why would you ask this question. why would you fill me with these dangerous feelings. why?!
just kidding, really i must thank you, as i have had a terrible migraine which just broke after several days of anguish and thinking about the answer to this question has kept me sane through the ups and downs. but sort of in that way where like – you know when you have a horribly itchy mosquito bite? and you know scratching will just make it worse so eventually you just start slapping at it? and then for the couple of seconds that the slap is hurting you kind of forget about the itching? this was like that, except with both “itching” and “slapping” substituted for PURE AGONY. i apologize for myself and this answer; pain relief + glee + these thieving hacking hitting assholes has this strange tendency to make me a little hysterical.
anyway, BULLET POINTS, because i have a lot of feelings about HEIGHTS and KISSES and EVERYTHING, okay:
so first of all i assume it goes without saying that this question does not really apply to parker because she climbs on her dudes like they’re jungle gyms, but IN CASE THERE IS ANYONE WHO HAS NOT ALREADY DRAWN THIS CONCLUSION: that is the truth. she flings herself upon them. she wraps her legs around their middles to hold herself upright. with hardison who is very tall she pretty much has to climb on him (or be sitting/standing on something) to kiss him – in theory he could stoop to kiss her and he tries, he honestly does, but she’s usually too fast with climbing up to meet him for him to be all gentlemanly like that. with eliot, parker COULD kiss him with both her feet on the ground because she and eliot are pretty much exactly the same height, but why would she do that when she could THROW HERSELF THROUGH THE AIR AND TRUST ELIOT TO CATCH HER? (she has knocked hardison to the ground via this method once or twice, which hardison thought was hilarious the first time and terrifying in terms of setting a dangerous precedent the second time, so now they have a rule that if she is going to do that with him, she has to let out a flying-tackle-kiss warcry first. she and eliot have no such rule – in fact they both enjoy the weird, weird game they play with each other where she springs at him from behind corners and tries to catch him by surprise – and one day she WILL knock him over. SHE WILL KNOCK HIM DOWN WITH HER LOVE.)
this brings me neatly to your actual question which, of course, has the most beautiful of all answers:
because see the thing you have to understand, right, about hardison and eliot once they are part of the parker/hardison/eliot situation, is that both of these dudes have all these like, sappy romantic impulses? like, hardison canonically wants to picnic under the stars. eliot canonically gives a couple of different speeches about Romance and Wooing, the best of which is the one where he’s like GET OUT FROM BEHIND YOUR COMPUTER AND PUT ON A SUIT, HARDISON, GOD. and parker, canonically, pretty much wants to go on dates where she can jump off of stuff. like, she’ll do the romantic shit for hardison’s sake! she even enjoys it sometimes! but in terms of the stuff that really revs her engine, so to speak, the things that really scratch her itch, she’s not much for romance. (tbh, like a lot of people, she’s a character that i mostly headcanon as being ace – not always, but most of the time, and in a variety of different flavors. sometimes i see her as grey-ace, sometimes as demi-sexual, sometimes as aromantic, etc etc etc. whatever works for you is what you should go with! but that’s what works for me :D)
anyway, this leaves eliot and hardison in the HILARIOUS situation of slowly growing to recognize that the right place to put their more traditional romantic impulses is… in each others’ laps, which is a pretty startling realization for these dudes who spend so much of their time being fake-mad at each other. IT’S A WEIRD THING FOR BOTH OF THEM TO LOOK IN THE FACE AT FIRST, that like, their favorite method of having a conversation involves swearing and yelling and rolling their eyes and shit, but also that they would kind of both like to do one of those dumb romantic ferris wheel rides with someone, and that person can’t be parker because parker always hops out of those things and climbs around on them, typically terrifying everyone. (on a semi-related note: between that, the way eliot’ll wander around teaching people how to beat the games, and hardison’s tendency to remark LOUDLY and PUBLICLY on any rides with visible safety issues because people should PROTECT THEIR FAMILIES from BAD ENGINEERING, they’ve been banned from a lot of carnivals.)
the point! god! the point of this whole long winded response is: sometimes, just – sometimes, a slow song’ll be playing somewhere, and hardison will pull eliot into a dark corner where no one can see them and and bow his head, stoop down with his hand on eliot’s cheek and their hips rocking together to tune of the music, and kiss him slow and sweet and just this side of sinful. and sometimes, just – sometimes, eliot will pause on his way out the door and go up on his tiptoes just for the thrill of pleasure in pressing his lips against hardison’s soft mouth, the little breath of surprise he can catch and keep with him all day. sometimes hardison will bend down to press his lips to eliot’s grumpiest face just to tease the edge of a smile out of it, and sometimes, when hardison is stretched out long-limbed over the couch, eliot will take advantage of his temporary shortness to lean down and kiss him the crap out of him, because he misses being tall, damn it, he made a point to fuck the short once upon a time.
and, you know what, sure, maybe the the ~romance of it all would be ruined for most people by the way the kisser almost always smirks and says, “ha. beat THAT,” when they’re done with the kissee. but most people wouldn’t grin in anticipation and brace themselves to catch an armful of happy partner at the sound of parker yelling “oOoOoO!!!!!!” either, so most people can probably shove it, to be honest. normal is what works for you, that’s what hardison’s nana always says. and what works for them (just – sometimes) is hardison and eliot making out for all they’re worth in a ferris wheel car at the last carnival in town that doesn’t know about them, as parker cackles and the people below scream “OH GOD! THERE’S A WOMAN HANGING OUT OF THIS THING! I THINK SHE’S GONNA FALL!!” that’s their happiest place, and really, who is anyone else to judge.
Kimchi and Justice 