Leverage is really inspirational guys ._.
Courtship
Hardison/Parker
938 words
Mild spoilers for 106.


He brings her flowers. No boy has ever brought her flowers before.

He is very young, and very foolish, and he brings her a bouquet made at the store, an impersonal mix of colors. They don't smell very good together. It's like the flowers are fighting.

But he's bringing them to her.

"What is this?" she asks.

"Flowers," he says.

She studies him. "Do you want to have sex?"

He blushes, as if she's said something wrong. As if that's not what he was thinking, not at all.

"Naw," he says. "I wanted to give you flowers."

She doesn't know what to say.

She walks off.

*

"You say thank you," says Sophie.

"He said he didn't want to have sex."

"Perhaps he likes foreplay."

"Flowers aren't foreplay. Cunnulingus is foreplay."

"Don't tell Hardison that," says Sophie. "You'll warp his poor mind."

"I don't understand," she says.

"He likes you."

"I know," she says. "He said that."

"And what did you say?"

"Nothing," she says. She thinks. "Should I have said thank you?"

Sophie looks pitying. "You don't get out much, do you, Parker?"

"No," she agrees.

*

In high school, she lost her virginity to the first boy who asked, because she was curious.

It didn't seem that exciting.

No one ever gave her flowers.

No one ever asked her to prom.

She wonders if he went to prom.

She wonders what kind of girls he gave flowers to. How often he does this.

She finds herself wanting to know things.

*

"When you said you liked how I turned out, what did you mean?"

He often jokes in response to things, but he's been very serious with her lately. "I meant I like how you turned out."

"What part of it?"

"All of it."

"But I'm crazy."

He shrugs.

"I steal things."

"I steal things."

"You steal music," she says. "And television shows. That's wrong."

"You still like me?" he asks.

She considers this.

She considers for a long time.

She considers during their next job. She considers while Hardison and Eliot fight over hockey scores. She tries to consider during Sophie's newest play, but it's so bad she can't think about anything else.

It's a week later when she finds him and says, "Yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes," she says. "I like you."

He blushes, turns his head so the brim of his hat covers his eyes. "Aww, shucks," he says.

*

The next time he brings her flowers, he wears nice clothes that don't fit him right. He looks out of place in his own body.

"Would you do me the honor of coming to dinner with me?" he asks. He sounds like he's reading off cards, stiff and awkward.

"Why?"

"Come on," he says. "You have got to know what's happening here."

She has seen this on TV. She has seen on TV and in movies the motions people go through when they are interested in other people. They're not motions anyone has ever gone through for her.

She doesn't think he's gone through before either.

"No," she says. "I don't want to go to dinner."

He looks so crushed she feels bad.

"Let's do something we like," she says quickly, to make sure he knows she wants something. "Let's do something like us."

"You want to steal some shit?" he asks.

What do we do together? she wonders. What are their mutual interests aside from larceny?

"Why do you like me?" she asks, because maybe that will explain things.

"Cuz you don't care," he says. "Doesn't matter what people think, doesn't matter about anything. You just do what you..." he smiles. "I was gonna say what you think's right, but I don't think that's the word. Except it kind of is. Just isn't what most people mean by right."

"You don't think I'm pretty?" she asks. Sometimes boys will tell her she's pretty or attractive or sexy. She doesn't care much either way, but boys seem to think it will make her like them.

He blushes again. How many times has he done this? she wonders. Has he ever done this?

"Yeah, sure," he says. "But that's not--I'm not looking for that."

"What are you looking for?"

"Dinner," he says. "A movie. A goodnight kiss."

"Okay," she says.

He looks surprised.

"Then let's do that," she says.

*

She puts on a dress even though she knows people don't do that. They are too dressed up, both of them--they look like actors. But not good actors. Sophie actors. They sit in MacDonald's and he tries to explain the plot of a show called Battlestar Galactica and she tells him how to break into a car with a coat hanger.

They go to the new Bond movie and whisper the whole time about how they could be doing what he is doing, only better. They lean their heads together and don't care if they bother people.

He holds her hand, a firm pressure.

She finds she doesn't mind it. She thought she would.

Afterward, he doesn't let go of her hand. He walks her back to her car.

He doesn't kiss her, so she kisses him. He is taller than she is and she has to get on her tiptoes to brush her lips against his.

"Thank you," she says, like Sophie told her to.

He smiles.

*

The next morning, he brings her flowers again.

"You don't have to do that," she says.

"I know," he says.

"No one's ever brought me flowers before," she says.

"I know."

"I don't mind if you keep doing it," she finally says.

"Okay," he says. "Good," he says.