omg, okay, this is possibly my favorite question anyone has ever asked me, because it has led me to the glowing, glorious realization of the answer. but before i get to said answer, we must, first, discuss the cars. because you see: john rogers’ blog, which i continue to read sometimes even though i disagree with a good 75% of what he says, states that eliot COLLECTS CARS, which i choose to believe because i am so absurdly delighted by it. i am so absurdly delighted by the idea that eliot spencer is not only a car buff but a car COLLECTOR and, of all the cars in his collection, chooses most often to see and be seen in his bright orange dodge charger with the blue stripes down the middle. like. l i k e. what must the rest of the collection look like? is the orange one his favorite because it’s the ugliest or does he actively collect ugly cars the way that he collects ugly clothes? is there somewhere a warehouse full of like. pt cruisers with flames on the side??? those cars that look like toasters? or are they all muscle cars in the most eye-searing paint jobs possible? is he in it for horsepower or speed or SHEER UNATTRACTIVENESS or like, the middle of the venn diagram of all three? eliot spencer u beautiful weirdo you are so fucking weird, you act like hardison and parker are weird but honest to god you are yourself the king of weird island. HE COLLECTS CARS AND HE CHOOSES TO DRIVE THE ORANGE AND BLUE CHARGER. i just. i can’t. at all.
okay. having said all that, my beautiful realization is this: aside from the cars, in many ways eliot spencer’s spending habits are all but indistinguishable from those of your average middle-aged, upper-middle class mom.
Parker and Eliot may not be huggers, but they have their exception. (Yes, it was just an excuse to have the OT3 hugs.)
#ha ha ha HA good luck convincing me that parker and eliot are not huggers#they’re huggers all right#they’re just picky huggers#they’re huggers only in the correct circumstances with the right people#but YOU CANNOT TELL ME THEY DO NOT ENJOY THE FACT#that their boyfriend alec hardison was born with his hug dial permanently set to ten#that their boyfriend alec hardison is at any moment in time thinking about how much he wants to hug either or both of them#THEY ENJOY IT#ELIOT MIGHT GRUMBLE ABOUT IT#PARKER MIGHT WANT TO MAKE SURE EVERYONE KNOWS THAT SHE IS THE ONE WHO DETERMINES WHEN THE HUGS BEGIN AND END#but they fucking love that shit my friends. they love it.#look at this canon as fuck proof of life on this concept i mean come on#THAT HUG IN THE TOP RIGHT GIF#IS FROM THAT JOB WHERE THEY CLIMB THE MOUNTAIN#and hardison is like oh hi eliot i’m cold hold me and then they cut to aNOTHER conversation and it’s not until the camera cuts back#LIKE THIRTY SECONDS LATER#that eliot remembers to shove him away#if eliot hadn’t remembered that he’s supposed to pretend he’s not in love with these assholes#because they’re like ~too good for a man of his darkness and shit~#he would’ve hugged hardison all goddamn day#AND PARKER#FORGET IT#LOOK AT THE WAY SHE TUCKS HERSELF INTO HARDISON’S ARMS which like girl: i feel that#if my boyfriends looked like your boyfriends i’d be tucking myself up against them too#but like god she evolves from poking them in season one to pressing up against them in season two to THIS#because from people she trusts and knows won’t try to trap her or keep her she’s got many years of hugs to make up for#HUG THEM FOREVER HARDISON. FULFILL YOUR DEEP NEED FOR HUGS AND THEIR DEEP NEED FOR HUGS#USE THOSE ABSURDLY BEAUTIFUL LONG ARMS FOR THE PURPOSE THEY WERE ALWAYS DESTINED (via gyzym)
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.
@ thatsnarkydragon : oh, man, I have now giffed thesescenessomanytimes, and I still want to cry about it. To add something new, here’s my painstakingly done transcription of the audio commentary for these scenes:
John Rogers: Now, this was interesting. We had a long talk in the writers’ room what this scene was gonna be. Because it is “why hasn’t –” because, let’s face it. Aldis, you’re a good looking man. You’re a very good looking man. Aldis Hodge: Thank you. JR: And, Beth, good looking woman. Why has that relationship not progressed farther, you know? And we wanted to not just do the hackneyed “because she was abused as a child,” because, you know, and so we really wanted to work on “why?” And it’s because she doesn’t feel worthy of the friends she’s made and the family she has. AH: Gotcha. JR: And a lot of this year is her feeling good enough about herself and feeling like she’s a good enough person to be with. AH: You know, John, Sexual Chocolate gets a lot of mail about that, you know what I’m saying? It’s true, and I gotta figure out how to explain it. JR: I know. I know. Boss of Sexual Chocolate also gets a lot of mail about that. AH: Just saying. JR: But look at this woman, look at this woman! AH: That’s ridiculous. JR: I mean, she’s melting down here. And, by the way, when we’re shooting this? Crew is crying, people behind the set are crying, I mean, she’s just devastating here. Dean Devlin: She nails this. AH: Yeah. DD: It’s also this whole thing about she wants to do the right thing and trying to understand what the right thing is. JR: That’s what’s great about Parker and what we so lucked into establishing this character first year and that Beth has done a great job of. Most shows have someone who’s just trying to do the right thing, we actually have a character who’s not sure what that is yet. And so it allows us an extra step of that character building. I mean, you know, that’s why we have to go so slow. We don’t want to fastplay this. These are real people in our heads. AH: Now, what was the motivation between, I mean, as far as putting Parker and Eliot together in that particular situation? JR: Because, I’ll tell you exactly why, because this is the year Parker starts to figure out that she’s actually a “better person” – quote, unquote – than she thinks she is. And this is the scene, right here. Eliot, because of the events of last year, has come to peace with who he is. And this is the thing, Eliot isn’t trying to redeem himself. A lot of people think Eliot, “oh, he’s doing good things to redeem himself,” Eliot knows he’s going to hell. But he can do some good along the way. And he can help his friends. And that’s his role this year, is a man who is very secure in who he is and who he isn’t in the world. Beth’s previous scene is amazing. This is some great acting, Christian is killing it here. Because what he has to do is he has to reach across this gulf, and, by the way, it only happened because of the way Christian and Beth have played this over the years. Eliot and Parker have a very specific relationship, it’s not brother/sister, it’s not boyfriend/girlfriend, but it is “I know the pain you’re carrying, because I carry a version of it.” And Eliot, at a lot of times, is the only one who can reach across to her, across that gulf, and in that moment, there’s no crying, it’s not showy, Christian acts the shit out of that moment. That is one of the keystone moments of the entire season right there.
– eliot spencer: leap baby. he was born on one of those rare february 29ths rarely seen in the wild and thus only has one real birthday every four years. parker, who had never really thought about the concept of leap babies before this fact about eliot came to light, is HORRIFIED by this, and takes to throwing eliot impromptu makeup birthday “parties.” given that parker spent many years throwing herself birthday “parties,” that word is a loose definition of the happenings at best; usually she takes him to steal something expensive under false pretenses and then yells SURPRISE when he realizes why they’re really there. hardison, on the other hand, is very focused on the fact that eliot’s 40th birthday will technically be his 10th, and goes to great lengths to put together elaborate events that are not remotely appropriate for the grown man eliot actually is. eliot will insist to anyone who will listen that he hates both of these approaches, but everyone knows that he’s lying.
– once every six months or so eliot has to replace their microwave because parker has put foil inside of it and turned it on. she claims every time that she “forgot” to take it off some food she was reheating, but eliot has replaced like 15 microwaves and never once found anything but foil inside the old ones; he’s pretty sure she just likes blowing the damned things up. he would personally rather just live without a microwave at this point, but hardison point-blank refuses – eliot’s home cooked meals are all well and good, but sometimes a man just needs his hot pockets.
– hardison likes to take long, luxurious showers, but he is 100% convinced that there is something wrong with the hot water in their building, because every now and again, totally randomly, with no correlation to length of shower or time of day or use of other water-based appliances he can figure out (and believe me, he has devoted considerable time to his attempt to do just that), the water will abruptly go ice cold and ruin his whole shower experience. someday soon, he will figure out that the link between these incidents is eliot, standing next to their water heater with a wrench and cackling to himself as hardison shrieks blue murder above him. when that day comes his revenge shall be swift and merciless.
– at some point, parker sees some film or tv show that features the concept of blowing a kiss and makes that squinty-eyed devious face that always makes hardison and eliot exchange a look of concern/borderline terror. shortly after that, it becomes apparent that she’s decided that she can poke their injuries all she likes if she kisses her finger before she does it. this is, of course, very wrong, but they both find it – especially the long suffering face she makes as she does it, as if to say FINE, YOU BIG BABIES, IF YOU WON’T JUST LET ME JAB AT IT LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE ANYMORE – too adorable to correct her (not that either of them, eliot in particular, would admit it).
– hardison does, eventually, brew up a batch he calls thief juice. it does weirdly well, eventually becoming a staple on the brewpub’s beer list, though there’s always a steep drop in sales whenever parker starts sneaking up behind people who order it declare proudly that it’s a mouth crime.
Kimchi and Justice 