Page 120 of Untouchable

* * *

Harp is tumbling again,free-falling like a test pilot. He can see all the dials and he knows what they do but he can't overcome the sheer force of the fall.

He wants to comfort Parker. He wants to tell Parker to run as fast and far away as he can. He wants to take a long, hard look at how he could let someone so young and inexperienced set up shop in his life over the course of one weekend.

He knows the words he should say, the expressions his face should make, but it all gets muddled somewhere in the middle and he sits there, inert.

Harp is falling for Parker and that is terrifying. He has allowed someone to touch him again, and there's no turning back from the fact that they're going to get hurt now, going to hurt each other, going to do the wrong thing. Because that's what happens when you care, Harp realizes. He wasn’t married for a decade without learning that lesson. There's no reward without risk, and the risk began a long time ago for Parker and Harp.

He'd taken Parker on like just another stray and it had only taken a few days for Harp's entire world to shift, to begin to shape itself around Parker.

But it's a pipe dream. Harp lives on a mountain that is as inaccessible as possible by design. He is a poison to the people around him, and he can't even bring himself to tell Parker all of the reasons why he should be afraid, turning away.

When Harp pulls himself out of free fall, it is not to do the right thing. It is to do the thing his heart cries out the most for. He just wants Parker to not hurt in this moment.

"Parker, I care a lot about you."

Parker’s head snaps up and he frowns.

“Why do I feel like there’s a but coming?” he asks.

"No but. Plenty of ands but.... No. I care a lot about you. Full stop. You're not overeager," Harp says, looking down at his hands because it's too much to see the different emotions flickering across Parker's face. "I think you're out of your goddamned mind, of course, but. No buts."

The furrow between Parker’s brow only deepens.

“Then… why are you—why are you… acting so weird?” Parker asks. “If I care about you and you care about me then, um, shouldn’t you be, you know, happy?”

Harp frowns. "I amhappy."

Parker can’t help barking out a laugh.

“Then why are we both sitting here frowning at each other?”

Because there's no way on earth this is going to work. Because I'm not the person you're assuming I am. Because you decided to see the best in me when the worst is what's really important—what'll really hurt you in the end.

"Because this isn't easy," Harp says, truthfully.

Harp feels like he's been vacillating wildly between elation and horror ever since Parker arrived and the exhaustion of that settles into the middle of his chest before he can get out the next words.

He wants Parker to stay forever. He wants Parker to leave now, so he can rip off the bandaid. He wants Parker. He shouldn't.

"The winch is fixed and everything is all ready to go,” he says finally.

Parker looks like he’s been slapped.

“Hang on a second,” he says. “Are you just—are you really telling me to leave right now?”

"No—that's—I skipped a few steps in my head. I'm not kicking you out—I just thought you—"

What the hell had Harp thought?

"It's just that it's fixed. And since I ruined breakfast, there's nothing else to wait around for. I mean I'm sure you're antsy to get home."

He feels so fragile right now. He really doesn't want Parker to go, but what's the alternative? Spending another long day together and then sending Parker home that night? Having him spend a third night and then insisting that they should take it slow?

* * *

“You know,”Parker says sharply, “maybe one of these days you can actually ask me how I feel instead of assuming.”

---