Leverage Fic: Solitary Confinement, Part 2/2
Title: Solitary Confinement
Genre: hurt/comfort, friendship fic
Word Count: ~13,000
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Pairings: Eliot/Parker friendship
Warnings: None
Summary: A traumatic experience can change people. It can take away the things that make people who they are. Parker finds this out the hard way. Eliot's there to help her regain her bearings. Written for the hc_bingo prompt "claustrophobia."
Author's Note: A huge shout out to rusting_roses for her amazing beta job, as per the norm. Is there ever a time when you aren't amazing, my dear?
[Part 1] [Part 2]
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Solitary Confinement - Part 2/2
Heights were something that many other people feared.
Parker knew this. She learned it was something that made her special as a child. Sometimes she took things that didn't belong to her. A cool looking toy or a package of fruit snacks. Sometimes it was the odd bauble that captured her attention, even temporarily. She'd find herself thinking about the item compulsively until she found a time to sneak it away from its proper owner. On the rare occasion when the person, usually another foster kid, found their possessions missing and blamed her, she fled. They'd come thundering up the stairs after her and for as fast as she could scamper, there were only so many places to hide in a house.
Heights, though, now there had been something that had opened the window into a whole new realm. Climb into the attic and no one would ever find you in a game of hide and seek. When a kid who had fifty pounds on you was close on your heels, dart out the window and out onto the icy roof. She trusted her balance and her grip to keep her from sliding off. The older child would stand at the open window, huffing and stomping his feet and cursing her with every vulgar term he knew. But for all of the nasty things he wanted to do to her, for all the harm he wanted to inflict, she may as well have been a thousand miles away instead of retreated ten feet out to her crouching spot by the chimney. That fear of height, that fear of falling, it kept those who wished to hurt her behind an impenetrable barrier. It was her one unfaltering shield in the world.
Other people might call her ten shades of crazy or assume there was something wrong with her. Parker could ignore all of the stinging words as long as no one could reach out and touch her, as long as they couldn't catch her and do physical harm. As long as she was up high, on a roof, on the side of a building, she was safe.
Parker knew this and reflected on this fact from her perch as she looked down on her warehouse below. Eliot was down there somewhere, no doubt. Sleeping probably, but she was never really one hundred percent sure. Sometimes when they were all at Nate's place and everyone had fallen asleep after their midnight briefing she'd sneak into the kitchen for a snack or a drink, or simply because she was antsy and tired of staring at the ceiling, pretending to fall asleep in a strange place amongst other people, even when she knew that was never an ability she would possess. She'd rise silently from her place on the couch and tip toe into the kitchen.
Eliot scared her sometimes. Well maybe not scared her, she knew Eliot was perhaps one of the few people in the world she trusted not to hurt her. But he surprised her and made her jump on occasion. Like the one time she'd gone for the peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich she'd left in the fridge and he'd been there sitting at the counter, in the dark, nursing a cup of tea and watching her ministrations. She'd almost leapt out of her skin that time. So maybe Eliot was sleeping, and maybe he was laying down there on the couch cushions he'd put down on the floor near her bed staring at the wall or the ceiling just like she often found herself doing in the twilight hours.
She'd tried sleeping in the bed down there on the ground. Part of her had really believed that with him nearby she would've done ok and been able to ignore the flighty feeling in her spine, the desire to climb something and sit up there well out of reach of anyone and anything. There were mean people in the world, far too many mean people. So often Eliot protected her from those individuals, but there were the few times where he couldn't be there, like if he were sleeping and someone snuck in...A chill ran up her spine and she gripped the edge of her hammock a bit tighter and rolled away from the wall to look down on the warehouse below. It was bathed mostly in shadow, but she didn't see anything out of the ordinary. She forced her breathing to slow down.
"Parker, you up there?" a voice called up from below.
"Yeah," she whispered softly.
It was Eliot's voice. She knew that deep southern drawl anywhere. "You ok?"
"Fine," Parker muttered a bit more loudly this time.
"You weren't in your bed, had me worried for a minute. What are you doing up there?"
"Sleeping," she responded as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"Well that's obviously not the case, Parker, or we wouldn't be having this conversation. Unless you sleep talk, which quite frankly wouldn't surprise me. Very little would surprise me about you these days," he chuckled. "You are awake, right?" the hitter asked a bit more earnestly this time.
"I'm awake." She tightened her grip on the edge of the hammock as it began gently swinging. She kept her eyes pinned on Eliot's muscular frame as the man began climbing up the scaffolding, his movements causing the structure to sway ever-so-slightly. It would take him a minute or two yet to get up to her level, she was close enough to the raised ceiling to put a hand up and run her fingers along the rusted roof.
A silence hung in the air until he was just one level of scaffolding below her own. He paused there, going no higher. Instead, he leaned back against one of the metal railings holding the structure together. "It's a nice view from up here," he commented.
She nodded. "I like coming up here to sit. It's a good place to think."
Eliot reclined further against the railing and craned his neck back to look at her. If Parker had taught them anything in their time together, it had been to be more comfortable far from the ground. What came naturally to her was a gauntlet for him. It had taken him more than a year to banish his fear of falling. "So what are you thinking about?"
"Just how it's safe being up here. It's nice," she whispered.
He nodded in agreement, his face set in a slight smile. "It's quiet. I like that. So often at Nate's place when the whole team's around, or hell, even being out in this bustling metropolis, it's chaotic and noisy. I think a lot of folks forget the value of having a place to just reflect quietly without interruption. So this is that spot for you?"
"It's one of them; I have a few places I like."
"So how are you holding up? Um, after today and all...I know it was a hard one," he prompted. The tone struck Parker as odd. He was speaking slowly and hesitantly, which was odder still. Eliot wasn't much of a talker, and when he did speak, his words were often accompanied by a barely veiled barb, like Eliot just wanted to work and skip over the talking part. But here he was, of his own volition. Where he would normally barely tolerate her odd antics, he was seeking her out. He was also asking her about her day. Eliot often asked what was wrong with her. She often wanted to ask him the very same question. He was all hard mannered and secretive one moment, and open and protective and caring the next. She shook her head. To think that people called her personality a little all over the map. At least she was consistent.
"It was a bad day. But tomorrow's another day, and it'll be a better day."
"You sure of that, eh?" he asked with a hint of skepticism in his voice.
She shrugged. "It wasn't a good day today. That earns me a good day, wouldn't you say?" she inquired.
He laughed. "I suppose fate does have to balance the checkbook every once in awhile. Cancel out the bad day with a good one, right?"
"Yep. He owes me a pretty fantastic day tomorrow," she spoke confidently.
A soft beep caught both of their attention. Eliot looked down at his watch and pressed a button, silencing the alarm. He put a gentle hand on her arm, and Parker closed her eyes at the warmth. "Well Parker, it's midnight and the dawn of a new day. I hope you get your wish and it proves to be better than the last one."
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
He returned the gesture and pressed off the railing he'd been using to support his weight. "Well, as agile as you are up here, even sleeping, I don't quite trust myself. I toss and turn quite a bit and with my luck you'd wake up to find me pancaked on the ground in the morning."
She crinkled her nose at the mental image, the tightness of her throat easing. "That wouldn't be a good way to start the day."
He laughed. "Indeed. Take it easy and sleep well up here, ok? I'll be down there if you need anything."
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As Eliot entered the warehouse his glance immediately wandered toward the scaffolding where Parker's hammock hung. It was empty now, hanging listlessly in the air. "Parker, you in here?" he called out, his voice reverberating off of the metal walls.
No response. He wandered further into the building, roughly in the direction of the corner where Parker kept most of her stuff. As he went, he happened to look down a narrow corridor that branched off from the main storage facility. It looked like it led back to some abandoned offices. There was a figure hunched on the floor there, sitting up against the wall. Eliot redirected his path to head toward it.
When he arrived, he dropped down to the ground next to Parker, staring at the point low on the wall that seemed to be the most interesting thing in the world to her right now. The vent cover had been pulled off and leaned up against the wall to expose the ventilation shaft. Parker spoke without turning her head away from the dark hole in the wall. "I can't do it. It's dark and it's small and every time I think about getting in there I start breathing hard. What is this? Why am I all of a sudden afraid of the thing I love?"
"Parker, you went through a traumatic experience. It's natural to harbor a little fear after something like that. You'll get over it and be climbing through vents and between walls in no time." Eliot kept his voice soothing and soft.
She did turn her head toward him this time. "It's not okay, Eliot. It's not. I love exploring the spaces that no one else ever gets to see. I love the rush of knowing I'm probably the only person to have ever travelled through those passages on hand and knee."
"Parker, you'll work back up to it. Just give yourself a bit of time is all," Eliot offered hopefully.
"And what about you? How would you feel if you were all of a sudden afraid of going up against an opponent, huh? This is a part of me, a very critical part of me. It's one of the few things that make other people pause and maybe think I'm worth something. What am I to the team if I can't do that anymore?" she lamented, pounding her head softly against the wall in frustration.
Eliot opened his mouth and then closed it for a minute. There were so many things off with Parker's statement just then. She really thought that was all she was to them? Just another person to help pull off a con successfully? Maybe it had started that way in the beginning- it had been like that for all of them in the beginning, held together only by what they could offer to the group, but then there had been late night hot chocolate runs and dinners to celebrate sticking it to another corrupt organization. Somewhere along the way, the line between work associate and teammate and friend had been blurred to spit out something he wasn't really sure he could describe in a single word. But there was certainly one thing Parker wasn't. "You aren't just a small person who can shimmy up and down buildings or through tight spaces, Parker. Don't you think that for a minute," he whispered low under his breath. Loud enough for her to hear and slow enough to annunciate and punctuate each word to make it clear just how much he meant it.
"If I can't do those things, Eliot, I'm not worth much to anyone, let alone myself..." Parker sounded desperate, like she really was blind to how important she was. Eliot wanted to squeeze the breath out of her.
He leaned over and bumped her shoulder with his own to garner her full attention. "Hey, climbing and diving into ventilation shafts, those things might give you more points in the crazy brave category. But you are so much more than that, Parker. And no way would you ever get booted off the team, don't even think that the others and I would be capable of that. Who else is going to dress up the Christmas tree with diamond necklaces or offer to share her chocolate covered grapes?"
"They are good," she agreed. "You should feel special that I share them with you. I don't share them with just anyone, you know."
He smiled, encouraged by the fact that Parker was moving away from her brooding. "You hungry?" he asked her.
She shrugged. "I could probably eat something. I have some fruit in the minifridge next to my bed." She looked at him hopefully.
He nodded. "I can raid that. You want to come with or stay put here?"
"I'll stay," she responded, turning her gaze back toward the open vent. He stood up, crouching in front of the vent and setting its cover in front of it to conceal it from view. No sense in encouraging Parker's current fixation on it. "We'll get through this, Parker. You'll be ok," he muttered on his departure. Now he just had to find a way to make sure that happened.
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The vent cover's been pushed to the side, exposing that damnable hole in the wall once again. Parker was gone.
Eliot lengthened his stride, pausing just long enough to drop his armful of fruit before crouching down next to the vent and peering inside."Parker, you in there?" he shouted down into the hole. There was a response, but not the one he was looking for. All he heard back is an echo of his panicky voice.
He growled and ran a rough hand through his hair, pushing it back from his face in a futile attempt to see into the depths of the shaft. Without a source of light, all he saw was black. He cocked his head to the side as he heard something, a sharp cry followed by a series of thuds. "Damn it," he muttered to no one in particular. For all he knew Parker could've just fallen. She could be laying somewhere in the bowels of this forsaken warehouse unconscious. She could be frozen paralyzed in a vent somewhere, her fear pinning her in place.
She hadn't left him much of a choice, really. He knelt down and stuck his head through the vent opening, followed shortly after by one shoulder. It's then that he hit the first snag. His second shoulder caught on the wall, jarring his motions to a quick halt. He tried turning his shoulder at an angle in the shaft to give it more room, and the maneuver might've won him an extra inch, but nowhere near enough to go in after Parker. In frustration he tried once more, this time with all of his force behind the motion, his boots skidding against the floor as he used them to gain traction and force his body further into the vent and toward wherever Parker had retreated too. He hissed as his shoulder caught again on the corner of the vent and his body collapsed against the ground. Begrudgingly he pulled himself out of the vent and further from Parker.
There were some situations he just couldn't change, where there weren't any tricks he could pull or workarounds he could use. Parker was smaller than him with a figure that made her perfectly suited for this type of work. Where Parker was narrow Eliot was broad and muscular. He wasn't going to fit in that vent. He wasn't going to go in and find Parker. This realization grated against his nerves at a slow, steady pulse. Never abating, just grinding away in the back of his mind and threatening to slowly drive him toward insanity.
He curled one hand in a fist as he roughly dug through his jacket pocket with the other. His hand eventually closed around the item he'd been searching for. He pressed the speed dial he had in mind and raised the phone to his ear. He maintained his patience through an agonizing three rings before he heard a greeting from the other end. Eliot skipped the pleasantries. "Sophie, I need your help. Parker's been displaying some signs of claustrophobia since her stint in that vault yesterday. She went into a ventilation shaft and she's not answering me when I call. I can't go in after her...my shoulders are too broad. But you could do it. I need you to do it."
“Whoa, easy Eliot. That was a whole lot of information in a very condensed package. Slow down and let's work through this one piece at a time. Is she hurt?“
“I don't know, Sophie! I just said that," he snapped, frustrated with the slow pace of things.
She ignored his tone. “You want me to call the rest of the team?“
"No, it wouldn't do any good. The other guys wouldn't fit any better than I would. You're the only one small enough to go in after her." There was that. There was also the fact that if Parker was spooked when they brought her out, she'd not want the whole team to witness that. She was a private person, and even though she trusted them all with a ferocity that left him breathless sometimes, she still preferred to shield some of her more tumultuous emotional experiences-sorrow, fear, and grief, to name just a few-from them and deal with them on her own. He'd do his best to help maintain that veil.
“Just to clarify, we are talking about crawling through a dirty, dusty ventilation shaft that has god knows what living in it?“
"Yes. Please, Sophie. I would do it myself if I could," he pleaded.
“Of course I'll do it. You'd do that and more for any one of us. I'm just trying to figure out which outfit to sacrifice to the cause. Ah, I've got just the one in mind. I'll be over soon.“
"Thanks," Eliot offered in a softer tone this time.
“You're welcome. And Eliot, relax. We'll get her out. I'm sure she's fine. Just stay calm, ok? You're doing all you can right now.“
"I'll do my best."
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Parker heard Sophie approach. She grimaced at the loud reverberations that Sophie's movements sent through the vent system. It was a far cry from the near-silent quality that Parker managed when she was completing the same circuit.
She leaned back against the wall, waiting for Sophie to approach. When the grifter finally appeared at the intersection that Parker had taken up residence in, she slid down the slanted vent to the open area where Parker was resting. "Parker? You okay? Eliot called me a bit worked up about you climbing in here and not answering his calls and he couldn't fit down here himself."
Parker nodded. "Which is how you ended up down here?"
Sophie's lips curved upward as she slumped down next to Parker. "Pretty much," she replied, rubbing at a grease streak on her cheek that she'd picked up somewhere along her trip in. "It's not as easy as it looks, this vent climbing stuff."
"You need a lot of work if you ever want to get good at it. You sounded like Nate's washing machine when Eliot decided it would be a good idea to throw his boots in there for a spin."
"I suppose I probably did sound like that, clomping about in there, huh?" Sophie said in agreement.
"It wasn't all bad. You got this far, that's pretty good for a first go. And you have the frame for it, I could teach you, if you wanted," Parker suggested, shrugging.
Sophie's eyes darted upwards for a moment as she considered the notion. "Perhaps," she finally responded. "But I'd have to find a better outfit. Ooh! We could go clothes shopping. In Paris perhaps? I have a pilot on speed dial. He owes me a favor..."
"If you're serious about it, I know a guy in Prague. I get all of my gear through him except for my rappelling harnesses. I custom make those for myself." Parker tilted her head a little, curious, "Speaking of which, why are you wearing my harness?"
Sophie's glance darted down to the harness that she'd donned before entering the vent. She'd had to work at it quite a bit to shimmy into it, but extensive experience with skin-tight dresses had made her adept at the process. "Eliot found it in your gear cabinet," she pulled at the rope that threaded its way back from the vent that Sophie had come in through. "He wanted me to wear it in case you were hurt or something and we had to work to get you out." Sophie paused there for a second, taking a deep breath in and out as she adopted a more serious tone. "He was worried about you, you know? I know you are used to disappearing without notice but he was really upset when he called me. He thought you might've fallen and gotten stuck or something. We should head back out there before he paces a hole through your floor."
"I have cement floors; I don't think he'd manage that."
"I think you underestimate Eliot's abilities when it comes to nervous habits. He was very jittery when I left him." Sophie pushed off the wall, looking back over her shoulder to see if Parker followed.
The thief shook her head and remained motionless. "I can't. I had just enough courage to get myself in here...I've tried to go back that way twice," she muttered quietly, ashamed. "It's too small, too tight. I couldn't breathe all of a sudden."
Sophie's brow crinkled up a bit and sympathy bled into her expression. Parker looked away from it. She didn't want Sophie's pity.
Sophie scooted back over toward Parker, laying a cool hand on her shoulder. "Parker, darling. It's ok-"
"It's not ok!" Parker snapped, jerking away from the supportive gesture. "Everyone needs to stop saying that! I'm useless if I can't do this, so stop pretending that this is ok!" Her face was red and there was a fury bubbling through her veins, demanding an outlet.
"Parker, what you tried here is something that psychologists call flooding. You force yourself into an environment to face your phobia. And in doing so, the hope is that you see that it's not going to harm you and your phobia fades."
"Then why isn't it working?" Parker asked, frustrated. "I swallowed the lump in my throat and forced myself in here, and now I'm too afraid to even go back the way I came," she finished, disheartened.
"It doesn't always work for everyone. There are other processes we can try. Systematic desensitization is a less aggressive and traumatic approach. You gradually increase your exposure to your trigger until you've overcome your fear."
"I want to be over this now," Parker argued.
"I know. No one wants a situation like this to last any longer than it has to. But we don't get to decide how we react all the time, sometimes it's instinctual."
"So what do we do now?" Parker asked, dejected. "I can't stay in here forever. I can't just gradually crawl one foot further each day through the air duct until I'm back in the warehouse. The systematic approach you were selling isn't going to work unless the pair of us are planning on moving in here for a few weeks."
Sophie shook her head. "I suppose that decision has been made for us. You can do this Parker. Just think about all the times you've done it before," she started moving toward the vent they'd need to follow to get back to where Eliot was waiting. "You want to try?"
Parker shrugged. "Not much of a choice, I suppose."
"You want to lead or follow?"
"I'll go first. I got myself into this, and it's on me to get myself out," Parker remarked with a confidence in her voice that hadn't been there before.
Sophie smiled at that, stepping aside to let Parker take the lead. The thief knelt down on her hands and knees and looked back over her shoulder to Sophie. The grifter gave a reassuring nod and their return trip began.
They stopped just once along the way, when Parker froze and her breathing went up and she looked back at Sophie, eyes wide and laced with terror. Sophie had murmured encouraging words and told her that there was no going back and she wasn't going to budge one inch backwards to give Parker room to retreat. In that manner, they eventually reached the opening of the vent; the first sight they saw was Eliot's pensive face. When Parker arrived there he reached an arm into the vent and helped pull her out and then gave her room to stand up. He did the same for Sophie before giving them a quick once over to make sure they were both ok. Apparently satisfied, he nodded.
Parker walked past the pair of them and out toward her corner of the warehouse. She needed a few minutes to gather up the pieces of her crumbling façade and glue them back in place. She was sort of reminded of the one trip to the beach she'd gotten as a kid when the tide was coming up on her sandcastle. As the sand turned to mush and started sliding apart she'd try to scoop it up and pat it into place. Her emotional state was a bit like that right now. A quick glance over her shoulder found that Sophie and Eliot had stepped in close to one another, conversing too quietly for her to hear and watching her departure. A turn around the corner cut them off from view and left her in the blessed privacy and open space of the warehouse proper.
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"What happened in there?" Eliot asked Sophie after he was sure Parker was out of earshot.
She shrugged, cracking her back and stretching her legs for the first time after a good hour in the cramped vents. She was a good multi-tasker though, and conversing with Eliot while she did that presented no difficulty. "She's scared. She had just enough resolve to get herself in there and when it was time to come out she panicked."
Eliot growled. "I wanted to really hurt the two guards who did this, you know?"
Sophie nodded. "We saw the security tapes...Parker did too. But doing that isn't what we do, Eliot. It is what separates us from the bad people we fight to bring down. They aren't afraid to twist an arm to the breaking point to wring an answer out of one of us. They don't hesitate to threaten our lives or even make attempts to extinguish them. Even in the face of all that, though, we toe the line between what is right and what is wrong." She stood up, laying a light hand on Eliot's shoulder. "There is no wiggle room, Eliot. We always stay on the right side of the line. Hurting those guards, it would've crossed over into the territory we all agreed to leave behind when we joined on with this team."
"I know," he admitted. "It doesn't change how I feel about it though. What am I supposed to do with her, Sophie? I'm trying here. I really am, but she's just the type of person to dive in and ask questions later and leave the rest of us scrambling to keep up." He kicked his heel against the wall as he spoke, needing something to relieve the nervous energy. "How do I support her when all she wants to do is race ahead and leave me behind?"
"You do what we always do, Eliot. Find a way to get three steps ahead."
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"You said we were going interesting," Parker mused as they stood in front of the building. She dropped her bag to the ground and began eyeing the building with a critical, calculating gaze. It wasn't in a good area of town. Eliot was always giving her grief for living in the shipping district. If asked, she would argue that this place was probably in a worse part of the city. She went a lot of places by herself, be it night or day, but she had to admit that having Eliot at her side when they left his truck and walked up to this place had been comforting. It meant she wasn't looking over her shoulder every twenty seconds. Eliot was good for that sort of stuff. "We could've found interesting stuff to do at my place. I have Chutes and Ladders. This is just another warehouse."
Eliot smiled as he fiddled with the lock, pulling at the chain wrapped through the sliding doors on the building.
"You want me to pick it? I don't have my kit but assuming you have a hanger or a few hairpins in the truck and I should be able to swing something."
"Hold your horses, darling. I got this," Eliot said, chuckling. "We are not breaking and entering."
"Well that would be more fun...maybe as much fun as Chutes and Ladders," she suggested in a heartened tone.
"Like I said, hold on. Patience, my dear. It's a virtue," he dug a hand around in his pocket and withdrew it, holding up the key. "This is a friend's place. As rare of an occurrence as it is, we are actually going somewhere we have permission to be. Shocking, I know."
"Well what fun is that?" Parker asked, pouting and crossing her arms across her chest. Even so, she felt a smile growing on her face.
Eliot pulled at the lock, springing it loose and separating the chain. He pulled the handles apart, revealing the darkened space beyond. Stepping inside, he felt along the wall until his hand settled on a switch. Flipping it raised the lamps to life. They were the sort that would take a few minutes to warm up, but in the meantime they illuminated the vast storage facility with just enough light to navigate. Shouldering his own overnight bag he led the way in after glancing once over his shoulder to ensure that Parker was following.
They navigated around stacks of boxes and crowded shelving units that towered over them and reached toward the ceiling. Eventually Eliot found the area he was looking for. Perfect timing too, the lights were finally starting to illuminate the space properly. He dropped his bag and turned to Parker.
She wasn't looking at him though. Her gaze was fixed steadily over his shoulder at the large fixture that stood there. "It's a Kenton. They make good vaults. Quality product."
She abandoned her bag and moved forward as if the safe was emitting a magnetic pull or a hypnotic trance that only she would be swayed by. She sat down in front of the safe cross-legged, one palm on each knee as if she were meditating.
Eliot didn't want to interrupt her. He stood there, then. Waiting for her to act. They stayed like that for awhile. He was starting to hope that she would just move. You know, just to make sure she hadn't turned into a statue without him noticing.
"Parker?" he asked quietly, stepping forward.
She raised a hand. "Shhh!"
He froze.
She rose to her knees and leaned her ear up against the safe door, close enough so that her cheek rested against the cool steel. With one hand she reached for the safe dial and began rotating the dial.
"Parker, I have the code..."
"Again, Eliot," she berated him, but there was no heat in her voice. "What a party pooper! Picking the lock is more than half the fun."
He held up his hands in mock defense. "Ok, ok. You can pick the lock."
She beamed that wide smile, that trademark mischievous grin that Eliot adored, and returned to work. Half the time he didn't want to know what that grin meant. It usually served as a prelude to some surprise he wouldn't like. At least this time he didn't have to worry about that part. He was supposedly the one with the game plan here. Although Parker, as usual, was plowing ahead and forging her own path.
The last gear clicked and Parker stepped back to swing the door open approximately a minute later. These safes had been designed to keep people out. Well, people not like Parker. They had yet to create a safe that would keep its contents safe from Parker's nimble hands and uncanny skills. She cocked her head to the side just a bit as she eyed the vault for any contents that she might fancy taking as souvenirs. She didn't move from her spot, though.
Eliot took that as his cue to take a position at her side.
"Well that was useless. There's nothing inside," she mused.
Eliot switched on his flashlight and stepped up into the vault. "Well maybe you're just not looking in the right spot."
He walked back toward the rear of the safe and knelt down in the corner. He picked up the small package he'd hidden there earlier that day when he'd stopped by to check out the vault. He brushed off a bit of dirt that had stuck to the bottom and then carried it back toward the entrance. Parker had halted there, having decided against stepping into the safe.
The hitter held out the package toward her. "Here."
She took it and pulled the bow off the top and unwrapped the brown parcel paper he'd wrapped it in. Discarding that to the ground she held up the box. "Monopoly?"
"Hey, it was you that told me how much you liked money, remember?" He smiled deviously. "I decided to just go with it."
He eyed him with a suspicious gaze. "We can play?"
He nodded. "Right here if you want. We are spending the night so we have quite a bit of time on our hands."
She nodded, dropping to sit on the floor again. Eliot stepped out of the vault and retrieved his bag. Digging inside, he pulled out his sleeping bag and unrolled it on the floor next to where Parker had opened the box and was rifling inside. Eying the sleeping bag, she moved herself onto it and began setting out the board in front of her. Eliot took up a position across from her.
"So why the vault? It's the same type from the bank the other day. Same make and everything too," Parker suggested as she began unwrapping the stacks of paper money.
Eliot had to smile at the fact that she had devoted her attention to that first. "It belongs to a buddy of mine along with the rest of this place. He has a habit of picking up all sorts of odds and ends. I figured a change of scenery couldn't hurt. We spent last night at your place. By my count, it was my turn to pick our sleeping quarters."
She shrugged. "And this has nothing to do with the whole bank incident and what happened earlier today with the vent and Sophie?" she asked, a hint of suspicion in her turn.
"Hey, can't a guy just want to play a game of monopoly with a pretty girl outside a vault in a warehouse without excessive questioning?"
"Not when it's you. You hate board games and sleeping on the floor. So no, that explanation doesn't quite ring true," she said as she rolled the dice around one another in one hand.
Eliot reached into the box, pulling out a handful of the little metal game pieces, diverting the inquiry. "So, I can have the dog, right? What piece do you want?"
She snatched the little dog from his hand. "I get the terrier. I'm always the terrier." She plucked a second one out of his hand and set it on the starting square on the board. "You can be the horse. An appropriate opponent. And he has a rider; you have that whole western cowboy vibe going so it works."
"Hey, what about me screams cowboy?"
"The hair for one," Parker suggested. "And your steel toed cowboy boots you favor."
"Those are for kicking the bad guys. You know, the guys who like to harass you when you are doing your job?" he argued back.
"And the plaid flannel shirts and your southern accent that you slide into sometimes when we're hanging out after a con," she continued.
"Ok, maybe you do have some sound evidence," he added, laughing as he plucked the dice off the board where Parker had dropped them. He rolled the dice to start off the game. "That's six! I'm off to a strong start. Better watch it Parker, or I just might beat you."
She scooped the dice off the board. "I don't lose at Monopoly. Ever." She threw them, watching them skid across the board until they settled.
A good two hours later Parker stood up and cracked her back. "Let's take a break. Where's the bathroom around here?"
"Uh, follow the west wall up toward the entrance. There should be a set of offices up there. The restroom's down that hallway."
Parker nodded, trotting off in the general direction Eliot had pointed. As soon as she disappeared around the corner Eliot was on his feet, carefully slipping a hand under the board, supporting it under the crease so that it wouldn't fold and send pieces scooting off their proper spots. He lifted the board, very slowly rose to his feet, and carried it off to a new location.
Parker returned a few minutes later, eying the place where they had been playing, and then stepped up to the entrance of the open vault. "What are you doing?" she asked.
"Waiting for my board game partner to return so that we could start up again. I'm pretty close to kicking her butt, you know. The faster I get there, the sooner I get to rub my victory in," he jived.
She snorted. "As if. I have twice as many hotels as you. Why are you in there?"
"I figured we could use a change of scenery."
"And six steel walls make for a better aesthetic?"
He shrugged. "Not necessarily. But it's worth the sacrifice if it means helping you."
"Helping me with what?"
Eliot sighed. "Come on Parker, I know you've been having trouble with small spaces since the bank. This is my way of trying to help. You said it yourself. This is the same type of vault; it's got to count for something."
Her gaze dipped to the floor and her fingers found their way to tapping against her thigh nervously. The smile faded from her face. What had been a simple board game between two friends had taken on a new meaning. It was heading in a new direction, and from her visible distress, it wasn't something the thief was too happy with, apparently. She went to take a step back from the vault; he could see her muscles tensing.
He was on his feet crossing the space between them and grabbing her tapping hand before she could retreat. "No, Parker. That's not going to get you back to finding the normal joy you find in experiences like this. The only thing you'll find that direction," he suggested, nodding toward the direction every instinct was driving her to head, away from the vault and the warehouse and this whole experience. "The only thing you'll find in that direction is disappointment and more frustration with yourself. You can do this."
She shook her head harshly, biting her lip in the process. "I tried already, Eliot! I tried the air ducts and it didn't work. Sophie had to come get me," she laughed. The situation didn't warrant the reaction. This was just about as far from funny as you could get. She was pathetic. That was the laughable part. Just look how far she had fallen. She wouldn't even count herself as a washed up thief. At least a washed up thief chose the terms of their retirement and let their skills go lax in the time that followed. It had taken just a few hours to kill whatever hopes she had for her career and contribution to this team.
Eliot squeezed her hand. "I'm right here, Parker. If you need we can move back out here and continue playing. Maybe try again later, even. As we've already established, we have all night. Longer, even, if that's what it takes."
He took a step further into the vault, just a foot back from the ledge that separated the warehouse from the inside of the safe. Parker saw it is an impenetrable barrier, reinforced by fear and a traumatic experience she'd suffered. He yearned to show her how fragile and brittle barrier it really was.
Parker started rigid, resisting. But her body took on that fluid motion he'd come to associate with her, the mercurial way she could move on the ground and amongst the building jungle gym of Boston that she called her own. She settled just a toe on the vault entrance, stepping up. She was holding her breath and closing her eyes.
Eliot ran a finger along her wrist. "See, you're ok. That was perfect."
She opened her eyes. There was terror there, but she wasn't allowing it to control her. He gave her so much credit for that. So many people allowed fear to rule their lives. "You can do this Parker."
She tipped her head forward. It wasn't a firm assertive gesture, just barely a nod. "Ok," she said with a stuttering voice. "I'm ok. Monopoly now? I was just about to bankrupt you."
A smile crept across his face. "Fair enough. Better watch it, I'm about to make a comeback."
She shook her head and took the steps forward toward the board, this time pulling Eliot along behind her, their hands still linked. "You talk a good game. Let's see you play it. And FYI, paper money is fine for monopoly, but I expect some real bribery for making it in here. I like gold bars and diamonds. I'll let you pick which you want to give me as a reward," she said with a smirk.
"Hey, how did we get from monopoly to me giving you priceless items?"
"When we were in the air ducts Sophie was telling me about this classical conditioning stuff. That psychology mumbo-jumbo she likes. There was a part about a reward, I remember that. And well, I earned a reward didn't I?"
He shook his head laughing. The ridiculousness of this conversation...well, it was Parker. His smile came just as much from seeing that fiery personality again, the one where Parker took what she wanted, assuming that she was entitled to it. Hell, it was a brilliant achievement considering where they'd been just moments before. He wouldn't rain on her parade and even risk dampening that flame. "Of course, Parker. You're absolutely right. I'll be sure to find you something that'll spark your interest," he added with a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
"Diamonds and gold bars are the true way to a woman's heart, just keep that in mind."
If that's what it would take, Eliot would do that and more.
--THE END--
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Genre: hurt/comfort, friendship fic
Word Count: ~13,000
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Pairings: Eliot/Parker friendship
Warnings: None
Summary: A traumatic experience can change people. It can take away the things that make people who they are. Parker finds this out the hard way. Eliot's there to help her regain her bearings. Written for the hc_bingo prompt "claustrophobia."
Author's Note: A huge shout out to rusting_roses for her amazing beta job, as per the norm. Is there ever a time when you aren't amazing, my dear?
[Part 1] [Part 2]
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Solitary Confinement - Part 2/2
Heights were something that many other people feared.
Parker knew this. She learned it was something that made her special as a child. Sometimes she took things that didn't belong to her. A cool looking toy or a package of fruit snacks. Sometimes it was the odd bauble that captured her attention, even temporarily. She'd find herself thinking about the item compulsively until she found a time to sneak it away from its proper owner. On the rare occasion when the person, usually another foster kid, found their possessions missing and blamed her, she fled. They'd come thundering up the stairs after her and for as fast as she could scamper, there were only so many places to hide in a house.
Heights, though, now there had been something that had opened the window into a whole new realm. Climb into the attic and no one would ever find you in a game of hide and seek. When a kid who had fifty pounds on you was close on your heels, dart out the window and out onto the icy roof. She trusted her balance and her grip to keep her from sliding off. The older child would stand at the open window, huffing and stomping his feet and cursing her with every vulgar term he knew. But for all of the nasty things he wanted to do to her, for all the harm he wanted to inflict, she may as well have been a thousand miles away instead of retreated ten feet out to her crouching spot by the chimney. That fear of height, that fear of falling, it kept those who wished to hurt her behind an impenetrable barrier. It was her one unfaltering shield in the world.
Other people might call her ten shades of crazy or assume there was something wrong with her. Parker could ignore all of the stinging words as long as no one could reach out and touch her, as long as they couldn't catch her and do physical harm. As long as she was up high, on a roof, on the side of a building, she was safe.
Parker knew this and reflected on this fact from her perch as she looked down on her warehouse below. Eliot was down there somewhere, no doubt. Sleeping probably, but she was never really one hundred percent sure. Sometimes when they were all at Nate's place and everyone had fallen asleep after their midnight briefing she'd sneak into the kitchen for a snack or a drink, or simply because she was antsy and tired of staring at the ceiling, pretending to fall asleep in a strange place amongst other people, even when she knew that was never an ability she would possess. She'd rise silently from her place on the couch and tip toe into the kitchen.
Eliot scared her sometimes. Well maybe not scared her, she knew Eliot was perhaps one of the few people in the world she trusted not to hurt her. But he surprised her and made her jump on occasion. Like the one time she'd gone for the peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich she'd left in the fridge and he'd been there sitting at the counter, in the dark, nursing a cup of tea and watching her ministrations. She'd almost leapt out of her skin that time. So maybe Eliot was sleeping, and maybe he was laying down there on the couch cushions he'd put down on the floor near her bed staring at the wall or the ceiling just like she often found herself doing in the twilight hours.
She'd tried sleeping in the bed down there on the ground. Part of her had really believed that with him nearby she would've done ok and been able to ignore the flighty feeling in her spine, the desire to climb something and sit up there well out of reach of anyone and anything. There were mean people in the world, far too many mean people. So often Eliot protected her from those individuals, but there were the few times where he couldn't be there, like if he were sleeping and someone snuck in...A chill ran up her spine and she gripped the edge of her hammock a bit tighter and rolled away from the wall to look down on the warehouse below. It was bathed mostly in shadow, but she didn't see anything out of the ordinary. She forced her breathing to slow down.
"Parker, you up there?" a voice called up from below.
"Yeah," she whispered softly.
It was Eliot's voice. She knew that deep southern drawl anywhere. "You ok?"
"Fine," Parker muttered a bit more loudly this time.
"You weren't in your bed, had me worried for a minute. What are you doing up there?"
"Sleeping," she responded as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"Well that's obviously not the case, Parker, or we wouldn't be having this conversation. Unless you sleep talk, which quite frankly wouldn't surprise me. Very little would surprise me about you these days," he chuckled. "You are awake, right?" the hitter asked a bit more earnestly this time.
"I'm awake." She tightened her grip on the edge of the hammock as it began gently swinging. She kept her eyes pinned on Eliot's muscular frame as the man began climbing up the scaffolding, his movements causing the structure to sway ever-so-slightly. It would take him a minute or two yet to get up to her level, she was close enough to the raised ceiling to put a hand up and run her fingers along the rusted roof.
A silence hung in the air until he was just one level of scaffolding below her own. He paused there, going no higher. Instead, he leaned back against one of the metal railings holding the structure together. "It's a nice view from up here," he commented.
She nodded. "I like coming up here to sit. It's a good place to think."
Eliot reclined further against the railing and craned his neck back to look at her. If Parker had taught them anything in their time together, it had been to be more comfortable far from the ground. What came naturally to her was a gauntlet for him. It had taken him more than a year to banish his fear of falling. "So what are you thinking about?"
"Just how it's safe being up here. It's nice," she whispered.
He nodded in agreement, his face set in a slight smile. "It's quiet. I like that. So often at Nate's place when the whole team's around, or hell, even being out in this bustling metropolis, it's chaotic and noisy. I think a lot of folks forget the value of having a place to just reflect quietly without interruption. So this is that spot for you?"
"It's one of them; I have a few places I like."
"So how are you holding up? Um, after today and all...I know it was a hard one," he prompted. The tone struck Parker as odd. He was speaking slowly and hesitantly, which was odder still. Eliot wasn't much of a talker, and when he did speak, his words were often accompanied by a barely veiled barb, like Eliot just wanted to work and skip over the talking part. But here he was, of his own volition. Where he would normally barely tolerate her odd antics, he was seeking her out. He was also asking her about her day. Eliot often asked what was wrong with her. She often wanted to ask him the very same question. He was all hard mannered and secretive one moment, and open and protective and caring the next. She shook her head. To think that people called her personality a little all over the map. At least she was consistent.
"It was a bad day. But tomorrow's another day, and it'll be a better day."
"You sure of that, eh?" he asked with a hint of skepticism in his voice.
She shrugged. "It wasn't a good day today. That earns me a good day, wouldn't you say?" she inquired.
He laughed. "I suppose fate does have to balance the checkbook every once in awhile. Cancel out the bad day with a good one, right?"
"Yep. He owes me a pretty fantastic day tomorrow," she spoke confidently.
A soft beep caught both of their attention. Eliot looked down at his watch and pressed a button, silencing the alarm. He put a gentle hand on her arm, and Parker closed her eyes at the warmth. "Well Parker, it's midnight and the dawn of a new day. I hope you get your wish and it proves to be better than the last one."
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
He returned the gesture and pressed off the railing he'd been using to support his weight. "Well, as agile as you are up here, even sleeping, I don't quite trust myself. I toss and turn quite a bit and with my luck you'd wake up to find me pancaked on the ground in the morning."
She crinkled her nose at the mental image, the tightness of her throat easing. "That wouldn't be a good way to start the day."
He laughed. "Indeed. Take it easy and sleep well up here, ok? I'll be down there if you need anything."
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As Eliot entered the warehouse his glance immediately wandered toward the scaffolding where Parker's hammock hung. It was empty now, hanging listlessly in the air. "Parker, you in here?" he called out, his voice reverberating off of the metal walls.
No response. He wandered further into the building, roughly in the direction of the corner where Parker kept most of her stuff. As he went, he happened to look down a narrow corridor that branched off from the main storage facility. It looked like it led back to some abandoned offices. There was a figure hunched on the floor there, sitting up against the wall. Eliot redirected his path to head toward it.
When he arrived, he dropped down to the ground next to Parker, staring at the point low on the wall that seemed to be the most interesting thing in the world to her right now. The vent cover had been pulled off and leaned up against the wall to expose the ventilation shaft. Parker spoke without turning her head away from the dark hole in the wall. "I can't do it. It's dark and it's small and every time I think about getting in there I start breathing hard. What is this? Why am I all of a sudden afraid of the thing I love?"
"Parker, you went through a traumatic experience. It's natural to harbor a little fear after something like that. You'll get over it and be climbing through vents and between walls in no time." Eliot kept his voice soothing and soft.
She did turn her head toward him this time. "It's not okay, Eliot. It's not. I love exploring the spaces that no one else ever gets to see. I love the rush of knowing I'm probably the only person to have ever travelled through those passages on hand and knee."
"Parker, you'll work back up to it. Just give yourself a bit of time is all," Eliot offered hopefully.
"And what about you? How would you feel if you were all of a sudden afraid of going up against an opponent, huh? This is a part of me, a very critical part of me. It's one of the few things that make other people pause and maybe think I'm worth something. What am I to the team if I can't do that anymore?" she lamented, pounding her head softly against the wall in frustration.
Eliot opened his mouth and then closed it for a minute. There were so many things off with Parker's statement just then. She really thought that was all she was to them? Just another person to help pull off a con successfully? Maybe it had started that way in the beginning- it had been like that for all of them in the beginning, held together only by what they could offer to the group, but then there had been late night hot chocolate runs and dinners to celebrate sticking it to another corrupt organization. Somewhere along the way, the line between work associate and teammate and friend had been blurred to spit out something he wasn't really sure he could describe in a single word. But there was certainly one thing Parker wasn't. "You aren't just a small person who can shimmy up and down buildings or through tight spaces, Parker. Don't you think that for a minute," he whispered low under his breath. Loud enough for her to hear and slow enough to annunciate and punctuate each word to make it clear just how much he meant it.
"If I can't do those things, Eliot, I'm not worth much to anyone, let alone myself..." Parker sounded desperate, like she really was blind to how important she was. Eliot wanted to squeeze the breath out of her.
He leaned over and bumped her shoulder with his own to garner her full attention. "Hey, climbing and diving into ventilation shafts, those things might give you more points in the crazy brave category. But you are so much more than that, Parker. And no way would you ever get booted off the team, don't even think that the others and I would be capable of that. Who else is going to dress up the Christmas tree with diamond necklaces or offer to share her chocolate covered grapes?"
"They are good," she agreed. "You should feel special that I share them with you. I don't share them with just anyone, you know."
He smiled, encouraged by the fact that Parker was moving away from her brooding. "You hungry?" he asked her.
She shrugged. "I could probably eat something. I have some fruit in the minifridge next to my bed." She looked at him hopefully.
He nodded. "I can raid that. You want to come with or stay put here?"
"I'll stay," she responded, turning her gaze back toward the open vent. He stood up, crouching in front of the vent and setting its cover in front of it to conceal it from view. No sense in encouraging Parker's current fixation on it. "We'll get through this, Parker. You'll be ok," he muttered on his departure. Now he just had to find a way to make sure that happened.
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The vent cover's been pushed to the side, exposing that damnable hole in the wall once again. Parker was gone.
Eliot lengthened his stride, pausing just long enough to drop his armful of fruit before crouching down next to the vent and peering inside."Parker, you in there?" he shouted down into the hole. There was a response, but not the one he was looking for. All he heard back is an echo of his panicky voice.
He growled and ran a rough hand through his hair, pushing it back from his face in a futile attempt to see into the depths of the shaft. Without a source of light, all he saw was black. He cocked his head to the side as he heard something, a sharp cry followed by a series of thuds. "Damn it," he muttered to no one in particular. For all he knew Parker could've just fallen. She could be laying somewhere in the bowels of this forsaken warehouse unconscious. She could be frozen paralyzed in a vent somewhere, her fear pinning her in place.
She hadn't left him much of a choice, really. He knelt down and stuck his head through the vent opening, followed shortly after by one shoulder. It's then that he hit the first snag. His second shoulder caught on the wall, jarring his motions to a quick halt. He tried turning his shoulder at an angle in the shaft to give it more room, and the maneuver might've won him an extra inch, but nowhere near enough to go in after Parker. In frustration he tried once more, this time with all of his force behind the motion, his boots skidding against the floor as he used them to gain traction and force his body further into the vent and toward wherever Parker had retreated too. He hissed as his shoulder caught again on the corner of the vent and his body collapsed against the ground. Begrudgingly he pulled himself out of the vent and further from Parker.
There were some situations he just couldn't change, where there weren't any tricks he could pull or workarounds he could use. Parker was smaller than him with a figure that made her perfectly suited for this type of work. Where Parker was narrow Eliot was broad and muscular. He wasn't going to fit in that vent. He wasn't going to go in and find Parker. This realization grated against his nerves at a slow, steady pulse. Never abating, just grinding away in the back of his mind and threatening to slowly drive him toward insanity.
He curled one hand in a fist as he roughly dug through his jacket pocket with the other. His hand eventually closed around the item he'd been searching for. He pressed the speed dial he had in mind and raised the phone to his ear. He maintained his patience through an agonizing three rings before he heard a greeting from the other end. Eliot skipped the pleasantries. "Sophie, I need your help. Parker's been displaying some signs of claustrophobia since her stint in that vault yesterday. She went into a ventilation shaft and she's not answering me when I call. I can't go in after her...my shoulders are too broad. But you could do it. I need you to do it."
“Whoa, easy Eliot. That was a whole lot of information in a very condensed package. Slow down and let's work through this one piece at a time. Is she hurt?“
“I don't know, Sophie! I just said that," he snapped, frustrated with the slow pace of things.
She ignored his tone. “You want me to call the rest of the team?“
"No, it wouldn't do any good. The other guys wouldn't fit any better than I would. You're the only one small enough to go in after her." There was that. There was also the fact that if Parker was spooked when they brought her out, she'd not want the whole team to witness that. She was a private person, and even though she trusted them all with a ferocity that left him breathless sometimes, she still preferred to shield some of her more tumultuous emotional experiences-sorrow, fear, and grief, to name just a few-from them and deal with them on her own. He'd do his best to help maintain that veil.
“Just to clarify, we are talking about crawling through a dirty, dusty ventilation shaft that has god knows what living in it?“
"Yes. Please, Sophie. I would do it myself if I could," he pleaded.
“Of course I'll do it. You'd do that and more for any one of us. I'm just trying to figure out which outfit to sacrifice to the cause. Ah, I've got just the one in mind. I'll be over soon.“
"Thanks," Eliot offered in a softer tone this time.
“You're welcome. And Eliot, relax. We'll get her out. I'm sure she's fine. Just stay calm, ok? You're doing all you can right now.“
"I'll do my best."
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Parker heard Sophie approach. She grimaced at the loud reverberations that Sophie's movements sent through the vent system. It was a far cry from the near-silent quality that Parker managed when she was completing the same circuit.
She leaned back against the wall, waiting for Sophie to approach. When the grifter finally appeared at the intersection that Parker had taken up residence in, she slid down the slanted vent to the open area where Parker was resting. "Parker? You okay? Eliot called me a bit worked up about you climbing in here and not answering his calls and he couldn't fit down here himself."
Parker nodded. "Which is how you ended up down here?"
Sophie's lips curved upward as she slumped down next to Parker. "Pretty much," she replied, rubbing at a grease streak on her cheek that she'd picked up somewhere along her trip in. "It's not as easy as it looks, this vent climbing stuff."
"You need a lot of work if you ever want to get good at it. You sounded like Nate's washing machine when Eliot decided it would be a good idea to throw his boots in there for a spin."
"I suppose I probably did sound like that, clomping about in there, huh?" Sophie said in agreement.
"It wasn't all bad. You got this far, that's pretty good for a first go. And you have the frame for it, I could teach you, if you wanted," Parker suggested, shrugging.
Sophie's eyes darted upwards for a moment as she considered the notion. "Perhaps," she finally responded. "But I'd have to find a better outfit. Ooh! We could go clothes shopping. In Paris perhaps? I have a pilot on speed dial. He owes me a favor..."
"If you're serious about it, I know a guy in Prague. I get all of my gear through him except for my rappelling harnesses. I custom make those for myself." Parker tilted her head a little, curious, "Speaking of which, why are you wearing my harness?"
Sophie's glance darted down to the harness that she'd donned before entering the vent. She'd had to work at it quite a bit to shimmy into it, but extensive experience with skin-tight dresses had made her adept at the process. "Eliot found it in your gear cabinet," she pulled at the rope that threaded its way back from the vent that Sophie had come in through. "He wanted me to wear it in case you were hurt or something and we had to work to get you out." Sophie paused there for a second, taking a deep breath in and out as she adopted a more serious tone. "He was worried about you, you know? I know you are used to disappearing without notice but he was really upset when he called me. He thought you might've fallen and gotten stuck or something. We should head back out there before he paces a hole through your floor."
"I have cement floors; I don't think he'd manage that."
"I think you underestimate Eliot's abilities when it comes to nervous habits. He was very jittery when I left him." Sophie pushed off the wall, looking back over her shoulder to see if Parker followed.
The thief shook her head and remained motionless. "I can't. I had just enough courage to get myself in here...I've tried to go back that way twice," she muttered quietly, ashamed. "It's too small, too tight. I couldn't breathe all of a sudden."
Sophie's brow crinkled up a bit and sympathy bled into her expression. Parker looked away from it. She didn't want Sophie's pity.
Sophie scooted back over toward Parker, laying a cool hand on her shoulder. "Parker, darling. It's ok-"
"It's not ok!" Parker snapped, jerking away from the supportive gesture. "Everyone needs to stop saying that! I'm useless if I can't do this, so stop pretending that this is ok!" Her face was red and there was a fury bubbling through her veins, demanding an outlet.
"Parker, what you tried here is something that psychologists call flooding. You force yourself into an environment to face your phobia. And in doing so, the hope is that you see that it's not going to harm you and your phobia fades."
"Then why isn't it working?" Parker asked, frustrated. "I swallowed the lump in my throat and forced myself in here, and now I'm too afraid to even go back the way I came," she finished, disheartened.
"It doesn't always work for everyone. There are other processes we can try. Systematic desensitization is a less aggressive and traumatic approach. You gradually increase your exposure to your trigger until you've overcome your fear."
"I want to be over this now," Parker argued.
"I know. No one wants a situation like this to last any longer than it has to. But we don't get to decide how we react all the time, sometimes it's instinctual."
"So what do we do now?" Parker asked, dejected. "I can't stay in here forever. I can't just gradually crawl one foot further each day through the air duct until I'm back in the warehouse. The systematic approach you were selling isn't going to work unless the pair of us are planning on moving in here for a few weeks."
Sophie shook her head. "I suppose that decision has been made for us. You can do this Parker. Just think about all the times you've done it before," she started moving toward the vent they'd need to follow to get back to where Eliot was waiting. "You want to try?"
Parker shrugged. "Not much of a choice, I suppose."
"You want to lead or follow?"
"I'll go first. I got myself into this, and it's on me to get myself out," Parker remarked with a confidence in her voice that hadn't been there before.
Sophie smiled at that, stepping aside to let Parker take the lead. The thief knelt down on her hands and knees and looked back over her shoulder to Sophie. The grifter gave a reassuring nod and their return trip began.
They stopped just once along the way, when Parker froze and her breathing went up and she looked back at Sophie, eyes wide and laced with terror. Sophie had murmured encouraging words and told her that there was no going back and she wasn't going to budge one inch backwards to give Parker room to retreat. In that manner, they eventually reached the opening of the vent; the first sight they saw was Eliot's pensive face. When Parker arrived there he reached an arm into the vent and helped pull her out and then gave her room to stand up. He did the same for Sophie before giving them a quick once over to make sure they were both ok. Apparently satisfied, he nodded.
Parker walked past the pair of them and out toward her corner of the warehouse. She needed a few minutes to gather up the pieces of her crumbling façade and glue them back in place. She was sort of reminded of the one trip to the beach she'd gotten as a kid when the tide was coming up on her sandcastle. As the sand turned to mush and started sliding apart she'd try to scoop it up and pat it into place. Her emotional state was a bit like that right now. A quick glance over her shoulder found that Sophie and Eliot had stepped in close to one another, conversing too quietly for her to hear and watching her departure. A turn around the corner cut them off from view and left her in the blessed privacy and open space of the warehouse proper.
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"What happened in there?" Eliot asked Sophie after he was sure Parker was out of earshot.
She shrugged, cracking her back and stretching her legs for the first time after a good hour in the cramped vents. She was a good multi-tasker though, and conversing with Eliot while she did that presented no difficulty. "She's scared. She had just enough resolve to get herself in there and when it was time to come out she panicked."
Eliot growled. "I wanted to really hurt the two guards who did this, you know?"
Sophie nodded. "We saw the security tapes...Parker did too. But doing that isn't what we do, Eliot. It is what separates us from the bad people we fight to bring down. They aren't afraid to twist an arm to the breaking point to wring an answer out of one of us. They don't hesitate to threaten our lives or even make attempts to extinguish them. Even in the face of all that, though, we toe the line between what is right and what is wrong." She stood up, laying a light hand on Eliot's shoulder. "There is no wiggle room, Eliot. We always stay on the right side of the line. Hurting those guards, it would've crossed over into the territory we all agreed to leave behind when we joined on with this team."
"I know," he admitted. "It doesn't change how I feel about it though. What am I supposed to do with her, Sophie? I'm trying here. I really am, but she's just the type of person to dive in and ask questions later and leave the rest of us scrambling to keep up." He kicked his heel against the wall as he spoke, needing something to relieve the nervous energy. "How do I support her when all she wants to do is race ahead and leave me behind?"
"You do what we always do, Eliot. Find a way to get three steps ahead."
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"You said we were going interesting," Parker mused as they stood in front of the building. She dropped her bag to the ground and began eyeing the building with a critical, calculating gaze. It wasn't in a good area of town. Eliot was always giving her grief for living in the shipping district. If asked, she would argue that this place was probably in a worse part of the city. She went a lot of places by herself, be it night or day, but she had to admit that having Eliot at her side when they left his truck and walked up to this place had been comforting. It meant she wasn't looking over her shoulder every twenty seconds. Eliot was good for that sort of stuff. "We could've found interesting stuff to do at my place. I have Chutes and Ladders. This is just another warehouse."
Eliot smiled as he fiddled with the lock, pulling at the chain wrapped through the sliding doors on the building.
"You want me to pick it? I don't have my kit but assuming you have a hanger or a few hairpins in the truck and I should be able to swing something."
"Hold your horses, darling. I got this," Eliot said, chuckling. "We are not breaking and entering."
"Well that would be more fun...maybe as much fun as Chutes and Ladders," she suggested in a heartened tone.
"Like I said, hold on. Patience, my dear. It's a virtue," he dug a hand around in his pocket and withdrew it, holding up the key. "This is a friend's place. As rare of an occurrence as it is, we are actually going somewhere we have permission to be. Shocking, I know."
"Well what fun is that?" Parker asked, pouting and crossing her arms across her chest. Even so, she felt a smile growing on her face.
Eliot pulled at the lock, springing it loose and separating the chain. He pulled the handles apart, revealing the darkened space beyond. Stepping inside, he felt along the wall until his hand settled on a switch. Flipping it raised the lamps to life. They were the sort that would take a few minutes to warm up, but in the meantime they illuminated the vast storage facility with just enough light to navigate. Shouldering his own overnight bag he led the way in after glancing once over his shoulder to ensure that Parker was following.
They navigated around stacks of boxes and crowded shelving units that towered over them and reached toward the ceiling. Eventually Eliot found the area he was looking for. Perfect timing too, the lights were finally starting to illuminate the space properly. He dropped his bag and turned to Parker.
She wasn't looking at him though. Her gaze was fixed steadily over his shoulder at the large fixture that stood there. "It's a Kenton. They make good vaults. Quality product."
She abandoned her bag and moved forward as if the safe was emitting a magnetic pull or a hypnotic trance that only she would be swayed by. She sat down in front of the safe cross-legged, one palm on each knee as if she were meditating.
Eliot didn't want to interrupt her. He stood there, then. Waiting for her to act. They stayed like that for awhile. He was starting to hope that she would just move. You know, just to make sure she hadn't turned into a statue without him noticing.
"Parker?" he asked quietly, stepping forward.
She raised a hand. "Shhh!"
He froze.
She rose to her knees and leaned her ear up against the safe door, close enough so that her cheek rested against the cool steel. With one hand she reached for the safe dial and began rotating the dial.
"Parker, I have the code..."
"Again, Eliot," she berated him, but there was no heat in her voice. "What a party pooper! Picking the lock is more than half the fun."
He held up his hands in mock defense. "Ok, ok. You can pick the lock."
She beamed that wide smile, that trademark mischievous grin that Eliot adored, and returned to work. Half the time he didn't want to know what that grin meant. It usually served as a prelude to some surprise he wouldn't like. At least this time he didn't have to worry about that part. He was supposedly the one with the game plan here. Although Parker, as usual, was plowing ahead and forging her own path.
The last gear clicked and Parker stepped back to swing the door open approximately a minute later. These safes had been designed to keep people out. Well, people not like Parker. They had yet to create a safe that would keep its contents safe from Parker's nimble hands and uncanny skills. She cocked her head to the side just a bit as she eyed the vault for any contents that she might fancy taking as souvenirs. She didn't move from her spot, though.
Eliot took that as his cue to take a position at her side.
"Well that was useless. There's nothing inside," she mused.
Eliot switched on his flashlight and stepped up into the vault. "Well maybe you're just not looking in the right spot."
He walked back toward the rear of the safe and knelt down in the corner. He picked up the small package he'd hidden there earlier that day when he'd stopped by to check out the vault. He brushed off a bit of dirt that had stuck to the bottom and then carried it back toward the entrance. Parker had halted there, having decided against stepping into the safe.
The hitter held out the package toward her. "Here."
She took it and pulled the bow off the top and unwrapped the brown parcel paper he'd wrapped it in. Discarding that to the ground she held up the box. "Monopoly?"
"Hey, it was you that told me how much you liked money, remember?" He smiled deviously. "I decided to just go with it."
He eyed him with a suspicious gaze. "We can play?"
He nodded. "Right here if you want. We are spending the night so we have quite a bit of time on our hands."
She nodded, dropping to sit on the floor again. Eliot stepped out of the vault and retrieved his bag. Digging inside, he pulled out his sleeping bag and unrolled it on the floor next to where Parker had opened the box and was rifling inside. Eying the sleeping bag, she moved herself onto it and began setting out the board in front of her. Eliot took up a position across from her.
"So why the vault? It's the same type from the bank the other day. Same make and everything too," Parker suggested as she began unwrapping the stacks of paper money.
Eliot had to smile at the fact that she had devoted her attention to that first. "It belongs to a buddy of mine along with the rest of this place. He has a habit of picking up all sorts of odds and ends. I figured a change of scenery couldn't hurt. We spent last night at your place. By my count, it was my turn to pick our sleeping quarters."
She shrugged. "And this has nothing to do with the whole bank incident and what happened earlier today with the vent and Sophie?" she asked, a hint of suspicion in her turn.
"Hey, can't a guy just want to play a game of monopoly with a pretty girl outside a vault in a warehouse without excessive questioning?"
"Not when it's you. You hate board games and sleeping on the floor. So no, that explanation doesn't quite ring true," she said as she rolled the dice around one another in one hand.
Eliot reached into the box, pulling out a handful of the little metal game pieces, diverting the inquiry. "So, I can have the dog, right? What piece do you want?"
She snatched the little dog from his hand. "I get the terrier. I'm always the terrier." She plucked a second one out of his hand and set it on the starting square on the board. "You can be the horse. An appropriate opponent. And he has a rider; you have that whole western cowboy vibe going so it works."
"Hey, what about me screams cowboy?"
"The hair for one," Parker suggested. "And your steel toed cowboy boots you favor."
"Those are for kicking the bad guys. You know, the guys who like to harass you when you are doing your job?" he argued back.
"And the plaid flannel shirts and your southern accent that you slide into sometimes when we're hanging out after a con," she continued.
"Ok, maybe you do have some sound evidence," he added, laughing as he plucked the dice off the board where Parker had dropped them. He rolled the dice to start off the game. "That's six! I'm off to a strong start. Better watch it Parker, or I just might beat you."
She scooped the dice off the board. "I don't lose at Monopoly. Ever." She threw them, watching them skid across the board until they settled.
A good two hours later Parker stood up and cracked her back. "Let's take a break. Where's the bathroom around here?"
"Uh, follow the west wall up toward the entrance. There should be a set of offices up there. The restroom's down that hallway."
Parker nodded, trotting off in the general direction Eliot had pointed. As soon as she disappeared around the corner Eliot was on his feet, carefully slipping a hand under the board, supporting it under the crease so that it wouldn't fold and send pieces scooting off their proper spots. He lifted the board, very slowly rose to his feet, and carried it off to a new location.
Parker returned a few minutes later, eying the place where they had been playing, and then stepped up to the entrance of the open vault. "What are you doing?" she asked.
"Waiting for my board game partner to return so that we could start up again. I'm pretty close to kicking her butt, you know. The faster I get there, the sooner I get to rub my victory in," he jived.
She snorted. "As if. I have twice as many hotels as you. Why are you in there?"
"I figured we could use a change of scenery."
"And six steel walls make for a better aesthetic?"
He shrugged. "Not necessarily. But it's worth the sacrifice if it means helping you."
"Helping me with what?"
Eliot sighed. "Come on Parker, I know you've been having trouble with small spaces since the bank. This is my way of trying to help. You said it yourself. This is the same type of vault; it's got to count for something."
Her gaze dipped to the floor and her fingers found their way to tapping against her thigh nervously. The smile faded from her face. What had been a simple board game between two friends had taken on a new meaning. It was heading in a new direction, and from her visible distress, it wasn't something the thief was too happy with, apparently. She went to take a step back from the vault; he could see her muscles tensing.
He was on his feet crossing the space between them and grabbing her tapping hand before she could retreat. "No, Parker. That's not going to get you back to finding the normal joy you find in experiences like this. The only thing you'll find that direction," he suggested, nodding toward the direction every instinct was driving her to head, away from the vault and the warehouse and this whole experience. "The only thing you'll find in that direction is disappointment and more frustration with yourself. You can do this."
She shook her head harshly, biting her lip in the process. "I tried already, Eliot! I tried the air ducts and it didn't work. Sophie had to come get me," she laughed. The situation didn't warrant the reaction. This was just about as far from funny as you could get. She was pathetic. That was the laughable part. Just look how far she had fallen. She wouldn't even count herself as a washed up thief. At least a washed up thief chose the terms of their retirement and let their skills go lax in the time that followed. It had taken just a few hours to kill whatever hopes she had for her career and contribution to this team.
Eliot squeezed her hand. "I'm right here, Parker. If you need we can move back out here and continue playing. Maybe try again later, even. As we've already established, we have all night. Longer, even, if that's what it takes."
He took a step further into the vault, just a foot back from the ledge that separated the warehouse from the inside of the safe. Parker saw it is an impenetrable barrier, reinforced by fear and a traumatic experience she'd suffered. He yearned to show her how fragile and brittle barrier it really was.
Parker started rigid, resisting. But her body took on that fluid motion he'd come to associate with her, the mercurial way she could move on the ground and amongst the building jungle gym of Boston that she called her own. She settled just a toe on the vault entrance, stepping up. She was holding her breath and closing her eyes.
Eliot ran a finger along her wrist. "See, you're ok. That was perfect."
She opened her eyes. There was terror there, but she wasn't allowing it to control her. He gave her so much credit for that. So many people allowed fear to rule their lives. "You can do this Parker."
She tipped her head forward. It wasn't a firm assertive gesture, just barely a nod. "Ok," she said with a stuttering voice. "I'm ok. Monopoly now? I was just about to bankrupt you."
A smile crept across his face. "Fair enough. Better watch it, I'm about to make a comeback."
She shook her head and took the steps forward toward the board, this time pulling Eliot along behind her, their hands still linked. "You talk a good game. Let's see you play it. And FYI, paper money is fine for monopoly, but I expect some real bribery for making it in here. I like gold bars and diamonds. I'll let you pick which you want to give me as a reward," she said with a smirk.
"Hey, how did we get from monopoly to me giving you priceless items?"
"When we were in the air ducts Sophie was telling me about this classical conditioning stuff. That psychology mumbo-jumbo she likes. There was a part about a reward, I remember that. And well, I earned a reward didn't I?"
He shook his head laughing. The ridiculousness of this conversation...well, it was Parker. His smile came just as much from seeing that fiery personality again, the one where Parker took what she wanted, assuming that she was entitled to it. Hell, it was a brilliant achievement considering where they'd been just moments before. He wouldn't rain on her parade and even risk dampening that flame. "Of course, Parker. You're absolutely right. I'll be sure to find you something that'll spark your interest," he added with a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
"Diamonds and gold bars are the true way to a woman's heart, just keep that in mind."
If that's what it would take, Eliot would do that and more.
--THE END--
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