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The bond clicked into place like the gears of a clock locking in a jarring grind. Eliot felt it, fine tremors chasing up his spine. There was fast paced sauteing going on in front of him, but he took it off the heat and turned off the gas range. He'd finish it when he could concentrate. It wouldn't taste great, but it probably wouldn't matter. Eliot turned to look behind him, then above. Parker hung half-out of a ceiling panel. She was staring at him with cool lizard eyes. "No," she said.
Eliot nodded. He was glad it was that simple. "Agreed."
But still it took a few days for the grinding lock between them to break loose. Tightness had drawn all across Eliot's chest while waiting. Waiting. Parker kept a distance that the others looked askance at, though not surprised. They weren't in the middle of a con which was the only saving grace. The bond finally released late at night. Eliot woke and felt breathing was easier. But it was cold from the bond-break, and he bundled up, drank tea. He noticed Parker wearing more layers, eating warm food. Then he forced himself to stop noticing. No, she'd said. And he'd agreed.
***
The bond snapped around them as Eliot hauled Hardison into a rough embrace, still shaking grave dirt off of Hardison's shoulders. It was fast and tight and hard, constricting and shocking, sudden as a fall into water. Eliot felt it with his whole body. He could feel it as Hardison flinched.
No one else noticed; the moment was too fraught. They were too consumed with relief and worry and joy. Parker paced across from them, too worked up, too distraught. And Eliot felt what Hardison felt as he looked at Parker: the deep fondness, the appreciation as sweet as peach juice, the dizzying bubbles of infatuation. And then Hardison looked at him, and Eliot felt that too.
***
They kept the bond. It seemed tempting fate to break it so soon after almost losing Hardison for real. Eliot fed it carefully, not too much - not to let it choke him, or bind his movements - but to keep it strong and healthy. The pressure of it around him got too tight sometimes, so he had to breathe deeper and slower until it released. Eliot didn't know why Hardison kept the bond, but he could feel sometimes the gentle handling of it, the bemused wonder and playfulness of Hardison's touch. It was all right for no one else to know. It didn't change anything; or, at least, it didn't have to.
***
It was just the three of them now. Nate and Sophie teleconferenced in often, and Eliot knew that Parker went to them for advice on her plans, but it was only them in the field, pulling the cons. It was a lot of pressure. There was less room for mistakes, and it would have made sense to let the bond come back.
But Parker wouldn't even let the one with Hardison stay. "I don't like it," she said. "I - he's important to me. I - you know how I feel. But when we bond, its like ants, crawling all over me." It was always ants, or rope, or drowning, Parker said.
The first bond you made was with your parents, usually. Eliot tried not to think about it. He tried not to think about it in the context of Parker, a baby; Parker, a child. If he thought about it, he would get angry, and Hardison would come to heckle him, and it would all be more annoying than it had to be.
"You don't have to be anything but what you are," he said, instead. "We don't have to be anything more or less than what we are, either."
***
The bond slipped into place gradually, warm like sunlight, illuminating the room when all three were together. Parker cocked her head. Eliot tensed, but Hardison stayed soft and relaxed.
"How's it feel, babe?" Hardison asked.
"Like wind against my face," Parker said. She smiled. "Like falling."