(no subject)
She wished for so many things, but even as she wished, she knew they would never come true, knew that wishes were nothing more than breaths of hope, quickly dissipating into the atmosphere.
Sometimes, when the world was particularly frustrating, when the rules of social equiette seemed particularly useless and impenetrable, she wished she could see the world the way the others saw it. She wished she instinctively knew that you weren't supposed to tell a woman how much she weighed, that you weren't supposed to count how many times Hardison touched his chin or glasses of scotch that Nate drank, or that you weren't supposed to enjoy diving head first off a skyscraper. She didn't understand the whys of it all, the reasons behind the 'weren't's, and so she just kept a list of all the things you weren't supposed to do when they tell her, "You weren't supposed to do that."
Sometimes, Hardison tilted his head to the left and his eyes dropped to her mouth and his right index finger tapped against his leg, and she knew he is thinking of her as something more than the world's greatest thief. She wished she could do whatever girly thing you're supposed to do that makes men go "Oh." She wanted to stop talking in metaphors and say exactly what she's thinking, but when she says what she's thinking, sometimes bad things happen and she didn't want Hardison to go away. So, instead, she talked about locks and pretzels, and he understood because he's Hardison and he gets it.
Sometimes, she was in the bar when Nate met the clients and she looked at their faces. They were broken faces, cut up with lines from grief and sorrow, and then she had to look away, focusing instead on the bottles behind the bar. Later, in the mirror, she'll think about different things, studying her face and expressions. Only one thing brings