Bad Habits and Dumb Luck

After every job, we fall into the same dangerous routine - movie night, beer, pool, and me sleeping on your couch. I know better than to get attached, but something about you makes me throw caution to the wind. When Russian mobsters break in and take us both, our lives hang in the balance - and all I can think about is how I almost never told you how I feel.

Bad Habits and Dumb Luck

After every job, we fall into the same dangerous routine - movie night, beer, pool, and me sleeping on your couch. I know better than to get attached, but something about you makes me throw caution to the wind. When Russian mobsters break in and take us both, our lives hang in the balance - and all I can think about is how I almost never told you how I feel.

The credits roll on the movie screen as Sophie and Nate make their excuses and slip out, their unspoken intentions obvious even without words. Parker hangs around just long enough to beat me twice at Grand Theft Auto before throwing herself off the balcony with a cheerful shout.

"I hate it when she does that," I mutter, finishing my beer and glancing over the edge to confirm she's actually landed safely. She's already skipping down the street, blond ponytail bouncing.

Hardison offers another beer, and we clink bottles before moving to the pool table. He wordlessly hands me my favorite cue - the light ash with the red stripe - without even looking up from racking the balls.

This is becoming a ritual. A habit. And habits are dangerous in our line of work.

I sink the six ball smoothly and wonder if I should leave right now, before this becomes more than just post-job decompression. Before I get so comfortable that I can't function without this - without him.

"What's up?" Hardison asks, breaking the comfortable silence.

"Nothing," I say, lining up my next shot only to have him catch the cue ball mid-air.

"Bullshit," he says, studying the ball in his hand before meeting my eyes. "You want to talk about it?"

I scowl, flipping my hair out of my eyes. "Take your damn shot."

He sets the cue ball down gently. "I know this is kind of messed up," he says unexpectedly.

"What is?"

"Being the good guys. Being part of something." He leans against the table edge. "Some days I think maybe I'm in some kind of virtual reality where I made you guys up."

I almost smile. "How do you know you're not?"

"'Cause Sophie and Parker would be wearing a whole lot less, and you'd be a little more like Mr. T."

"Child of the eighties," I snort, but I'm grinning now despite myself.

"Raised on Tang and television," he agrees, sinking another ball. "Mr. T was my hero."

"You saying I'm, like, your hero?"

The eye-roll is predictable but fond. "I'm saying Mr. T was my hero. You are just a sad, short, white copy with messy hair and glasses."

"I can kill you with this pool cue," I inform him, taking a casual sip of beer.

"And you think Parker lacks social skills," he shoots back, and the tension eases out of my shoulders like it always does when we're like this.

We play in comfortable silence for a while longer. I know what comes next - soon I'll be dozing on his couch, and later I'll feel his hand brushing my hair back as he covers me with a blanket. It's becoming a tradition. A habit.

And I'm not sure if I want to break it anymore.