a relationship therapist and she'd say something right that wouldn't fix it but would give her something to do. Half the time, Eliot just groans and tells her she's weird when she asks him about things. If he hasn't already, maybe she's not wrong to worry. “Maybe things have got to change,” he finally says. “You find new ways to pretend to be married.”

“This works. We know how to do this.”

“Apparently you don't.” He clears his throat. “Sophie, when she pretends to flirt with Nate, it's not always the same way she does when it's both of them, right? So you just do that. Maybe talk about it.”

It's not as easy as that, but she doesn't need to say that. Eliot gets it. “I guess,” she says. It's still hard to talk about dates with Hardison without bringing pretzels into it, but it's always the right answer. She's figured out that much, having a team. “Are you still coming over later? Hardison is ordering pizza.”

“All the groceries I ordered for you not good enough?” he asks, but his heart isn't in it. “Yeah, fine, I'll be over later. With some salad.”

“We have Oreos too!” she says, and stands up.

Eliot sighs. “Did I not just say I ordered your groceries?” And then, after a second, “You good now?”

“Probably,” she says. “I'm going to talk to Hardison.”

“You do that,” he says, and hangs up.

Hardison, when she comes out of the pantry, is waiting, looking a little worried but also like he's trying not to be, but he's a really bad liar, at least when he's not on a con. “You good?”

Same question as Eliot, and Parker smiles, because they're both looking out for her, even when she's still figuring out what she needs. “Eliot is coming over for dinner before anybody starts watching us. He says he's bringing the salad.”

“Man thinks I don't know how to take a multivitamin. Which I do, I'll have you know, I don't want scurvy.” He's still watching her carefully, because he probably heard at least some of that. They're thieves. They steal each other's secrets as much as they steal anything else. “I don't have anything to do till the pizza arrives. How about you?”

Her gear is all prepared, and she knows the plan. She doesn't need to do anything right now, and she's getting to know the way Hardison talks around wanting to kiss her or do more. “Nothing to do,” she says, and grins at him till he grins back.

She takes off the fake ring that could maybe be real since he used one of her diamonds and puts it on the table before she kisses him, and sees him notice and decide not to ask yet.

When Eliot shows up most of an hour later, he notices the ring too, but he just nods at her and tells Hardison that maybe he should just eat spinach because it tastes good, multivitamin or no multivitamin.

The other whole thing is the other person in town who is hotter than he has any reason to be and will one hundred percent murder Hardison if he tries to woo him, who is currently standing in front of Hardison's farmer's market booth with a scowl on his face. “Eliot! Hey! How's the ranch?” he says in a totally cool and not at all squeaky tone of voice.

“I think I need a witch,” says Eliot. Growls Eliot, more like, he is more terrifying than anybody's got the right to be. Hardison should probably call Sophie and cry about why he's only attracted to people who could kick his ass, but then she might come to visit and that sounds even more horrifying.

“Sure, man, what kind of charm do you need?”

That's kind of interesting, because Hardison is pretty sure that Eliot doesn't trust witches in the way that people with really shitty pasts who don't like talking about them tend to. Parker's like that too—she likes knowing about his charms, but only if he promises that they've got nothing to do with her. This time, Eliot rolls his eyes in that way he's got like he's rolling his whole head. “I didn't say I need a charm. I said I need a witch.”

Hardison rolls his eyes right back. Two can play at that game. “So what kind of witching do you need? I can stop by once the market's closed down.” Out of the corner of his eye, he can tell Parker is watching. She likes knowing all the gossip, and she is definitely ignoring the people who are trying to buy rhubarb.

“I've got a unicorn.”

He says it like he's got some kind of terrible infectious disease, which is why it takes Hardison a second to realize he's talking about one of the most magical possible things anyone within fifty miles of here has seen or heard of in the past fifty years. “A unicorn? Man, a unicorn? You get all the luck! Hell yeah I'm coming over, do you need to welcome it to the herd or something?”

Eliot makes one of his growly noises. “I want to know why it's here.”

“Clearly you've been deemed worthy or something!” Hardison starts packing up his booth. If there's a unicorn, nobody's going to blame him. “Give me five minutes, and I'll be right with you.”

“I'm coming too,” says Parker, giving up on pretending she isn't eavesdropping, and stares at the rhubarb people until they put it back and walk away before starting to shove produce in boxes.

Hardison looks at Eliot, expecting him to start yelling, but he just kind of sighs and nods like he's not surprised and goes to help her put her stuff away. “I drove into town, you guys can come with me, but we should be fast, who knows how long that thing will stick around.”

“Hey, 'that thing' has decided that you're worthy or some shit, man, I'm pretty sure it will stay,” says Hardison, but he puts things away and grins at the people who are outright staring at the three of them, many of them probably wondering if they can get away with inviting themselves along like Parker did.

But none of them do, and within ten minutes the three of them are stuffed into Eliot's truck, Parker's vegetables and Hardison's supplies strapped down in the back, heading out to the pegasus ranch where few people ever get invited.

Most times when Hardison drives by, there are some of the herd up in the air, high enough for him to see over the line of trees Eliot maintains for privacy. Today, there are none, and when they drive in, all of them are on the ground, and they're surrounding another four-legged creature more the size of a deer than a horse, bright white, with a big horn sticking out of its head. Hardison likes to play it cool, but he's got to admit it's the most magical goddamn sight he's ever seen as he stumbles his way out of the car and makes full-on eye contact with it. It seems pretty chill, for a wild animal.

Within a few seconds, Parker and Eliot have come up on either side of him like they think he's got any idea what to do here, and they're all staring at the unicorn.

“This is a pretty good first date,” says Parker, like that's a totally normal thing to say.