Predator and Prey - Part 2 of 4
Title: Predator and Prey
Genre: Angst, hurt/comfort
Total Story Word Count: ~16,500 words
This Chapter's Word Count: ~4,000 words
Rating: PG-13 (language, violence)
Pairings: None (Gen)
Warnings: None
Summary: Tag to the Leverage episode "The Tap Out Job." Eliot's used to being in control, to being able to fight back against individuals who mean him or his teammate's harm. So what happened in the first few minutes of that fight where he let himself get beat up, for the sake of his team and the success of their con? Add that to the physical trauma from the fight and maybe it's affecting him a lot more than he's leading on.
Author's Note: A thanks, as always, to my wonderful beta phoenix_laugh. This fic was written to fill the prompt "build-up of job related trauma" on my hurt/comfort bingo card. This fic is completely written and will be posted in 4 installments over the next week or so.
Predator and Prey - Part 2
[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4]
-----------------------------
“Pat said he used to walk through a mall and feel like a shark among seals. And that power, in the great fighters, breeds restraint, understanding, and wisdom, even gentleness, except when in the ring.“
-Sam Sheridan, MMA fighter - "A Fighters Heart"
-----------------------------
One day later found the team at a warehouse where some muscle that worked for the company was supposed to be selling some weapons to an international arms dealer. One of the dealer's go-between men was coming to inspect the merchandise tonight. If everything was up to par, the money/weapon exchange would go down tomorrow night.
Tonight was supposed to be pretty low-key. Hardison had come in earlier that day to rig up some audio-visual equipment to film the meeting and pass along to the feds as evidence of the corporation's shadier business. Nate had arranged for Eliot and Parker to be on scene during the meeting to see if they could sneak a weapon away afterwards, before it was shepherded away for safe-keeping. That would be the last nail in the coffin needed to bring this company down. That'd been the goal from the start. Their client's son had been shot in a gang fight that had bled over into a residential area after a car chase. The boy had been playing in his front yard while the dad had been watering the flowers out front. It had taken one stray gunshot to change their client's life. From one of the joys of watching his three year old son learn to ride his first bike to one of lowering his still body into the ground. The weapons utilized by the gang were known to have come from the largest arms dealer in town. And it was common knowledge that the C.E.O. of this company ran the business from the background. But every time the feds tried to bust him, everything was always squeaky clean; they'd never gotten any charges to stick. At least until the father had come to Leverage, Inc. for help.
The meeting proceeded without a hitch. He couldn't see much from his vantage point, but he'd picked the location not to keep an eye on the men, necessarily, but also on Parker. He threw a glance up to where she was perched in the rafters of the warehouse, held up by her rappelling and climbing gear. His teammate didn't notice his gesture, Parker was doing as she always did, focusing one-hundred percent of her attention to her marks.
Eliot smiled and settled back into the shadows to wait until the men left to finish their negotiations elsewhere, leaving the handling of the weapons to some of the extra muscle they had on their payroll.
Eliot waited ten minutes after the last body had filed out of the warehouse, the doors had closed, and there hadn't been a single noise, before slinking from his hiding space along the wall to the bench where a pair of machine guns was laid out on top of the wooden crate they'd arrived in.
"Parker, it's clear," he whispered up toward the ceiling.
There was a slight noise at her rustling about, adjusting ropes, and then quickly descending from the ceiling like a spider from its web, arms and legs spread out to keep her balance as she did so. She reengaged the locking mechanism on the pulley attached to her harness, stopping her descent about two feet from the ground. Parker quickly unclipped herself from the rope and stood up, stretching each limb as she did so, "Took them long enough," she muttered.
Eliot chuckled, "Yeah, well, at least they're gone now. We should take these," he said, raising the machine gun he held a bit, "and get out of here before the muscle arrives to put this stuff away."
He checked the safety on both weapons and then handed one to Parker, "You ok to take one of these?"
She nodded and delicately pulled the weapon from where he held it out for her, "Yeah."
"Hey! What are you guys doing in here?!?"
Parker and Eliot spun toward the voice to see a bulky man, obviously the hired muscle Eliot had been hoping to avoid. He stood a good head above Eliot and each arm was thicker than two of Eliot's put together.
"Parker, give me some space to take care of this guy," Eliot ordered.
She nodded and withdrew several paces, disappearing into the shadows between two ceiling-high shelving units. Eliot watched for her to fade into the dark before switching his gaze back to the ox of a man charging toward him. He thought about using the gun to solve this, but ruled it out almost immediately. If things went south, as they often seemed to do in situations such as this, gunfire would only bring more enemies to their location.
The man stopped a few steps away and began circling Eliot, "Who sent you, Tony? He gettin' a little jealous now that his clients are realizing we got the better merchandise in town?"
Eliot raised an eyebrow, "Not exactly." He took the free moment to drop into a defensive stance, turning as the other man circled so they remained face to face.
"Well then, whoever sent you isn't so important. More important is me showing you exactly how we treat folks who stick their nose where it don't belong." With that statement, the muscular man bounded forward, meaty fists raised for a frontal assault.
As the man neared, Eliot slipped away at an angle and stuck a foot out to trip the man. As if in slow motion, the thug tumbled forward and hit the ground with enough force to generate a sound that echoed through the warehouse. The man growled as he made a move to raise himself up on his arms, but Eliot stopped the motion there as he took the fight to the ground.
A moment later had them tumbling across the ground, Eliot's legs locked around the man's neck one moment only to have those meaty hands tear his hold loose. The man rolled over on top of Eliot until he was sitting on his chest and wrapped his two hands around Eliot's neck. His hands were more than large enough to complete the distance around Eliot's throat and he slowly began applying pressure.
"Eliot!" a voice called out.
Eliot winced, god, the last thing he needed was for Parker to get involved. With the last bit of air in his lungs he responded, "Stay back," but it came out barely loud enough to be a whisper, far too soft for Parker to hear.
"I see you didn't come alone. Brought a lady friend, did you?" the man jeered as Eliot's vision began spotting.
God. Everything burned. His ribs, still sore from the beating they'd taken in the ring the other day, were sending rippling pain signals through his torso. The man's weight on top of him didn't do much better for him, further restricting the breathing already hindered by the grip around his throat.
The man laughed as Eliot's body bucked and his hands started shaking. He was prey, he was a seal. This shark would tear away the last bit of breath in his lungs and extinguish any chance he had of getting out of here alive.
"Almost there, see, going down isn't so bad. And once you're good and unconscious, I'll go find your lady friend and do the same to her," he turned his gaze to the direction that Parker had cried out from earlier, "Hear that bitch? You're next! You're in way over your head here!"
A blurry kaleidoscope of images was running before Eliot's eyes. The man sitting atop of him, dominance reflecting in his eyes interspersed with images from the fight in Nebraska. Eliot dropping his guard and turning his open torso toward his opponent to receive fist after fist. Explosions of pain radiated from his chest with each blow, blending in with the vice closing around his windpipe in the current moment. His breathing had quickened at first, his body pumping adrenalin through every vein, grasping at any straws for surviving this. It was slowing now, though, as that reserve bottomed out and his oxygen-starved body started to shut down.
"There ya go, buddy. Ain't gonna last much longer," the man sneered, "I gotta say, I was a bit worried at first. But you ain't nothing but another piece of lazy meat, raw for a good pummeling."
Eliot's vision flashed red as he used his last energy reserve to roll sideways, throwing his opponent sprawling across the floor in surprise. Eliot gasped for air, each breath burning and relieving his lungs at the same time. His motions didn't still, though. Even as he was recovering he was striking at the man. A boot to the chest, a fist to the neck. The strikes blurred together as his muscle memory kicked in and delivered a flurry of attacks one after the other.
The man winced a few times, gave a noise akin to a mew once, and then went silent. But Eliot didn't stop. He wasn't a victim, and he certainly wasn't a piece of meat. Let him show this man what a piece of ground meat looked like after a thorough beating. He'd give this jackass that and then some.
"Eliot?"
A voice seemed to pierce the murk surrounding his brain. But it wasn't enough to break his focus. There was just him and his opponent in an improvised ring. And there was punishment to be dealt out to his prey.
A light hand closed around his shoulder, his nerves in that area relaying the signal to his brain. Another opponent. And then it clicked for Eliot, the man had summoned more of them before he'd gone down.
Eliot growled, closing a hand around the wrist of the person behind him and jerking it forward over his own shoulder. He jerked an elbow backward, aiming for the face of this new opponent; it was the quickest and surest way to put him down quickly.
There as a surprised cry and he felt the person behind him go slack and fall backwards. He released the arm he'd been holding and spun to face the new enemy in a defensive stance.
Parker sat on the floor in front of him, hands covering her face.
The murk around his brain dissipated almost immediately, "Fuck, Parker. I thought you were another thug. You ok?"
Both of her eyes were closed and a trickle of blood was leaking between her fingers and running down along her hand, "Ow. That hurt," she muttered in a quiet, level voice.
Eliot checked the man behind him once more, just to make sure he was out. Satisfied, he turned back to his teammate, crouching down next to her, "Shit, Parker. I'm sorry." He reached to peel one of the hands away to survey the injury; he'd delivered that blow to inflict maximum damage thinking it was an opponent.
Parker scooted back a bit, "Uh, I'm ok. How 'bout you stay over there, maybe? You check the guy?"
Eliot ran a hand through his hair, but he backed up a pace. He knew that Parker wasn't fond of physical contact on the best day, and this certainly wasn't their finest night. Last thing he needed was to spook her. "Ok, I can do that. Anything feel broken?"
"I don't think so," she said, although it wasn't a very confident tone, "Got me good in the nose there," she snorted.
Eliot frowned at that. It didn't seem quite the time for her to laugh, and he wasn't really seeing the humor in the situation. But, then, Parker did always find amusement in the oddest things. If it eased her nerves, he'd be glad to let her have her moment. In the meantime, he stood to the side awkwardly for a spell, not sure what to do in this situation other than let Parker get her bearings.
Parker gently pressed on the area around her nose, wincing at a few places. She eventually dropped her hand away and let Eliot get his first look at it. He grimaced, the skin was already turning a mottled mixture of purple and blues and blood still leaked freely from her nose. He patted his pockets, searching for anything to give her for the bleeding, but both hands came up empty.
"Parker, I'm sorry," he said again.
She shook her head, flecks of blood flying in an arc with the motion, "We need to get the guns and go," she said.
Eliot turned back to the table housing the guns. The purpose of this mission had completely escaped his mind the moment he'd realized he'd hit her. As always, Parker was practical and right. "Ok," he said in agreement, "You sure you're ok?"
She shrugged, "We'll decide that later. Right now I can walk and carry one of these guns we need as evidence. That's enough." She scooped one of the guns off the table and started walking toward the door they'd snuck in through.
Eliot shook his head, grabbed the second gun, and followed close after her, watching for any sign of dizziness or other symptoms that would signal that he had injured Parker more than she was leading on.
-----------------------------
“A big punch does something to a crowd. It connects the crowd and turns it briefly into a single animal, reveling in awe and rejoicing in the physical power.“
-Sam Sheridan, MMA fighter - "A Fighters Heart"
-----------------------------
"Well, shit. Parker, you ok?" Nate inquired through the open window of the get-away vehicle he'd parked in the lot.
She nodded, "Fine. It's ok." She passed her gun to Eliot and slid into the car while he went around back and locked the guns in the trunk.
"Who got a knock in on you?" Nate asked as she shut the door and buckled her seatbelt.
"Oh, it was Eliot," she responded nonchalantly.
Nate's expression froze at that, "It was Eliot," he repeated, as if speaking the words slowly to himself would make them make any more sense. Nope, didn't help.
Eliot slammed the door on his side of the car and opened the first aid kit in his lap, "Look, you drive. I'll take care of Parker until we get back. We need to get out of here."
Nate gave him a skeptical expression; things still weren't making any sense. And this was coming from a guy who was usually three steps ahead. He didn't like it. But Eliot was right, they couldn't loiter around here. Someone would eventually find whatever mess Parker and Eliot had surely left inside. He shook his head, shifted the car into drive, and pulled out onto the street.
-----------------------------
“I'm losing a fight, not diving on a grenade. I'll be alright.“
-Eliot, speaking to Sophie from the training ring the night before planning to throw a fight
-----------------------------
Eliot hissed as he pressed the ice pack against his aching ribs. The pain from the pummeling he'd voluntarily subjected himself to in that MMA fight had receded a bit since then, but that thug had nailed him a few times in precisely the spots necessary to make sparks fly behind his eyes when he bent in the wrong way or shifted his body too fast.
Nate had brought them back to Hardison's place. Eliot had skated through the kitchen, pausing just long enough to snag a few ice packs out of the freezer and make sure that someone was seeing to Parker before retreating to one of the guest rooms to tend to his own injuries.
He sank down onto the bed, leaning back against a pillow he'd propped against the headboard. God his body was protesting. He wasn't old enough to be feeling this sore. Maybe it was just a compounding of too many missions back to back. Or maybe just the after effect of a particular mission gone awry. Or not really awry, Eliot supposed. He'd volunteered for getting thrashed like that. He'd chosen to not raise his fists in defense for those first key minutes of the fight, a necessary gesture to let Rutger think he had them all beat.
Eliot let his eyelids sneak down over his eyes. But there was none of the black he'd normally see when he'd close his eyes and empty his mind and relax his muscles and allow himself to sleep. No, instead, he saw blinding flashes of lights; too many spotlights aimed his way to highlight all the curvature of every muscle, the light refracting off every bead of sweat that clung to his skin. The thunder of the crowd was muted out behind the heavy breathing of his opponent and the blood pounding in his ears. The man in front of him snarled, baring the white of his teeth as he lunged forward. There was a blur of a fist and then his head was snapping back and knuckles were digging into his right eye and cheek and he was toppling through an empty space.
"Eliot, you ok in there?"
Eliot cracked one eye open, "I'm alright. Just tired. How's Parker?"
Nate sighed and dropped into the leather easy chair that sat near the window. "She's shaken, but ok. Sophie's keeping an eye on her."
Eliot groaned and sat up a little straighter in the bed so he was sitting level with Nate. "She say anything about what happened?"
Nate shook his head, "Nope. Neither have you for the record. What happened in there?"
"The normal stuff. Thugs came after us and I put them down and we got out," Eliot responded.
"And where exactly was the part where you hit Parker?"
Eliot stiffened at that. He got it. He messed up. He'd let his mind drift while he was in the middle of a fight and Parker had paid the price. He didn't really know what to say to justify that. He'd fucked up. The whole car ride back he'd alternated between apologizing and tending to Parker and replaying the incident through his mind looking for the moment where he'd let his focus slip. He never let his focus slip, and he certainly never was so off base as to attack a teammate. Until today at least. "It was a mistake. It was messy in there and she snuck up on me trying to help and I thought it was another one of them."
Nate massaged his temples. God, what a headache this night was turning out to be. "And you didn't think to call in for back-up if it was getting that rough?"
"In case you didn't notice, we weren't really too chatty during the mission. There was some sort of disruption in the connection. We were on our own, might be a good idea to have Hardison look at it while we have some downtime."
"So, let's talk about this hairy situation you found yourself in. It was messy, got that much. Now what made you abandon your normal precision and go all sloppy?"
Eliot snarled. "Didn't I just say it was chaotic in there?! I was trying to protect Parker and myself against those thugs."
Nate sat back and crossed one leg over the other. "And in the process somehow your fist ended up colliding with her face?"
"Yes, Nate. I made a mistake. A very big mistake. And Parker suffered for it. You think I'm not beating myself up for it already without needing you to come in here and reiterate the fact?"
Nate raised an eyebrow and allowed the man to simmer for a moment. "I know it wasn't purposeful. But it doesn't change the fact, it happened. And for you to go from one-hundred percent on task to being off-target enough to hit Parker, well, something had to have happened in the in between space there. I need to know what."
"It happens to people, Nate. I made a mistake-"
Nate cut him off there, "Yes. And that's the problem. In our line of work, mistakes can't happen. One mistake is the difference between getting caught and getting away clean. And I know this sounds dramatic, but with the criminals we pull cons on it's the truth, sometimes it means getting away with your life or lying in a ditch along the side of the road. And when one of you guys, anyone on this team, is having an off spell, it becomes my business. When one of us is off, our whole team is off, and we cannot go into a con like that. It's sloppy and stupid."
Eliot turned his gaze to the window, "I said I'm fine. It won't happen again."
Nate shook his head. "You're right on that. Until you have this sorted out, you're off duty."
"You don't have the right to do that! You need someone out there to take care of Hardison and Parker and Sophie. To do the heavy hitting," he argued back.
Nate sighed. "Even ignoring whatever other issues are floating around in the background and occupying your thoughts, you ain't exactly in a position to be doing that kind of work anyways," he said, nodding to the ice pack that Eliot had resting against his ribs.
Eliot looked down at it himself and pulled his shirt down over it, "It's sore. You would think a guy would be entitled to that much after the throttling you had me take during our last con."
Nate stood up and walked over to the bed to get a closer look at the area, "I had it lined up for that ring doc to take a look at you after the fight. He said you really should get a proper looking at a hospital. You said no."
"I didn't need it. I know my body and how it responds after a fight. And I certainly know when I'm fine."
"Yeah, just like you don't need some time off now, right?"
"Exactly," Eliot said smugly.
"Well my common sense is saying otherwise," Nate added as he looked at the web of bruising radiating out from where his teammate had an icepack settled. He snagged one of the extra ice packs that Eliot had set on the night stand and dropped it into his teammate's lap. "Get one of these on your eye while you're at it. You look like a raccoon, minus the cute and cuddly."
Eliot grumbled something under his breath but begrudgingly picked up the ice pack and held it up to the side of his face. He spoke a bit more quietly this time. "Is Parker ok?"
Nate shrugged, "The sheets on Hardison's bed are a lost cause, she had a good and bloody nose there, but she's being her normal tough self."
"You sure? I cracked her pretty hard back there..."
"Sophie's in with her right now. She'll probably in for the same as you, a little R and R, a night cuddled up with an ice pack and she'll be good to go tomorrow."
"I'll be good to go tomorrow too," Eliot added.
Nate shook his head, "No, you won't. There's something else going on here. Something you aren't being up front about. And that's ignoring the two beatings you've taken this week alone. Your job is to stay here and sleep and think about cluing us in on what's really going on." With that said, he started retreating toward the door to go check on the rest of his team.
Eliot knew when Nate wasn't going to budge. Or maybe it was just that sleep sounded somewhat reasonable at the moment, and this argument could continue tomorrow when he actually had the energy to match Nate on level footing, "You'll tell Parker I'm sorry?"
Nate nodded, "She already knows, but I'll tell her again."
"Thanks," Eliot finished as he sunk back down into the bed with a wince. Nate nodded once more and withdrew, shutting the door quietly behind him.
Continue to Part 3
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Genre: Angst, hurt/comfort
Total Story Word Count: ~16,500 words
This Chapter's Word Count: ~4,000 words
Rating: PG-13 (language, violence)
Pairings: None (Gen)
Warnings: None
Summary: Tag to the Leverage episode "The Tap Out Job." Eliot's used to being in control, to being able to fight back against individuals who mean him or his teammate's harm. So what happened in the first few minutes of that fight where he let himself get beat up, for the sake of his team and the success of their con? Add that to the physical trauma from the fight and maybe it's affecting him a lot more than he's leading on.
Author's Note: A thanks, as always, to my wonderful beta phoenix_laugh. This fic was written to fill the prompt "build-up of job related trauma" on my hurt/comfort bingo card. This fic is completely written and will be posted in 4 installments over the next week or so.
Predator and Prey - Part 2
[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4]
-----------------------------
“Pat said he used to walk through a mall and feel like a shark among seals. And that power, in the great fighters, breeds restraint, understanding, and wisdom, even gentleness, except when in the ring.“
-Sam Sheridan, MMA fighter - "A Fighters Heart"
-----------------------------
One day later found the team at a warehouse where some muscle that worked for the company was supposed to be selling some weapons to an international arms dealer. One of the dealer's go-between men was coming to inspect the merchandise tonight. If everything was up to par, the money/weapon exchange would go down tomorrow night.
Tonight was supposed to be pretty low-key. Hardison had come in earlier that day to rig up some audio-visual equipment to film the meeting and pass along to the feds as evidence of the corporation's shadier business. Nate had arranged for Eliot and Parker to be on scene during the meeting to see if they could sneak a weapon away afterwards, before it was shepherded away for safe-keeping. That would be the last nail in the coffin needed to bring this company down. That'd been the goal from the start. Their client's son had been shot in a gang fight that had bled over into a residential area after a car chase. The boy had been playing in his front yard while the dad had been watering the flowers out front. It had taken one stray gunshot to change their client's life. From one of the joys of watching his three year old son learn to ride his first bike to one of lowering his still body into the ground. The weapons utilized by the gang were known to have come from the largest arms dealer in town. And it was common knowledge that the C.E.O. of this company ran the business from the background. But every time the feds tried to bust him, everything was always squeaky clean; they'd never gotten any charges to stick. At least until the father had come to Leverage, Inc. for help.
The meeting proceeded without a hitch. He couldn't see much from his vantage point, but he'd picked the location not to keep an eye on the men, necessarily, but also on Parker. He threw a glance up to where she was perched in the rafters of the warehouse, held up by her rappelling and climbing gear. His teammate didn't notice his gesture, Parker was doing as she always did, focusing one-hundred percent of her attention to her marks.
Eliot smiled and settled back into the shadows to wait until the men left to finish their negotiations elsewhere, leaving the handling of the weapons to some of the extra muscle they had on their payroll.
Eliot waited ten minutes after the last body had filed out of the warehouse, the doors had closed, and there hadn't been a single noise, before slinking from his hiding space along the wall to the bench where a pair of machine guns was laid out on top of the wooden crate they'd arrived in.
"Parker, it's clear," he whispered up toward the ceiling.
There was a slight noise at her rustling about, adjusting ropes, and then quickly descending from the ceiling like a spider from its web, arms and legs spread out to keep her balance as she did so. She reengaged the locking mechanism on the pulley attached to her harness, stopping her descent about two feet from the ground. Parker quickly unclipped herself from the rope and stood up, stretching each limb as she did so, "Took them long enough," she muttered.
Eliot chuckled, "Yeah, well, at least they're gone now. We should take these," he said, raising the machine gun he held a bit, "and get out of here before the muscle arrives to put this stuff away."
He checked the safety on both weapons and then handed one to Parker, "You ok to take one of these?"
She nodded and delicately pulled the weapon from where he held it out for her, "Yeah."
"Hey! What are you guys doing in here?!?"
Parker and Eliot spun toward the voice to see a bulky man, obviously the hired muscle Eliot had been hoping to avoid. He stood a good head above Eliot and each arm was thicker than two of Eliot's put together.
"Parker, give me some space to take care of this guy," Eliot ordered.
She nodded and withdrew several paces, disappearing into the shadows between two ceiling-high shelving units. Eliot watched for her to fade into the dark before switching his gaze back to the ox of a man charging toward him. He thought about using the gun to solve this, but ruled it out almost immediately. If things went south, as they often seemed to do in situations such as this, gunfire would only bring more enemies to their location.
The man stopped a few steps away and began circling Eliot, "Who sent you, Tony? He gettin' a little jealous now that his clients are realizing we got the better merchandise in town?"
Eliot raised an eyebrow, "Not exactly." He took the free moment to drop into a defensive stance, turning as the other man circled so they remained face to face.
"Well then, whoever sent you isn't so important. More important is me showing you exactly how we treat folks who stick their nose where it don't belong." With that statement, the muscular man bounded forward, meaty fists raised for a frontal assault.
As the man neared, Eliot slipped away at an angle and stuck a foot out to trip the man. As if in slow motion, the thug tumbled forward and hit the ground with enough force to generate a sound that echoed through the warehouse. The man growled as he made a move to raise himself up on his arms, but Eliot stopped the motion there as he took the fight to the ground.
A moment later had them tumbling across the ground, Eliot's legs locked around the man's neck one moment only to have those meaty hands tear his hold loose. The man rolled over on top of Eliot until he was sitting on his chest and wrapped his two hands around Eliot's neck. His hands were more than large enough to complete the distance around Eliot's throat and he slowly began applying pressure.
"Eliot!" a voice called out.
Eliot winced, god, the last thing he needed was for Parker to get involved. With the last bit of air in his lungs he responded, "Stay back," but it came out barely loud enough to be a whisper, far too soft for Parker to hear.
"I see you didn't come alone. Brought a lady friend, did you?" the man jeered as Eliot's vision began spotting.
God. Everything burned. His ribs, still sore from the beating they'd taken in the ring the other day, were sending rippling pain signals through his torso. The man's weight on top of him didn't do much better for him, further restricting the breathing already hindered by the grip around his throat.
The man laughed as Eliot's body bucked and his hands started shaking. He was prey, he was a seal. This shark would tear away the last bit of breath in his lungs and extinguish any chance he had of getting out of here alive.
"Almost there, see, going down isn't so bad. And once you're good and unconscious, I'll go find your lady friend and do the same to her," he turned his gaze to the direction that Parker had cried out from earlier, "Hear that bitch? You're next! You're in way over your head here!"
A blurry kaleidoscope of images was running before Eliot's eyes. The man sitting atop of him, dominance reflecting in his eyes interspersed with images from the fight in Nebraska. Eliot dropping his guard and turning his open torso toward his opponent to receive fist after fist. Explosions of pain radiated from his chest with each blow, blending in with the vice closing around his windpipe in the current moment. His breathing had quickened at first, his body pumping adrenalin through every vein, grasping at any straws for surviving this. It was slowing now, though, as that reserve bottomed out and his oxygen-starved body started to shut down.
"There ya go, buddy. Ain't gonna last much longer," the man sneered, "I gotta say, I was a bit worried at first. But you ain't nothing but another piece of lazy meat, raw for a good pummeling."
Eliot's vision flashed red as he used his last energy reserve to roll sideways, throwing his opponent sprawling across the floor in surprise. Eliot gasped for air, each breath burning and relieving his lungs at the same time. His motions didn't still, though. Even as he was recovering he was striking at the man. A boot to the chest, a fist to the neck. The strikes blurred together as his muscle memory kicked in and delivered a flurry of attacks one after the other.
The man winced a few times, gave a noise akin to a mew once, and then went silent. But Eliot didn't stop. He wasn't a victim, and he certainly wasn't a piece of meat. Let him show this man what a piece of ground meat looked like after a thorough beating. He'd give this jackass that and then some.
"Eliot?"
A voice seemed to pierce the murk surrounding his brain. But it wasn't enough to break his focus. There was just him and his opponent in an improvised ring. And there was punishment to be dealt out to his prey.
A light hand closed around his shoulder, his nerves in that area relaying the signal to his brain. Another opponent. And then it clicked for Eliot, the man had summoned more of them before he'd gone down.
Eliot growled, closing a hand around the wrist of the person behind him and jerking it forward over his own shoulder. He jerked an elbow backward, aiming for the face of this new opponent; it was the quickest and surest way to put him down quickly.
There as a surprised cry and he felt the person behind him go slack and fall backwards. He released the arm he'd been holding and spun to face the new enemy in a defensive stance.
Parker sat on the floor in front of him, hands covering her face.
The murk around his brain dissipated almost immediately, "Fuck, Parker. I thought you were another thug. You ok?"
Both of her eyes were closed and a trickle of blood was leaking between her fingers and running down along her hand, "Ow. That hurt," she muttered in a quiet, level voice.
Eliot checked the man behind him once more, just to make sure he was out. Satisfied, he turned back to his teammate, crouching down next to her, "Shit, Parker. I'm sorry." He reached to peel one of the hands away to survey the injury; he'd delivered that blow to inflict maximum damage thinking it was an opponent.
Parker scooted back a bit, "Uh, I'm ok. How 'bout you stay over there, maybe? You check the guy?"
Eliot ran a hand through his hair, but he backed up a pace. He knew that Parker wasn't fond of physical contact on the best day, and this certainly wasn't their finest night. Last thing he needed was to spook her. "Ok, I can do that. Anything feel broken?"
"I don't think so," she said, although it wasn't a very confident tone, "Got me good in the nose there," she snorted.
Eliot frowned at that. It didn't seem quite the time for her to laugh, and he wasn't really seeing the humor in the situation. But, then, Parker did always find amusement in the oddest things. If it eased her nerves, he'd be glad to let her have her moment. In the meantime, he stood to the side awkwardly for a spell, not sure what to do in this situation other than let Parker get her bearings.
Parker gently pressed on the area around her nose, wincing at a few places. She eventually dropped her hand away and let Eliot get his first look at it. He grimaced, the skin was already turning a mottled mixture of purple and blues and blood still leaked freely from her nose. He patted his pockets, searching for anything to give her for the bleeding, but both hands came up empty.
"Parker, I'm sorry," he said again.
She shook her head, flecks of blood flying in an arc with the motion, "We need to get the guns and go," she said.
Eliot turned back to the table housing the guns. The purpose of this mission had completely escaped his mind the moment he'd realized he'd hit her. As always, Parker was practical and right. "Ok," he said in agreement, "You sure you're ok?"
She shrugged, "We'll decide that later. Right now I can walk and carry one of these guns we need as evidence. That's enough." She scooped one of the guns off the table and started walking toward the door they'd snuck in through.
Eliot shook his head, grabbed the second gun, and followed close after her, watching for any sign of dizziness or other symptoms that would signal that he had injured Parker more than she was leading on.
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“A big punch does something to a crowd. It connects the crowd and turns it briefly into a single animal, reveling in awe and rejoicing in the physical power.“
-Sam Sheridan, MMA fighter - "A Fighters Heart"
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"Well, shit. Parker, you ok?" Nate inquired through the open window of the get-away vehicle he'd parked in the lot.
She nodded, "Fine. It's ok." She passed her gun to Eliot and slid into the car while he went around back and locked the guns in the trunk.
"Who got a knock in on you?" Nate asked as she shut the door and buckled her seatbelt.
"Oh, it was Eliot," she responded nonchalantly.
Nate's expression froze at that, "It was Eliot," he repeated, as if speaking the words slowly to himself would make them make any more sense. Nope, didn't help.
Eliot slammed the door on his side of the car and opened the first aid kit in his lap, "Look, you drive. I'll take care of Parker until we get back. We need to get out of here."
Nate gave him a skeptical expression; things still weren't making any sense. And this was coming from a guy who was usually three steps ahead. He didn't like it. But Eliot was right, they couldn't loiter around here. Someone would eventually find whatever mess Parker and Eliot had surely left inside. He shook his head, shifted the car into drive, and pulled out onto the street.
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“I'm losing a fight, not diving on a grenade. I'll be alright.“
-Eliot, speaking to Sophie from the training ring the night before planning to throw a fight
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Eliot hissed as he pressed the ice pack against his aching ribs. The pain from the pummeling he'd voluntarily subjected himself to in that MMA fight had receded a bit since then, but that thug had nailed him a few times in precisely the spots necessary to make sparks fly behind his eyes when he bent in the wrong way or shifted his body too fast.
Nate had brought them back to Hardison's place. Eliot had skated through the kitchen, pausing just long enough to snag a few ice packs out of the freezer and make sure that someone was seeing to Parker before retreating to one of the guest rooms to tend to his own injuries.
He sank down onto the bed, leaning back against a pillow he'd propped against the headboard. God his body was protesting. He wasn't old enough to be feeling this sore. Maybe it was just a compounding of too many missions back to back. Or maybe just the after effect of a particular mission gone awry. Or not really awry, Eliot supposed. He'd volunteered for getting thrashed like that. He'd chosen to not raise his fists in defense for those first key minutes of the fight, a necessary gesture to let Rutger think he had them all beat.
Eliot let his eyelids sneak down over his eyes. But there was none of the black he'd normally see when he'd close his eyes and empty his mind and relax his muscles and allow himself to sleep. No, instead, he saw blinding flashes of lights; too many spotlights aimed his way to highlight all the curvature of every muscle, the light refracting off every bead of sweat that clung to his skin. The thunder of the crowd was muted out behind the heavy breathing of his opponent and the blood pounding in his ears. The man in front of him snarled, baring the white of his teeth as he lunged forward. There was a blur of a fist and then his head was snapping back and knuckles were digging into his right eye and cheek and he was toppling through an empty space.
"Eliot, you ok in there?"
Eliot cracked one eye open, "I'm alright. Just tired. How's Parker?"
Nate sighed and dropped into the leather easy chair that sat near the window. "She's shaken, but ok. Sophie's keeping an eye on her."
Eliot groaned and sat up a little straighter in the bed so he was sitting level with Nate. "She say anything about what happened?"
Nate shook his head, "Nope. Neither have you for the record. What happened in there?"
"The normal stuff. Thugs came after us and I put them down and we got out," Eliot responded.
"And where exactly was the part where you hit Parker?"
Eliot stiffened at that. He got it. He messed up. He'd let his mind drift while he was in the middle of a fight and Parker had paid the price. He didn't really know what to say to justify that. He'd fucked up. The whole car ride back he'd alternated between apologizing and tending to Parker and replaying the incident through his mind looking for the moment where he'd let his focus slip. He never let his focus slip, and he certainly never was so off base as to attack a teammate. Until today at least. "It was a mistake. It was messy in there and she snuck up on me trying to help and I thought it was another one of them."
Nate massaged his temples. God, what a headache this night was turning out to be. "And you didn't think to call in for back-up if it was getting that rough?"
"In case you didn't notice, we weren't really too chatty during the mission. There was some sort of disruption in the connection. We were on our own, might be a good idea to have Hardison look at it while we have some downtime."
"So, let's talk about this hairy situation you found yourself in. It was messy, got that much. Now what made you abandon your normal precision and go all sloppy?"
Eliot snarled. "Didn't I just say it was chaotic in there?! I was trying to protect Parker and myself against those thugs."
Nate sat back and crossed one leg over the other. "And in the process somehow your fist ended up colliding with her face?"
"Yes, Nate. I made a mistake. A very big mistake. And Parker suffered for it. You think I'm not beating myself up for it already without needing you to come in here and reiterate the fact?"
Nate raised an eyebrow and allowed the man to simmer for a moment. "I know it wasn't purposeful. But it doesn't change the fact, it happened. And for you to go from one-hundred percent on task to being off-target enough to hit Parker, well, something had to have happened in the in between space there. I need to know what."
"It happens to people, Nate. I made a mistake-"
Nate cut him off there, "Yes. And that's the problem. In our line of work, mistakes can't happen. One mistake is the difference between getting caught and getting away clean. And I know this sounds dramatic, but with the criminals we pull cons on it's the truth, sometimes it means getting away with your life or lying in a ditch along the side of the road. And when one of you guys, anyone on this team, is having an off spell, it becomes my business. When one of us is off, our whole team is off, and we cannot go into a con like that. It's sloppy and stupid."
Eliot turned his gaze to the window, "I said I'm fine. It won't happen again."
Nate shook his head. "You're right on that. Until you have this sorted out, you're off duty."
"You don't have the right to do that! You need someone out there to take care of Hardison and Parker and Sophie. To do the heavy hitting," he argued back.
Nate sighed. "Even ignoring whatever other issues are floating around in the background and occupying your thoughts, you ain't exactly in a position to be doing that kind of work anyways," he said, nodding to the ice pack that Eliot had resting against his ribs.
Eliot looked down at it himself and pulled his shirt down over it, "It's sore. You would think a guy would be entitled to that much after the throttling you had me take during our last con."
Nate stood up and walked over to the bed to get a closer look at the area, "I had it lined up for that ring doc to take a look at you after the fight. He said you really should get a proper looking at a hospital. You said no."
"I didn't need it. I know my body and how it responds after a fight. And I certainly know when I'm fine."
"Yeah, just like you don't need some time off now, right?"
"Exactly," Eliot said smugly.
"Well my common sense is saying otherwise," Nate added as he looked at the web of bruising radiating out from where his teammate had an icepack settled. He snagged one of the extra ice packs that Eliot had set on the night stand and dropped it into his teammate's lap. "Get one of these on your eye while you're at it. You look like a raccoon, minus the cute and cuddly."
Eliot grumbled something under his breath but begrudgingly picked up the ice pack and held it up to the side of his face. He spoke a bit more quietly this time. "Is Parker ok?"
Nate shrugged, "The sheets on Hardison's bed are a lost cause, she had a good and bloody nose there, but she's being her normal tough self."
"You sure? I cracked her pretty hard back there..."
"Sophie's in with her right now. She'll probably in for the same as you, a little R and R, a night cuddled up with an ice pack and she'll be good to go tomorrow."
"I'll be good to go tomorrow too," Eliot added.
Nate shook his head, "No, you won't. There's something else going on here. Something you aren't being up front about. And that's ignoring the two beatings you've taken this week alone. Your job is to stay here and sleep and think about cluing us in on what's really going on." With that said, he started retreating toward the door to go check on the rest of his team.
Eliot knew when Nate wasn't going to budge. Or maybe it was just that sleep sounded somewhat reasonable at the moment, and this argument could continue tomorrow when he actually had the energy to match Nate on level footing, "You'll tell Parker I'm sorry?"
Nate nodded, "She already knows, but I'll tell her again."
"Thanks," Eliot finished as he sunk back down into the bed with a wince. Nate nodded once more and withdrew, shutting the door quietly behind him.
Continue to Part 3
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