ficlet, "Secret Music," Leverage, Parker/Hardison
Title: Secret Music
Fandom: Leverage
Pairing: Parker/Hardison
Rating: PG
Spoilers: episode-specific for 3:3, "The Inside Job"
Summary: When she puts the ear bud back in, it feels right. Especially when she hears Hardison.
AN: Shameless schmoop, and not much else. For _paradoxboy_.
Parker has always liked wearing headphones. Because they're like earmuffs, but with music. Secret music just for her. Of course, she can't listen too often, because music is noise and noise cancels out other noise and just about all the time she's got to keep one ear open, in case somebody's sneaking up on her. It happens. But maybe that's why, when knows she's safe and alone, it feels like an extra layer of security to curl up with a happy song in her ears and look around at the perfectly controlled chaos of her apartment before closing her eyes and pretending that there's nothing else to listen to in the world.
At first, the ear buds that Hardison makes for the team are nothing like that -- instead of letting her be alone, they let other people inside her head, and she doesn't like it because she works alone and she's not alone when Nate's voice is inside her skull telling her things she already knows and wanting to know for the millionth time if she's going to be able to crack the safe, which, duh. It's extra noise that she doesn't need, knocking her off her game at first, making it harder to control the space inside of her and focus herself entirely on the problem at hand. It's invasive.
Slowly, though, she gets used to it, and then there's the time when Archie needs help and she figures she can take a job on her own just for once, and she realizes that she misses hearing them all in her head, instructing and nagging and bickering and comforting, Nate's counting down the seconds, Sophie's offers of clever lines to say. But mostly she misses Hardison's voice, the way he lets her know how long she's got before the alarms kick in, the coaxing way he talks to the computer like it's another member of the team... just the sound of him, talking her through it. She's never wanted anything like that before, but suddenly she does, and for a moment when she realizes that she's torn between finishing this job and running away to somewhere way out of radio range, and coming back to her team and never going off on her own again. In the end, though, they make that decision for her, and when she puts the ear bud back in it feels right, especially when she hears Hardison, his voice tense with worry as if he wasn't sure he'd get to talk to her again. He talks her through the ridiculously complicated security system, letting her move at the rhythm of his voice, and she's so glad she isn't working alone, right now, anyway.
After she gets out and everyone takes a little while to be mad at her for "almost getting herself killed," when they're hanging around the headquarters and waiting for Nate and Sophie to come back with their next job, Hardison gives her a present. He calls it a mix tape even though it isn't a tape, it's just a flash drive with songs on it. Happy songs. He says she can plug it in to her MP3 player, but instead she just scoots over next to him on the couch and pushes it into a USB slot on his laptop. For a second he looks confused, one eyebrow halfway up his forehead, and she doesn't know exactly what to say, so she just shrugs her shoulders, and he sort of chuckles, and hands her his earbud headphones, still plugged into the laptop. The cord is pretty short, so she has to kind of lean up against his shoulder while he types and she listens. It's kind of different from being alone, but the world inside of her head is still all her own, secret music just for her, even while her actual, physical ear is resting against Hardison's bicep, and when her eyes drift halfway closed, she realizes that she doesn't feel less safe this way at all.
Fandom: Leverage
Pairing: Parker/Hardison
Rating: PG
Spoilers: episode-specific for 3:3, "The Inside Job"
Summary: When she puts the ear bud back in, it feels right. Especially when she hears Hardison.
AN: Shameless schmoop, and not much else. For _paradoxboy_.
Parker has always liked wearing headphones. Because they're like earmuffs, but with music. Secret music just for her. Of course, she can't listen too often, because music is noise and noise cancels out other noise and just about all the time she's got to keep one ear open, in case somebody's sneaking up on her. It happens. But maybe that's why, when knows she's safe and alone, it feels like an extra layer of security to curl up with a happy song in her ears and look around at the perfectly controlled chaos of her apartment before closing her eyes and pretending that there's nothing else to listen to in the world.
At first, the ear buds that Hardison makes for the team are nothing like that -- instead of letting her be alone, they let other people inside her head, and she doesn't like it because she works alone and she's not alone when Nate's voice is inside her skull telling her things she already knows and wanting to know for the millionth time if she's going to be able to crack the safe, which, duh. It's extra noise that she doesn't need, knocking her off her game at first, making it harder to control the space inside of her and focus herself entirely on the problem at hand. It's invasive.
Slowly, though, she gets used to it, and then there's the time when Archie needs help and she figures she can take a job on her own just for once, and she realizes that she misses hearing them all in her head, instructing and nagging and bickering and comforting, Nate's counting down the seconds, Sophie's offers of clever lines to say. But mostly she misses Hardison's voice, the way he lets her know how long she's got before the alarms kick in, the coaxing way he talks to the computer like it's another member of the team... just the sound of him, talking her through it. She's never wanted anything like that before, but suddenly she does, and for a moment when she realizes that she's torn between finishing this job and running away to somewhere way out of radio range, and coming back to her team and never going off on her own again. In the end, though, they make that decision for her, and when she puts the ear bud back in it feels right, especially when she hears Hardison, his voice tense with worry as if he wasn't sure he'd get to talk to her again. He talks her through the ridiculously complicated security system, letting her move at the rhythm of his voice, and she's so glad she isn't working alone, right now, anyway.
After she gets out and everyone takes a little while to be mad at her for "almost getting herself killed," when they're hanging around the headquarters and waiting for Nate and Sophie to come back with their next job, Hardison gives her a present. He calls it a mix tape even though it isn't a tape, it's just a flash drive with songs on it. Happy songs. He says she can plug it in to her MP3 player, but instead she just scoots over next to him on the couch and pushes it into a USB slot on his laptop. For a second he looks confused, one eyebrow halfway up his forehead, and she doesn't know exactly what to say, so she just shrugs her shoulders, and he sort of chuckles, and hands her his earbud headphones, still plugged into the laptop. The cord is pretty short, so she has to kind of lean up against his shoulder while he types and she listens. It's kind of different from being alone, but the world inside of her head is still all her own, secret music just for her, even while her actual, physical ear is resting against Hardison's bicep, and when her eyes drift halfway closed, she realizes that she doesn't feel less safe this way at all.