Fic: The Secret Waiter Job

[sunspot]

Eliot Spencer was being hailed as the hottest new thing on the food scene since the oven, and while that was great for business, Hardison didn't really see what the big deal was. Yeah, the food at Leverage looked good, but Hardison wasn't convinced by that alone. Seeing was not everything. It had to taste good too. Not that he could judge the taste; he hadn't eaten anything Spencer had cooked yet, and he was expecting it to be a few more years before he could afford to eat at Leverage on his own dime. But wait staff like him sometimes got asked to be guinea pigs for new dishes or got leftovers after a service, so he figured it was only a matter of time until he found out exactly what Spencer could do and if he lived up to any of the hype.

And Alec Hardison would be the first one to admit that he was a little weird about food.

That was why no one at Leverage knew he was in culinary school.

He didn't want to have that conversation -- the one he knew would inevitably turn into a fight. Everyone in the restaurant industry these days thought they knew better than anyone else and he wasn't prepared to measure his haute cuisine dick against that of some pretty-boy, wannabe-celebrity chef.

(Besides, Hardison thought, his metaphorical dick would probably be bigger, anyway. It was his knowledge of cuisine, and his lack of experience, that made him not want to join in the constant games of one-upmanship that seemed to go on everywhere around him, even among the wait staff.)

But whether the food was good or not, Spencer too was a little bit crazy when it came to his food. Hardison had never experienced it first hand, but some of the front of house staff that had been there longer claimed he was like Mount Vesuvius. Things would seem to be going well, lulling everyone into a false sense of security, until he exploded with no warning. And then Spencer destroyed everything in his path, leaving his victims no time to drop what they had been doing and run for their lives.

"I heard he used to kill people for the army," the barback whispered one Tuesday night before the dinner rush started.

"I heard he wasn't even in the army; he just did it for fun!"

One of the dish washers scurried past on her way back to the kitchen with a tray and added, "no, he was black ops."

"He was an enforcer for the Russian mafia--"

"He went to culinary school in Los Angeles and then moved back here when Sophie offered him the job," Nate said loudly, cutting them all off. He pointed threateningly with the edge of a menu. "Get to your stations, now. Service is about to start. Gossip if you must -- on your own time -- but leave Chef Spencer alone or one of you might end up in tomorrow's gumbo." The staff all hurried off to their proper places.

"You know, saying things like that doesn't really help the 'he kills people' rumours, right?" Hardison pointed out as he took the menu from Nate and headed for his first table. "Just sayin', boss." Hardison figured he got away with it because Nate liked him. He was quick and always managed to keep his tables happy when Nate was having a bad night, so he was allowed to get a smart ass comment in now and then.

For the most part, Hardison stayed out of everyone else's way. Working in a little, high-end restaurant like Leverage could be way too dramatic and emotional, and he didn't want to get sucked in.

--

Hardison took the subway home after a Saturday dinner service, and by the time he emerged on the surface and back into cell reception, he had a voicemail from Nate.

"Hey Hardison, one of the other waiters called in sick for tomorrow, so we're one down in the dining room. I know you've never worked a Sunday before, but if you want to come in tomorrow for five thirty, you can help unload the meat order and test Eliot's brunch dish, that would be great. Thanks!"

Sunday was supposed to be Hardison's one day off, his day for catching up on schoolwork and sleep. On the other hand, taste-testing the Sunday brunch special was considered a sacred duty at Leverage.

Chef Spencer handed out this extra duty with enough pomp and circumstance to make it seem like the keys to the Playboy Mansion and plenty of the wait staff would be perfectly willing to fight to the death for the privilege. Hardison had not been asked before and really, being so new, he hadn't been expecting an invitation. An order to get his ass in and cover a shift, sure, but not the rest of it.

Special brunch was the single most popular event at the restaurant, and last Friday, Hardison had even had served a table of people who had driven six hours that day to make sure they were in the city to be the first ones at the door on Sunday. They were so excited just talking about it that they'd left a forty dollar tip.

He quickly texted Nate back and told him he'd be there.

--

Twenty to five the next morning came way too early, but Hardison managed to haul himself into an upright position and into the kitchen. He brushed his teeth while he waited for his coffee to brew and poured two cups, steaming hot, down his throat with one hand while getting dressed with the other, like a boss. The bus was surprisingly close to being on time and despite the coffee, Hardison had to struggle to stay awake.

"The truck is ten minutes out," Nate told him when he came through the side door. "Ready for some heavy lifting?"

What Hardison was ready for was to curl up under the bar and sleep until next Tuesday, or at least until his coffee started to kick in, but he shrugged his assent, tossed his jacket over the nearest chair, and followed Nate and one of the lowly kitchen minions out into the back alley to wait for the meat truck.

There was someone already leaning against the back wall of the restaurant, waiting. She had her hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, and a serious expression on her face.

"Hardison, you know Parker, right? She's in charge of all the meats." Nate indicated the blonde on his right.

Hardison nodded to her, recalling the tiny rotisseur. "Hey. You're a little hard to recognize without your knives," he joked.

Blinking, Parker stared back at him. There was a long pause, before she finally replied, "I guess."

Nate smiled broadly and turned away to talk to the kitchen boy waiting with them.

"So... You like working here?" Hardison asked her. She was watching the end of the alley with rapt attention, but managed a nod.

"Cooking's fun. Getting paid is fun. You're a pretty chatty guy, huh?"

He shut up.

Hardison wasn't sure why he had even felt the need to press on in the first place. He blamed the fact that it was barely five thirty and he so wasn't a morning person. She was cute, but she was very clearly not interested. His Nana was always saying he needed to be more outgoing and personable. He was as charming as all get out, she said, but he needed to use it in a more constructive way. These days, Hardison was charming to his customers, because it meant getting better tips at the restaurant, and occasionally he'd try charming his teachers to get better grades in class. But the truth was, Hardison just wasn't that interested in making friends. He wanted to get through the rest of culinary school, he wanted to get to work doing what he loved most, but making friends was hardly a priority.

With his Nana's advice still rattling around in his head, Hardison gave Parker one of his most charming smiles, and was very happy to see her beaming back at him. He opened his mouth to say something witty and delightful, but then the refrigerated truck carrying the meat order pulled in and all her attention was off him.

"Don't take it too hard," Nate chuckled, coming back over and tossing Hardison a pair of heavy work gloves. "I kind of threw you to the wolves just there."

"Yeah, and wolves like raw meat about that much too, man," Hardison snorted. Parker was descending on the driver with the determination of a wild carnivore, demanding the order sheet and hounding him to open the truck.

"Meat, meat, meat, meat, meat, meat!"

"She's... She is very strange," Hardison said to Nate and Parker hauled the back of the truck open without waiting for the driver's help.

"Leverage is like that," Nate shrugged. "A-type personalities all around. A bunch of people who would never, ever work together... Working together. Welcome to the family."

Hardison pondered those words while he helped pull the order off the truck and get it stored in the cold walk-in. With four of them working at it, it had only taken half an hour to get everything settled away where it belonged.

"What now? How do Sundays even work? It's something different, right?" Hardison asked Nate.

"You've never worked a Sunday before? Oh, that's right! Walk with me." Hardison followed Nate through the kitchen and into a little office between the fridge and freezer. "Sundays are special at Leverage. Instead of a regular menu, it's a special plate, whatever the chef prepares that day. We don't take reservations for Sundays and we only serve fifty-six people -- the first fifty-six people to show up. And they pay well for the privilege of eating whatever Spencer comes up with. Tip well, too. It's pretty laid back and after we clean up, we're usually out of here before three in the afternoon."

"So, not a bad day then. What's Spencer making today?" Hardison jammed his hands in his pockets and tried to seem interested. The office was cold.

"I have no idea. He just got here, though, so let's go find out." Nate tacked the just-received order sheet to the cork board over the little desk and squeezed past Hardison back into the kitchen.

Going back into the kitchen was a bad idea, Hardison decided instantly. Not good at all.

Parker and the guy that Hardison could only assume was the famed, mysterious, and possibly-a-former-assassin Eliot Spencer, were toe-to-toe in the middle of the kitchen, shouting at each other. Apparently the noise in the office from being sandwiched between a refrigerator and freezer had blocked it out temporarily and they'd missed the beginning of the fight.

"What's going on?" Hardison asked, leaning in towards Nate.

"Usual kitchen drama. It'll blow over," Nate said. "Now, shh, you'll miss the best parts."

"I don't care," Spencer was saying. "When he's not here, you're the sous-chef, and that means I tell you what to do. And when I tell you what to do, you do it."

"I didn't take this job to stand around and humour you, Spencer. The dish sucks and you know it. I'll do whatever you tell me if you're not telling me to do dumb stuff." Parker's hand had clenched around the knife on the station closest to her.

Spencer turned to glare at Nate as if everything was his fault. "Do something about this, Nate, because I'm going to kill her."

Maybe Hardison wasn't used to this many A-type personalities, or maybe he just wasn't used to crazy people yelling at each other at ten after six in the morning, but either way he didn't want to be near angry people with knives. It was a self-preservation thing. He felt justified in it, too, when he saw the dish washer that had helped unload the meat truck was cowering behind the salad station. Hardison noticed at that point that he was pretty much trying to hide behind Nate.

"Sort her out," Spencer said, pointing threateningly at Parker again, who smiled serenely back at him. "I'm going for a smoke." He left, metaphorical storm clouds rolling out after him.

"Don't be an ass," Nate told Parker, patting her shoulder. "You know he stresses on Sundays."

"Nate, do you know what he wanted to cook? I saved the restaurant. He was --"

Nate breezed by her. "Not hearing it, Parker! You two sort it out and let me know what to write on the special board. I want food up in ninety minutes. Hardison, give him two minutes then go out there and drag him back in, okay?" Nate left the kitchen through the swinging blue doors and left Hardison standing in front of Parker, who was still holding the knife.

He smiled uncomfortably. "So, uh... This happen often?"

"Pretty much whenever Sterling doesn't show up, which yeah, is often enough." Parker nodded to him and wandered back over to her station. There was a mound of rabbit carcasses in front of her and she carved the meat off them perfectly. Hardison felt a little thrill run through him. It was either terror or arousal; he couldn't quite tell.

"You should go get the boss," she reminded him. "We have to get started on brunch." Hardison replayed her words as he headed for the door, but he couldn't find any trace of sarcasm or resentment. Based on her words and tone, it seemed like she was fully over the fight and excited to get cooking. Hopefully Spencer's mood would be just as changed.

"Hey," Hardison said when he poked his head around the receiving door into the alley. "Don't shoot the messenger or nothing, but Nate says he wants food up in an hour and a half."

"Nate can go fuck himself," Spencer said bitterly. "I cannot handle having that woman as my second on Sundays. Any other day, sure, I can ignore her, but not today." He looked up and scowled at Hardison. "And who the hell are you?"

"Alec Hardison," Hardison said. "I'm a waiter."

"Are you new?" Spencer seemed to be squinting from his seat on the pavement. He stood and pulled the door all the way open, getting a better look.

"New-ish. Started about three weeks ago."

"And Nate's already throwing you in the middle of kitchen fights. Wow. He must really like you or really hate you." They stared at each other and just when Hardison was getting uncomfortable and wondering why the chef hadn't moved or said anything, he spoke again. "So, Hardison, you wanna get out of my way so I can go do my job?"

Hardison jumped like he'd been struck by lightning, remembering all too vividly the wide eyes and hushed tones the phrases black ops, killed people for fun, and secret government program to genetically engineer super-soldiers had been whispered in. "Sorry, Chef!"

Spencer laughed out loud and walked back into the restaurant. "Okay, maybe you're not completely stupid," he said as he passed. Hardison would later pin point that as the exact moment his extremely ill-timed, inappropriate crush on Chef Spencer began.
--

In the dining room, Hardison helped Nate rearrange the tables for Sunday brunch.

They moved several of the tables from the centre of the room to the edges, blocking off the booths that ran along one wall. The remaining tables were dragged to the middle of the dining room and artfully arranged. Ever the annoying perfectionist, Nate made him stop three or four times to go back to move a table he had just spent ten minutes getting exactly into the place Nate thought he had wanted it in to begin with.

"You're taking this way too seriously," he told Nate. He could feel himself breaking a sweat, which unless he was in the kitchen, slaving over a hot stove, was his least favourite thing in the history of the universe. "I'm not sure I can keep working with you," Hardison warned, shifting the table half an inch to the left.

"Shh, move that one about four inches forward and we should be set." Hardison hauled the table in question forward five and half inches, but Nate didn't correct him.

"Great!" Nate said instead. "Thanks, Hardison. Now go and get us table cloths and I'll mix up a few pitchers of mimosas. Eliot should have his first dish up any second so we can try it, and if it's good, brunch is on at ten and we'll all be fantastically charming to the customers and live happily ever after."

Nate hurried off before Hardison could ask exactly how many of those pitchers of mimosas were for Nate himself. "I'm on to you, Nate," Hardison muttered before fetching the table cloths.

Once he had all the tables decked out in white and blue with the centerpieces and neatly tucked in chairs, he did have to admit they looked pretty good.

"Here," Nate said, coming up behind him and slipping a glass into his hand. "Don't tell."

The mimosa was perfect and Hardison was not surprised that Nate was a fantastic bartender. He knew the drinks menu like the back of his hand, maybe even a little better than a regular house manager might.

"Hey!" Parker shouted to them, leaning out of the kitchen. "Come in here and try this." They bustled into the kitchen where Chef Spencer was putting the final garnish on a plate.

"Tell me what you think," he said, pointing to the plate with a handful of forks. Hardison wasn't sure what he was supposed to do. They had tasting sessions like these at school, but no one was ever honest. Everyone lied through clenched teeth and then talked shit behind each other's back to avoid screaming matches and thrown punches. Better to let the competition think they'd done well and have the real world crush their spirits.

"Not bad," Parker said, leaning over the plate and scooping up a mouthful with her fingers. "Glad today wasn't a total loss. Dressing on the salad is too lemon-y though." She turned and went back to whatever she was doing.

Spencer rolled his eyes hard enough that it seemed to hurt him a little bit. "Anyone else?" The dish washer was nowhere to be found, so Hardison stepped up and took a fork.

"May I ask what it is?" he said, glancing at the plate. It appeared to be a frittata, which was definitely alright by him, with some kind of Mediterranean chickpea salad. He tried the salad first, which really was a little heavy on the lemon, then the frittata, which was incredible.

"Oh, this is good," Nate said, taking a big bite. "What's in it?"

Hardison waved his hand in the traditional 'shut your noise hole' motion and took another forkful of the frittata. "This is good," he said. "The asparagus is perfect, not limp at all. And what is that? Mascarpone? No, ricotta, right?"

"Yeah..." Spencer said, watching Hardison closely. He seemed pleased that Hardison liked it, which was a bit of a surprise. The Chef Spencer that Hardison had expected was definitely a gloater.

"And, what, like, lemongrass? It's delicious." Hardison batted Nate's fork out of the way with his own.

"You can tell there's lemongrass?" Spencer was obviously impressed, but Hardison didn't seem to notice because he was fighting Nate for the last scrap.

"Sure," he said around a mouth of food.

"Cool."

--

"Ricotta and asparagus frittata with a Mediterranean lemon-chickpea salad," said one of the little old blue-haired ladies at Hardison’s first table, reading from Nate’s fancy menu board. "That sounds lovely on a nice summer's day. That young Chef Spencer really can cook."

"Now, Hilda, wait until we try it."

"Oh, you won't be disappointed," Hardison assured them, setting down their mimosas. When he thought about, he could still faintly taste the food on his tongue and it made him grin. For all the rumours and talk, Chef Spencer cooked a damn good brunch.

Realizing that Chef Spencer had the talent to back up his reputation could also arguably have been the moment in time when Hardison's inappropriate workplace crush started.

"I'm sure we won't," said Hilda, winking suggestively. Hardison smiled as politely as he could, and all but dashed off to greet his next table.

Brunch was way less stressful than any other shift at Leverage and Nate had been right when he said people tipped well. Almost every person he served had great things to say about the meal and gave regards to the chef. The shift passed quick and soon, the dining room was empty and they were wiping off the last few tables by two.

"Good service, guys," Nate said to Hardison and the other waitress. "Thanks for all your help."

Hardison was slipping his jacket on and rummaging through his pockets for his iPod when Spencer came through the kitchen doors wiping his hands on his apron.

"Hey, Chef," Hardison said, catching his attention.

"Call me Eliot. If you want. We had some extra and you seemed to really like it, so here." He thrust a takeout container in Hardison's direction.

Hardison peeked into the container and grinned when he saw enough food to last four breakfasts (or three quarters of one ride home on the subway). "Thanks, man. Just wanted to tell you that you got a lot of compliments from the tables today."

"Yeah? Thanks," Eliot said with another winning smile. "I'm glad Parker finally shut up and let me cook."

"Yeah, what was that all about?" Hardison asked, glancing around quickly to make sure Parker wasn't anywhere where she could overhear and jump out at them with a knife. "I thought that that dish was... Amazing, actually. Why did she think it sucked so much?"

Eliot sighed. "Uhh. She was right. The first dish I was going to make did suck. That frittata was a stroke of genius after the fact."

"Wow, a hot, young chef touting his own brilliance is normal, but in the same sentence as admitting one of his dishes was a flop... That's probably one for the record books." Hardison tried to keep his expression mild, but ended up grinning instead.

"Yeah, you think it's funny? Alright, give me that back then," Eliot said, making to grab the leftovers from him, but Hardison danced out of his way.

"Thanks, Chef Eliot," Hardison said, still beaming. "See you next week!"

--

Somehow, through an enormous effort of will, Hardison managed not to eat all the leftovers on his way home, or his early morning study session in the library. He saved one mouth-watering leftover frittata to take with him when he went to class.

"Alec, you'll be working with Greta at station six," boomed the overenthusiastic chef in charge of teaching them their intro baking class. Hardison groaned inwardly, cursing his beyond lousy luck, and dragged himself over to station six. It was probably the best station in the room, located at the ideal distance from the supplies and without the awful draft from the broken window, but he was stuck with Greta, arguably the worst possible partner.

Greta was incompetent, irritating, and above all, one of those rich, entitled students that he tried to avoid. It was entirely possible that on some level, she was a nice person, but Hardison found her nasal, high-pitched voice annoying beyond a level of annoyance any mortal human should be capable of achieving without serious chemical help. And Hardison secretly was pretty sure she didn't actually know which end of a whisk to use.

They started their genoise recipe and Hardison subtly tried to test his 'which whisk way wins' theory, but Greta kept slipping through his net. She also didn't stay at their damn station, instead she flitted around the room, gossiping with others and fluttering her hands like a wildly annoying hummingbird. Hardison finished the assignment all on his own, and once the station was tidied up and the genoise was in the oven, Hardison snagged a stool and pulled out the last of his frittata. He took a big bite, and set out to enjoy a few moments of peace before Greta came fluttering back to annoy him some more.

"Hey, where did you get that?" she asked, already hanging over his shoulder and reaching out to poke his food. "It looks good. I'm hungry. Me and some of the girls were just talking about that. We're going to go out for dinner after class, somewhere in the city. Want to come with us?"

Hardison turned around and glared, purposely pulling his food out of her reach and curling an arm protectively around it. "No, thanks, I work tonight."

"Oh, that sucks that you have to work. I didn't know you had a job. Why don't your parents just give you money? Where do you work?"

Hardison felt the capillaries in his eyes threatening to rupture at the pitch of her voice. Just like he didn't want to start an argument or invite mockery and scorn from people at work if they knew he was studying to be a chef, he didn't want the people he went to school with to know he was working as a waiter.

The school was the best in the area, one of the best in the country even, and it's students were the cream of the crop -- the future Michelin-Star-winning, James-Beard-Awardees, executive chef cum restaurateurs of the world. He really wasn't prepared to explain to them why he wasn't working in the kitchen. Hardison liked his job, he liked not having any stress put on him when he was serving on the floor, and he really wasn't sure they'd be very understanding.

"Uhhh. I do. Uh, landscaping?" he lied, wincing at his own tone. It sounded more like a lie than he would have liked, but fortunately, Greta was a self-absorbed as she was useless with a whisk (now fully proven in a fake scientific experiment conducted under a flimsy premise by someone with very little working knowledge of the scientific process) and she didn't seem to notice.

"Oh, like golf courses and stuff? That's cool; maybe next time you can come with us."

"Maybe." He hedged, not wanting to commit to spending an entire evening with her or her friends, but not willing to start a fight over it. The timer went off on the counter and he rushed over to check the oven.

--

Despite having Greta for a partner, and the headache her voice gave him, the genoise turned out pretty damn good.

--

Back in the old days, the other front of house staff told him, Mondays used to be the quieter night; a couple regulars, the odd blind date, maybe a small, private party out for dinner. But with all the good press and word of mouth Leverage had been getting, it was just as crazy as any other week day.

"Just sat eight at eleven," Nate said when Hardison slipped past him at the bar to get a pitcher of water for a cute trio of girls in booth six.

"Sure," Hardison said, barely missing a beat. He dropped the water at table six with a wink and a promise to come right back and swung around to greet table eleven.

Before he got there, his heart threatened to stop and he felt his stomach lurch with sudden nausea. Table eleven was Greta and a group of other students in their class.

Fuck, Hardison thought, fear coiling in his chest.

Instead of actually greeting them, he put his drink tray in front of his face and marched right by without slowing down until he got to the waitress in the next section. "Kathy, take table eleven for me."

"Hey, I don't --"

"Anything. Anything you want ever, just take them. And don't let them see me."

She crossed her arms over her chest and stared expectantly. "Story. Now. And hurry."

Hardison gave her his best pleading eyes, which he knew for a fact were more heartrending than those of sad puppy. "Make up whatever story you want, just take the damn table."

Kathy patted his arm consolingly. "I'll save your ass this time, Alec, but you owe me."

"My ass thanks you," he assured her.

Hardison took lengths for the next hour and a half to avoid that table, to never be facing it head on and to duck behind the strategically placed potted plants when someone from the table got up. If any of his other tables noticed his strange behaviour, they were too wrapped up in their meals to mention it. From behind a tall rubber tree, he watched Kathy set down their desserts and wondered when his life had become such a cartoon.

He deemed it safe to scurry by the table to pick up more drinks at the bar, but he was only halfway there, right out in the open, when Greta got up from the table and headed for the bathrooms, a trip that would take her right by him.

A trip that would ultimately end in her figuring out that his definition of 'landscaping' wasn't the same as everyone else's. A trip that would end in him being the laughingstock of his program, singled out as a poor schmuck who was working as a simple waiter, not even in the kitchen of one of the most popular restaurants in the city. They would probably think that he wasn't good enough to work in the kitchen, and had settled on a job as a waiter. They'd make fun of him behind his back, or worse, to his face. Too much drama, thanks very much.

Hardison had two options for not getting caught. Option one was to duck into the kitchen and hope he made it back out with all his fingers if he ran into angry cooks who didn't like wait staff in the kitchen during service (something certain senior wait staff claimed to have witnessed at Leverage before). Option two was to jump into the closest booth and end up half in some lady's lapin a la cocotte and half in her very generous bosom.

Not wanting to face a sexual harassment lawsuit, and willing to risk his extremities and feeling ninja-fast enough to avoid the knives if he needed too, Hardison ducked into the kitchen.

While the kitchen was busy, nobody even looked up to notice he'd walked in. Making sure to stand out of the way, Hardison channelled his inner Donna Noble and peeked out the big, round window. He ended up waiting a good sixty seconds after Greta had passed before re-emerging into the dining room.

Feeling really edgy, Hardison dropped off a few cheques at various tables, keeping one eye on the bathroom doors and ready to spring back into the kitchen at the first sign of movement. He ducked out of Greta's line of sight as she came out, and after a short eternity the group began to get ready to leave.

Finally, they went out the door, and Hardison heaved a sigh of relief to see them go. His heart rate slowly began to return to something like normal.

"Gee, thanks, Alec." Kathy said sarcastically when she caught up with him at the end of the dinner service.

Hardison already knew the answer, but he asked anyways. "What, was eleven really that bad?"

"Six percent tip? Yeah, even a table of dead monkeys would have tipped better than six percent," Kathy said viciously angry. "But through the whole service, they kept asking me like, five hundred questions about whatever, and harassing me every nine seconds. Not to mention how rude their comments were! Seriously, they're lucky Spencer didn't hear the shit they were talking about his food, or they would not have made it to the 'leaving a crappy tip' section of the night." The normally bubbly waitress looked ready to hurt someone.

"I'm really sorry. Table fourteen just left me a great tip so I'll share, if you want. I just... I really couldn't serve them." He showed her how nice of a tip fourteen had actually left him, offering her one of his twenties.

"Aww, kid," she smirked at him. "I'm not going to take your money. You're paying your way through computer school or something, right?"

Hardison nodded. It was culinary school, not computer school, but he was paying his own way through and she had said 'or something', so it wasn't even like he was really lying.

"Okay, so I'm just going to make up an elaborate story about why you couldn't help them, something with mafia dons, blood debts, and international diamond smugglers, and then next time I have a toddler, I'm going to give you that table, okay?"

Hardison sighed, but nodded his agreement. He didn't particularly like working with the disgusting, incessantly talking, sticky-handed, clumsy toddlers. They were the bane of his existence, actually, because they always spilled stuff and needed him to bring them a new booster seat, cried in the middle of the service, and were the only human beings who could resist his charm. And they never tipped. "You drive a hard bargain, Kathy, but I guess turnabout is fair play. Make sure there are also ninjas in that story."

Kathy laughed and waved good night.

"Ninjas? I like ninjas."

Hardison turned around to see Eliot coming out of the kitchen much like the day before, pulling a scruffy looking hoodie over his tee shirt.

"Well, who doesn't like ninjas? Shouldn't you be cleaning up in there or something?" Hardison asked, nodding towards the kitchen.

Eliot shrugged. "Ehh, I was in four hours early today. Means I get to leave early. Also, I'm pretty much the boss."

"Right," Hardison said, with a jaunty nod. "There's that."

"I saw you hiding out in the kitchen earlier," Eliot said, heading over to the bar and grabbing a glass from the top rack. "What was that all about?"

"Oh..." Hardison felt awkward talking about it, especially because he knew how childish the whole thing was. "Just some people I really didn't want to have to see."

Eliot laughed. "Oh, man, bad break up or something? I've been there, man."

The reasons Hardison didn't correct him were two-fold. First, a crazy ex was a much better reason than anything he would have come up with, even with the lack of ninjas in that explanation. Second, Eliot's entire face lit up when he laughed, and it made Hardison's mouth go dry and he literally couldn't make the correction.

"Do you want a drink?" Eliot asked, still smiling. "Bar-tending isn't my strong suit, but I do a fairly decent ice water."

Hardison's stomach was still turning a little too quickly for his liking when Eliot handed him a glass.

"Okay," Eliot said, turning to face Hardison head on. "So, do you like working here?"

Hardison nodded without hesitation. Eliot had just finished reminding him that he was the boss, so Hardison felt it prudent to not say something that could get him fired, even if Eliot was only being politely inquisitive.

"You're here almost every night, aren't you?"

He nodded again. "I need the money for school."

"Do you have school tomorrow?"

Hardison regarded him closely for a second, trying to figure out why that was something Eliot needed to know.

"Yeah," he said finally. "At ten."

Eliot drained his water and set to work refilling it, not looking at Hardison at all. "Alright. Do you want to come home with me?"

It was only some really well timed choking on an ice cube that saved Hardison from having to answer right away. Eliot had evidently never heard of 'beating around the bush.' He might not have ever even heard of the bush itself. Well, given the nonchalance of his proposition, he probably knew about certain types of bush. Not that he had actually indicated he meant casual sex. Maybe he just got a new flat screen tv and wanted company to watch the game.

"Well, I mean," Eliot continued, still cool as an Arctic cucumber, "That is, if you're interested in guys. It's not everyone's thing. I just thought I'd offer." He leaned against the bar and waited for Hardison to respond.

Hardison tried not to stare, but since the guy possibly just offered him no-strings-attached sex, Hardison had to stare just a little. Eliot wasn't really doing anything, just leaning on the bar and sipping occasionally from a water glass, but holy hell, did he make it look good. He was all muscled arms perfectly tousled hair that put Hardison in mind of what his hair would look first thing in the morning.

"Is there some kind of sporting thing on tonight?" Hardison asked, because he was starting to think that maybe Eliot had meant 'come over and have sex with me.'

Eliot shrugged. "Don't you have TiVo? I thought everyone had TiVo now."

That was obviously enough of an argument for Hardison, because he agreed a lot more impulsively than he had thought he would. "Yeah," he said, taking in the way Eliot's smile spread across his face, slowly, like he was looking forward to having Hardison in his house. In his bed. Whatever. "Okay."

--

They left quickly then, and Hardison was pleasantly surprised to find that Eliot lived in a back apartment behind a shoe store only four blocks away from Leverage.

"Shit, shit, I'm sorry, give me five minutes," Eliot said when they reached the door. Hardison wasn't sure what had suddenly curbed Eliot's enthusiasm. He checked to make sure he didn't smell too funky while Eliot fiddled with the key in the lock, but he thought he smelled fine. His hygiene-related worry was evaporated in an instant once the door opened, however, when a wiry haired dog flew out of the darkened hallway at them, jumping excitedly.

"Sorry," Eliot said again over his shoulder, pushing the dog back into the apartment with his knee and groping for a light switch as he went. "Make yourself comfortable, I need to take her out."

Hardison stood awkwardly in the hall, not sure what 'make yourself comfortable' was supposed to mean when entering a stranger's house for the first time with the sole intention of a hook up. He had very little life experience to draw from at this point. He looked around.

From the little hallway, he could see a closed door in front of him and a closed door to his right. To his left was an empty door frame leading to another room. The room through the doorway was dimly lit, just enough to make out a messy stack of papers on a low table and the arm of an overstuffed chair. Hardison considered going in and sitting down, but he was still not one hundred percent sure what he was supposed to be doing. He kicked off his shoes because it seemed like the safest bet.

"This is comfortable?" Eliot asked, amused, appearing behind him with the still very hyper looking dog.

Hardison crossed his arms defensively. "Sure. So, uh..." He trailed off when the dog started licking his pants. He stared down at it.

"Hey, Avis, no. Not a dog person?" Eliot tried to shoo the dog, but she must have thought it was a game because she jumped up on Hardison and barked excitedly at his elbows.

"No, they're fine, it's just..."

"What, I don't seem like an animal lover?"

They weren't at work anymore, so Hardison shrugged one shoulder and nodded. "Not really, man. You know they say you sometimes kill people, right?"

Eliot snorted back a laugh. "They say Nate's a Freemason, too, so there you go. For your information, I like animals just fine. Avis normally doesn't notice I'm home 'til I've been here for an hour. She's fourteen and starting to get arthritis and shit, right. She must like you."

Hardison patted the dog on the head a few times to prove he wasn't a crazy dog-hater, but then she turned and disappeared through the open door way. "Perfect," Eliot said. Before Hardison could ask, Eliot pushed him through the door on the other side of the hallway and shut it behind them.

"Hey, what --" Hardison said, and then Eliot was kissing him which effectively answered his mostly-unspoken question at that point. Definitely not bad at all, Hardison decided after a few long moments of kissing. They ended up on the unmade bed a few seconds later and got right down to the business of biting at collarbones and pawing at the front of dress pants.

"Wait, wait, hang on," Hardison breathed, pushing Eliot off of him and leaning up on his elbows. "Condoms?" He expected Eliot to fumble at the bedside table or rummage around for a secret, hidden shoe box of porn like he denied having in his own bedroom, but Eliot produced some as if from thin air, just as graceful and easy as anything else Hardison has seen him do.

Admittedly, that hasn't been a lot. Didn't you just meet this man? said a stuffy little part of Hardison's mind.

Nothing wrong with healthy expressions of human sexuality between consenting adults, you prude, said another part, arching imaginary eyebrows and judging the first part harshly for being uptight.

Hardison considered, then quickly discarded, the idea that maybe he wasn't normal. Hardison, can you shut up please? He's taking off his shirt. I need to focus.

Eliot was working on his belt while Hardison tried to pry his eyes away from the little trail of hair leading down Eliot's abs. "What?" Eliot asked, when he looked up and caught Hardison staring. Hardison shook his head with nothing to say. Eliot laughed softly and reached for the hem of Hardison's button up shirt.

"Would it be cheesy if I told you I've been thinking about doing this for a while now?" Eliot asked, stripping Hardison's shirt away with less difficulty than Hardison would have imagined.

"Yes," Hardison told him. Eliot laughed again, pressing their mouths together sloppily. Hardison laughed too, because it was infectious and Eliot was a really good kisser. But Hardison had some skills of his own, snaking one hand between their bodies to work at the button on Eliot's pants while he bit at Eliot's bottom lip to see what would happen. What happened was Eliot groaned and bit back and then ended up in a sexy power struggle.

"Nice," Eliot said, smirking when they finally came apart again and Hardison had his hand down Eliot's pants.

Hardison and Eliot reached for the fly of Hardison's pants at the same time, which created a moment of awkward fumbling and tangled fingers. After a second, Hardison leaned back and let Eliot undress him. It gave him an extra few seconds to ogle long stretches of bare skin and taut muscle and wonder if maybe this was happening too fast. They were both in their underwear then, a natural break in the action.

Hardison took a deep breath, steadying himself and before he could open his mouth to ask where they were going to go from there, Eliot pushed him back down, burying them both deep into the duvet. Hardison shut out the part of his brain that was feeling awkward and thinking it was a bad idea to sleep with his boss. It was difficult to focus with rasp of skin on skin all around, making him tense up in anticipation just from the sound of it. Hardison relaxed under Eliot's exploring fingers and tried some exploring of his own.

Running his hands down Eliot's bare skin was thrilling in its own way, partly because it had been a while since he had touched another naked body and Eliot was all

When Hardison licked into Eliot's mouth and focused, he tasted vanilla and cloves. He thought it was a little weird, but then he remembered he was fucking a chef and that it should leave a good taste and he laughed at the thought.

"What?" Eliot asked, drawing back suddenly and looking at Hardison like he was crazy. While Hardison tried hard to stave off a fit of laughter, he thought maybe he was crazy.

"Nothing, no, I'm cool." He bit his lip, tasting Eliot again and tried not to smile. Eliot's 'what the fuck, man?' look got even more pointed and Hardison knew he was making his 'I am trying not to laugh in your perfect face' look, which someone once told him looked like the expression you would find on a children's drawing of an animal that couldn't decide if it was a horse or a platypus.

"Okay, what is it?" Eliot asked, reaching for a lamp by the bed. He turned it on and sudden flood of light made them both flinch. Once Hardison had blinked off the initial front line attack on his eyes, he saw that Eliot was two feet away and looking like he was about to throw Hardison out. "Are you laughing at me?"

Hardison blinked, eyes still watering, and tried to frame the words to explain how his mental process did or did not work. "Ever have thoughts that are really funny but you could never explain them because then the guy you're trying to hook up with would probably think you're crazy or high or both and throw you out and fire you without giving you your pants back?"

Eliot stared. "... No."

"Well, I'm having one of those moments," Hardison said, tone edging into 'meek' territory. "If it helps, I think you're upsettingly attractive."

Eliot stared some more, expression still hard, then very subtly preened for just a fraction of a second. It would have been unnoticeable except that Hardison had been staring quite closely since his eyes had readjusted after the Devastating Lamp Event of Ninety Seconds Ago. Eliot was hot, sure, but what made it upsetting was that he was Hardison's boss and by some accounts, a total player and the kind of pretty-boy celebrity chef Hardison was generally against.

"You better be crazy and not high, or I'd have to fire you," Eliot warned, poking Hardison in the shoulder until he laid back down. "Try and not do that again."

"I won't," Hardison said. He didn't know exactly what had just happened other than the fact that his ability to be utterly charming without trying to had once again saved his ass. And scored him some nice ass, which he squeezed just a little. Eliot laughed into the crook of his neck and arched into Hardison's hand before reaching for the condom again.

Hardison had had a pretty wide array of awkward moments in his life. All were topped by that moment in bed with someone new and everything is going almost-not-totally horrible after one bad faux pas and one Lighting Cue From Hell, when all of the sudden neither was sure which part was supposed to go where. They'd evidently had the same thought at the same time and knocked into each other when they both tried to move accordingly. Truly a new level of awkward. Olympic gold medal winning awkward, even, if men's doubles awkward moment making was a medal event.

The resulting staring match obviously didn't last as long as Hardison thought it had, because he was pretty sure he heard entire empires rise then crumble outside the bedroom door while they tried to silently figure out who was going to take which position. Finally, a whole second and a half later, Eliot pushed the condom into Hardison's hand and gave him the classic 'your move, buddy' look.

He gave himself a mental thumbs up because things seemed to be happening, which was a big improvement from the awkward moment that had just happened, but then Hardison realized Eliot had just basically given him complete creative control over this situation and so now he could effectively be blamed if anything went awful.

Thank Grilled-Cheesus neither of us can wind up pregnant, Hardison thought, but other than that just about anything else could go terribly, horribly wrong and it would all be on his head. Often one to back down, panicking and throwing things, from a challenge, Hardison decided he ought to man up at least once in his life. He took a steadying breath and took off his underwear, his last piece of clothing standing between him and possible total-sexy-failure, in one clumsy movement. Then he made a motion indicating he would very much like Eliot to do the same.

Because really, what was more manly than two dudes naked, in the same bed, touching their penises together? It was basically the manliest thing. Hardison pinched himself in the thigh, hard, to keep from breaking out into nervous laughter at that thought because this time he was sure he was going to get thrown out on his ass.

Once Hardison had naked Eliot and on his hands and knees, the blood started flowing away from his brain. There were a few moments of hissed curse words and clumsy lubrication, but then the more primal, animal parts of Hardison's brain took over. He called it 'sexy caveman autopilot'.

"Do you, uhh... Do you want me to leave?" Hardison asked when everything was said and done and he was lying in the wet spot on the bed, trying to catch his breath.

"You live nearby?" Eliot asked.

"No. About forty minutes from here."

"Fuck that. Just stay if you want, man. But stay on that side of the bed," Eliot said, all seriousness and business time pointing finger.

"This side? Aww, but this side has the wet spot. I didn't even make the wet spot. This is your wet spot."

Eliot scoffed and rolled out of bed, kicking stuff around on the floor until he found some laundry appropriate to wipe himself clean with. "Your oh-so-considerate reach around made that wet spot, so you're the one who gets to sleep in it." He balled up the tee shirt he was using as a towel and tossed it to Hardison.

"Thanks," Hardison said dryly, patting himself down.

"See, I can be considerate too," Eliot smiled. It was probably sarcastic as hell, but it was the same smile that Hardison was sure should be outlawed. He felt his face go hot, so he rolled over and faced the wall.

He must have fallen asleep, because when he heard the alarm on his phone going off, sunlight was streaming through the window. Hardison fumbled above his head to find the thing and when he finally looked up, a wide pair of blue eyes were staring at him.

"Damn!" he yelped, sitting up. Avis barked back at him, wagging her stubby tail happily. Hardison fought to sit up with the dog over his lap, but he managed it. "Hi, doggy," he said, glancing around. The space on the bed next to him was empty and the bedroom door was open.

"Sorry, is she bugging you?" Eliot called from somewhere else in the apartment. "Sometimes she gets her nose places it shouldn't be."

"No, I... What?"

Eliot's face appeared around the edge of the doorway, freshly scrubbed and hair pulled back. "There's food," he said. "But I think Avis lost one of your shoes because I only see one out there."

Hardison got out of bed, feeling a little strange being naked in front of a dog. He covered his most naked parts with a hand while he struggled into his pants. The scruffy dog watched him with her head cocked and whatever the dog equivalent to a perv-smile was.

Once he was dressed, he followed the amazing smells out into the hall, through the open doorway into room cluttered with three stuffed bookcases, an old, beat up leather couch and a matching chair. Beyond that, Hardison could see into a tiny kitchen. "I think your dog thinks I'm hot," he told Eliot when he walked into the room.

While Eliot took a moment to turn around and stare blankly at yet another strange thing coming out of Hardison's mouth, Hardison sized up the kitchen. The room wasn't laid out well, the lighting was terrible and the floor was a little dingy, but all the appliances looked relatively new and well cared for. And something smelled fantastic. Hardison considered crawling into the oven to find out what it was.

"What's cooking?" he asked instead, hoping the answer would be 'food you can eat', which was always his favourite answer to that question.

"Wheat free, gluten free tuna biscuits and scrambled eggs with turkey bacon. Grab three plates from the cupboard over the sink." Hardison hurried to get the plates so he could hurry to get the food in him.

"Wait, three?" Eliot nodded without looking up from the frying pan of eggs. He served up the three plates quickly and handed one to Hardison before setting one on the floor.

Hardison didn't realize until the dog came flying into the room and barked happily at the plate.

"You cook for your dog?"

Eliot shrugged. "Problem with that? I cook for strangers. At least I like my dog."

Hardison shook his head. "No, that's..." He didn't say 'completely adorable', because that would have been asking for awkwardness or a punch in the nose. "She barks a lot, doesn't she?"

Apparently content to let him off the hook, Eliot just leaned down to pet the dog and smiled fondly. "She's quite the talker. Now eat before the eggs go cold."

So Hardison ate and even though he knew now it was basically dog food, it was damn good. The eggs were fluffy, the biscuit was fish-a-riffic without being too fishy and the bacon had crisped perfectly even though turkey bacon was the most flaccid of the breakfast meats.

"Thanks, uh... For the food," Hardison said once his plate was clear and he was sure there wasn't any more turkey bacon hiding somewhere where he could still sink his teeth into it. Thanking someone for food was normal but thanking someone for sex was creepy, which was why he had made the distinction.

"No problem," Eliot said, showing Hardison to the door. "Have a nice day at school." He smirked. "See you at the restaurant."

--

Hardison jogged to the nearest bus stop feeling weirdly at peace with the world, even after he missed the bus by all of eighteen seconds and had to wait twenty minutes in the blinding morning sun for the next one.

Class went by in a blur and someone commented that he was wearing the same clothes as the day before, which raised eyebrows for multiple reasons. Hardison grinned like a cat with a canary and stirred some crème fraiche into his soup without a word.

"You're in, like, a really good mood," Greta pointed out to him when they were paired up again in baking class.

"Yeah, I guess," he said, measuring butter and trying not to grate his teeth every time she opened her mouth.

"How do you think you did on the sanitation midterm?" she asked, leaning forward across the cooking table and taking his book from where he was trying to follow along. "Is this what we're making? Brioche? It looks kind of boring. Do you want to change the recipe? Are we even allowed to do that? I think we should."

Hardison set his measuring cup down and looked up at her. "I know you're trying hard, but you can't put me in a bad mood," he told her. He took his book back.

"I am an unstoppable baking genius today," Hardison proclaimed loudly to the whole classroom. "Black Jesus himself could not ruin this brioche."

Hardison reflected later that it was a miracle he was not struck down by cosmic laser beams on the spot and even more of a miracle that he and Greta scored perfect on their brioche. He really did feel like an unstoppable genius.

Unfortunately, someone very wise one said that there is a fine line between genius and madness. And that's exactly what that evening's dinner service at Leverage turned out to be.

--

Hardison was at the host stand, stashing a few menus when a polite female voice asked, "table for one, please. Something out of the way."

"I'm sorry," he said automatically, glancing at the seating chart on the stand without even looking at the woman. "We're full for the night. You can check back tomorrow or book a reservation."

"Are you sure?" the woman said. She didn't sound angry, exactly, more genuinely confused as to why the most popular restaurant in the state didn't have room for her.

Hardison tried not to let his aggravation show, but Kathy had exacted her revenge and passed off a table with a toddler. Who had almost immediately dumped a glass of milk on Hardison's shoes. Now his shoes smelled like rancid milk and his socks still went skoosh when he took a step. He was not in a good mood.

"Look, I'm really sorry, but we're full." He gave the woman a pointed look and held her stare for a few moments. Until he recognized her. The wildly famous, very gorgeous, exceedingly talented Sophie Devereaux, world renown actress, four time winner of Maxim's 'Hottest Lady Over 25' contest and owner of the restaurant he had just told her she wasn't allowed in to.

"Hi boss," he said after a moment, hoping it came off as cool and nonchalant as he was imagining it.

Sophie smiled, still the picture of elegance and refinement. "So, a table just opened up, did it?"

"You know, I think it did. Do you mind waiting at the bar for two minutes while I make it presentable?"

"Thank you," she said, still smiling in the way Hardison could only imagine had brought down kings and angels both. He wasn't sure why he was noticing smiles so much more than normal lately, but he made the conscious effort not the think about sleeping with another one of his bosses. That would only lead to unhappiness and lost severance pay.

Kathy helped him clear a table and he sat Sophie with a little extra flourish to hopefully make up for trying to brush her off in the first place. She ordered immediately and Hardison went to the kitchen to put in her order personally instead of hanging it on the wheel and hoping it came out right. He handed the order off to the creepy sous-chef with express instructions not to screw it up and potentially cost Hardison his job, and started a hasty retreat from the kitchen.

"What's wrong?" Parker asked when she saw him just about to leave. "You look like you saw a ghost. Did you see an actual ghost?" She sounded hopeful.

"Uhh, Sophie Devereaux is here. I just wanted to put her order in."

Parker grinned and dropped her knife so that the point stuck in the wooden cutting board and vibrated there like a cartoon. "That's way better than a ghost!" she said excitedly, tugging on the knife handle.

"Sophie is awesome. Do you know what it means if she's here?" Hardison shook his head. "It means party time! And you can come," she added as an afterthought.

He wasn't sure what she was talking about in the slightest. "Good?"

"Yeah, you're usually pretty talkative. I like that when I've been drinking."

Hardison walked back out of the kitchen, not sure what he had just gotten himself into.

Luckily, the rest of the night passed without further incident. Hardison was putting the last chair onto the last table in his section when Nate came over to him. "Thanks for keeping your cool tonight," he said. "I saw that kid drop the milk on you. A weaker waiter would have had a meltdown right then."

Hardison shrugged it off, but was beaming on the inside. "No big deal, Nate. Just doing my job."

"You want to stick around for a drink with me and some of the kitchen staff? The girls want you to stay."

He beamed on the outside that time. "Sure, I guess I have time for a drink or two."

"I think Spencer is making something special, too," Nate said, smirking. "I know you'd like that."

Hardison's mind definitely didn't go to dirty places with the knowing look Nate gave him, no sir, but even if it did, it's not like anyone could blame him. "Cool," he said, trying to convey just how nonchalant he was about it. He hung around for another ten minutes while the last of the clean up got done at the bar before Nate locked the front doors. Then he turned around and slipped the keys coolly into his pocket.

"The evening begins now," Nate smiled.

--

"Like a shark," Hardison said for the third time, trying to get his point across. "Like, a really big one. With a tie on. That's how he smiled."

"So, Nate's a shark?" Sophie was giggling into her drink. Actually giggling. Her giggles were infectious, like a monkey-borne disease in a Dustin Hoffman movie and everyone at the table was laughing too. The drinks Parker kept mixing for them weren't helping at all.

Hardison nodded enthusiastically once everyone had stopped laughing long enough to listen to him. "Like a shark, yeah!"

"How though?" asked Sterling, sometimes-absent sous-chef. Now that they were drinking together, Hardison could tell he was a very smart, very scary dude. Sterling was not someone he wanted to be on the bad side of.

"Well, it's like... Nate's the shark. And I'm the little fish. And the shark says 'hey little fish, you look delicious and stuff in the moonlight', and then he smiles and the fish tries to run away -- swim away-- but the doors are locked and then the shark's blonde friend puts a weird drink in the fish's fins."

"That's when it all went to hell, yeah?" Sterling roared with laughter. Sophie was still giggling softly into her drink, but then she looked up, concerned.

"What is in these drinks, Parker?"

Parker shrugs, taking a small sip from her own glass of wine. "A little bit of this, a little bit of that."

Hardison took another swig from his glass. "Wait," he said, squinting at Parker closely. "You're not even drinkin' this drink thingy, are you?"

"No, and it's her first glass of wine," Eliot pointed out. "She's trying to get you drunk, Hardison."

"It's working," Hardison laughed. He felt warm and friendly and he was rethinking his whole 'having friends is not a priority' theory. He tried to think of something to say that would make them like him, but he just kept coming up with more ways Nate was basically a talking shark.

"Hey there, slugger, how about you ease up a little on Parker's voodoo juice and let's get some water in you, okay?" Hardison looked up from the hypnotic swirl of alcohol in his glass and into Eliot's swirly blue eyes.

"I'ma pretend that wasn't patronizing," Hardison told him, diplomatically . "But only because your eyes look like I could drink them, too."

Before the conversation took more of a turn for the dark and cannibalistic, Eliot plunked a glass of water down in front of Hardison. "Drink," he commanded. Hardison obeyed because Eliot's bossy voice was kind of hot and because the water was tasty. Eliot could even make goo water. Damn.

"So, Sophie, what's it like being famous?" Eliot asked. It was a very clever way of changing the subject away from Nate's more shark-like attributes.

"You tell me, Mister Executive Chef," Sophie grinned. Hardison grinned right along with her because Eliot was almost blushing and it was just adorable.

"Shut up," he said, draining the rest of his beer. "I just show up and do my job."

Sophie gushed on. "But you do it so well. You know, I get calls all the time telling me what a great place I'm running here. You've got as many fans as I do."

Eliot grimaced and got up, heading over to the bar. Hardison motioned for another drink and really, he knew he should stop drinking, because Eliot turned that scowl on him and instead of cowering like a rational person, Hardison just felt a rush of lust. And yet, when Eliot set the next glass of whatever Parker had mixed up in front of him, he drank it greedily.

"And I don't think it's just your cooking that wins them over, right Eliot?" Sophie laughed again. "I'm sure all the girls think you're such a looker. Why, you remind me of a younger... What was that fellow, Nate? The cute one, in the pictures."

Nate shrugged, still eyeing Hardison. Hardison got a very eerie feeling, like Nate was wondering what kind of toothpick would get stringy Hardison bits out from between his big, pointy, shark teeth. Hardison sank a little lower in his chair and edged his chair away from Nate and towards Parker on the other side.

"Sidney Poitier?" Nate said, smirking into his own drink. Hardison couldn't quite catch why it was amusing, but he knew he was missing an important point somewhere.

Sophie apparently missed it too though, because she laughed and clapped her hands together. "Yes, that's it. Just like him."

"Wow, Sophie, okay, I think you're scaring them," Nate said, pushing the glass more firmly into her hand so she wouldn't try to touch Eliot's hair, which Hardison figured would end in her untimely and ultimately, very brutal death.

"Let's go, come on," Eliot said quickly, probably sensing Sophie's hair-related motives and fearing a conversation about brands of conditioner were in his near future. He hauled an overly complacent Hardison to his feet and headed for the door. "Good night, everyone, thanks for a truly mundane evening. I'm going to take him home."

Hardison let himself be led out of the restaurant, but once they started walking (and/or weaving) something clicked in his head. "But you don't even know where I live, man."

"I couldn't wrangle you across town if I wanted, and I don't want, so you're staying at my place tonight." Eliot grabbed him by the shoulder and guided him gently away from a brick wall. "Careful, idiot."

"You're being nice," Hardison said. "I was so worried about people getting to know me and then hurting me or something that I forgot that sometimes people get to know you 'cause they want to be friends. Are we friends?"

"God, I am too drunk for this," Eliot muttered. "Yeah, man, we can be friends. Turn here."

Hardison turned quickly and walked into the brick wall next to Eliot's front door. "Wow, asshole move, Eliot. My friendship must really mean a lot to you."

"Oh, you have no idea," Eliot said dryly.

"No, I do," Hardison said, stepping into the apartment and narrowly avoiding tripping over Avis as she ran forward to greet them. "I definitely have an idea. A sexy idea."

Eliot stared blankly at him for a few moments and then nudged him in the shoulder. Hardison collapsed back against the wall and stayed there, watching Eliot with wide eyes. "Hardison, stay. Avis, come."

By the time Eliot and the dog came back in, Hardison had already found his way to the couch. He kicked off his shoes and had curled his lanky body into the couch like it held the answers to the mysteries of life.

"How are you remotely comfortable?" Eliot asked him, unclipping Avis' leash and walking over to the couch, stumbling only briefly on one of Hardison's discarded shoes and the third syllable in 'comfortable'.

Hardison made a vague shrugging motion. "Nice couch, I think."

"I found it on the side of the road," Eliot told him, flopping onto the couch next to him.

"It smells like raccoon babies."

Eliot chuckled. "You're ridiculous. I don't remember the last time I laughed so much."

"It's because you're drunk," Hardison explained. "Can I tell you my sexy idea now?"

"I'm not sure if there's a good answer to that question."

"The answer is 'yes', man. We're going to need a bottle of Drambuie, a tennis racket, and three uninterrupted hours."

The noise Eliot made was half stifled laughter and half a groan, but Hardison imagined there was a little curiosity in there as well. "Shut up," Eliot told him, dragging him forward by the collar for a sloppy kiss.

"Mmm," Hardison moaned unabashedly and reached for Eliot's fly, but Eliot stopped him with a hand on his wrist.

"Not gonna happen tonight; we've both had too much to drink."

Hardison wasn't sure he had ever heard such a depressing truth. "I know," he admitted. "Why is the world so cruel? I start drinking, I feel horny, I drink a bit more, I land a hot guy, I have a celebratory drink, I get said guy alone, and bam, I've had too much to drink. It's unfair."

Eliot hauled Hardison up again and tried to lead him to the bedroom so they could start sleeping off some of the alcohol. "Nature's way of keepin' the really bad decisions out of the gene pool, I always said."

"Not fair," Hardison mumbled again, lips sliding against Eliot's neck. It had taken more than a moment to register that Eliot sounded different. "What's that accent?"

"East Texas," Eliot said. "Never tell anyone you heard it, either." Hardison was pretty sure it was supposed to be threatening, but the last couple words got lost in hitched breath and pressed skin when Hardison launched a full make out campaign.

Eliot might have hit the sauce hard enough to let his drawl get a little looser, but he still managed to get them both safely to the bed, which was more than Hardison really could have hoped for on his own. They collapsed quite effortlessly onto the mattress and rolled around in a messy heap for a few more minutes, touching and kissing and laughing like the drunken idiots they were in that moment.

"Water, I think," Hardison said, sitting up suddenly. "You know, so we're less hung over in the morning."

Eliot sighed and tucked his face against one of the pillows. "Get it yourself, I'm not gettin' up."

"You're just the worst," Hardison sighed back at him and barely slurring at all. He got up shakily and pulled a lock of Eliot's messy hair as he left the room, prompting an adorable, murderous sounding squeak. Never mind the fact that he had been sort of dreaming of doing it since he first met Eliot and his very tuggable hair, but seeing Sophie considering it earlier had emboldened him.

Once the glass of water was firmly in hand, Hardison spent a bit too long admiring everything in the kitchen and peeking in the spice cupboard like any nosy cooking enthusiast would. He nearly dropped his cup on the floor when he opened the fridge and got a good look at the fresh produce taking up nearly three quarters of it. It was like nirvana for the food geek in him. The more he snooped, the more he admired Eliot and his cooking style. Hardison was disappointed by the lack of sex, but he was being greatly comforted by the thought of breakfast the next morning.

"Hey," Hardison said, coming back into the bedroom. Eliot blinked his eyes open when Hardison nudged him with the water glass. "Good news."

Eliot took the glass and drained it without sitting up. "What?"

"Turns out I wasn't too drunk after all."

At that rather cryptic sentence, Eliot's eyes trailed downwards to the now-obvious bulge in Hardison's pants-area. "What the fuck did you do in my kitchen?"

"I maybe looked around a little, that's all."

"You are so weird," Eliot told him. Even if that was his official comment on the subject, he was still paying an awful lot of attention to Hardison's dick. Hardison fell back into bed and it wasn't long before they started taking off each other's clothes and Eliot was nosing around Hardison's balls. It was a sensation Hardison hadn't felt in a good, long while, but when he tried to articulate this thought, it came out garbled and maybe something about space ships. It wasn't like Eliot was listening anyways.

Hardison tangled his hand in Eliot's hair, still giddy on the fact he could without losing a limb, and pushed Eliot into a more blowjob-friendly position.

"You're lucky I'm drunk," Eliot muttered. His breath was hot against Hardison's stomach and he arched into the feeling. Finally, after drawing out the teasing for far too long, Eliot put his mouth around Hardison's cock and got to work.

" I don't usually do this," Eliot said, pulling away after a few moments. He brushed hair off his forehead and looked up at Hardison with an almost worried expression his face, like he was worried Hardison thought he was trashy or something.

Hardison tried to tell him it was okay, and that he was fine with healthy expressions of sexuality and that sluts were just fine in his books, but instead he said, "oh. My god, if you do not keep sucking my dick right the shit now, boy, I am going to... to... do somethin' incredibly drastic." It was okay though, because the message behind it was the same.

--

Hardison was sure the lights in and around Eliot's apartment were trying to kill him. First the lamp and now the sun shining through the bedroom window, as cheerful and blinding as could be. He groaned into the pillow and wondered what he did to piss off the universe and bring so much pain down on himself. Then he remembered the drinking. Hardison groaned even louder. Nana had warned him about the evils of drinking to excess and how alcohol could be a gateway to other, darker things.

Oh yeah, the sloppy, drunken blowjobs. I think Nana would have counted that as a 'darker thing' Hardison remembered. He had that weird, dry feeling on his skin in his... sensitive places that told him he had passed out before being able to wash, which was gross, but also spoke volumes about the greatness of the blowjob. And maybe a little about exactly how much alcohol he had actually taken in.

"Am I dead?" Eliot asked, stifling a groan of his own.

"Nope."

"Well, can I be?"

Hardison laughed and immediately regretted it. "Only if I can too."

They laid in bed, staring at the ceiling and willing themselves dead. Or at least less hung over. Hardison finally decided that his need to pee was stronger than the spinning roller coaster feeling in his head and struggled his way free of the oppressive sheets.

He felt like he was draining a reservoir, but finally finished and washed his hands. Eliot was leaning heavily on the counter in the kitchen when Hardison walked in, making threatening eyes at the coffee maker while it took its sweet time percolating.

"Are you trying to make it explode?" Hardison asked, because even when his head was trying to split open, he had to be a smart ass.

"Coffee," Eliot said, like it explained away the mysteries of everything ever. Hardison thought for a second. Maybe it did. He stared at the coffee maker too.

Once Hardison had coffee, the pounding in his head seem to lessen a little. Eliot seemed perkier too.

"Breakfast?" Eliot asked, pouring himself a second cup and tossing Hardison a bottle of Advil.

"Yeah, man," Hardison said, remembering his excitement from the night before. "I think breakfast will be necessary."

"I can make a pretty okay hangover breakfast," Eliot admitted. "Not that I've had to, recently."

Hardison pulled a chair out from the table and made himself comfortable. Avis joined him on the other chair, stretching out and nestling her head in his lap. "Wait, won't greasy hangover food like... kill the dog?"

Eliot had started pulling things out of the fridge, but he stopped to give Hardison a dirty look. "I'm not an asshole. I did my research and talked to a nutritionist before I decided to cook all her food. I know the wrong kind of shit will kill her."

Hardison held up his hands defensively. "Hey, I was just sayin'."

"Yeah, you just better hope I don't decide to kill you... Calling my food greasy..." Eliot trailed off, muttering threats and insults under his breath.

"What are you making?" Hardison asked a few minutes later when Eliot took a step back and stared at the food and utensils on the counter like it was alien technology and he was seeing it for the first time.

"Making... Nothing," Eliot muttered, putting away the pot he was holding. "Let's just go get something. Gotta feed this one first though," he said when Avis made a sad doggy noise and pawed the air.

There was a brief scuffle at the door when Hardison had to stop Eliot from leaving.

"I'm not trying to keep you trapped here or anything," Hardison said when Eliot gave him A Look. "It's just that you're not wearing pants."

Hardison was pretty sure Eliot was going to go without pants just to spite him, which Hardison found a little endearing this early on into knowing each other, but also a little indicative of the level of stubborn that Eliot was capable of.

Eliot put some pants on and with only a bit of a glare to Hardison, led him outside and down the street, through a few shady looking alleys and into a disgusting looking little coffee shop on a street Hardison hadn't even known existed.

"Is it safe?" Hardison asked once they were looking at menus. The waitress had a dazzling smile and she flashed it at Eliot repeatedly.

Eliot just smiled back and shrugged to Hardison. "Probably?"

"You don't sound convinced."

"I'm not."

They put in their orders and the waitress called Eliot by his name before she strutted off. "Come here often or something?" Hardison asked.

"Sometimes. They make great pie. Look, I know I'm supposed to be this hot shot chef and everything, and I mean, let's be honest, I really am. But sometimes I just want to... Not cook. You know? You've gotta have something you're good at but sometimes you don't want to do it?"

Hardison watched him closely for a second, as he sipped his coffee and let the hair fall in his eyes. Eliot was damn gorgeous when he was being quiet and introspective.

"Not really. I have a couple hobbies, things I'm pretty decent at, but I always like doing them."

"Lucky," Eliot said, and Hardison thought the word for the expression on his face was 'rueful'.

"What, you don't like cooking?"

Eliot shrugged. "I love it. Cooking and food and all that. Just the feeling I get when I'm in a kitchen, it's... The best. But I feel so burnt out. I haven't had any real downtime in months, maybe a year, and I don't feel like... Like I'm getting anywhere, you know? Cooking makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something, but lately it's just been... routine."

Eliot finished talking and stared down at his hands. Hardison could tell he was feeling sheepish for having said all that out loud, but when Eliot smiled at the waitress when she came to refill his coffee, his smile was charming. What a con, Hardison thought, amused.

"Hungover, are we, boys?" she asked.

Hardison nodded sharply, suddenly irrationally upset she was interrupting what was shaping up to be a real, honest conversation.

"Out drinking on a week night. Wow, must be nice." She was being cute, but Hardison saw through her sweet façade to her secret, extra judgemental centre. She was like the worst flavour of doughnut. "What line of work are you in anyways, Eliot?"

"Uhhh..." Eliot paused for way too long, thinking. "Landscaping."

"Ah. Well." The waitress looked disappointed, like she'd been expecting something more glamourous. "I'll be right back with your breakfast."

Hardison laughed heartily to himself at the familiarity of Eliot's lie, but once he put a little extra effort into thinking about it, he decided it wasn't funny at all. "You don't tell people where you work?"

"Not usually," Eliot admitted. "Like I said, man, sometimes I don't feel it. And I wouldn't say it here, because they're the competition."

"No. No they're not. Don't say that." Hardison got a chill -- and not the good kind -- when he considered the possibility.

"You haven't tasted the food."

The waitress came back then with their plates and once he got a whiff of the food, Hardison swore out loud he would never drink again.

Eliot laughed. "Hardison, can you trust me for eight seconds? It's good."

"No, I know, I can smell it. It smells amazing." He stared at the waffles on his plate. "Oh my god," Hardison whimpered. "I want it."

Eliot already had half a piece of toast in his mouth, so he couldn't say anything, but Hardison prided himself on being able to understand a lot of his usual facial expressions. Mostly because Eliot only had a couple. This one said 'what the fuck are you on about? Eat your goddamn waffles.'

"I love food," Hardison said, realizing a second later the way he blurted it out sounded pretty questionable. Like he was blurting out a confession of murder or everlasting love or something.

Eliot's next look said something to the effect of 'you are ruining my life with your babble, so this had better get interesting fast'.

"You shared a little with me, so I get to share with you, shut up," Hardison said dryly.

Eliot coughed around his breakfast. "I don't think that counts as 'sharing', man. I just told you a thing."

"Yeah? How many other people have you told your thing to?"

"...You." Eliot scowled at his bacon. "I blame you for this, magic truth bacon," he told it.

"Yeah, you weren't eating the so-called magic bacon, earlier. You were sharing. You shared. You shared first, even. Big milestone in a... friendship. How do you feel about that?" Hardison thought it was some pretty swift thinking on his part, using the word 'friendship' instead of anything his mind might have initially supplied.

"I feel hungover. Hungover enough that I am blaming bacon for my life problems."

"Which seems like it could be a crime in some states. Bacon is the answer to life's problems, not the cause of."

Eliot crunched a piece of bacon (a little vindictively, if Hardison was any judge) and pointed menacingly with his fork. "Okay, fine, I shared. But you were about to share too. Out with it."

Hardison finally braved the churning sea of his stomach and had his first forkful of waffle. They were amazing. "These are amazing," he said.

"Told ya so."

They ate in silence for a few long minutes. Hardison tried to frame his offering for 'share time' in his head, but kept getting distracted by the food he was eating. That's a good sign, he thought, when I can't even think of something to say.

"I love food," he said again, when he could finally string a sentence together. He decided to be as honest as he could without selling himself out. "I love it a lot, as far back as I can remember."

Eliot nodded like he knew what Hardison meant. Hardison had tasted his cooking a couple times now, and he was pretty sure Eliot did. A person doesn't cook like that unless they know exactly what Hardison was saying.

"I don't ever want anything to ruin that for me. That's what I meant when I said it smelled amazing and I wanted to eat it, but then sat and looked at it for ten minutes. If the fact that I drank way, way too much last night ruins these waffles for me, I'm not going to be happy."

"It won't though," Eliot said, a vague smile on his face. "Best hangover cure, I'm telling you."

And he was right, of course. Hardison felt a hundred times better than he had before he started eating.

"The coffee kind of tastes like mime pee, though," Hardison said. At the exact second the waitress came back with the pot to refill their mugs.

She stared. "I... I made this coffee myself."

Hardison reached out, lightning fast, and jammed a piece of bacon off Eliot's plate into his mouth. "Magic bacon," he shrugged to the waitress. "Makes you speak only the truth. Your coffee ain't great."

"It's true. I'm sorry, honey," Eliot said, only faintly apologetic sounding.

She scowled and marched away.

Eliot kept his vaguely apologetic smile and turned back to Hardison. "Nice save," he said evenly. "But if you ever take food off my plate again, even to save the world from an asteroid or some shit, I will beat you to death and beyond with a spatula. Don't think that I can't."

"Would never think that," Hardison admitted. "But I thought maybe only your bacon was magic. Besides, has this morning taught you nothing? Sharing's caring, friend!"

"With a spatula," Eliot said again, though he didn't bristle at the term 'friend'. They finished breakfast in amicable silence, because after magic bacon, death threats and whatever Parker had them drinking last night, what else was there to say?

--

Time passed and Hardison decided it was really cool having a friend after all. They hung out sometimes, after work or on a day off (not that either of them got a lot of those). And yeah, sometimes they hooked up, which was also very good. Friends with benefits were the best kind of friends, Hardison decided.

"Hey," Eliot said after a Sunday brunch shift a few weeks later. "Did you get to try the stuffed French toast?"

Hardison looked mournfully at the bare tables. "Didn't get any. You guys got any extra?"

"Parker took everything and ran. Finally, something I made that she didn't bitch about."

Hardison was upset, because French toast was his favourite and Eliot's version of sweet and savoury French toast had smelled like what he imagined Jesus smelled like after a long, refreshing shower. He wasn't going to say that, for a few very obvious reasons, so he shrugged like it was no big deal.

"Sorry," Eliot said. He looked like he was going to say more, but he stopped. Hardison had been hoping Eliot would say he was going to make more, then pause from dramatic effect and say 'tomorrow morning, at your place', all sexy-like. He did not.

Instead he said, "see you next week, man."

"Okay, cool." Hardison put in his headphones and headed out into the pouring rain to the closet subway station. He was resigned to getting soaked; he had a really bad habit of leaving his umbrellas everywhere that wasn't with him. Hardison pulled the hood of his jacket up and tried not to sulk.

He was on the third step down into the subway station, just about to get out of the rain, when a hand on his arm stopped him. Hardison turned quickly, grabbing the railing to steady himself on the rain-slicked stair. It was Eliot.

"Shit, Eliot," Hardison grumbled, ripping off his headphones. "Nearly scared me to death. What the hell are you doing?" He tried to look serious and affronted, but Eliot was dripping wet and standing in the rain too, with a vaguely confused expression on his face that was the cutest thing he'd seen in weeks.

"I was just going to say... It's raining."

"Yeah, the rain dripping off your eyelashes is sending a pretty clear signal about that. Can we please get out of the rain?" They went down onto the platform so that they were properly shielded from the storm. "What's up?"

"It's raining," Eliot said again, more faintly. It was clear he was trying to psych himself up to say something. Hardison was still holding out for that offer of breakfast.

Hardison stared expectantly. He heard the other train pull in and knew that meant he only had a few minutes to get Eliot to spit out whatever he was trying to say before his train pulled in. "Quitting kitchen work for meteorology?" he asked lightly.

"It's pouring down rain," Eliot said, voice suddenly strong with resolve. "I was just going to say if you didn't want to walk all the way to the subway in the rain, you could stay at my place. Four blocks versus fifteen or whatever, right?"

"It's thirteen blocks, but you know we're already standing in the subway station, right?"

Eliot scoffed, any trace of whatever insecurity he'd had a few moments ago gone. "You had your little headphones in. I called your name like, six times. You walk fast."

"Sorry about that? In case you didn't notice, it's raining out, so I wanted to get out of the rain as fast as I could." Hardison smirked because Eliot was dripping wet and exasperated, and that was funny.

"Did I notice it was raining? Fuck you, Hardison, I take it back; you can get soaked for all I care."

"Already am. So are you," Hardison pointed out angelically. "Walking all the way back to your place now would be stupid. Just get on the train and we'll hang and you can crash at my place tonight. It's only half a block from the station so it's not even like we'll get that much wetter."

"...Yeah, okay. I can ask Parker to go let the dog out."

And of course, the subway was crowded as hell on a rainy, Sunday afternoon, which is how Hardison ended up practically in Eliot's lap. He also discovered that wet Eliot smelled like even more of coriander and , apparently. Goddamn, that should not be attractive, Hardison thought, following the impure thoughts with a silent apology to Nana, who didn't approve of the thought or the language with which it was delivered.

When they got to Hardison's place, he changed out of his wet clothes and offered Eliot a towel and something dry to change into. "I've got jeans in my bag," Eliot said. "I usually go to the gym after work on Sundays."

"You wear jeans at the gym?"

"For after the gym."

"...So how many wardrobe changes do you have in a normal day, Eliot?"

"Shut up," Eliot said, then reached for the tee shirt Hardison had offered him. "Evil League of Evil? Yeah, we're not going out in public while I'm wearing this."

It was a little weird having Eliot in his apartment, mostly because no one ever came to his apartment. "Uhh, sorry about the mess," Hardison said sheepishly. Eliot graciously ignored any clutter and found a place on Hardison's couch that wasn't covered in papers or magazines. Hardison stowed away his textbooks and any of the cooking magazines that were lying around, hoping that Eliot hadn't seen them among the other mess.

Since their truth-bacon-fuelled breakfast, Hardison had been toying with the idea of coming out and telling Eliot what he was really in school for. Eliot had been startlingly upfront with him, even if they were both more comfortable pretending he hadn't.

Hardison looked around his living room with his hands on his hips. "So, I got Doctor Who on the TiVo, Modern Warfare 2 on the xBox, or Risk in the closet. Got a preference?"

"I don't like all those overdramatic medical shows and I don't have the patience for kicking your ass in Risk. Modern Warfare is one of those Call of Duty video games, right?"

Hardison nodded, a little shell-shocked. "Did you just call Doctor Who a medical show?"

Eliot stared blankly. "Yeah, I'm not really into stuff like that."

"Call of Duty it is," Hardison said. He tried to control his eye twitch, but it was kind of useless.

Hardison spent the first ten minutes teaching Eliot how it worked and the next hour getting consistently out-played. Eliot laughed as Hardison got more and more frustrated. "It's just a game, man," Eliot smirked.

"And I'm hungry. What do you have for food around here? Maybe I can make us something," Eliot said, stretching as he stood up.

Hardison shrugged and tried not to stare at the little stretch of skin that was peeking out between Eliot's jeans and his borrowed tee shirt that didn't quite fit. "Let me go check," he said, shaking his head a little to clear yet another dirty thought involving a wooden spoon. He felt like he was sixteen again when Eliot was around and he thought that it was starting to border on pathetic.

Hardison left Eliot alone in the living room to tidy up and stash some of the nicer kitchen tools that might have given him away. Besides, it would be interesting to watch Eliot cook out of his element.

"Yeah, I think I have enough for you to cook me something nice," Hardison called. He smiled to himself when Eliot grumbled his way into the kitchen.

"You know, it's not like you can't help or something, man. I bet you'd be great at prep work." Eliot looked around the kitchen. "Yeah, grab a cutting board and those red peppers right there."

That was how Hardison ended up doing prep in his own kitchen for the evening. It wasn't a big deal, though he knew others would be bristling at the imagined slight. He really liked watching Eliot cook in this environment, away from the bustle of the restaurant kitchen, but out of his private space in his own kitchen. He was still unendingly smooth -- Hardison didn't think Eliot could be anything else when he was cooking. It was only talking about his feelings or whatever that made Eliot awkward. With a knife in his hand, he was scarily competent.

And working with Eliot was a lot of fun. They fell almost immediately into a natural rhythm, a back and forth. Hardison was passing things over half a second before Eliot even asked and they could step around each other with knives or hot pots without so much as a bump.

"There," Eliot grinned, sliding the roast pan full of pork shoulder into the oven. "It'll be perfect before we know it."

"It already smells good," Hardison said, leaning on the counter. "Making something to go with it?"

"Sure." Eliot turned back to the counter and kept working. "But I need hot peppers," he said, not looking up from the garlic he had started mincing.

Hardison mentally scanned his kitchen inventory. "Uhh, I have jalapeños?"

"Not going to be hot enough. I want... Scotch bonnets." Eliot's knife paused in mid-mince, like he was planning everything out. "Yeah. Probably just one though."

"Because two will burn down the entire building," Hardison grumbled. "I don't like my food that hot, man."

"Just trust me. We passed a little vegetable market on the corner when we got off the subway. Go get something. Uh, habaneros would work too, or cayenne if they have nothing else, but don't get the dried stuff."

Hardison poked Eliot in the shoulder. "Hey, since when does prep work equal running your errands, huh?"

"Since you're so eager to eat tonight," Eliot said, setting down the knife and carefully wiping the garlic on his hands onto a towel before poking Hardison right back. "Besides, I'll make it worth your while."

"Yeah?" Hardison leered.

"Yeah, I'm making you dinner. Now, less talking, more fetching."

Hardison went because the rain was starting to let up and because Eliot was making a sad, imploring, puppy face. By the time he got back with the required peppers, the cooking meat had filled the apartment with the most incredible smell.

"Oh my god, yes," Hardison said, shaking water off his sweater.

Eliot was sitting on the edge of the counter grinning. "Smells amazing, right?" He looked pretty proud of himself.

"Can we eat now?"

"No. Hand those peppers." Eliot held out his hand and once he got a good look at them, he grinned. "Ooh, hello pretties."

Hardison laughed. "Just have to promise it's not going to kill me."

"Hey, have I ever killed you with a pepper before?"

"No," Hardison admitted. "But you really only need to do it once."

Eliot laughed too and added a dash of something to the saucepan on the stove. "Can you get me some white wine?"

"Sure. Are we having risotto?"

"Yeah, but I can't decide if I want broccoli or asparagus to go with it." Eliot twirled the knife in his hand a few times before sinking it into the hot pepper. Hardison watched the careful knife dance closely.

"Well, I have neither, so does that make it easier to pick? Also, how do you do that with the knife?"

Eliot smiled faintly and scooped the peppers into the risotto on the stove. "Practice. And a lot of scars. Dinner will be ready in twenty, I think."

"Hey," Hardison said, the thought just occurring to him. "You seem like you're in a pretty good mood."

Eliot turned around to fix Hardison with a serious expression. "I guess I am. Is that shocking?"

"No, no, it's good," Hardison said lightly. He smiled easily, trying to give off a relaxed vibe. "It's just... you said before sometimes cooking stresses you out. You said it didn't always feel... whatever, you know?"

"Yeah, I remember. I guess... Cooking with you is pretty okay." Eliot turned back to the stove and tasted the risotto. "Perfect, alright. Can you get me some milk?"

Pretty okay felt like high praise. Hardison grinned and didn't stop grinning until well after dinner.

--

Hardison's cell phone blared to life with the Star Trek: TNG theme song at twenty past three on a Sunday morning, startling him awake and halfway to falling out of bed. "Hello?" he said, once he got his shaking hands under control.

"Hi, Hardison, it's Eliot. Can you do me a favour?"

"At three thirty in the morning? Yeah, I can tell you to go fuck yourself, if that's what you need." Hardison was never as ornery as when he got woken out of a deep sleep.

"Shut up and open the fucking door." Eliot hung up.

Hardison stumbled to the front door, covering his important parts with his cupped hand. When he threw back the dead bolt and opened the door, Eliot was leaning on the frame.

"What?" Hardison demanded, though his annoyance was almost completely gone now that he saw how upset Eliot looked. "Is everything okay?"

"No," Eliot said miserably. He pushed a loop of braided rope towards Hardison, who took it without thinking. The other end of the rope was attached to Avis, who stared curiously up at the now-exposed Hardison-parts. Hardison up a little, just in case.

"What are you guys doing here?" he tried getting the full story again while heading back into the apartment to find something to cover up with.

"Uh," Eliot said.

"Well, great. Absolutely illuminating, thanks for coming all the way across the city in the middle of the night just to share that with me. And why does your dog keep trying to lick me?" Hardison batted the dog with a throw pillow from the couch and ducked into the bathroom to at least grab a towel.

"Naked people fascinate her," Eliot said absently, still looking around the apartment like Hardison was hiding treasure somewhere close by. "Look Hardison, I need your help, if you'd stop being a smart-ass for eight seconds."

"What's up, Eliot?" Hardison said in his most sincere voice.

"Tomorrow's brunch service."

"Right, the one I'm not scheduled for. The one I was going to sleep through. I remember it well."

"Can you shut up, please? I'm well and truly stressed out right now," Eliot said with a glare. Hardison perched on the arm of the couch and motioned for Eliot to continue.

"I have no idea what I'm going to cook."

Hardison, still intent on doing the 'shutting up' thing Eliot kept mentioning, shrugged as if to say yeah, and?

"I always have ideas," Eliot said. He was more than stressed. He was even past freaking, if Hardison was any judge. Eliot was halfway into 'freak out' territory and heading quickly towards all out panic mode.

"Relax," Hardison said, knowing that it was a fairly obnoxious thing to tell someone who was obviously not in the mood to relax. "We'll think of something, but we just need to chill and think about it."

Eliot glared like it was his job, but dutifully took a deep breath and collapsed onto the couch. The motion set Hardison off balance and he toppled, naked, into Eliot's lap. Not that he tried to stop himself from falling at all.

"Okay, this isn't helping," Eliot said after a moment.

"Are you sure? I feel like --"

"Off!"

Once they were both sitting normally on the couch, bits hastily re-covered and thinking caps firmly in place, Hardison turned to Eliot and gave him a carefully calculating look. "You're stressing about a dish so you came to me for help?"

That perfect Eliot glare again. "Yeah. You're good at this stuff, I think. You have a good palette. And I guess we get along well enough in the kitchen that I thought you could help."

"We get along in other rooms, too," Hardison said slyly. "But okay. Brunch. We can figure this out. What's good brunch food?"

"... I can't think of anything. If I had an idea, would I be here in the middle of the night, ruining your desperately needed beauty sleep?"

"Ouch," Hardison said, pointing. "You take that back or I won't help no one. Avis, hey baby, leave the shoes. I think there's a ham bone in the kitchen with your name on it if you do."

While Avis happily chewed on the bone, Eliot and Hardison ran through the list of ingredients on hand at Leverage and Hardison started suggesting meal ideas.

"So okay, are we sorted out now?" Hardison had put forth a handful of acceptable brunch ideas and Eliot was looking less like he want to quit his job.

"I think so. It's all kind of... non-traditional."

"Is that good or bad?" Hardison wanted to know. He thought everything he had mentioned sounded like a good idea, though he'd had prefaced all his ideas with 'okay, so maybe I only think it's a good idea because it's four in the morning, but how about...'

"No, I liked the polenta idea. I think I'll do that." Eliot's furrowed brow relaxed ever so slightly.

Hardison relaxed too. "Cool. You're okay now? Feelin' alright?"

"Yeah, thanks, man."

"...Are you and Avis going to head home, or do you want to stay?"

Eliot glanced around like he had forgotten where he was. "Uh, stay, if that's cool."

"Sure, but there's one condition," Hardison smiled. "I mean, I am still naked..."

"If it's the thing you said when you were drunk, the thing with the tennis racket and the Drambuie, I'll sleep on the lawn."

Hardison laughed out loud as he stood and offered his hand to Eliot. "No, but I am very curious as to how much you've been thinking about that because you obviously thought it important enough to remember exactly. Nah, that can wait until we have a real reason to celebrate something. I have a better idea."

"Only 'cause the very idea is one giant mental train wreck," Eliot said defensively, but he took Hardison's hand all the same and pulled him in for a kiss.

The kiss turned into biting and Eliot batting Hardison's modesty-towel onto the floor in record time and they were crashing backwards onto the couch a few moments later. Hardison was once again sprawled messily across Eliot, completely naked in stark contrast to Eliot still being fully clothed. Hardison was about to suggest a change in venue, specifically, the kitchen counter, when Avis's wet nose nudged against his calf. He yelped and sat up, recoiling from the happy, little dog.

"Bedroom?" he suggested to Eliot, because the bedroom was the only room with a lock on the door and as cute as Avis was, she was absolutely not invited to participate in the rest of the evening.

"Yeah. Avis, you stay. No chewing his shoes, either." Eliot headed straight for the bedroom, shedding his sweatshirt and jeans as he went, which gave Hardison the perfect opportunity to get an eyeful of Eliot's ass.

Hardison leaned into the kitchen on his way past and snatched something off the table. Something that was not a tennis racket, but was still going to come in very handy in the next twenty minutes or so.

"Oh, hell no," Eliot said, when Hardison met him at the bed. He had managed to lose everything but his underwear in the time it had taken Hardison to grab the wooden spoon, which Hardison thought was definitely a sexy quality in a guy.

"What? You didn't even ask what I was going to do with it."

"Splinters, man. Splinters." Eliot took Hardison by the shoulder, removed the spoon carefully from Hardison's hand and all but threw him to the bed.

Eliot was very firmly in control, which was fine by Hardison. He kept quiet while Eliot did the prep work, just supervised and tried not to moan loud enough to set the dog barking when Eliot twisted two fingers deep inside him.

"Come on," Eliot said, leaning over Hardison and murmuring right in his ear. "It's no fun if you're too quiet."

"Don't tease," Hardison said from between clenched teeth.

Eliot let out a soft little laugh. "You're not the boss of me." Hardison knew that would have sounded a lot more stupid if he wasn't so turned on, but he was way more interested in the insistent press of Eliot's erection against his thigh, so he let it go. Of course, Eliot took this as a clear permission for him to tease a little more. Soon, Hardison was squirming back against Eliot's fingers and biting his hand to stop from cursing.

"Why are you being so quiet?" Eliot asked, licking a little stripe across Hardison's shoulder.

Hardison exhaled shakily before he answered. "'Cause I know it annoys you. And because it makes you work harder."

Eliot was quiet for a moment, like he was considering, and for a second, Hardison thought he was going to be in trouble. Then Eliot pressed his teeth into the back of Hardison's neck, smirking, and Hardison knew he was in trouble. Still, the first smack that landed on his thigh made Hardison jump.

"Eliot!" Hardison whipped his head around, trying to get a good look at what Eliot was actually doing, and he turned just in time to see the wooden spoon coming down toward his skin again. Hardison flinched away from the momentary sting, but a second later found himself wanting it even more.

--

Eliot had probably intended to get up and leave quietly, but it didn't work out that way.

"Ugh, Elephant Man," Hardison sighed, rolling over and stealing the pillow Eliot had just left. "How are you even moving? It's so early."

"I was supposed to be at the restaurant half an hour ago. And I still have to take Avis home before I go in," Eliot said, checking the time on his phone again. "Shit shit shit."

"It's fine, she can chill with me today. I'll bring her over later."

Eliot sounded a little taken aback when he asked, "Are you sure?"

"Sure," Hardison said into the pillow. Anything to get the noise to stop.

"Thanks a lot, Hardison. I'll call when I'm done at Leverage, you can bring her by."

As Eliot spoke, Hardison was aware that he was leaning over the bed. Hardison kept his eyes closed, but waited for the kiss. It never came. Instead, Eliot bumped his forehead against Hardison's. Just as brief a contact as a kiss on the cheek, but about a thousand times more intimate. Even a minute later, when he dimly heard the front door close, Hardison's heart was still racing.

Eliot had left the bedroom door open and Avis took it upon herself to crawl into his vacated place on the bed, wiggling her way under the blanket to find the warmest spot. When she and Hardison were nose to nose, he blinked open his eyes. "What the hell was that about?" he asked, but she didn't answer.

--

Waking up again a few hours later at a respectable Sunday morning time, Hardison felt a lot more refreshed than he had any other day in the past week. It helped a lot that he had a full day off from work and school and had absolutely nothing on his schedule other than delivering a dog later in the afternoon. And the dog was adorable, he had to say.

"Hey, Avis, come here," he called while standing at the stove. She must have been used to that at home because she was instantly at his feet. "Try this," he said, blowing on the spoon a few times and then scooping the cooked polenta into her mouth. His idea for vegetable polenta lasagne had sounded so good when he talked about it last night that he decided to make some for himself.

"Cooked enough, right?" Avis didn't answer, of course, but Hardison knew it was. He had only been looking for verification anyways.

He was just taking the finished product out of the oven when Eliot called.

"I made that veggie polenta thing, the lasagne. Everyone loved it. Thanks again, Hardison, I owe you one."

"You owe me two," Hardison pointed out, trying to take off his oven mitts and balance the phone on his shoulder without dropping anything. "I babysat your dog all day too."

"But she was good."

"Yeah," Hardison said, looking over to where Avis was sleeping on a makeshift bed he'd made out of laundry and a couch cushion. "She's kind of perfect."

--

"Hey guys! Did you hear? Isn't it so crazy, oh my god."

Hardison walked past Greta and her group of giggling girls because he hadn't heard and he was willing to bet it wasn't that crazy.

"Yeah," she went on, just before Hardison turned the corner and was out of ear shot. "They say the accident took his arms right off. Both of them. At the elbows."

He couldn't help it, he had to turn back. "What happened?" Hardison asked.

Greta probably relished the idea of someone who hadn't heard the story so she could tell it all over again. She was looking at him like a cartoon cat looks at a cartoon mouse -- like fresh meat. "Chef Austin. Horrible car wreck. They say the accident took --"

"Arms off, I heard that part." Hardison really didn't want to discuss those details, especially not with Greta, whom he wanted to discuss exactly nothing with to begin with.

"Yeah," Greta said. She sounded annoyed that he had interrupted, and it brought him just a little happiness. "So apparently until they find a real replacement teacher for us, they found some lunatic to fill in for our meat-cutting exam tomorrow."

"Oh good, the class with all the knives gets a lunatic teacher," Hardison mused. As if he needed another reason to loathe that class, now he got to add 'possibly will be murdered during final exams' to the list.

After having Chef Austin grading everything all semester, Hardison was used to what the Chef liked and didn't like. To lose him right before the final was annoying. But if he suddenly didn't have arms, he probably needed some time to adjust. What could anyone do, really? Hardison figured he'd cross that bridge when he got to it and went to pastry class where all his energy had to go into dealing with Greta and their assignment of sour cherry pie. He didn't have time to worry about his next exam or who the new person marking his exam was going to be.

--

Hardison fiddled with the top button on his chef's jacket, like he always did when he was stressing out. He was okay at butchering, but not amazing. He'd done a little bit of practicing at home in last few weeks and had stayed after class to get pointers from Chef Austin, but the whole 'new teacher just for the exam' thing was throwing him off.

But all his nervous energy drained away and was replaced with icy cold dread the minute he stepped through the door.

Parker.

Parker was standing the front of the room, being talked at by Greta and looking like she did when the meat order was disappointing. It was an expression she got, and something about the way she held her body, and the lines of her mouth, that Hardison called the whole effect 'stabby'.

He almost felt badly for her, because whatever Greta was saying, she seemed really into it. He'd been in her shoes before and he knew it was pretty awful. But mostly his mind was screaming at him that the proverbial jig was up. Face the music, swallow his pride, own up, and all the other things.

"Hey!" Parker all but shouted when she saw him. "Hardison!"

Hardison slunk over because he really didn't know if he could get away with diving through the second-storey window. "You're a student here?" Parker asked, turning away from Greta and all but latching onto Hardison. Greta huffed her disappointment loudly enough to ruffle the back of Parker's ponytail, but thank the heavens, she left without a scene.

"Yeah," Hardison said. It was almost a relief to finally admit it. It was almost a relief; he still felt like he was going to throw up.

"Cool, I didn't know that. Eliot never said."

"Never told him," Hardison admitted. Why was Eliot talking to Parker about Hardison? Was he a regular topic of conversation in the kitchen? That was a scary thought that Hardison tried to shake off. No one liked a dude who overanalyzed everything. Not that Hardison necessarily wanted Eliot to like him-like him. Unless he wanted to. Hardison was still fuzzy on the details. And definitely overanalyzing again. He needed to stop doing that.

"Hey look," he said, setting his knife roll down on the counter. "My exam is scheduled for now, so do you want to start?"

"Sure," Parker said, not prying. Hardison had pegged her for someone who would not be able to let something like this go, but she was doing well. She pointed to the workstation she wanted him at and told him to clean the rack of lamb there.

Butchering class wasn't anything too major. They weren't required to go outside and slaughter their own meat, though the school offered a short extracurricular course for that that he was thinking about taking in the spring. This class was really just identifying and cleaning the meat, and being able to carve it into a standard cut. Rack of lamb was one of the things Hardison had actually practiced at home, so after a few minutes, he was pretty confident in what he was presenting.

Parker watched him the entire time with hawk eyes and library silence. "Good," she said when he was done. "I would have taken that part off --" she poked a little piece of fat he'd missed. "But otherwise really good. So are you and Eliot dating?"

Hardison took off the fat with a twist of his knife, only gouging out a little of the meat, and stared at her. "No. Why, did he say we were?" It was just six innocent-sounding words, but Hardison felt like such a fool.

"No, nothing like that." If Parker had noticed the fear in his voice, she ignored it. "But he's the head chef, right, and I work under him. So I notice things like when he gets laid on a regular basis. My sanity in the kitchen depends on it sometimes."

Privately, Hardison was still worried about her sanity.

"So what I am trying to say is 'thank you very much'," she added.

"Um. You're welcome. Do you mind not telling him you saw me today?"

Parker stared for a moment, like he was speaking another language. "One condition," she said finally. "Take me to lunch at The Blue Lounge and explain why I shouldn't."

Hardison thought the second part of her one condition made sense, but it was ten thirty in the morning so lunch seemed a little weird.

"Isn't it too early for lunch? And don't you have like, ten more exams to supervise?"

"Eh, they're just getting what they paid for when they asked me to do this for free. Lunch now." Parker dropped her apron on the cleanest part of the counter and scrawled a short note to stick on the door -- exams postponed until 2pm, no use complaining.

Hardison felt that the last part of the sign was probably directed a little at him, too.

--

He bought them spicy shrimp quiche and coconut milkshakes and they sat on the patio in the afternoon sun. It would have been the perfect afternoon if Parker didn't have the world's most cut-you-right-to-your-soul stare. Seriously. Nate could learn a thing or two.

Hardison explained why he hadn't told anyone at school he worked at Leverage and why no one at Leverage knew where he was going to school.

"You think we'd all be that judgemental?" Parker asked, narrowing her eyes. A lot of the sharpness was lost when she sipped her milkshake through a neon orange straw and made a yummy noise.

"My classmates would be," Hardison said.

Parker nodded. "Yeah, I remember. I graduated three years back."

"Exactly. I guess I was just so used to not bringing it up that I... didn't bring it up."

She was still nodding along to his words. "Makes sense. When Eliot finds out, he's going to wonder why you never told him. He likes you. I mean, as a waiter, I don't know how he feels about you beyond that. He's not the sharing type in case you didn't notice."

"Bacon," Hardison offhandedly, his mind a-swirl with the words 'Eliot likes you' and 'beyond that' and 'stupid crush on his stupid, perfect hair'.

"Sure, it you think that's a cute pet name. I just think he's going to find out eventually and he'll be mad, especially because you guys are friends now or whatever. You ever seen him mad? A lot of people think it's scary." Her tone made it clear she didn't think that way and Hardison smiled at her despite the growing knot of dread in his stomach. He liked Parker. She was fresh and honest and startlingly weird.

Parker popped the last piece of crust in her mouth and grinned at him. "Thanks for lunch."

Hardison stood up, draining the last of his milkshake. "I know. It's not going to be pleasant. Maybe he won't find out until the end of the semester and I can get a job somewhere else. You won't say anything, right?"

She shrugged and smiled again, slipping into her jacket. "Sure, I'll keep your dark secret. Could be fun."

--

Parker was as good as her word. Mostly.

Two weeks later, Hardison was wiping down the last few tables before they opened for dinner service. If the length of the reservation list was any sign, it was going to be a crazy night. He was mentally girding his loins in preparation, which actually took a lot more work than he thought it would. That was either very good news or very bad news for his loins. Hardison vowed to stop thinking about his loins right around the time the blood curdling scream came from the kitchen.

Nate and Hardison both dropped what they were doing and ran. Hardison hit the swinging door first and when he went through it, found himself in a scene of chaos. There was blood and more of those pained screams along with the regular kitchen sounds of dishwashers and fans running and timers going off.

"What the hell?" Nate shouted over the noise.

"Sterling cut his hand," Parker said, walking by, sprayed with blood and holding a first aid kit.

"So? Don't you people cut yourselves eight or ten times a day? I thought that was just a chef thing?" Nate said, still frustrated. Hardison was staring, transfixed, at the bright red line of blood across Parker's chest. That was a lot of blood.

"She left out a word," Eliot growled, also marching over covered in blood. He stripped off his jacket and dropped it at Nate's feet. "'Off'. She forgot the word 'off'. Goddamit, we're going to be so behind."

"Off?" Hardison's stomach felt like it had turned over on itself. "For real? That's disgusting."

"No, not for real," Eliot said after a moment, clearly savouring Hardison's revulsion. "But it was close."

They sent Sterling to the hospital on his own, presumably to get his hand reattached, and Hardison got assigned to help clean the blood out of the kitchen while Nate explained to the guests that they were delaying their opening by half an hour due to 'unforeseen circumstances out of anyone's control'.

"Tonight is going to suck," Eliot declared, leaning over Hardison's arm to grab another bottle of bleach. He purposely leaned too close, bringing them in close contact for a second or two and dropped his voice low. "Maybe after we're done tonight you can explain what you're talking about with the Drambuie and the tennis racket."

Hardison choked on his own breath just a little. "Maybe," he managed. "Also, you're sick, man. We're scrubbing up some dude's blood here, not taking a walk on the beach."

"Occupational hazard," Eliot said with a shrug, leaning in just little closer. He nudged Hardison's forehead with his own again, that sweet, intimate moment amongst the chaos of the kitchen, and walked away. Hardison was left on the floor under the salad station, scrubbing blood out of the rubber mat and trying not to get a hard on. Classy.

They opened the doors at six-thirty, and as per usual when they were short-staffed, the dining room was full less than twenty minutes later. And of course, everyone was grumpy about having to wait and they were taking it out on the front of house staff. Hardison didn't want to explain that the sous-chef had actually cut off his own hand, because that was gruesome and led to a few potentially awkward questions on how that was even possible. Instead, he just took the abuse.

Food was finally up for Hardison's first table, a hell of a lot longer than it normally took, and when Hardison dropped it off, he was almost immediately called back because it was wrong.

"Look, this isn't even hot," the lady said. Hardison was uncomfortable enough already with this table because the lady was wearing tight enough clothes and enough cakey makeup to look like an extra from a bad production of Cats, and now they were yelling at him.

"I'll go talk to the kitchen, I'm so sorry," he said tightly, taking the plate back.

"Hey," he called to the poor, abused looking runner who had been called up from lowly running duties to expedite for the evening. "Table six is pissed their food took so long. Lady says her sea bass isn't even hot."

The guy looked ready to cry.

"Goddammit, what's your problem?" Eliot snapped, coming over and taking the plate from Hardison.

"Hey man," Hardison said defensively.

"Sorry," Eliot groaned, wiping his face with his elbow. "Tonight fucking sucks. You officially make it every waiter that's come back with a complaint. We're, what? Nine tables behind on orders now?"

The kitchen boy cowered.

"Fuck it, go get Nate. I'm done. We're closing down. Give everyone their money back, give them free drinks or coupons or whatever, I'm out of here." Eliot dropped the plate on the metal counter and it smashed. Everyone in the kitchen turned at stared.

"Really?" Parker said archly. "Just like that?"

"Oh my god, Parker, I swear I will --"

"Hey no!" she stopped him with a hand outstretched. "Best idea. We just need someone who's good on prep and stuff, maybe move Danny off expedition and get him on salads. You're good at salads, right Danny?"

Danny nodded immediately, obviously wanting to be as far away as possible.

"Yeah, okay," Eliot snarled. "And I'm supposed to pull trained kitchen staff out of my ass, right?"

"TMI," Parker smiled sweetly. Hardison cringed. Maybe if he dove right now, straight backwards, he would be able to get to the door before Parker said her next sentence. Hardison tensed, ready to jump.

"Hardison can do it!" Parker said brightly.

Hardison slumped. Crash, boom, bang, his neat little lies came tumbling down.

"I don't think --" Eliot stared, but Parker cut him off.

"No, he can. He's a student at Werther's Culinary Academy. Pretty good, too, according to his teachers.
He can do it."

Eliot turned and looked at Hardison over his shoulder. "Yeah? You think you can do it?" Eliot asked.

"Yes," Hardison said. He didn't like the look on Eliot's face. He looked... disappointed.

"And you think he can do it?"

Parker nodded.

"Danny, run and tell Nate. Hardison, get an apron." Eliot turned back to his station and squared his shoulders. "Get me another sea bass, and two ribs, Parker. Now."

"Yes, boss," Parker said, winking at Hardison, who felt vaguely sick. Then they buckled down to work.

Time passed differently in a busy kitchen than it did elsewhere. Maybe twenty minutes passed, or maybe an hour, but things were getting done and food was made well and served promptly. They caught up on the backlog, with Hardison calling out the orders and making sure everything went out perfectly.

"A hand over here!" Eliot called with a slight note of alarm in his voice. The line was clear of food for the moment, so Hardison dashed over.

"What's up?"

"Oh. You. Yeah, make roux. I don't know how we ran out, but I need it yesterday."

You. Definitely a long way from the affectionate touching he was getting ninety minutes ago. Despite the heat in the kitchen, Hardison felt a chill settle over him, and all of it was emanating from Eliot. "Gimme five minutes, boss," he said instead of saying what he really wanted to say. Please don't hate me. Let me explain. I don't want you to be mad. We were getting along so well.

"You've got three," Eliot snapped.

It took Hardison four and a half, but when Eliot leaned over the pot to taste it, he didn't have a bad thing to say. He didn't really say anything, actually, just sort of grunted and gave Hardison a quick glance. "Béchamel sauce." Hardison knew it was a test. Eliot was just giving him things to see if he could do them, regardless of whether or not it actually needed to get done. All Hardison was really doing was playing right into the fucked up mind games that he hadn't wanted to get into in the first place, but he had gone and made it personal by getting involved with the head chef.

Involved, Hardison scoffed to himself. More like infatuated. He spent the next few minutes silently berating himself while scalding some milk and mixing it into the roux. Hardison scurried back over to the expediting line and called out another two orders as they came in, then put up three tables worth of desserts and was back at the stove before the béchamel started to burn.

He was pretty proud of himself, actually. He'd never really worked in a kitchen like this before, a big, bustling kitchen on a busy night, but he thought he was keeping it together well. As soon as the thought formed in his head, he turned on his heel and nearly crashed into Eliot moving a hot pan from one burner to the next. It was only some very quick, complicated footwork that kept Hardison from wearing whatever was sizzling in the pan.

"Careful," Eliot said, sliding the pan to where he wanted it. "I need about eight bulbs of garlic peeled and crushed."

So Hardison prepped them and dropped it at the end of Eliot's station, and all while keeping on top of the food going out of the kitchen and his béchamel sauce.

"Not bad," Eliot said when he checked on Hardison's sauce a few minutes later. "Garlic's fine too."

"Thanks," Hardison said, even though he still felt like saying more. You're an asshole; my sauce is awesome. Working with you is stressful beyond reason and yet I don't hate it. You're magic and I hate you and I want to be with you. And this stupid train of thought just won't crash.

Finally, finally, service was over.

"You did so well!" Parker beamed. "I knew you could. Thanks for all your help."

"Yeah," Hardison said, nodding politely as she said her goodbyes.

"Thanks for stepping up, Hardison," Nate said, poking his head in the kitchen. "Kathy said she's share her tip out with you for tonight because whatever it was you sent out for the crazy lady at table nine actually made her happy. Apparently she's a regular and usually cranky?"

Hardison dimly recalled the table, but it seemed like years ago that he had even set foot in the dining room. He nodded to Nate and thanked him, then shucked off his messy apron and realized he was more bone tired than he had been in a long time.

"Hey," Eliot called loudly from the other side of the kitchen. "Hardison. Can I talk to you?"

Eliot led him out into the alley where they'd had their first conversation. "So... What the hell?" he asked the moment the door closed behind them.

"What?" Hardison shrugged. "You've been pissed at me all night, man."

"You're in culinary school?" Eliot asked, one eyebrow arched in a way that was either condescending or questioning. Maybe both. Very possibly both.

Hardison tried not to bristle, just in case Eliot wasn't trying to being as offensive as Hardison assumed. He didn't know exactly how this conversation was going to play out, with Eliot being so mad at him for something stupid like culinary school. "Not for much longer. Another five weeks."

"So, you've been there since way before you started here."

Hardison nodded.

"And you never thought to mention it? What, you thought I wouldn't be interested? Thought it was something we wouldn't have in common? What, Hardison?"

Hardison leaned heavily on the back wall. "I don't know, Spencer. I don't tell anyone at school where I work or what I do. I don't like having to justify myself or --"

Eliot let out some sort of half laugh, half derisive snort. "Seriously? You think I care that much about any of that shit? Wow, Alec, you clearly think so much of me. You're a great cook. I bet you'll make it far."

"You know what," Hardison said, exhaustion getting shoved aside to make way for anger. "This is why, this right here is why I'm so damn hesitant to tell anyone anything. The attitude that just because --"

Eliot cut him off again. "I was being sincere, you incredible ass. I don't care what people think about me, or who tells me I can't do whatever, so how fucking hypocritical would it be for me to judge you? I do think you're a good chef and goddamn is it ever hard to compliment you sometimes."

Hardison blinked. "I didn't think you were supposed to compliment someone in the middle of a fight."

Eliot blinked back at him. "Who said we're fighting? I thought we were discussing. Do you want to fight?" He tossed his hair over his shoulder and reached to tie it back. "Because we can do that."

"No, no, no," Hardison said quickly. "No, we can discuss. I just thought you were mad at me."

"You're goddamn right I'm mad," Eliot said, that growl from earlier creeping back into his voice. "We're friends. We're friends who... ugh. Share things, remember? And you never told me. I could have helped you with shit or something, man."

Hardison was rapidly losing his mental footing. It was mostly the conversation, but there was something to be said for Eliot having that effect on him in general. "I'm... sorry?"

"Not as sorry as you're going to be when you have to make it up to me."

"I'm afraid to ask," Hardison said, hazarding to meet Eliot's eyes for the first time since the restaurant doors banged closed behind them.

Eliot still had a storm in his eyes, but he had at least retracted his metaphorical fangs. "Three things. Firstly, I was testing out new recipes yesterday at home and every single dish in my apartment is dirty. So you can wash those. Second, with Sterling gone for however long -- hopefully forever -- I cannot and will not work with Parker as my second on Sundays, so you're going to have to step up."

It took a few seconds before Hardison caught up with the line of thought. "Wait. You're pissed at me for lying, so I get a promotion. Oooo-kay."

Eliot sighed and leaned back against the bricks next to him. "I'll make sure to torture you a lot," he promised.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, plus you'll never get leftovers."

"I guess if I have to suffer..." Hardison started. He trailed off when Eliot took his hand and pulled him closer. Hardison let himself be kissed and decided that this really had been a fight and that he had definitely won.

"Wait," he said a few moments later when Eliot let him go and they both leaned back. "You said there were three things. What's the last one?"

Eliot grinned wickedly and for one crazy second, Hardison thought he should run for the hills. "Oh," Eliot said casually. "I've finally figured out what I want to do with a tennis racket, a bottle of Drambuie and those three uninterrupted hours."

--

"Hey, hey, pass me those shallots," Hardison said as he ducked under Eliot's arm and stepped over Avis in one easy, familiar motion. He turned back just in time to catch the paper bag of shallots Eliot tossed to him from the doorway. "Thanks."

"No problem," Eliot said. "You sure that soup's going to work? It's looks really... orange."

"Let me make mine and you worry about yours," Hardison said, smirking. He was sure the lovely bride-to-be was going to pick his bright, cheery, orange persimmon-and-shrimp soup over Eliot's messy green looking madness at the next morning's meeting.

"I would be worrying about mine if your freakin' dog didn't have to go out again," Eliot said, trying to wrangle the puppy into a corner so he could get the leash on him. "Riker! Sit, dammit!"

"They're our dogs," Hardison reminded, sneaking a taste of Eliot's gazpacho. "Whoa, that's actually pretty good."

"Get the hell out of it," Eliot warned. "Aha!" He finally got the leash clipped on the hyperactive puppy. "Avis, come on."

Hardison always relished the relative peace of the kitchen when the dogs went out for a few minutes. He took his time chopping the shallots, watching Riker gleefully trying to knock Eliot over in the yard. The yard was a good idea for the new place, as was the huge kitchen. They hadn't meant to sort of start a catering company, but one favour for a cousin somehow turned into a few favours, which then turned into a full time gig, so the kitchen was a blessing.

It wasn't what he originally intended, life goal-wise, but Hardison wasn't complaining at all. In fact, it was better than he had hoped for being just eight months out of school. He turned away from the window to get himself a glass of water, but before he could, one of the oven timers went off. Then the phone started to ring and one of the pots on the stove came dangerously close to bubbling over.

It's busy as hell, being me, Hardison thought.