lmx_v3point3

Fic: Losing Ground [9]

Author: LMX
Fandom: Leverage
Rating: PG-13 (foul language)
Pairings: Parker/Hardison

AN: See parts [2] and [3]. Hopefully, I have not hit an actual club name here. The internet tells me not, but there is always that possibility. If so, I mean no offense. Social groups like this exist in every social niche. For the HC_bingo Square "ostracised from society"

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19]

[9]

Alec had never cared about fitting in before in his life.

Alright, maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration. Maybe he'd thought about it a couple of times when he was a teenager living in an overcrowded foster home and his only topics of conversation were computers and Star Trek, but really he'd never actively tried to fit in, even after he'd realised he didn't.

So he wasn't sure why it had hit him so hard that he hadn't fit in at the Signer's Social. It had just been this thing that he'd picked up a flyer for, and what with Eliot still adapting to life without the spoken word, and him still getting used to life without his hearing, he'd thought it could be an opportunity, or something.

He hadn't expected everyone there to be the signing elite, to the last man raised in signing households, and every one signing way beyond what either of them - the derided newcomers - had understood as signing. They'd sneered at Alec and Eliot's crude attempts at conversation, calling it "signed spoken English", like the phrase was a swearword among them (and Alec could see how the body language they used represented their disgust, like his understanding of their ridiculously complex - and yet so simple - language was right there at the edge of his understanding).

As soon as they'd found out Eliot wasn't hard of hearing, only hard of speaking, he'd been physically ignored for the rest of the evening. If he tried, Alec could convince himself that he was offended on Eliot's behalf. Really he'd just felt like a teenaged boy, desperately trying to fit in and sitting there with his only friend in the world while the jocks refused to pick either of them for the team and talked about the game with terminology he couldn't hope to understand.

Eventually, Eliot's patience had given way and they'd left before food had arrived. He'd dragged them home, and Parker had been there waiting. Eliot had disappeared into the kitchen - his own personal version of hiding - and now Alec was sitting watching Parker flinch and jump as Eliot slammed around in there.

He hoped Eliot was actually making food, because he needed something to settle the roiling abyss that was his stomach.

Parker said something to him, and he ignored it. He was thinking about how brutal the shapes looked in comparison to the signs he'd been trying to read earlier. Whole-body signs, every tiny motion and expression meaning something, shaping the word that the hands were holding. Maybe he needed a better teacher. He'd not done many lessons, relying on what he could find on the internet and what the team had already picked up when he got home. Maybe if he got involved in some kind of…

Maybe he needed to remember he'd never fit in anywhere, so why would the deaf community be any different?

Parker pinched his arm and he couldn't even bring himself to look at her. Part of him just wanted to put his hands over his head, shut his eyes and curl up into an insensate ball, fit for nothing but wallowing in his own sense of isolation.

Food smells started to creep through from the other room and Alec made the decision that sometimes the childish route was best. He wandered into his room, leaving Parker alone on the arm of the couch, and shut the door gently behind him. He crawled under the covers of his bed and curled up into a ball. He could disappear if he tried hard enough.

Alec wasn't sure how long he stayed there, but he was hungry when he sat up and let the blanket fall off him. He wondered if Eliot had taken Parker back to hers. She'd been sleeping with him for nearly a year now, but she still had her own place and sometimes she used it. Alec could never sleep when she was gone. If he was lucky, Eliot would have actually made something edible, and left him some. If he wasn't too pissed off at the ruined evening.

He started when he opened his bedroom door to find Eliot sitting in the doorway, Parker draped over his lap and fast asleep. Once, Hardison had been jealous as how easy Parker was in Eliot's space. It was funny how quickly you got over something like that when the girl started sharing your bed. Eliot looked up with a concerned frown, shifting Parker gently to the side to free one hand. That done, Eliot hesitated, as if not sure what to say.

[You hungry?] he settled on.

The sick pit in Alec's stomach was hungry and not hungry at the same time. He sat down opposite Eliot, leaning against the opposite side of the door frame and thinking that it wasn't just Parker who was more comfortable in Eliot's space these days.

Now the door was open Alec could smell food again, and he wondered if he had something like that, something he could put all his angst into and then he would just be able to package it away and leave it. Or share it with Parker and Eliot and Nate and Sophie, like Eliot would share the food he'd made with his little frustrations.

Perhaps share wasn't the best word, Alec was fairly sure Eliot wasn't eating much at the moment, and that worried him even if he wasn't brave enough to bring it up right now. They all had their own issues. Maybe that was why Eliot had decided to leave before food had arrived. He hadn't even thought about that when he'd arranged this whole thing. He was an idiot.

[You can ignore me.] Eliot shrugged expressively. [Don't ignore her.] He gently smoothed his hand through the air around Parker's face, drawing Alec's attention there and away from the hurt on Eliot's face.

Alec fought against the lump in his throat and the pressure behind his eyes. [Fuck the Signer's Social Club,] he signed in his most inelegant, crude signs. [Who needs them?]

He could read the laughter in the shake of Eliot's shoulders, and Parker blinked slowly up at him, shifting away from Eliot to press herself into his chest. He pulled her close, apologising with that embrace, hating the tears that escaped.

Eliot pulled away, and Alec reached out and caught hold of his hand. He didn't really have anything to say, and couldn't say it anyway, with one arm holding Parker tight and the other gripping Eliot's hand, but in this moment it didn't seem to matter. Eliot sat back down and closed his eyes, sinking into the doorframe like it was a throne.

Alec might not have the best grip of the language newly his own. He might well be ostracised from the social group he was supposed to belong to. But damn if he didn't have friends here with him, and he could talk to them just fine.


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