Now I am just imagining some bad guy they put away being told to channel their anger into writing for therapy reasons, and that writing turns into some kind of weird revenge fantasy on the team. The thing is, this is at a time when none of them are together, not even Hardison and Parker, and this dude is clearly writing them as some kind of romantic triad???
Which, you know, may or may not, lead Hardison down a rabbit hole where he stumbles upon fan-fiction or similar “therapy writing exercises” about them from other criminals or clients. It makes him weirdly happy that people see them like that, even if it is kind of weird.
Cut to four years later and Hardison may have several aliases he’s carefully cultivated over the years where they are all in a relationship. There’s back story, drama, how they met, how they got together, their daily routine. The works. He justifies it by telling himself it’s not fantasy, just pragmatic. You know, in case they ever have to go into hiding and don’t feel like splitting up.
Hardison gets such joy out of creating these aliases. It’s almost like his version of The Sims. He loves imagining all these other lives they could have. And yeah, one day Parker is being nosy and stumbles across them. At first Hardison is embarrassed and still tries to play it off as nothing more than back-up plans but it’s no use because it’s painfully obvious some of the aliases would be of absolutely no use if push came to shove and they needed to get out of dodge, like the alias where Eliot is a Professional Cowboy (”what does that even mean, Alec? Does he wear hats and big belt buckles for a living?”).
Of course, Parker doesn’t make fun. Instead, she begins to add to them and comes up with all sorts of quirky new details, even suggesting some brand new aliases to add to the collection.
They don’t tell Eliot; Hardison, out of embarrassment, and Parker because she doesn’t actually realise they aren’t telling him.
Of course, this all comes to a head one night when Parker says she wants to do role play in the bedroom and Hardison is left speechless when Eliot comes into the room, more than a little smug, decked out in full cowboy gear saying, “the lil’ lady told me you got a wild west fantasy?”. And the drawl is so strong and Hardison is going to kill Parker, but not before he swoons just a little at the way Eliot tips his hat at him and winks like a 40s movie star, lets Hardison haul him in by his *cough* massive belt buckle and kiss him senseless. (Parker doesn’t understand the appeal of the cowboy look but she does like the low voice Eliot uses for the character and the way Hardison can’t take his eyes off of him.)
After that, Hardison is much more willing to share his aliases with Eliot and Parker (even if he does get mocked for some of them- “professional dinosaur wrangler, Hardison, seriously??”).
