i know that if you hide (it doesn't go away)

The first rule of a successful heist was simple. Nobody should like each other too much.  Trust was important, as was loyalty. Competence was a must, but affection? That shit got people killed.

That was Eli’s opinion anyway. 

"Absolutely not."

Jack didn't even look up from the blueprint spread across the table. 

"What’s wrong with you now?"

"I'm putting it in writing."

Eli pointed across the room. "The two of them are a liability."

Across the warehouse, he didn't bother looking up from the safe mechanism sitting in pieces across his lap. Springs, gears and steel components littered the floor around him. 

Beside him, Jimin lounged across the couch like a cat. One leg hung over the armrest, coffee balanced in one hand. 

"It is seven in the morning," Eli continued. "Nobody should be this close to another human being at seven in the morning." 

"You know, Eli," he said eventually, still focused on the lock in front of him, "jealousy is an ugly colour on you." 

Eli looked personally offended. "You've been dating for three years."

"Your point is?"

"Why are you always touching each other?"

He glanced down, Jimin's bare foot was resting against his thigh. "Oh."

He nudged it away. Immediately she put it back. Eli made a noise of disgust. Across the table, Rafi snorted.

"See?" Eli pointed. "That's exactly what I'm talking about."

"What?"

"It’s all the time," Eli said. "I just don’t understand it. I'll look over and one of you is always attached to the other one somehow." 

"Attached?" Jack asked.

"Like sea creatures."

"I’m not sure that you’re making any sense right now, Eli."

"You know exactly what I mean."

Jimin lowered her coffee. "We're literally sitting on opposite ends of the couch."

"Your foot is touching him."

"And?"

"It’s weird, normal people don't maintain physical contact twenty-four hours a day." 

Jimin glanced at her boyfriend. 

"He's got a point."

She immediately removed her foot.

Eli opened his mouth to celebrate.

Then she leaned sideways and dropped her head directly onto his shoulder. The action nearly made Rafi choke. Jack lowered the blueprint slowly as Eli stared.

"What the fuck was that?" 

"You said the foot was weird."

"So this was the best solution you could come up with?"

Jimin looked genuinely confused. "Would you prefer the foot?"

"Absolutely not."

She nodded thoughtfully, placing her foot back against his thigh anyway.

Eli pinched the bridge of his nose.

"One day," he said, sounding exhausted, "one day we're going to be in the middle of a job and one of you is going to get someone killed because the other one's in danger. And this time you won’t be as lucky as last time."

"That sounds highly unlikely," said Jimin. 

"You’re so annoying, you know I’m right. Just last month he took a punch for you." 

"He was standing in front of me, I didn’t ask him to."

"He jumped in front of you."

"Technically."

"That's literally the same thing."

Across the room, her boyfriend finally looked up from the safe. "You got stabbed for me in Prague."

The warehouse immediately went quiet.

Eli, Jack and Rafi all froze.

Jimin took a sip of coffee.

"That was completely different."

"No, it wasn't."

"That guy had a knife."

"You had a gun."

"He caught me by surprise, I forgot about the gun."

Eli slowly lowered himself into a chair.

"You know what's concerning?" he asked.

Nobody answered.

"The fact that neither of you ever feel the need to tell us these things."

"Most of it isn’t relevant."

"Getting stabbed seems pretty darn relevant to me, Jimin."

"You saw me after, I was fine," Jimin replied with a shrug.

"But you got stabbed, for Keys?"

"Obviously."

Eli found himself speechless at her reply, Jack even didn't look up from the blueprint.

"How many times have you been stabbed?" 

Jimin frowned. "Personally?"

Silence.

"What do you mean personally?"

"Well, there's a difference between being stabbed and being present during a stabbing."

"See?" said Jack.

"See what?" asked Rafi.

"That's exactly the answer I expected."

"How is that an expected answer?"

Jack finally looked up. "Because if she'd have said none, I would've assumed she was lying."

"I just think people are too dramatic about stabbing."

Rafi stared. "What do you mean people are dramatic about stabbing?"

She looked at him. "You either die or you don't."

A long silence followed Jimin’s words. Rafi looked horrified, Eli looked vindicated, and Jack returned to studying the blueprint. 

"There it is," Eli muttered, eventually breaking the silence.

"There what is?" Jimin replied with a frown.

"Every now and then you say something that reminds me you're secretly unhinged."

"That's a strong word."

"Jimin."

"You say that like I'm the weird one."

"You just described getting stabbed as a minor inconvenience."

She considered it.

"A moderate inconvenience."

Rafi made a strangled noise. 

Beside her, Keys laughed quietly, the sound softening something in Jimin immediately. Tiny, almost impossible to notice.

But Eli saw it, because Eli saw everything. And somehow that tiny change disturbed him more than the stabbing conversation. Because Jimin looked at most people the way a scientist looked at a lab rat. Curious, detached, clinical.

But when she looked at Keys, the edge disappeared, not completely, but just enough. Enough to make her seem human, like somebody lowering a weapon without putting it away. Somehow that disturbed Eli more than the stabbing conversation.

Unfortunately for Eli, the universe had long since stopped caring about his opinions. 

The warehouse fell quiet again. Jack returned to his blueprint, Rafi returned to whatever disaster was currently happening across the six monitors in front of him. Jimin resumed drinking her coffee, and her boyfriend resumed dismantling the lock. Normality restored.

Or so Eli hoped.

"How much money would it take?" Jimin broke the silence. 

"For what?"

"To get stabbed."

Three heads snapped in her direction.

Eli closed his eyes. "No."

"You don't even know what I'm asking."

"I know exactly what you're asking, Jimin."

She considered this. "Fair point, Eli."

Rafi looked horrified. "Why are we discussing this?"

"Curiosity, I guess."

"That is not a normal curiosity."

"I think it is."

"It really isn’t."

Jimin drummed her fingers on the arm rest. "See, and that's exactly why surveys are important."

"What are you even talking about now?"

Jimin turned to face her boyfriend. 

"If I ask four people and three of them think it's normal, statistically you're the weird one."

"That isn't how statistics work," he eventually replied.

"That's exactly how statistics work."

"It most definitely is not."

She looked at Jack. "How much?"

"Five million."

The warehouse went quiet.

Jimin pointed at him immediately. "See? Thank you. Finally, somebody understands the assignment."

"Jack," said Eli.

"What?"

"You would not get stabbed for five million dollars."

Jack looked offended. "I absolutely would."

"You absolutely wouldn't."

"If it meant I wouldn’t have to ever look at your ugly mug again I would."

"Stop encouraging her, Jack."

"She's thirty-two years old, Rafi. If she wants to auction off her organs, that's between her and the big man."

"I don't think God should be involved in this conversation either."

"That's probably wise." Jimin nodded thoughtfully.

Across the couch, Keys was visibly trying not to laugh, the corner of his mouth twitching throughout the whole conversation. Jimin noticed immediately, she always did.

"How much for you?" she asked.

His hands paused over the lock.

"For what?"

"Getting stabbed."

He looked at her. "You stabbed me with a fork once."

"That doesn’t actually count, that wasn’t a stabbing."

"It left a scar."

"You were being annoying."

"You see?" Eli exclaimed. "You see the problem?"

"No."

"You don't hear yourselves."

Jimin looked genuinely puzzled. "We're having a conversation."

"You stabbed your boyfriend with a fork."

"It was a salad fork."

The warehouse exploded. Even Jack laughed at that. Rafi nearly fell out of his chair, her boyfriend covered his face with one hand. Eli looked seconds away from a cardiac event.

"The fact you specified the type of fork isn't helping."

"It feels relevant."

"It isn't."

"I disagree."

"Of course you do."

A comfortable silence settled over the warehouse, the kind that only existed between people who had spent far too many years together. 

Eli couldn’t help but find himself watching them again. How they shared his coffee, even when she hadn’t finished hers. Drinking from the same spot without even thinking about it. Domestic things that had no place in a crew like theirs. 

His eyes drifted to Jack and the blueprint. The biggest score of the careers. The most dangerous one, too. One mistake and they were all finished.

His eyes shifted back toward Jimin. She was saying something quietly to him now. Too quiet for the others to hear, and whatever it was made him smile. Not laugh, but smile. Softly. Like it belonged entirely to her.

Something uncomfortable settled in Eli's stomach. Because he trusted the safecracker in the same way he trusted Jack and Rafi. But Jimin? Eli wasn't sure anybody truly trusted Jimin. Not because she wasn't loyal, because she was. Fiercely so. Not because she wasn't competent. No, she was probably the most useful member of the crew.

The problem was that Eli had known Jimin for seven years, and there were still moments when he looked at her and realised he had absolutely no idea what was happening behind her eyes.

But the most unsettling part was the look she'd given her boyfriend when she thought nobody was paying attention. Not calculated, not manipulative, not performed. Real. 

What would happen if someone threatened the one person Jimin genuinely loved? 

Eli found that thought far more frightening than anything else.