hc_bingo (Fic) and it came to me then [Leverage] (Parker/Hardison)
Title: and it came to me then (that every plan is a tiny prayer to Father Time)
Author: mizzy2k
Rating: PG
Fandom: Leverage
Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me. D:
Prompt from mystizan for the hc_bingo square gunshot wounds: Parker/Hardison. He sat by her bed, willing her to wake up, to be ok.
He sat by her bed, willing her to wake up, to be ok.
The nurses weren't too impressed at first. They wanted Hardison to move, to get out of the way, to stop being under their feet.
After the first four hours, with his feet rooted to the tiles, his hands clenched so hard on the sidebars of the bed that his knuckles were a sour yellow colour, they grew used to him. Hours after that, they started to whisper amongst themselves and exchange fond smiles; the stricter nurses from an older time keeping their disapproving tuts silent and lowering their disdainful looks to behind their clipboards.
He even heard one nurse call him adorable, but it was just a three-syllable word that didn't make an ounce of sense. It could have been Croatian or Cantonese as far as Hardison could care. Words would only make sense to him again when Parker could speak them, and that was the only truth of the universe that even made sense to Hardison right at that moment.
Especially with the goddamned sound. Hardison got why Nate hated hospitals. The smell, the neverending white, and those terrible, rhythmical beeps of the machines. Each one sounded like his laptop having a critical error, over and over and over again. The sound set his teeth on edge.
A doctor came, tried to explain to him at one point that she just needed to sleep, that the worst part was over and rest would heal the damage, that Emily would be just fine. Hardison didn't believe the doctor. His problem with authority was deep-seated, with plenty of supporting evidence to prove it as a decent life ideology. Trusting the wrong people could kill you.
Hardison inhaled, the sudden tight breath almost musical as it forced itself through his clenched teeth, and he tried not to think about how that was the problem. They had trusted the wrong person, and now Parker was struggling for her life, and if she died she'd be buried as Emily Blandish, without her real name, without anyone knowing except them what she had been willing to give her life for-
One of the other patients pushed tissues into his face.
Hardison hadn't even noticed he'd been crying.
He hadn't cried when it happened.
Hardison expected that if he was to ever be in a real gunfight, that it would probably happen in a blur, like it did at the movies. Too much chaos to accurately track. Bullets and men flying every which way, ricocheting and sparking and the sound being so loud that it would become the soundtrack of nightmares.
But this time... it was like the world slowed down. It was like Hardison could see the path of every bullet as they sloughed at superspeed through the air, like he could walk up to the bullets and pluck them from the air, although he's very aware that feeling was just the adrenaline coursing through his body, keeping him tense and alert and hyper aware.
It was like he could see everything happen, but not move that fast, and that was the problem. He had felt hands hard on his shoulder, pushing him sharply. He remembered pain blistering over his vision for a microsecond as he collided face first with something hard - he found out later it was an industrial recycling bin - and he remembered thinking sharply, horribly, that he had been shot. But as he fell he turned, and light from the face-collision splintered across his vision, and the slow-down was still going as he saw Parker's chest change colour.
Then he noticed the holes, and the blood, and in the same slow motion, watched as her knees crumbled beneath her, and his nonsensical mind thought she was dropping into one of those incredible slides, she was dropping out of the way of the bullets---
-no. No, that hadn't been it at all. She had been shot in the chest, twice, and the crimson soaking her janitor's jumpsuit was her blood, and she was screaming, screaming--
Hardison had pushed his hands down on the wounds without even thinking on it; his subconscious wanted her well even if his conscious mind had tried to betray him, had tried to leave him there, crouching and staring uselessly at her, as she screamed, and screamed, and-
No. He was the one screaming. Hollering her name until it became two crazy, disconnected syllables. Screamed even as Eliot shoved him to one side and took over from staunching the blood flow until the ambulances got there. Howling her name even though it scraped his throat raw, made it so he couldn't argue with the nurses who tried to haul him away from her side.
He scrambled in with Parker into the ambulance, and spent half of the ride pressed up against the wall, staring at the lines of Parker's blood his hands had smeared on the inside of the door when he followed the stretcher in; the other half watching the BILAP, watching her ragged chest stutter and fall. They separated them long enough to get her into emergency surgery, and a trainee doctor had to suture his head wound - Parker when saving his life hadn't been gentle; Hardison in an abstract, haunted kind of way wanted it to scar, wanting a mark of her visible to everyone that looked at him, this scar is a flag of a girl who saved my life with no concern to hers, this scar is a flag of an idiot a complete idiot who shouldn't have-couldn't have-wouldn't be if he-oh, no, oh, no- and- and-
#
Hardison didn't remember passing out, but he must have, because losing his consciousness unwillingly was the only way he could have left Parker's side, and he was not by her side, and that was just- He has forgotten how to breathe. It wasn't possible. His whole world had actually fallen apart, and-
"Hey, you."
And just like that, Hardison could breathe again.
Parker's voice was apparently the pass code to his sanity.
"They had to sedate you." Parker shuffled up on the bed, pain blanching her face for a hateful second, until she settled on the pillows and turned her face to his. "Apparently you were worried about me."
"It's a character flaw," Hardison said. He was as hard-wired to use sarcasm to cover up the real flood of feelings battering at him as he was hard-wired to worry about Parker.
"You're such a silly billy." Parker's voice was muffled as she fought a yawn. "You shouldn't- shouldn't-"
"I should," Hardison said, turning his face to hers. She smiled wearily, and turned her face to the ceiling, her eyes fluttering shut.
"I couldn't sleep. After the surgery, I couldn't sleep. Not without you-" Her voice was gentle and disconnected, like someone sleep talking, but her fingers clutched into the blanket and Hardison remembered that. Remembered hurtling into her room after the doctor had barely finished suturing his head wound, and remembered the doctors talking and speculating about giving Parker something to help her sleep, and arguing about the amount she had been given for such a small person, and how she should be asleep. Hardison had knelt at her side, clung onto her hand, desperate to have proof that she was alive, that she was still breathing. It was then, only then, that Parker had fallen asleep.
He'd blanked thinking about it at the time, but it was a memory that might take the edge of some of the rawness of this day later.
"I want to sleep some more."
"I'm right here," Hardison said. "I told you. I'm right here, whenever you need me."
Parker's voice was quieter as she said, "You were talking about... pretzels." Sleep was claiming her again, but it didn't feel so hopeless.
Hardison slipped out of the hospital bed, ignored his pounding head, and took hold of her hand, trying not to think how small her hand was beneath his. "I wasn't," he admitted, but there was no sign she had heard. Her breathing was shallow and regular. She was asleep. She was asleep and she would heal. His fingers tightened around her hand. The machinery around him beeped, and beeped, but it wasn't annoying any more. Each one was a reminder that Parker was still alive, and Hardison would take as many moments of that as he could. He fell asleep naturally at last by her side, the beeps a lullaby singing him to sleep, a song that wound around him like a blanket, the most soothing chorus of all time that continued long after his eyes finally succumbed to sleep - each beep saying the same thing to Hardison even as he slept. Parker was alive. Parker was alive.
Parker was alive.
Author: mizzy2k
Rating: PG
Fandom: Leverage
Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me. D:
Prompt from mystizan for the hc_bingo square gunshot wounds: Parker/Hardison. He sat by her bed, willing her to wake up, to be ok.
He sat by her bed, willing her to wake up, to be ok.
The nurses weren't too impressed at first. They wanted Hardison to move, to get out of the way, to stop being under their feet.
After the first four hours, with his feet rooted to the tiles, his hands clenched so hard on the sidebars of the bed that his knuckles were a sour yellow colour, they grew used to him. Hours after that, they started to whisper amongst themselves and exchange fond smiles; the stricter nurses from an older time keeping their disapproving tuts silent and lowering their disdainful looks to behind their clipboards.
He even heard one nurse call him adorable, but it was just a three-syllable word that didn't make an ounce of sense. It could have been Croatian or Cantonese as far as Hardison could care. Words would only make sense to him again when Parker could speak them, and that was the only truth of the universe that even made sense to Hardison right at that moment.
Especially with the goddamned sound. Hardison got why Nate hated hospitals. The smell, the neverending white, and those terrible, rhythmical beeps of the machines. Each one sounded like his laptop having a critical error, over and over and over again. The sound set his teeth on edge.
A doctor came, tried to explain to him at one point that she just needed to sleep, that the worst part was over and rest would heal the damage, that Emily would be just fine. Hardison didn't believe the doctor. His problem with authority was deep-seated, with plenty of supporting evidence to prove it as a decent life ideology. Trusting the wrong people could kill you.
Hardison inhaled, the sudden tight breath almost musical as it forced itself through his clenched teeth, and he tried not to think about how that was the problem. They had trusted the wrong person, and now Parker was struggling for her life, and if she died she'd be buried as Emily Blandish, without her real name, without anyone knowing except them what she had been willing to give her life for-
One of the other patients pushed tissues into his face.
Hardison hadn't even noticed he'd been crying.
He hadn't cried when it happened.
Hardison expected that if he was to ever be in a real gunfight, that it would probably happen in a blur, like it did at the movies. Too much chaos to accurately track. Bullets and men flying every which way, ricocheting and sparking and the sound being so loud that it would become the soundtrack of nightmares.
But this time... it was like the world slowed down. It was like Hardison could see the path of every bullet as they sloughed at superspeed through the air, like he could walk up to the bullets and pluck them from the air, although he's very aware that feeling was just the adrenaline coursing through his body, keeping him tense and alert and hyper aware.
It was like he could see everything happen, but not move that fast, and that was the problem. He had felt hands hard on his shoulder, pushing him sharply. He remembered pain blistering over his vision for a microsecond as he collided face first with something hard - he found out later it was an industrial recycling bin - and he remembered thinking sharply, horribly, that he had been shot. But as he fell he turned, and light from the face-collision splintered across his vision, and the slow-down was still going as he saw Parker's chest change colour.
Then he noticed the holes, and the blood, and in the same slow motion, watched as her knees crumbled beneath her, and his nonsensical mind thought she was dropping into one of those incredible slides, she was dropping out of the way of the bullets---
-no. No, that hadn't been it at all. She had been shot in the chest, twice, and the crimson soaking her janitor's jumpsuit was her blood, and she was screaming, screaming--
Hardison had pushed his hands down on the wounds without even thinking on it; his subconscious wanted her well even if his conscious mind had tried to betray him, had tried to leave him there, crouching and staring uselessly at her, as she screamed, and screamed, and-
No. He was the one screaming. Hollering her name until it became two crazy, disconnected syllables. Screamed even as Eliot shoved him to one side and took over from staunching the blood flow until the ambulances got there. Howling her name even though it scraped his throat raw, made it so he couldn't argue with the nurses who tried to haul him away from her side.
He scrambled in with Parker into the ambulance, and spent half of the ride pressed up against the wall, staring at the lines of Parker's blood his hands had smeared on the inside of the door when he followed the stretcher in; the other half watching the BILAP, watching her ragged chest stutter and fall. They separated them long enough to get her into emergency surgery, and a trainee doctor had to suture his head wound - Parker when saving his life hadn't been gentle; Hardison in an abstract, haunted kind of way wanted it to scar, wanting a mark of her visible to everyone that looked at him, this scar is a flag of a girl who saved my life with no concern to hers, this scar is a flag of an idiot a complete idiot who shouldn't have-couldn't have-wouldn't be if he-oh, no, oh, no- and- and-
#
Hardison didn't remember passing out, but he must have, because losing his consciousness unwillingly was the only way he could have left Parker's side, and he was not by her side, and that was just- He has forgotten how to breathe. It wasn't possible. His whole world had actually fallen apart, and-
"Hey, you."
And just like that, Hardison could breathe again.
Parker's voice was apparently the pass code to his sanity.
"They had to sedate you." Parker shuffled up on the bed, pain blanching her face for a hateful second, until she settled on the pillows and turned her face to his. "Apparently you were worried about me."
"It's a character flaw," Hardison said. He was as hard-wired to use sarcasm to cover up the real flood of feelings battering at him as he was hard-wired to worry about Parker.
"You're such a silly billy." Parker's voice was muffled as she fought a yawn. "You shouldn't- shouldn't-"
"I should," Hardison said, turning his face to hers. She smiled wearily, and turned her face to the ceiling, her eyes fluttering shut.
"I couldn't sleep. After the surgery, I couldn't sleep. Not without you-" Her voice was gentle and disconnected, like someone sleep talking, but her fingers clutched into the blanket and Hardison remembered that. Remembered hurtling into her room after the doctor had barely finished suturing his head wound, and remembered the doctors talking and speculating about giving Parker something to help her sleep, and arguing about the amount she had been given for such a small person, and how she should be asleep. Hardison had knelt at her side, clung onto her hand, desperate to have proof that she was alive, that she was still breathing. It was then, only then, that Parker had fallen asleep.
He'd blanked thinking about it at the time, but it was a memory that might take the edge of some of the rawness of this day later.
"I want to sleep some more."
"I'm right here," Hardison said. "I told you. I'm right here, whenever you need me."
Parker's voice was quieter as she said, "You were talking about... pretzels." Sleep was claiming her again, but it didn't feel so hopeless.
Hardison slipped out of the hospital bed, ignored his pounding head, and took hold of her hand, trying not to think how small her hand was beneath his. "I wasn't," he admitted, but there was no sign she had heard. Her breathing was shallow and regular. She was asleep. She was asleep and she would heal. His fingers tightened around her hand. The machinery around him beeped, and beeped, but it wasn't annoying any more. Each one was a reminder that Parker was still alive, and Hardison would take as many moments of that as he could. He fell asleep naturally at last by her side, the beeps a lullaby singing him to sleep, a song that wound around him like a blanket, the most soothing chorus of all time that continued long after his eyes finally succumbed to sleep - each beep saying the same thing to Hardison even as he slept. Parker was alive. Parker was alive.
Parker was alive.