A/N What's this? A new story in a new fandom? Yes, yes it is. So I watched Leverage for the first time a couple months back and immediately fell in love with it. This story is Eliot x Parker because I'm apparently incapable of writing canon ships. And it goes AU from the show sometime in season three, pre-pretzels...

I need to give my everlasting thanks to Alexandra926 without whom this story would be a mess and definitely not even close to being finished since she was the kick in the pants every time I needed the motivation to keep writing. I hope you all enjoy!

"What's for dinner?"

"Hello, Parker. How are you doing tonight?" Eliot asked leadingly, barely glancing up when the thief suddenly materialized at the breakfast bar in his kitchen. It was hardly the first time she had done so, and he very much doubted it would be the last.

"The same as I was an hour ago when I left Nate's," she replied slowly, looking at him like she was concerned he had taken one too many knocks to the head for asking. "Except now, I'm clean. They really need to replace their air filters. Those vents were disgusting."

Sparing another glance at his teammate, he noticed that the blonde braid that was draped over her shoulder was still damp. She must have stopped by her place for a shower before showing up at his.

"We're trying to pop them for cutting corners by knowingly exposing their employees to toxic chemicals," he reminded her, talking about their current mark. "I don't think the air filters in their HVAC system are their top priority."

He didn't even care anymore that he wasn't 100% sure how she was getting into his condo. Sure, he had some working theories, but despite actively trying, he'd never been able to catch her in the act. He'd mostly come to grips with the idea of never knowing. But what he really did still want to know, was how she unfailingly managed to arrive just as he was cooking dinner. Especially since it wasn't as if he ate at the same exact time every night.

Parker just shrugged, already done with this conversation and ready to move onto more pressing concerns. "So, what's for dinner?" she asked again.

"Chicken carbonara."

It had started not too long after the team had made the move from Los Angeles to Boston. Every few weeks, especially if they had some downtime between jobs and therefore he wasn't cooking for the team at Nate's, she would randomly appear in his condo with no prior notice or invitation, looking to be fed.

"Oh yummy!" she replied brightly. "Can I have extra cheese on mine?" she asked hopefully.

"If you set the table," he bargained, dumping the pancetta he had been chopping into a pan with some garlic to sauté together.

The first few times she'd broken in, he'd tried to impress upon her how lucky she was that he had realized who she was, before he attacked the intruder in his home. But his warnings for her personal welfare had been pointedly ignored. His insistence that most people called before inviting themselves over fell on deaf ears. And his requests that she at least knock and come through the front door like a sane person, were actually laughed at. While he'd never verbally admit it, he had long since given up on those particular fights.

"Deal," Parker agreed easily, silently hopping off her perch on the stool. Then and only then rounding the island to enter the kitchen where she could access the cabinets that held all the dining accoutrements they would need for a pasta dinner. Eliot may have lost the battle about coming to his condo uninvited, but he'd won the war over coming into his kitchen without permission.

Throwing together the sauce, Eliot watched from the corner of his eye as she set the table with careful precision, just as he'd shown her. The frequency of her visits had increased after Sophie had left on her soul-searching walkabout last year, and the hitter assumed it was because she missed the grifter and wanted company. Either that, or Parker had the whole team on some kind of meal rotation schedule known only to her, and he was getting her on Sophie's nights now as well. However, Sophie had been back for awhile now, and he still had an uninvited dinner guest sometimes as often as once or twice a week, so he didn't know what to think anymore.

Once the table was set, Parker wandered back over to her customary spot at the bar and gracefully slid back onto her stool. He had always appreciated the fact that she wasn't one who felt the need to fill the silence with idle chitchat. Instead, she was content to patiently wait - yes, Parker could in fact be patient outside of a job, as long as she was getting something she wanted out of it - and watch him while he finished cooking his, well now it was their dinner.

"Taste," he said, holding a spoon with a bit of sauce over the bar for her to try. When she gave him a happy hum and double thumbs up, a corner of his mouth quirked up, which he hid by moving to combine the sauce with the finished pasta. When the timer on the oven went off, he paused what he was doing long enough to pull the garlic bread out of the broiler, quickly moving it to a plate which he slid in front of her. "Take this over to the table and I'll be right there."

It didn't take him more than a few minutes to put the finishing touches on the meal which he transferred to a serving bowl and carried to the table, where Parker was desperately trying to look innocent. Which had to be hard to do, with what had to be practically an entire piece of bread shoved into her mouth.

"Seriously, Parker?" he growled, annoyed. "You started without me?"

"No I didn't," she denied automatically through a severe case of chipmunk cheeks, spraying crumbs everywhere. When he gave his all too familiar 'don't fuck with me' look, she rolled her eyes and tried again. "It smelled so good! I couldn't help myself."

"Couldn't wait two damned minutes," he grumbled, more to himself than to Parker, even while he served her first before serving himself. It didn't matter if she didn't have any manners, his Momma had taught him better.

This time she waited until he picked up his fork and took his first bite before she dug into the plate in front of her with gusto.

"Jesus, Parker, slow down before you choke," Eliot scolded. "It ain't gonna run out on ya."

"But it's so good!" she enthused, shoving another large chunk of garlic bread into her mouth.

Eliot shook his head with a fond sort of annoyance. It was, after all, always nice to have his cooking appreciated. Especially by Parker, who was by far the pickiest eater on the team, if the main ingredient wasn't sugar. "I'm happy you like it, darlin', but you'll enjoy it more if you eat slow enough to actually taste it."

Parker made a token effort to slow down, but still ate like she expected someone to take the plate from her before she finished, a habit that Eliot didn't like to contemplate the origins of. Instead, as he watched her finish off her first plate and serve herself seconds, he chose to muse on the fact that she must either have the fastest metabolism known to man, or she had a hollow leg where she was storing it all. There was no other explanation for how she ate the way she did, and stayed in such good shape.

Since he liked to take the time to actually enjoy his food while he ate it, Eliot was still finishing his own meal when Parker dropped her fork on her empty plate with a clatter, slumped down in her chair and rested her hands on her very full stomach.

"My stomach is happy now," she announced with a bright smile.

"You're welcome," he replied, knowing that that was as close to a thank you for dinner as he was going to get.

Once he was finished eating, Parker automatically stood to help him gather up the dishes and take them over to the sink so that they could wash them. A routine borne of another battle that Eliot had won; he figured if she was going to keep inviting herself over for dinner, the least she could do was help clean up and do the dishes.

She had been permanently assigned drying duty; banned from washing after she'd reached into a sudsy sink and grabbed one of Eliot's razor-sharp boning knives by the business end. Putting twelve stitches across all four fingers on her left hand was not how Eliot had wanted to end that particular evening. On top of that, Parker had been in a mood for days afterwards. Her hands were her livelihood, and losing the use of one of them, no matter how temporarily was devastating. Plus, Eliot had felt legitimately guilty for not thinking to warn her that the knife was in the sink. The icing on the cake was how annoyed Nate had been when Parker refused to tell him how she had gotten the injury. Since somewhere along the way, Eliot and Parker seemed to have come to an unspoken agreement not to tell the rest of the team that she was a regular dinner guest at the hitter's home. All in all, it was an experience that no one had wanted to repeat; hence, he washed, and she dried.

"So why can't we just use the dishwasher?" she asked, just like she did every time.

"Damnit, Parker," Eliot growled, not about to go through it again.

"Fine!" she exclaimed, snatching a clean dish towel from the drawer where he kept them, ready to do her part.

Standing elbow to elbow, they made quick work of the dishes and the kitchen was soon once again set to right. Sliding the last of the silverware back into the drawer, Eliot watched Parker for her next move.

Sometimes she ate and ran, disappearing as silently as she came. Other days, she hung around for a bit. Depending on the kind of day they'd had and how much extra energy Parker had to burn, they'd either just veg in front of the TV for awhile, or they'd head to his home gym and he'd work with Parker on her self-defense moves.

Parker's usual role on the team meant that she was the one most likely to get herself into a situation that she might be forced to fight her way out of, outside of himself, of course. She'd never be a hitter, but that was okay. That was his job. And as such, her first choice in a bad situation should always be to disappear, since it was what she did better than anyone. But if push came to shove and she didn't have any other choice, Eliot slept better at night knowing that she knew how to handle herself, and would be able to hold her own at least until he was able to get to her.

He watched as she meandered through his living room, taking a circuitous route through the open floorplan to the couch, pausing to toe off her shoes and snag the remote from the coffee table before flopping bonelessly onto the cushions. When she curled her feet underneath her like a cat and started flipping through the channel guide to find something on the TV that interested her, he saw that it was going to be a veg in front of the TV night.

"What are we watching?" he asked, dropping down next to her on the couch, accepting that she wasn't going to be leaving him alone any time soon with grace. As annoyed as he had been when she'd first developed this habit, lately he'd found that he didn't really mind her company.

"Mythbusters," she said, not taking her eyes off the screen. "I like it when they make things blow up."

"Of course you do," Eliot chuckled dryly. "Just don't be getting any ideas."

"Of course not," Parker assured him quickly, much to his surprise. She turned to look at him with the smile that made sane men take a step back, "I already have plenty of ideas on my own."

Eliot shook his head. "There's something wrong with you," he told her for the hundredth time, although it didn't carry any of the bite that it once had. He pointed back to the TV, redirecting her attention. "Watch your show."

He watched with her for awhile, until he realized this episode of Mythbusters was studying whether muzzle flash could cause an explosion if the shooter were in a house with a gas leak, and whether shooting through a carton of milk would stop it. Rolling his eyes at the whole scenario and already knowing the answer from personal experience, he picked up his copy of 'The Holy Road' by Michael Blake from the end table.

Absorbed in his reading, and only because the part of his brain that involved situational awareness never fully turned off, Eliot was only peripherally aware of the fact that as the first episode of Mythbusters turned into a second, that Parker was slowly sliding down the couch. It wasn't until her head was pillowed on the armrest and her feet stretched out across the space between them, her glittery green painted toes pressed up against the outside of his thigh, that he spared a glance in the thief's direction. It seemed that the combination of a full belly, a long day on the job, and his comfortable leather couch had done her in. She was fast asleep.

His first instinct was to shake her awake and send her home so she could sleep in her own bed, but she looked so peaceful that he didn't have the heart to disturb her just yet. He decided that he would let her nap a little longer, then cut her a slice of the chocolate chess pie - that he had not made with her in mind - for dessert, before sending her to work off her sugar high by jumping off the John Hancock Tower, or whatever it was she usually did when she left his place on the evenings she came for dinner.

Gently pulling the remote out of Parker's sleep-loosened grasp, he turned off the TV and turned his attention back to his book. He read another couple of chapters before she shot straight up, looking around the room with wide eyes, like she didn't know where she was.

"Parker… Parker," he repeated her name and snapped his fingers to get her attention. "You alright, darlin'?" he asked once she made eye contact.

"What happened?" she asked, disoriented.

"Nothing. You fell asleep while you were watching TV."

"No I didn't," she refuted automatically.

"Yes, you did Parker," Eliot said, giving her that askance look she so often inspired. "You were out for over an hour and a half."

"No," Parker shook her head, getting that panicky look in her eyes that she usually got before she bolted out the nearest window.

"It's alright. I didn't mind," he reassured her in the voice he usually reserved for small children and spooked horses. "It's been a long day, you were tired."

"No!" she insisted, pulling her knees up to her chest and drawing in on herself. "I don't do that."

"What… sleep? Everyone sleeps, even I have to sleep occasionally," Eliot said, getting up from the couch and heading for the kitchen, knowing that sometimes Parker needed physical space to calm herself down. "You're not excluded from that."

"I don't just fall asleep," she huffed, her eyes tracking his movements while she explained. "Not when I'm not safe behind my locks, behind my security. Not in front of other people."

Eliot paused for a moment in the middle of slicing up dessert. He could certainly understand where she was coming from. People in their line of work could never be too careful, especially about where they were at their most vulnerable. He thought about the warehouse that Parker called - no, Eliot couldn't call it a home, not even in his own mind - the place where Parker usually slept. He thought back to that windowless space with its steel door and variety of locks. He remembered the bank of CCTV screens that gave her camera angles of every possible approach. He would put good money down on the idea that she probably had other various security precautions that she set for when she went to sleep. There was a reason why Parker was known as the uncatchable thief. She hadn't gotten that reputation by anything less than constant vigilance.

In fact, thinking back on it, he realized that before tonight, he had never actually seen Parker asleep. Not even on long transatlantic flights. Which, okay, he understood that, since he was the same way. There was no way he could sleep in a tin can full of strangers either. But he'd also never seen her sleep on the sometimes unbearably long road trips the gang would take on jobs, where they would switch off drivers so they could drive through the night without stopping. Not even at Nate's, where Sophie would simply steal the mastermind's bed if she wanted a nap, and Hardison could often be found slumped over a keyboard after an all-night hacking session. Even he'd found himself crashing on Nate's couch a time or two after a particularly rough fight. But never Parker.

"What do you do when we're out of town on jobs?" he found himself asking, as he topped a healthy slice of pie with homemade whipped cream for Parker, and a smaller slice for himself.

"If I have to sleep, I usually find a vent somewhere to nap in, where no one can get to me," she shrugged as if it was obvious. "I don't sleep out in the open. It's not safe. I can't sleep if I'm not safe."

Eliot crossed back over to the couch and handed Parker her plate. "Well then, I guess that just means you must feel safe here."

He'd meant it as a throwaway comment. He was the team's hitter after all, keeping them, and by extension, keeping her safe was literally part of his job description. However, Parker's entire body tensed at his statement. Her instinctive reaction was to look at him as though he'd just suggested that there were more important things in the world than money. But as she picked up the fork he handed her and slowly started eating her dessert, a whole host of expressions flitted across her face, too fast for him to begin picking them apart. When it finally settled on that blank look that even Sophie couldn't decipher, Eliot shook his head to himself, picked up the remote and turned it to Sportscenter, watching the highlights as he ate his own dessert.

She didn't speak again until Eliot was taking the last bite of his pie.

"Can I sleep here with you tonight?"

Eliot inhaled sharply, sucking graham cracker crust crumbs into his lungs. "What?! No, Parker!"

"Please?"

It was the 'please' that had given him pause. He hadn't been aware that Parker even knew the word. "Why?" he asked, once he had finished coughing.

She looked at him with wide guileless eyes and simply said, "Because I feel safe here."

Eliot clenched his jaw and growled lowly in his chest. "Fine!" he exclaimed, despite himself. Because really, how could he say no to that, knowing just how difficult it must have been for her to say. "Just this once. But you're sleeping on the couch."

"Okay," Parker agreed easily, with a one-shouldered shrug. That was what she'd wanted anyways.

Holding his hand out for her plate, he got up off the couch and dumped the dirty dishes in the sink to be dealt with in the morning, before disappearing down the hallway towards his bedroom. It only took him a few minutes to grab a spare pillow from his bed, an extra blanket from the chest underneath the window, and a new unused toothbrush from beneath the bathroom sink. He hesitated at the door, before turning back to his dresser and grabbing an old flannel shirt to stick on top of the pile he was carrying.

Back out in the living room he found her in the same position he left her in, except she had changed the channel to Animal Planet.

"Did you know that wombat poop is square?" she asked when he reentered the room, not glancing away from the TV. "Well, I guess technically it's cubes."

Eliot's stride stuttered just slightly. "What... really?"

"Yup! I want one," she announced. "It could be the team mascot."

"No."

"I wonder if they have any at the Franklin Park Zoo," she mused as if he hadn't spoken. "I've never stolen anything from a zoo before. Shouldn't be hard, minimal security, made to keep animals in more than people out. Twelve minutes and forty seconds give or take, depending on how cooperative the wombat is."

"Absolutely not," he reiterated, already knowing he would have to keep an eye on this situation until this fancy of hers passed. He did not want to have to explain to Nate why he had a square-pooping marsupial running around the loft. "I thought you didn't like animals anyways."

Parker turned to look at him like he was the one who was being ridiculous. "I like animals. I just don't like horses, because they're murderous. I don't think a wombat could kill anyone, clown or otherwise."

Eliot rolled his eyes. Someday he was going to have to actually find out the rest of that story, but tonight was not that night. "Here," he said, dropping the bundle of bedding onto her lap.

"What's the shirt for?" she asked, spotting it on top of the pile.

"I thought you might want something to sleep in," he explained through gritted teeth.

"Oh." She usually slept naked, but she could hear Sophie's voice in her head telling her why that wouldn't be appropriate when spending the night at someone else's house. Moving the pillow and blanket off to the side, she stood up and started stripping off the clothes she was wearing.

"Damnit, Parker!" Eliot exclaimed, turning around on his heel. Then, realizing he could still see her reflection in the darkened windows, he shut his eyes, wondering not for the first time what the woman had against wearing underwear.

When he heard her shaking out the blanket, he figured it was probably safe for him to turn back around. Catching sight of the thief in his shirt as she arranged the bedding on the couch, her petite frame dwarfed by the oversized flannel, just long enough to cover the top of her thighs, caused him to swallow hard. He'd always had a visceral reaction to a woman wearing his clothes, but he quickly pushed that thought away. It was Parker, for god's sake!

"Well, you know where everything is," he told her, at a loss for anything else to say. He turned to leave when he remembered something else. "Do not touch my coffee maker in the morning." It was a ban already implemented at Nate's after the 'espresso incident', but he knew Parker well enough to know where she would see a loophole if he didn't add his particular machine to the ban list. When he spotted the petulant pout starting to form on her face, he resorted to bribery. "If you don't touch it, I'll make you pancakes for breakfast."

She brightened instantly. "Will you make that hot berry jam thing that you made that one time with them?"

It only took Eliot a beat to remember what she was talking about. "It's a blueberry-raspberry compote," he corrected. "And yeah, I can make that too." He paused as though he were going to say something else, then shook his head slightly, picked up the book he had left on the coffee table and headed back to his bedroom. "Goodnight, Parker," he called over his shoulder.

"Goodnight, Sparky!" she called back.

Back in his bathroom with several locked doors between them - not that it would slow Parker down in the slightest if she decided to go through them, but it was the principle of the matter - Eliot went through his own nightly routine. He took a long hot shower letting it do the work on relaxing his tight muscles, shaved so that he would have just the right amount of stubble by morning, and brushed his teeth. That done, he then ran a blow-dryer over his hair so it wouldn't be completely unmanageable when he woke up. Once he was clean and dry, he laid down in bed to read a few more chapters of his book before he went to sleep.

When he felt like he was tired enough to actually get some rest, he put the book on the nightstand and got up to do his nightly rounds, making sure everything was in order and locked up tight. Parker wasn't the only one who needed to make sure she was safe and secure before comfortably going to sleep.

It was always in Eliot's nature to move silently, but aware that Parker might already be asleep, he took extra care to do so as he moved around the condo making sure everything was as it should be. When he circled back around to the couch, he saw that she was in fact asleep, her breathing deep and slow. She'd fallen asleep with the TV on, tuned to some inane infomercial about some ridiculous kitchen gadget he would never be caught dead owning, so he once again turned it off before setting the remote on the coffee table.

Turning back to the couch, he carefully adjusted the blanket she was using, which at some point had slid half-way off the couch, leaving her legs exposed to the cool night air. Once he had made sure she was properly covered, Eliot couldn't help taking a look down at the peacefully sleeping thief. He felt the sudden urge to pick her up and tuck her into his bed where she would be more comfortable and take the couch himself. He resisted the temptation, instead silently stalking back to his bedroom, grumbling under his breath that he wasn't running a bed and breakfast for crazy thieves, ignoring the fact that he had already promised to make her pancakes in the morning.

"It's just for one night," he muttered to himself as he threw himself into bed, adjusting the pillows with more force than strictly necessary, before yanking the covers up over his chest.

It's just for one night.

A/N So there we have it, hope you're enjoying this new story! Let me know what you think!